The Hunt for the World's End Killers - Season 1

The Hunt for the World's End Killers - Season 1

Season 1

Network
Episodes2
DatesOct 17, 2022 - Oct 18, 2022

Episodes

Episode 1
Season 1Episode 160 min

Episode 1

On 16 October 1977, the bodies of two young women, Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, were found six miles apart in East Lothian. Both women were bound, sexually assaulted, and strangled with their own clothing. Only the night before, the two childhood friends had gone out for drinks in the World's End pub on Edinburgh's famous Royal Mile. Witnesses recalled Christine and Helen speaking with two unknown men that night. The hunt for the killers became one of the biggest manhunts Scotland has ever seen, as fear gripped Scotland and the press began to link the murders of Christine and Helen with unsolved killings in Glasgow.

This two-part documentary series delves into the dark legacy the elusive killers left on the Scottish capital. With testimony from detectives and forensic scientists who worked on the investigation, journalists who reported on the case, and psychologists who studied the murders, this series follows the twists and turns of one of the most notorious double murders in Scottish criminal history.

This episode takes us back to 1977. Author Ian Rankin, then a 17-year-old student due to start at Edinburgh University, recalls how the capital was a grim, grey place where underage teenagers had no issues getting served in pubs. Despite its picturesque old town and tourist friendly centre, Edinburgh had a dark undercurrent. The law had not long changed to allow women to legally drink in bars, but they often had to tolerate questionable toilet facilities and unwanted attention from unrelenting men.

School friends Helen Scott and Christine Eadie went drinking with friends in Edinburgh, but did not return home. In a revealing interview, former Scotsman columnist Julie Davidson vividly recalls driving on the east coast near Gosford Bay on the morning of October 16th, when she came across a swarm of Lothian and Borders police. The body of 17-year-old Christine Eadie had been discovered by members of the public. Detective Sergeant Douglas Kerr of the murder squad was called out to the grisly scene. Sometime later, Helen's body was found a few miles away, and it was Douglas's task to deliver the awful news to Helen's parents.

Despite huge press attention, the trail soon went cold. But while the investigation faltered, the fear on the streets of Edinburgh only grew. The documentary reveals how sexist attitudes and widespread paranoia generated by the Yorkshire Ripper murders in England created a fearful, intimidating atmosphere for many women in Scotland. This was something further fuelled by the police, who repeatedly urged women to stay indoors.

In the months after the World's End murders, the press began to link the killings to several unsolved murders of women in Glasgow. However, despite similarities between the cases, detectives reveal that they were reluctant to combine the investigations. By the end of the 70s, the investigation into the World's End case had gone cold and it seemed like the killers had escaped justice.

Oct 17, 2022
Episode 2
Season 1Episode 260 min

Episode 2

In this episode, Ian Rankin explains that by the dawn of the 80s, the only hope for catching the World's End killers lay with the people developing new techniques in forensic science.

Astonishing archive footage reveals how policing underwent a revolution throughout the decade, fuelled by advances in forensic science, DNA fingerprinting and information technology. The programme also reveals how the FBI's pioneering advances in forensic psychology led to hopes that psychological profiles of the World's End killers could be created. Retired DCC Tom Wood reveals that he travelled to the FBI HQ with files on the unsolved murders from the late 70s in search of answers.
In the late 80s, advances in DNA fingerprinting technology also brought hope to the detectives on the case. Some biological evidence had been discovered on Helen Scott's coat, and forensic scientists succeeded in using it to obtain a clear DNA profile. However, when they tried to match it with existing DNA profiles held on police records across the UK, no match could be found.

Through the 90s, further advances in forensic science meant that DNA analysis became both more sensitive and more effective. A reanalysis of the stain on Helen's coat revealed that there was more than one person's DNA present. This second sample was examined and matched to notorious sexual offender Angus Sinclair, who was serving two life-sentences in Peterhead Prison.

Investigators then desperately try and discover which other murders might have been committed by Sinclair, and this episode reveals how the first trial against Sinclair would go on to controversially collapse. It would take a change of law and a new advance in forensic science to see him finally brought to justice.

Oct 18, 2022

Recently Updated Shows

Recently updated shows that might be of your interest.
Survivor
Running

Survivor

Eighteen to twenty castaways will compete against each other on Survivor. All castaways will compete to outwit, outplay, outlast and ultimately be crowned Sole Survivor.

Grimsburg
Running

Grimsburg

Marvin Flute may be the greatest detective ever to catch a cannibal clown or correctly identify a mid-century modern armoire. But there's one mystery he still can't crack - his family. Now that he's back in Grimsburg, a town where everyone has a secret or three, Flute will follow every lead he's got to redeem himself with the ex-wife he never stopped loving, even if it means hanging out with the son he never bothered to get to know.

Revival
Running

Revival

Revival is set on one miraculous day in rural Wisconsin when the recently deceased suddenly rise from their graves. But this is no zombie story as the "revived" appear and act just like they once were. When local Officer and single mother Dana Cypress is unexpectedly thrown into the center of a brutal murder mystery of her own, she's left to make sense of the chaos amidst a town gripped by fear and confusion where everyone, alive or undead, is a suspect.

The Gilded Age
Running

The Gilded Age

The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of huge fortunes made and lost, and the rise of disparity between old money and new.

Against this backdrop of change, the story begins in 1882 — introducing young Marian Brook, the orphaned daughter of a Union general, who moves into the New York City home of her thoroughly old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook. Accompanied by Peggy Scott, an accomplished African-American woman, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George and Bertha Russell.

In this exciting new world that is on the brink of the modern age, will Marian follow the established rules of society, or forge her own path?

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Running

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an American comedy series about four friends in their late 20s with clear sociopathic tendencies who run an unsuccessful Irish bar, "Paddy's Pub," in South Philadelphia. The series deals with a variety of controversial topics, including abortion, gun control, physical disabilities, racism, sexism, religion, the Israeli/Palestinian situation, terrorism, transsexuality, slavery, incest, sexual harassment in education, the homeless, statutory rape, drug addiction, pedophilia, child abuse, mental illness, gay rights and dumpster babies.

GenreComedy