Cover of Steve Keogh: Murder Unpacked

Steve Keogh: Murder Unpacked

Steve Keogh: Murder Unpacked

By: Exploring how murders are investigated.
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Hosted by former Scotland Yard homicide detective Steve Keogh, Murder Unpacked explores murder investigations to understand how detectives think and work.

www.murderunpacked.comSteve Keogh
Episodes
  • Jack the Ripper Part 3: Polly Nichols

    Jack the Ripper Part 3: Polly Nichols
    27 Oct 2026
    Just over three weeks after Martha Tabram was murdered, another woman was found dead on the streets of Whitechapel.Her name was Mary Ann Nichols, but she was commonly known as Polly.And as always, before we get to what happened to her, I want to start with the womanherself.PollyPolly was born Mary Ann Walker in London in 1845.Her father was a blacksmith and, at the age of eighteen, she married a printer called William Nichols.They went on to have five children together.For a time, they appeared to have something resembling a settled family life. But the marriage eventually broke down.Exactly why depends on whose account you believe.William later blamed Polly’s drinking. Her father accepted that alcohol had become a problem, but claimed William had started a relationship with the woman who had nursed Polly after the birth of their youngest child.Whatever the truth, by around 1880 the marriage was effectively over.The years that followed were difficult.Polly moved in and out of workhouses and cheap accommodation. There were periods when she seems to have been homeless.Her drinking continued.And there is evidence that she was earning money through prostitution.William had initially continued to support her financially after they separated but later stopped when he discovered she was working as a prostitute.But Polly’s life wasn’t simply one long downward spiral.There were attempts to start again.Only a few months before she died, the matron at Lambeth Workhouse found her employment as a domestic servant with a family in Wandsworth.And for a while, things seem to have gone well.Polly even wrote to her father, telling him she had settled into her new job, that the family were nice people and that she wasn’t being worked too hard.It sounds like a woman who believed she might finally be getting somewhere.But it didn’t last.A few weeks later, Polly left the house after stealing clothing from her employers.By August she was back in the world of workhouses and common lodging houses.By the end of that month, she was staying around Whitechapel.Polly was about five feet two inches tall, with brown hair beginning to turn grey, brown eyes and high cheekbones.Her friend Emily Holland described her as a clean woman who kept herself to herself.She was 43 years old.And on the night of Thursday 30 August 1888, Polly needed fourpence.The price of a bed for the night.The Last NightIt had been a wet night, with heavy rain, thunder and lightning over London.Polly had been drinking and sometime around half past one in the morning, returned to a common lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street.But when the deputy asked for the fourpence needed for a bed, Polly didn’t have it.So, she was told she would have to leave.You might imagine she’d have been worried, but apparently not.Polly, who was wearing a new bonnet, laughed and told the deputy, “I’ll soon get my doss money. See what a jolly bonnet I’ve got now.”And out into the night she went.Around an hour later, Polly was seen again.Emily Holland had been returning to the lodging house when she came across her near Whitechapel Church.Polly was clearly drunk.She was staggering and at one point slumped against the wall of a shop.Emily tried to persuade her to come back with her, but Polly refused.She told Emily that she’d already earned her lodging money three times that day and spent it.She seemed confident she could earn it again.Then Polly headed off along Whitechapel Road.It was around 2.30 in the morning.And that is the last confirmed sighting we have of her alive.What happened over the next hour or so, we simply don’t know.Where did Polly go?Who did she meet?Was she walking the streets looking for somebody willing to pay her for sex?Given her history and the fact she was specifically looking for money to pay for a bed, I think that is likely.But whatever happened during that missing hour, at some point Polly ended up in a narrow street called Buck’s Row.And she wasn’t alone.Buck’s RowThere is something we need to understand before going any further, because the movements of the policemen that night become important.In 1888, uniformed constables didn’t simply wander around Whitechapel waiting for something to happen.They worked beats.A beat was a defined route through a particular area.The routes were measured, recorded and allocated to individual officers. At night, beats were generally shortened because that was when most crime took place. More officers were put onto the streets, and the idea was that the same areas would be passed through more frequently.The beats also fitted alongside one another.That mattered because there were no radios.If an officer suddenly needed help, he needed another policeman to be close enough to respond. They also carried whistles which could be used to summon assistance.At night they also carried lamps and, as we are about to see, those lamps could be used to signal another officer nearby.At around 3.15 that morning, ...
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    23 min
  • Chris Watts: Truth or Lies?

