Albert Henry DeSalvo was an American murderer and rapist who was active in Boston, Massachusetts, in the early 1960s. He is known to have confessed to being the "Boston Strangler", a serial killer who murdered thirteen women in the Boston area between 1962 and 1964. Lack of physical evidence supported his confession, and he was only prosecuted in 1967 for a series of unrelated rapes, for which he was convicted and imprisoned until his death in 1973. His confessing to having murdered multiple women was disputed, and debates continued regarding which crimes he truly had committed.
Stephen Lawrence was a black British 18-year-old from Plumstead, southeast London, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in Well Hall Road, Eltham, on the evening of 22 April 1993. The case became a cause célèbre: its fallout included changes of attitudes on racism and the police, and to the law and police practice. It also led to the partial revocation of the rule against double jeopardy. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder on 3 January 2012.
Samuel Holmes Sheppard was an American osteopath. He was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, but the conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which cited a "carnival atmosphere" at the trial. Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial in 1966.
Michael Stone was convicted of the 1996 murders of Lin and Megan Russell and the attempted murder of Josie Russell. He was sentenced to three life sentences with a tariff of 25 years for the Russell killings.
Lesley Molseed(14 August 1964 –5 October 1975), born Lesley Susan Anderson, was an English schoolgirl who was abducted and murdered on 5 October 1975 in West Yorkshire. Stefan Kiszko, an intellectually disabled man who lived near Molseed's residence in Greater Manchester, was wrongly convicted in her murder and served sixteen years in prison before his conviction was overturned. His mental and physical health had deteriorated in prison, and he died twenty-two months after his release in February 1992 – before he could collect the money owed to him for his wrongful conviction. Kiszko's ordeal was described by one British MP as "the worst miscarriage of justice of all time."
David John Tennant is a Scottish actor. He is best known for portraying the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in the sci-fi series Doctor Who. In 2023, he returned to the show as the fourteenth incarnation. His other notable screen roles include DI Alec Hardy in the crime drama series Broadchurch (2013–2017) and its 2014 remake, Kilgrave in the superhero series Jessica Jones (2015–2019), Crowley in the fantasy series Good Omens (2019–present) and various fictionalised versions of himself in the comedy series Staged (2020–2022).
James Hanratty, also known as the A6 Murderer, was a British criminal who was one of the final eight people in the UK to be executed before capital punishment was effectively abolished. He was hanged at Bedford Jail on 4 April 1962, after being convicted of the murder of scientist Michael Gregsten, aged 36, who was shot dead in a car on the A6 at Deadman's Hill, near Clophill, Bedfordshire in August 1961. Gregsten's girlfriend, Valerie Storie, was raped, shot five times, and left paralysed.
Peter Falconio was a British tourist who disappeared in a remote part of the Stuart Highway near Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia on the evening of 14 July 2001, while travelling with his girlfriend Joanne Lees.
"The Parting of the Ways" is the thirteenth episode and the season finale of the revived first series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. The episode was first broadcast on BBC One on 18 June 2005. It was the second episode of the two-part story. The first part, "Bad Wolf", was broadcast on 11 June.
Oliver Robert Ford Davies is an English actor and writer, best known for his extensive theatre work, and to a broader audience for his role as Sio Bibble in Star Wars Episodes I to III. He is also known for his role as Maester Cressen in HBO series Game of Thrones.
"The Runaway Bride" is a special episode of the long-running British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. It was produced as the Doctor Who Christmas special for 2006, broadcast on 25 December, and aired between the second and third series of the relaunched show.
David Ray Camm is a former trooper of the Indiana State Police (ISP) who spent 13 years in prison after twice being wrongfully convicted of the murders of his wife, Kimberly, and his two young children at their home in Georgetown, Indiana, on September 28, 2000. He was released from custody in 2013 after his third trial resulted in an acquittal. Charles Boney is currently serving time for the murders of Camm's wife and two children.
The World's End Murders is the colloquial name given to the murder of two girls, Christine Eadie, 17, and Helen Scott, 17, in Edinburgh, in October 1977. The case is so named because both victims were last seen alive leaving The World's End pub in Edinburgh's Old Town. The only person to stand trial accused of the murders, Angus Robertson Sinclair, was acquitted in 2007 in controversial circumstances. Following the amendment of the law of double jeopardy, which would have prevented his retrial, Sinclair was retried in October 2014 and convicted of both murders on 14 November 2014. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 37 years, the longest sentence by a Scottish court, meaning he would have been 106 years old when he was eligible for a potential release on parole. He died at HM Prison Glenochil aged 73 on 11 March 2019. Coincidentally, he died on the same day the BBC's Crimewatch Roadshow programme profiled the murders.
Teresa Elena De Simone was murdered in Southampton, England, in 1979. Her murder led to one of the longest proven cases of a miscarriage of justice in English legal history. The murder occurred outside the Tom Tackle pub and was the subject of a three-year police investigation which resulted in the arrest of Sean Hodgson. Hodgson was convicted of the murder by a unanimous jury verdict in 1982 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. After serving 27 years in prison he was exonerated and released in March 2009. DNA analysis of semen samples that had been preserved from the original crime scene showed that they could not have come from him.
Madeleine Worrall is a Scottish actress. She has worked extensively on stage, in London and across Britain.
Joanna Clare Yeates was a landscape architect from Ampfield, Hampshire, England, who went missing from the flat she shared with her partner, in a large house in Clifton, Bristol, on 17 December 2010 after an evening out with colleagues. Following a highly publicised appeal for information on her whereabouts and intensive police enquiries, her body was discovered on 25 December 2010 in Failand, North Somerset. A post-mortem examination determined that she had been strangled.
Christine Marie Lundy, 38, and her 7-year-old daughter Amber Grace Lundy were murdered in Palmerston North, New Zealand, on 29 or 30 August 2000. In February 2001, after a six month investigation, Christine's husband and Amber's father, Mark Edward Lundy, was arrested and charged, and in 2002, he was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 17 years.
The Babes in the Wood Murders were the murders of two nine-year-old girls, Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, on 9 October 1986, by a 20-year-old local roofer, Russell Bishop in Wild Park, Moulsecoomb, Brighton, Sussex, England. Bishop was tried and acquitted in 1987. The case remained open until 10 December 2018, when Bishop was found guilty of the murders in a second trial. The investigation into the two girls' murders is the largest and longest-running inquiry ever conducted by Sussex Police.
Suzanne Pilley was a 38-year-old British bookkeeper from Edinburgh, Scotland, who went missing on the morning of 4 May 2010. Following a highly publicised appeal for information on her whereabouts and intensive police enquiries, her former lover, David Gilroy, was arrested and charged with her murder. He was found guilty by majority verdict on 15 March 2012 and sentenced to life imprisonment. The judge ordered him to serve a minimum of 18 years in prison. The case is controversial because the prosecution obtained a murder conviction without a body. The body of Suzanne Pilley has never been found.
In June 1981, fourteen-year old Marion Crofts was raped and murdered in Aldershot, England. The case is notable for the 21 year delay in justice before former soldier Tony Jasinskyj was found guilty as a result of advances in DNA testing and sentenced to life in prison. He is up for parole in 2022, despite him never having admitted his guilt and the DNA evidence proving that the chances of the perpetrator being anyone other than Jasinskyj were 1 in a billion.
