Prash's Murder Map: True Crime Podcast

On Christmas Day 1872, the body of 31-year-old Harriet Buswell was discovered in a Bloomsbury lodging house, her throat brutally cut inside a locked room. As detectives reconstructed her final hours, conflicting witness statements and rumours of a mysterious ‘German gentleman’ sent the investigation spiralling in the wrong direction. In this episode, we examine this baffling unsolved case that bea...

In October 1946, 48-year-old Dagmar Peters was found murdered on Wrotham Hill in Kent after a lorry driver spotted a blue shoe at the roadside. The investigation was led by Chief Inspector Robert Fabian, later immortalised in the TV series Fabian of the Yard. Suspicion fell on lorry driver Sidney Sinclair, a man with multiple aliases whose story soon unravelled under questioning. 📖 Prefer to read...

In 1885, in the Fenland village of Walsoken near Wisbech, Bathsheba Goodale was last seen alive with her husband, Robert. That night, he returned home alone, his trousers soaked and his boots thick with mud. He showed little concern when his wife failed to come back from the fields, and his strange indifference quickly stirred suspicion among the villagers. The discovery of Bathsheba’s body at the...

In 1960s Kraków, Poland, a string of random, brutal stabbings shocked the city and left police hunting a killer with no apparent motive. At first, nobody suspected Karol Kot; a polite, intelligent teenager hiding an obsession with knives and violence. The two murders and multiple attempted murders he committed would earn him the nickname ‘The Vampire of Kraków.’ 📘 Learn more about my latest book...

In Victorian London, 15-year-old Agnes Norman was working as a nursemaid when a 14-month-old girl in her care died suddenly and mysteriously. When suspicions were raised, police uncovered a disturbing pattern. Over the previous three years, Agnes had worked in several households, and each time, a string of sudden deaths – children and pets alike - followed in her wake. Was it cold-blooded murder,...

In November 1884, 68-year-old Emma Ann Whitehead Keyse was brutally murdered in her home in Babbacombe, Devon. As investigators pieced together the crime, suspicion fell on a household member, leading to a trial that gripped the public. But the story didn’t end in the courtroom, as the fate of the accused would take an extraordinary turn that made headlines across Victorian England. 📖 Prefer to r...

Eugen Weidmann, a German-born criminal, carried out a spree of theft, kidnapping, and murder in Paris in the late 1930s, in a case that involved foreign victims, buried bodies, ransom notes, and multiple accomplices. His calm, deceptive charm helped him evade the police for two years before he was finally captured. In 1939, Weidmann became the last man to be publicly guillotined; a controversial m...

After a birthday celebration in Birkenhead in 1925, the Tam family’s life of respectability and success suddenly unravelled in a violent tragedy. This episode explores the life of Lock Ah Tam, his role as a respected figure in Liverpool’s Chinese community, and the fateful events that led to one of the most shocking family murders of the era, set against the backdrop of Liverpool’s Chinatown and s...

On the streets of Folkestone, Kent, amid World War II, 18-year-old Caroline Trayler disappeared after being seen drinking at the local pub one Sunday evening in June 1943. When Police Constable Lewis entered a bombed-out grocer’s shop several days later in the hunt for the missing woman, he discovered a tragic scene which confirmed that the missing person’s case had now become a murder enquiry. 📘...

In this special author discussion episode, Prash and Melissa Ganendran share their experiences of writing their latest book, which examines the 1944 crime spree of Elizabeth Jones and Karl Hulten, culminating in the murder of private car hire driver George Edward Heath. The case became known as the 'Cleft Chin Murder', while some newspapers at the time described the pair as London's 'Bonnie and Cl...

In Lincolnshire in 1934, 44-year-old Arthur Major died suddenly. He had previously been healthy, and his wife seemed unusually eager to arrange his funeral. The ensuing investigation revealed a troubled marriage, and the circumstantial evidence against Ethel Major began to mount, in this vintage true crime case that captured the attention of both the local community and the national press, with Et...

A routine patrol in northern France uncovered an abandoned car in May 1978, sparking a terrifying manhunt. Over months, shootings, bombings, and stolen vehicles terrorised the Oise region, while anonymous letters taunted law enforcement. When the pieces fell into place, it revealed a shocking truth: the Oise Killer had been hiding in plain sight all along. Subscribe to my free newsletter: https://...

