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Expert Witness - Season 5 Episode 4 - The Killer Next Door englishsubtitle fullfilm❤️❤️ Secret Engagement
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00:00In this program, a pathologist and forensic scientist
00:04join forces to help police put a sadistic killer behind bars.
00:10I was examining her feet and I was very struck by a finding on her right little toe.
00:15On entering the property, there was a bundle of rope.
00:20And in Nottinghamshire, a pathologist must uncover the truth in a twisted murder plot.
00:25It still, to this day, feels more like something from a drama.
00:42Welcome to Expert Witness, the series where we reveal how science helps solve some of the UK's toughest criminal investigations.
00:58Edinburgh, Scotland, Easter weekend, 1999.
01:03When 46-year-old Elaine Colley wasn't seen for a few days, her neighbours grew concerned and contacted police.
01:12Bert Swanson was a detective chief inspector at Lothian Borders Police Station and took charge of inquiries.
01:20Elaine was a lady who lived on her own. She kept herself to herself.
01:24The place where she resided was made up of 16 flats, of which she occupied one of the flats.
01:33Elaine was in bed and she was dressed with a nightdress on.
01:41Elaine was dead. Her closest family members lived in New Zealand,
01:45where her nephew, Jason Colley, was the first to receive the news.
01:50We got a phone call in the middle of the night to tell us that Elaine had been found dead
01:55and that the police were involved.
02:00It knocks you for six. As you can tell, it's still hugely emotional.
02:06Worst news was to come.
02:07Back in Edinburgh, Bert examined the scene, starting with Elaine's bedroom, where she'd been found.
02:13Some of the bedclothes itself had blood. There was blood on the clothing.
02:21I noticed there was blood on the feet of Elaine herself.
02:26It was clear Elaine was the victim of an attack, but in what circumstances, the crime scene offered some confusing
02:33clues.
02:33Elaine had an electric blanket on the bed, but there was actually no cable which joined the electric blanket to
02:43the power supply.
02:45That was missing.
02:49There were some markings on the floor around the bed, which subsequently we was able to see was small pieces
02:57of plastic.
02:59The team also found some blue fibres in the bedroom, but it wasn't apparent where they'd come from.
03:06Bert hoped evidence from Elaine's body might reveal more about how she died.
03:10So he turned to Dr Basil Purge, a forensic pathologist renowned for his work on high-profile homicide cases.
03:19It appeared to me from marks on her wrists that she had been restrained.
03:24It was fairly clear at the scene that Elaine had been subjected to sexual assault, and also it appeared that
03:35she had at least one or perhaps two head injuries.
03:39Bert's inquiry now became a homicide investigation, news that police once again shared with her family in New Zealand.
03:47We were told fairly quickly that it was a murder, but it's something that you never expect, you never can
03:54prepare yourself for.
03:56It just hits you like a bolt out of the blue.
03:58My father was a big brother, and having to break that news to him, I had to sort of, you
04:05know, get down there and tell him face to face.
04:09As part of the inquiry, police checked Elaine's phone records.
04:13Around four o'clock that afternoon of Thursday, the 1st of April, she made a call almost immediately, as tended
04:23to be the case then, to check whether your lottery and whether you had been successful with the numbers.
04:31But it was a call made from Elaine's landline ten minutes later, which police believed was made by the killer,
04:38that proved to be a vital clue.
04:40We were able to establish that there was a call made to a number that we'd identified as being to
04:47a female, and we established that she is the partnerably girlfriend of John Reid.
04:56Police now had their first lead.
04:5940-year-old John Reid was originally from the harbour town of Dunbar, and police didn't have to search too
05:05far to find his current address.
05:07We learned very quickly that John Reid was the occupant of a flat in the same block as Elaine Colley
05:16lived.
05:16In fact, it was the very next door.
05:18It was not a flat that he occupied, though.
05:22He was using it merely as a gyro drop.
05:25So the post would deliver to that address, and he would then come from where he was living,
05:32pick up his gyro, cash his gyro, and he would go back home.
05:37This was a breakthrough for the investigation, and Reid immediately became a suspect.
