Expert Witness

A woman's body is found in a remote location in South Lanarkshire in 2005 by a dog walker. She is identified as Emma Caldwell, a 27-year-old sex worker, who has been missing for over a month. Forensic evidence at the time was not able to conclusively identify a suspect, so the police looked to other avenues of investigation and began focusing on a group of Turkish men who had contact with Emma in the days prior to her disappearance. Despite a long investigation, there was very little evidence, and the men were released. With no fresh leads, the case went cold until a journalist claimed a suspect named Iain Packer had been overlooked at the time. He was known by local prostitutes to be violent and had taken women out to the woodlands where Emma's body had been found. Soil expert Stefan Uitdehaag from the Netherlands was brought in to prove that Iain Packer had been at the site where the body was found, and 17 years after the murder, he was put on trial and convicted. Our next case follows the stabbing of a man in his own home in Ramsgate. The immediate suspect is his flatmate, who denies murder and claims he was acting in self-defence. Police, however, doubt the man's story and invite blood pattern analyst Jo Millington to examine the crime scene to search for clues as to what really happened. The key evidence is the knife handle, broken off from the blade and covered in bloodied tissue paper. Jo's careful examination of the tissue paper proved a purposeful preparation as a means to improve grip, therefore disputing the suspect's claims that it was an unpremeditated act of self-defence. Jo's diligent work will lead to charges and ultimately a life sentence for the perpetrator.