In 1886, shootings in London were rare - even more so in broad daylight. In this episode, we explore the murder and robbery committed in a quiet Kentish Town road by George Finch, a would-be performer whose stage ambitions had faltered. Finch would avoid execution and go on to live a long life after his release from Broadmoor. 📖 Prefer to read? Full article : https://prashganendran.com/penny_drea...

In 1895, 22-year-old Robert Hudson took his wife Kitty and their infant son on holiday to Helmsley, North Yorkshire. When they departed hurriedly under suspicious circumstances, the landlady at their boarding house was surprised. Soon, Kitty Hudson’s relatives grew concerned as to her whereabouts and the Yorkshire Police set out to track a killer who used multiple aliases and sent false letters to...

Dr Crippen and the Hilldrop Crescent Murder revisits one of Britain’s most infamous true crime cases of 1910. When Cora Crippen, better known on the music-hall stage as Belle Elmore vanished, her husband Hawley Harvey Crippen offered shifting explanations that soon aroused suspicion. A police search of their Hilldrop Crescent home uncovered human remains, pointing to a shocking murder. Crippen and...

In February 1920, 15-year-old Kathleen Mary Drury left her home in Waterloo, Liverpool, and never returned. The following morning, her body was found near the Brooke Road allotments, her throat cut and no sign of the killer. Days later, the mutilated body of a railway signalman was discovered on the tracks at Sandhills Station but what linked the two deaths? This episode revisits an obscure and lo...

In November 1925, police constable Herbert Burrows was found guilty of murdering publican Ernest Laight, his wife Doris, and their young son Robert at the Garibaldi Inn in Worcester. The discovery was made by the family’s charwoman, who raised the alarm after finding the doors unlocked and the till emptied. The case exposed the calculated betrayal of trust within a small community and led to Burro...

When career criminal Henry Thomas Gaskin returned from serving with the Royal Engineers, tunnelling under the trenches of the Western Front during WWI, he was furious to discover his wife’s infidelity. He lured her to a meeting place under the pretence of discussing their marriage, and Lizzie Gaskin was never seen alive again. This true crime case remains one of the West Midlands’ most brutal, yet...

In Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, a young Bosnian student named Gavrilo Princip fired a shot which would become the deadliest in history. With the help of co-conspirators from underground nationalist group Young Bosnia, he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie during their imperial visit to the capital. Their deaths set off a domino effect of ultimatums, alliances, and mobilisations...

In 2025, two pocket watches were sold at an auction, prompting renewed interest in a 170 year old East Anglia murder case. They were made by skilled German craftsman Lorenz Beha, who came to England to set up his watchmaking business in Norfolk. On a cold November day in 1853, Beha was found murdered on a quiet country road by a local labourer who happened to be one of his customers. The timepiece...

Just days before Christmas 1959, the Edencroft Hostel in Birmingham became the scene of a shocking murder. Stephanie Baird, 29, was brutally killed by 27-year-old Patrick Byrne, a man hiding a history of stalking and violent sexual fantasies. The case revealed the terrifying progression from secret obsession to murder, leaving investigators to confront one of Britain’s most disturbing true crimes....

In January 1914, the industrial town of Wolverhampton became the backdrop to a baffling mystery when 24-year-old ship’s engineer Kent Reeks was found shot dead near a disused mine shaft — 90 miles from the Liverpool hotel where he had been staying. Just days earlier, he had arrived from Canada, carrying a large sum of money and travelling in the company of a mysterious man. This little-known true...

In 1913, the little known hamlet of Gussage St. Michael in Dorset, southwest England, became the scene of a shocking discovery when a young woman’s body was found buried in woodland. This obscure true crime case explores the lives of killer William Burton and his victim, Winifred Mitchell, and how she came to be buried in a shallow grave in one of England’s most rural counties.  📺  youtube.com/@p...

In the summer of 1920, Irene Munro chose a solo holiday in Eastbourne, on the south-east coast of England, over joining her mother in Edinburgh. Days later, her body was found buried on the remote Crumbles beach by a family on holiday. She had been violently murdered. As police investigated, newspapers suggested she had led a double life. With the help of witnesses, detectives began to piece toget...

In 1868, 19-year-old railway porter Thomas Wells shot and killed Dover Priory stationmaster Edward Walshe after a disciplinary dispute. Wells showed little remorse and offered no resistance during his arrest. He was tried, found guilty, and became the first person executed privately under the new Capital Punishment Act. I originally created this episode in 2020, but have now enhanced it with addit...