What happens when the suspect in a murder trial is unable to understand the trial process? And what has that got to do with a man accused of having sex with an animal in 1836? In October 2012, 65 year-old Colin Hammond was stabbed to death in a street in Fulham, southwest London, by Frederic …
Author archives: murdermap
CSI London: Bugs and Bodies
When the body of Leah Questin was found in a suitcase on farmland in Kent in September 2009, Metropolitan Police officers investigating her murder took a tip from CSI’s Gil Grissom and his fascination for bugs. The activity of Blowflies and their eggs at the site of the corpse was crucial in working out approximately …
The Turkish Gang War
The gang-related revenge killing or ‘tit for tat’ feud accounts for a very small proportion of murders in London. It is however one of the most disturbing, conjuring up echoes of the American mafia as represented by The Godfather and other films. This type of murder appears to flourish when when those responsible seem to …
Off the Map: The case of Dean Reddy
We added the case of 25 year-old Dean Reddy after detectives arrested his father on suspicion of murder. Since then police have said they are no longer treating the death as suspicious and revealed that further tests established the cause of death was ‘sudden adult death syndrome’. Here is the case page as it read …
The Fall in Violent Crime and Murder
The release of the ‘UK Peace Index‘ (pdf link) has again highlighted the decline in violent crime (including murder) since 2003. “This is the fastest decline in violence of any country in Europe,” the report concludes. It notes that the homicide rate (murder, manslaughter and infanticide) has halved over the last ten years to 1 …