05:42But when police investigated his whereabouts at the time of the murder, he appeared to have a cast-iron alibi.
05:49He was in prison.
05:52He was drunk, and he'd left the pub, and he'd gone outside, and he was found and seen to be
06:00slumped, drunken and incapable, is how it was termed.
06:03So he was arrested by the local police.
06:07Reid was arrested three days before Elaine's body was found.
06:10If she died after his arrest, Reid was in the clear.
06:15If she died before, he would be a prime suspect.
06:19Detectives needed to establish a time of death, and turned once again to forensic pathologist, dr. Basil Perdue.
06:28Elaine's body was being subject to post-mortem decay.
06:33From the degree of decomposition, it was clear that Elaine's body had lain for some days.
06:41This meant that Reid could have killed Elaine before his arrest.
06:46But detectives needed further evidence, so they brought in forensic scientist Shirley Marshall to examine Reid's flat.
06:54On entering the property, it was very clear, particularly in the living room area, it had been used as like
07:02an electrician's workshop.
07:04It was obvious that in front of the sofa, there was a bundle of rope, cable, and a towel that
07:16we may well be interested in.
07:18Shirley began with the rope.
07:19It was blue polypropylene, and matched the fibres found on Elaine's body.
07:25But that variety of rope was very common, so Shirley began looking for evidence to link the specific lengths found
07:32in Reid's flat to the crime scene next door.
07:36The rope itself was fairly grubby, and it's difficult to tell when something is dirty whether there could be blood
07:44mixed in with that.
07:45And we were keen to remove it and examine it much more closely in the lab.
07:53From each piece of rope, there would be small pieces taken off and mounted onto a microscope slide to be
08:04able to try and identify the type of rope that it is and start the process of comparison to any
08:13fibres that have been already recovered from behind Elaine's bed.
08:20The results were damning.
08:23Blood was found on the rope that matched Elaine's DNA profile, and that rope was found in Reid's property.
08:33However, it remained possible someone else had left the ropes in Reid's unoccupied flat.
08:39Detectives searched for more evidence to link Reid to the crime, and noticed the ropes were tied using some very
08:46distinctive knots.
08:47The knots that we could see were knots that probably, you know, the average layperson would don't do.
08:55Would do a standard, simple knot.
08:58It was felt, it was worthy of speaking to people with more expert knowledge on the matters.
09:05Richard Hopkins has over 70 years' expertise in knots.
09:09After learning the skill from his father at an early age, he went on to become a member of the
09:15International Guild of Knottyers.
09:18He has studied the knots tied in the rope found at Reid's flat.
09:22One in particular stands out.
09:24This one is the eye splice.
09:28An eye splice is a loop on the end of a rope.
09:32Basically, you take the end of a rope, unravel it, turn it round, and then feed the ends, the unraveled
09:42ends, back into the body of the rope.
09:45It gives a very secure loop at the end.
09:48As far as I can see, he's only done a couple of tucks, which, as I say, will hold.
09:56And especially if your victim's unconscious, they're not going to escape from that in a hurry.
10:04The eye splice knot is typically used on boats.
10:08One of the best places to see them is around a bollard where you've got a load of boats tied
10:15up because it just drops over the loop, just drops over the bollard, and your ship is secure.
10:23It seemed Elaine's killer could have spent time working on or around boats.
10:29Detectives looked further into Reid's background.
10:31When he was in Dunbar, in particular, he was involved in fishing on the boats and things, and from that,
10:39clearly, it was used with dealing with rope and with the tying of knots, etc.
10:45It was further evidence against John Reid, but detectives still wanted to understand more about the circumstances around Elaine's death.
10:54Basil Perdue revealed a clue.
10:58I was examining her feet, which were somewhat discoloured by decomposition, and I was very struck by a finding on
11:05her right little toe.
11:08There was a groove extending partway through the toe that would do very well, first of all, for a wire
11:14wrapped around the toe, and second, for an electric mark.
11:19This suggested that Elaine had suffered some form of electrocution prior to death.
11:25I very carefully removed a strip of skin surrounding the toe, including the hole of the mark.
11:33Basil analysed the skin for the presence of copper deposits, which would indicate prolonged exposure to electricity.
