In the late nineteenth century, a series of murders, some unsolved, between London and Brighton shocked Victorian Britain. We take a deep dive into these strange cases and examine some of the curious characters and suspects involved in Murder on the Brighton Line.

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TRANSCRIPT

[Music] this podcast contains descriptions of death and violence that some listeners may find upsetting [Music] hello and welcome to the six o'clock knock the true crime podcast that takes a fresh look at murder i'm jack morrell i served as a police officer from 1985 to 2015. my last 12 years in the job was spent exclusively dealing with homicides as a detective sergeant and i'm simon ford a journalist and writer i have years of experience in radio and broadcasting i still have a nose for a good story and jack is still keen to apply his copper's brain to cases whether solved or not that's right and this episode will focus on murder on the railway of course we touched on the railways a few episodes back didn't we the frederick deming case serial swindler and bigamist with a parshan for murdering his wives yes indeed he used the opportunity to travel that steam trains and steamships gave 19th century society he traveled extensively and he used a different name in every town the victorian era meant that travel was so much easier and quicker the railways had revolutionized transport replacing those horse-drawn stage coaches that up to then were the quickest way to get from one town to another right mass travel had arrived passengers were less conspicuous traveling in greater numbers the commute had arrived and with it the travelling criminal yeah we're looking at this subject after someone suggested a particular case known as the murder on the brighton line but when we started digging we found two others on the same stretch of railway line between london and brighton well as your fellow journalist the late sir harry evans said keep digging the truth is down there somewhere wow it's not often i mentioned in the same breath as the late great harry evans so um thanks for that mate and in terms of the truth yes it certainly is so we're going to dig into all those grisly crimes and trust me they are grisly jack did you ever deal with any railway cases well not really because railways in the uk have their own police the british transport police or btp we occasionally asked them for information or made inquiries relating to people moving through railway premises but to be honest we really saw btp officers at our police stations well the british transport police force has its roots very early in the history of british policing the earliest record of railway police predates the formation of the metropolitan police usually recognized as the first modern police force in england and wales by at least four years no one knows just how many individual railway dock and canal police forces existed in the 19th century but they probably numbered over a hundred largely unsung and in many cases unremembered i suppose a modern equivalent would be private security firms in the united states safeguarding the interests and assets of corporations these early forces combined to form the modern btp we looked at the recent crime figures for the btp there was a significant rise in all crimes of 12 percent in 2019 adrian hanstock the deputy chief...