Left for Dead - The Murder of Hilda Murrell

The first case in this episode concerns a horrific murder in Shrewsbury in 1984, when 78-year-old environmental campaigner Hilda Murrell was found dead close to her abandoned car. Her killing was brutal, but the investigation quickly stalled. Police pursued more than 2,000 suspects, found no usable evidence and were left with only unsubstantiated rumours about a possible motive. They did recover biological fluid from the victim’s undergarment, but without modern DNA techniques, the case went cold.

Nearly 20 years later, police reopened the investigation and turned to leading forensic biologist and expert witness Dr Colin Dark. With 25 years’ experience in cold-case work, he knew that advances in DNA technology could finally offer a way through.

After an extensive search of the evidence stores, Colin was able to extract only a partial DNA profile from the victim's clothing – a result that could have generated thousands of possible names on the National DNA Database. But just one match came back: Andrew George, who was only 16 years old when Hilda was murdered.

George denied killing her and pleaded not guilty, but the forensic evidence helped secure his conviction. He was sentenced to serve at least 15 years of a life sentence. The programme includes revealing interviews from BBC reporter Giles Latcham and Nick Partridge, who had been a young police traffic officer at the time of the killing.

The second case reveals how cell site analysis and forensic science helped catch the killer of 22-year-old Abdul Deghayes.

During a drug deal in a Brighton car park, Abdul was stabbed and later died in hospital. He and his friend Colby Broderick had been out drinking when they called a dealer contact known as Frank to buy drugs.

Detectives turned to ANPR cameras to trace the car used by the dealer, Daniel MacLeod, on the night of the killing. They seized his Citroen and carried out a forensic examination of the vehicle. Searches of properties linked to MacLeod also uncovered a bloodied T-shirt.

Expert witness and forensic scientist Suzanne Winter was tasked with analysing the clothing for biological evidence. Her tests showed that the blood on the shirt was Abdul Deghayes’s, while DNA on the collar matched Daniel MacLeod.

Suzanne also examined swabs taken from MacLeod’s car and found Abdul’s blood inside the vehicle, suggesting someone wet with his blood – possibly his attacker – had been inside.

MacLeod’s phone records were then sent to cell site and radio frequency expert Paul Hope. His analysis placed the phones at the murder scene and linked MacLeod to the property where the bloodied T-shirt had been found.

Together, the forensic evidence and phone data helped build the case against Daniel MacLeod. He was charged with Abdul’s murder, and in November 2019, was found guilty by a jury.