11:41The combined information from laboratory tests, my microscopy, which showed coagulation of cells in the skin, and the forensic science
11:53lab, which produced evidence of copper deposited in the skin in the same place, together show that Elaine had been
12:01subjected to inflicted electrical shock.
12:05Elaine had been tortured before her death.
12:08It was a further shocking revelation for her family.
12:12You've got that initial complete gut punch that a close relative has died, that they've been murdered.
12:20But then when you begin to hear what their final hours were like, it's something that you can never truly
12:29comprehend, the amount of pain and fear that she must have been going through.
12:33Basil's conclusion made sense of the fragments of white plastic found by Bert at the scene.
12:38He believed Reed stripped the plastic from the cable to Elaine's electric blanket, and then used it to electrocute her.
12:47Detectives found the missing cable in Reed's flat.
12:51On the length of cable with the plug attached that was found on Reed's living room floor, there was bloodstaining
12:58found, again, that gave us a DNA profile that matched the DNA profile of Elaine.
13:04Lastly, Shirley turned her attention to a tea towel that was also found on the floor of John Reed's flat.
13:11On this tea towel, there's an area of bloodstaining, which we've sampled and sent for DNA profiling.
13:17We've got a chemical test that's telling us there's saliva there.
13:20We send that for DNA profiling.
13:23But the DNA profile itself, they both come back matching Elaine Colley.
13:29Despite the wealth of evidence against him, John Reed refused to cooperate with detectives.
13:35But investigation of Elaine's bank records made it clear his motive was money.
13:41We could see that she should, from her bank statements, have bank cards because she's made withdrawals, etc.
13:48We couldn't find these in the house, and therefore there's a strong belief that the bank cards has been stolen.
13:57They also found out that Reed was heavily in debt at the time of the murder.
14:03Elaine's bank records also revealed that two cash machines were used to withdraw £350 from her accounts after her murder.
14:13CCTV showed who made the withdrawals.
14:17From that, we were able to establish a clear image of the person that was using the card, which, of
14:24course, turned out to be John Reed.
14:25He was brought to Leith Police Station and charged with Elaine's murder.
14:30Although Reed admitted to using her phone, he claimed he didn't remember anything else.
14:35But the trail of evidence against him gave investigators a timeline of what had happened that day.
14:42Spinster Elaine Cawley was a quiet woman who preferred to spend most of her time in her small Muir House
14:48flat.
14:48But it was in her own home that she was tortured and killed.
14:52On the 1st of April, John Reed, an unemployed security guard, knocked on her door and asked to use her
14:57phone.
14:58But once inside, he launched his violent attack.
15:01He stripped her, bound her to a bed and assaulted her.
15:04He then tortured her until she gave him her cash line card and PIN numbers.
15:07Faced with the landslide of evidence against him, Reed pleaded guilty when the case went to trial in October 1999.
15:17He was sentenced to life.
15:20In my career, it's probably the most overwhelming amount of evidence that was put together for one particular case.
15:30And lots of different types of evidence that all linked together.
15:34It really was crucial.
15:36It was only a few years ago that I learnt about, you know, just how much the forensics work had
15:43really stitched this together.
15:45As well as obviously the other police work.
15:47And again, just eternally grateful that exceptional professionals went about their job very, very professionally.
15:56And made sure that the man who attacked, tortured and murdered my aunt Elaine was convicted and was never a
16:06threat to anyone else.
16:12It's almost impossible to disappear and for nobody to notice.
16:16But what if someone is creating the illusion that you're still alive and well?
16:21That's what happened in our next case.
16:23Until skeletal remains were uncovered in the garden of a family home.
16:27Can an expert pathologist unravel a web of lies and finally see justice is delivered?
16:58The call that the police received was quite strange.
17:01An elderly woman was saying that her stepson had rung up and confessed to murdering his in-laws over a
17:07decade.
17:07previously and saying that they were buried in the garden of someone's home in Mansfield.
17:12The house had once been home to an elderly couple, William and Pat Wycherley, but had been sold to new
17:18owners in 2005.
17:21Police began to look into the Wycherley's background.
