Season 09 Episode 15: Red Dust (Pt.2 of 2)

·32 min·2 clips

Edward Werner spent the rest of World War II as a prisoner in the same internment camp as the dentist he believed had killed his daughter — confronting him repeatedly and shouting 'you killed Pamela'.

Only one man remained. Edward Werner, raw with grief and fed up with delays, kept investigating Pamela's murder after the authorities seemed unable or unwilling to push the case any further. The first reward should have spoken loudly: British officials in Beijing offered 1,000 Chinese silver dollars, roughly ten times what the average Chinese family would spend in a year. Then they printed the flyers only in English. Werner knew how badly that missed the point. If Chinese citizens distrusted their own authorities and the foreign ones, Mandarin notices and anonymity were basic necessities. His requests were ignored. Pamela's clothes and personal effects, finally returned by Beijing police, looked badly stored and barely checked for fingerprints. That discovery landed hard. Werner took his anger to the steps of the British Legation Headquarters and named the failures out loud. He criticised the release of Canadian suspect Harold Pinfold, who Werner believed had information investigators failed to pursue. He also pushed back on claims that Pamela's organs had been taken for traditional practices. His suspicion turned westward: he believed the killer, or killers, were Westerners. To prove it, he risked most of his life savings. Werner added 5,000 Chinese gold dollars, three times what an average Chinese family could earn in their lifetimes, for vital information. Still, no one came. Months after the official inquest, under Japanese occupation and no longer free to move around the city as he once had, he stayed in his courtyard house and kept pleading with the Foreign Office.

As heard by us

A careful historical true-crime episode about a father's determination and the failures around Pamela Werner's case.

Pamela Werner's death in Beijing is treated as a case that never fully closes, with Edward Werner's refusal to let official inaction settle the matter holding the episode together.

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Why you'd press play

You want a Beijing murder case driven by a grieving father's stubborn search for answers.

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