Inside Forensic Science · Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science

Series 3, Episode 1: A Death

·39 min·10 clips

The opening episode of the third series goes back to a historic murder case. It follows a death tangled up with mishandled evidence, a chaotic crime scene, fraud, and records that keep making the main suspect look guilty, then not guilty, then guilty again. The case caused a sensation in its day. Over the 10-day trial, The Scotsman reportedly ran an average of 20 columns a day on the proceedings, and more than one and a half million words were telegraphed in connection with the case, which gives a sense of the public appetite for it. The file is not easy, and nobody pretends otherwise. Several speakers say they found it hard to follow, even after drawing it out and making the kind of notes they would use for a routine matter. That is part of the point. Instead of smoothing over the confusion, the programme keeps returning to the physical scene, the handling of the body, and the gaps in the record, so the listener can see how uncertainty sits inside the case itself. Medical procedure matters here. The discussion moves into the history of general practice in Scotland and the difference between confirming life extinct and completing a medical certificate of cause of death, a distinction that felt clearer in earlier practice and is still handled carefully now. The contrast is sharp. One doctor describes being called to gruesome deaths on railway lines and in cars earlier in their career, then notes that police and ambulance services now usually take over the initial confirmation, which makes the historical role in this case feel both familiar and slightly out of step. Gunshot evidence is handled plainly. The episode describes a head wound with blood-soaked dressings and a pillow, a search for blackening or singeing, and the simple fact that most general surgeons, and most general practitioners, will never have much direct experience with gunshots unless their work has taken them elsewhere. That plainness helps. It keeps the story anchored in procedure rather than drama, which suits a case built on what can and cannot be said from the physical evidence. The historical details are odd in the right way. Back in 1893, Dr Macmillan finished the examination of the dead man, bound up the head, cleaned away the blood, and helped dress the body before going upstairs to lunch with Monson and Scott, a detail the speakers openly find strange. The questions stay open. The episode ends by circling back to who the dead man was to the Monsons, where Scott disappeared to, and why anyone would have wanted him dead, leaving the case as a map of possible routes rather than a clean line from cause to conclusion.

As heard by us

A tangled historic murder case, told with forensic patience and dry detail.

This episode treats a historic murder case as a mess of bad evidence, a noisy crime scene, fraud, missing players, and a suspect whose guilt seems to change every time the record is checked again. Its pull is not closure. It is watching a case that keeps refusing to settle.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a historic murder mystery where mishandled evidence, a chaotic crime scene, fraud, and a suspect who keeps flipping between guilty and not guilty make the truth hard to pin down.

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