17:25William Wycherley, who was known within his family as Bill, was over 20 years older than Pat.
17:34And the police couldn't find any photos of Pat Wycherley.
17:38We don't know what she looks like at all.
17:41Police then discovered that the couple had not been seen by their GP or any of their relatives for years.
17:48It was only then that they knocked on the door of Blenheim Close and asked if they could have a
17:53look at the garden.
17:54Giving up its secrets, this is the garden where police discovered two sets of human remains in what they described
18:02as a grave.
18:03They were found in the back garden of a house here on Blenheim Close in Forest Town.
18:09The bodies were confirmed to be that of William and Patricia Wycherley.
18:14Investigators needed the help of an expert witness.
18:17Stuart Hamilton is a Home Office pathologist who was tasked with trying to establish how the couple had died.
18:24It's not uncommon with skeletal remains that a cause of death simply can't be given.
18:30In the Wycherleys, it was very fortunate because in both of them, bullet impacts were identifiable in areas that would
18:44have caused death.
18:48The most important finding in William's case was that there was a bullet lodged in the front of the spine,
18:56just in the abdomen.
18:59In Patricia's case, a bullet was also recovered from the remains, and there was a clear bullet strike on the
19:08inside of the pelvis.
19:10The locations of the bullets were such that they must have gone through major blood vessels and caused fatal bleeding.
19:21So, we could, in that case, confidently say that they had died of gunshot wounds.
19:29The phone call confession in October 2013 had been made by the Wycherley's son-in-law, Christopher Edwards.
19:37Police urgently needed to track him and his wife, Susan, down.
19:41Susan was Bill and Pat's only child.
19:45She and Christopher met through a dating service, which they found in a newspaper, and they both don't seem to
19:52have had any other former partners apart from each other.
19:56They lived a very sheltered life, just like Susan's parents.
20:00Susan didn't work, and the couple had no children, but they shared similar and costly hobbies.
20:07Susan liked to collect things, and she was drawn to a particular kind of celebrity.
20:13She liked people like Gary Cooper.
20:15She liked Frank Sinatra.
20:17Christopher was interested in military history.
20:20He collected photograph books and had a number of guns dating back to World War II.
20:28As their obsession got out of hand, so too did their level of debt.
20:32When police looked into the Wycherley's finances, it became apparent that the Edwards had been forging documents and raiding their
20:40bank accounts since 1998.
20:43They were in receipt of all of the pensions and benefits that the Wycherleys would have been receiving from that
20:52point onwards.
20:53And it amounted to around £300,000 that they took from Bill and Pat Wycherley over the course of about
21:0115 years.
21:03How could the Wycherley's disappearance go unchecked for so long?
21:08Consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr. Shaham Das reviewed the case and was astounded by the extent of the Edwards' deceit.
21:18Susan and Christopher would keep up this pretense that the Wycherleys were still alive.
21:23They would visit their house regularly.
21:26They would mow the lawn.
21:27They would clean the gutters.
21:29They would clean the windows.
21:30Susan would even write Christmas cards on behalf of her parents to other relatives to explain their absence.
21:38And she would say that they're off travelling.
21:41Police located Susan and Christopher in Lille, France.
21:44And after corresponding by email, the couple agreed to surrender, returning to the UK three weeks after Bill and Pat's
21:52bodies were discovered.
21:53It transpired that they'd completely run out of money.
21:59During questioning, Susan laid out her version of events leading up to her parents' death.
22:06Susan says she went up to visit her parents without her husband in the early May bank holiday of 1998.
22:13And she says that that evening they drank alcohol.
22:17They didn't normally drink it, but there was some drinking.
22:20During which time, she says her mother killed her father.
22:26And then she says she then, her mother then turned on her, was taunting her.
22:33And Susan says there was a tussle.
22:35She shot her mother.
22:36It was not a premeditated or even an intentional act.
22:40Susan claimed her father had sexually abused her as a child.
22:44And that's what her mother was taunting her about before she was shot.
22:48Susan also maintained that her husband was not in the house when the shots were fired.
22:54So according to Susan, her husband Christopher came up a week later.
22:58And she didn't even initially confess about the murders.
