When we think about detectives, Sherlock Holmes is probably the first image that comes to mind. The iconic deerstalker hat, the pipe, the looming presence and fierce intellect.

But what if there is a deeper truth to be told? A truth about the creation of Sherlock Holmes himself and the birth of modern forensic detection?

As improbable as it might seem, the most famous consulting detective of the Victorian age was… an Edinburgh doctor named Joseph Bell, and he is the subject of NYTimes bestselling author and medical historian, Dr Lindsey Fitzharris’s brand-new book, Sleuth-Hound: The Case of the Real Sherlock Holmes, and Dr Fitzharris joins us for this latest episode.

Buried Evidence is part of The Crime Desk. Subscribe today for ad-free listening, early access to new shows, exclusive bonus episodes and complete access to our true-crime podcast collection. Visit thecrimedesk.com for more information.

Email us at buriedevidence@thecrimedesk.com or WhatsApp us on 07796 657512, starting your message with the word BURIED.

Presenters: Rebecca Rideal & Raksha Dave

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Rowan Jacobs

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Hosts: Rebecca Rideal, Professor Raksha Dave

Producer: Phillip Wilding

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

For early, ad-free access to every episode of Buried Evidence as well as all our other incredible true crime shows, subscribe to The Crime Desk now. Visit thecrimedesk.com to become a member today.

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A young woman dies in seventeenth-century Poland, her family carefully dresses her for burial. Her body is carried to the cemetery where the funeral is performed, and then someone places an iron sickle across her neck and fastens a padlock to her foot.

Not before death but after it. These are not the actions of people mourning the dead but of people afraid of them.

In our latest episode, we travel to northern Poland and one of archaeology's strangest investigations, involving a grave, a sickle, a padlock and a woman later nicknamed Zosia. Strangely, archaeologists have stumbled across damning evidence that an entire community may have put the (un)dead-on trial.

Buried Evidence is part of The Crime Desk. Subscribe today for ad-free listening, early access to new shows, exclusive bonus episodes and complete access to our true-crime podcast collection. Visit thecrimedesk.com for more information.

Email us at buriedevidence@thecrimedesk.com or WhatsApp us on 07796 657512, starting your message with the word BURIED.

Presenters: Rebecca Rideal & Raksha Dave

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Rowan Jacobs

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Hosts: Rebecca Rideal, Professor Raksha Dave

Producer: Phillip Wilding

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

For early, ad-free access to every episode of Buried Evidence as well as all our other incredible true crime shows, subscribe to The Crime Desk now. Visit thecrimedesk.com to become a member today.

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For more than a century, the Arctic was assumed to be keeping Franklin's secret; but it wasn't. The native Inuit people who lived there had been telling the story all along.

And yet for decades, another idea dominated the investigation; lead poisoning, bad tins.

But what if the evidence tells a different story? What if Franklin's men weren't brought down by a single fatal mistake—but by a catastrophe far more complicated than anyone imagined?

In the second part of the Franklin story, we ask what really helped kill him and his men.

Buried Evidence is part of The Crime Desk. Subscribe today for ad-free listening, early access to new shows, exclusive bonus episodes and complete access to our true-crime podcast collection. Visit thecrimedesk.com for more information.

Email us at buriedevidence@thecrimedesk.com or WhatsApp us on 07796 657512, starting your message with the word BURIED.

Presenters: Rebecca Rideal & Raksha Dave

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Rowan Jacobs

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Hosts: Rebecca Rideal, Professor Raksha Dave

Producer: Phillip Wilding

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

For early, ad-free access to every episode of Buried Evidence as well as all our other incredible true crime shows, subscribe to The Crime Desk now. Visit thecrimedesk.com to become a member today.

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.