23:01They literally sat down and had fish and chips and watched Eurovision, according to her.
23:06And then she told him what happened.
23:08And he agreed to help her by burying the bodies.
23:11Police were suspicious of this account.
23:14They knew the couple had taken control of the Wychley's money just a couple of days after the shootings,
23:20suggesting Christopher already knew they were dead.
23:24They needed to prove that Susan was lying.
23:26Police once again turned to expert witness, forensic pathologist Stuart Hamilton.
23:32Could he unearth the truth?
23:34The whole debate about two days or seven days was crucial because it was either going to support the account
23:43that Susan had given or it was going to undermine it.
23:46And if it undermined it, then clearly lies were being told.
23:53Here we can see the property where it happened, but we can see that it's small.
23:59And if you imagine you're eating fish and chips downstairs with two bodies that have been there for seven days
24:07upstairs, they're not far away from you.
24:10And, you know, you're going to notice the smell.
24:16Susan had also described moving the bodies from upstairs to the garden with relative ease.
24:22Once again, this didn't add up.
24:26After a week, decomposition would make the bodies bloat.
24:30When you tried to manipulate them, gases would escape.
24:35These are all things that will be instantly memorable.
24:39And yet their description was pretty much they picked something up and carried it as if it were a bag
24:45of flour.
24:46And it just doesn't fit with the actual reality of what you would encounter with those bodies.
24:55Stuart's forensic expertise helped prove the Edwards were lying and that the Wycherleys had been buried shortly after they were
25:02killed.
25:03Meaning Christopher Edwards must have been there when they were shot.
25:07Could investigators also uncover who had fired the fatal shots?
25:12Susan said she had never handled a gun before.
25:16But both Bill and Pat had been shot once.
25:20In the core of their bodies, a neat, clean shot.
25:24The case went to trial in June 2014.
25:28The couple were hoping their version of events would be bought by the jury.
25:31Peter Joyce was the prosecuting barrister.
25:36They thought and hoped that Mrs Edwards would be convicted only of manslaughter of her mother.
25:41And there would be a very sympathetic hearing because of the circumstance of her mother shooting father in front of
25:49her after the confrontation about sexual abuse.
25:53But an examination of the bullets found in the victims' bodies provided some key evidence for the prosecution.
25:59Forensic investigation was able to establish that the firearm used to kill Bill and Pat was a World War II
26:08issue weapon.
26:10Christopher owned World War II guns.
26:12And during his police interview, he also revealed to police that he was a member of a gun club.
26:18This would suggest he would be more adept at firing a weapon.
26:22Peter seized on this in court.
26:25I asked him if he was going to shoot someone, how would he hold the gun?
26:29Because if you fire a revolver, it goes up.
26:33To prevent it going up, you hold it like that.
26:36So you, broadly speaking, hold your wrist.
26:39So you're holding the thing still.
26:41So I thought it important to ask him, how would you fire the gun?
26:45And he did it so dramatically, in a sense, by pointing it at the judge.
26:52Well, it was manna from heaven.
26:55A woman and her husband have been found guilty of murdering her parents and burying them in the garden of
27:00the family home in Mansfield.
27:02Susan and Christopher Edwards stole her parents' money to pay off debts.
27:06Susan and Christopher were both sentenced to serve a minimum of 25 years.
27:11And it was the irrefutable forensic evidence that had laid bare their years of deceit.
27:17This is a case that relied almost entirely on forensic evidence.
27:23To build a picture that was convincing to a jury as to how this had all occurred.
27:30They thought they'd got their story straight about who'd done it and what.
27:34But in fact, the story was so startlingly wrong, they told the same whopping lie, which didn't fit the facts.
27:44And I think just the utterly bizarre nature of the witchly case, it's one that sticks in your memory.
27:53It still, to this day, feels more like something from a drama than from real life.
28:04Two cases there that show how science and expertise cut through lies and uncertainty to reveal the truth about what
28:11really happened.
28:12Ensuring justice could finally be served for those who no longer have a voice.
28:41Now let's get into the tea.
28:44K coincide strategic ram as aürlich as child who no longer have an experience.
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