    Chris Watts: Truth or Lies?
    20 Oct 2026
    As I approached the car I gestured for the driver to join me on the pavement.In the UK, the police don’t normally speak to you through the window, it’s much safer to both be standing. That way you can see their hands, and they’re not able to suddenly speed away in the car.This was early in my career, when I was still in uniform.The man was on his own, and so was I.I hadn’t stopped him for anything he’d done wrong. It was just what we call a routine check.I can’t even remember now what brought him to my attention.So, here we were.I introduced myself, with the usual smile I always gave to people. It’s far better talking to a relaxed person than an agitated one.He smiled back, but there was something not quite right about him.He gave me his name, date of birth and address, all of which seemed to come naturally to him. But my gut was telling me there was something off.Do you have ID on you? A driver’s licence, credit card?NoNo problem, I’ll check the car.It wasn’t registered to anybody.No worries. If you give me the phone number of someone you know, I’ll get my control room to give them a call so they can confirm what you’re telling me.He couldn’t remember one (and this was before the days of mobile phones).The more I pressed, the more his smile faded.I was starting to get a bad feeling.I was on my own and looking at the size of him, I wasn’t sure how it would turn out if things went south, so I discreetly asked for back up.Then I brought out my trusted curve ball question.So, what star sign are you?He just looked at me.Then I saw his eyes flicker over my shoulder.I knew what was coming.He suddenly turned and was about to run, when I jumped on him, both of us going to the floor.I’m glad I wasn’t in the position of today’s police, with people filming arrests and plastering them all over the internet, because I’m not sure how dignified I’d have looked rolling around on the floor with him.Thankfully, my back-up didn’t take long to join me, and we soon had him detained.Why had he tried to get away?The name, date of birth and address he’d given me were all false.He was wanted for stabbing someone a few days earlier.I had no idea when I stopped him.But that’s not the point of this story.It was nothing special. In fact, I could’ve chosen any number of similar incidents.The point is, I was using something a mentor told me when I first joined.Don’t try to prove a person is lying, try and prove they’re telling the truth.Because that’s the best way to unmask a liar.And it was something I carried with me throughout my career.Monday 13th August 2018At around 1.40pm on this day, Officer Scott Coonrod was sent to 2825 Saratoga Trail in Frederick, Colorado, to carry out a welfare check.It was the home of Chris and Shanann Watts, and their two daughters, Bella aged 4 and Celeste aged 3.A friend of Shanann, Nickole Atkinson, had called the police out of concern.When the officer arrived, Nickole was there and told him she had dropped Shanann home at around 1.48am after a business trip to Arizona. Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant, had not been feeling well, had failed to attend a 10am doctor’s appointment and was not responding to calls or messages.Nickole had gone to the house with her adult son, Nicolas. They had seen Shanann’s Lexus in the garage, with the children’s car seats still inside.She had already contacted Chris Watts who had agreed to make his way home.When Watts arrived, he gave Officer Coonrod permission to enter and search for Shanann, Bella and Celeste. They were not there.Other items belonging to Shanann were found in the house. Her purse was there. Her wallet contained her driving licence, cash and bank cards.Her mobile phone was found between cushions of a sofa in the upstairs loft area. Watts gave police permission to examine it, and Officer Coonrod recorded that there had been no outgoing calls from the phone that morning.Nickole told him that it was extremely unusual for Shanann to leave without her phone because she used it for work and normally took it everywhere.Watts’ account was that Shanann had arrived home from her trip at around 2am. He had been asleep and woke at around 5am to get ready for work. He and Shanann then began talking about separating.According to Watts, the conversation was civil. They weren’t arguing, although both were emotional. He said they had been talking about separating for several weeks.He said that at around 5.27am he backed his work truck towards the garage to load tools. Shanann was still in bed at that point and had told him she was going to take the girls to a friend’s house. He said he hadn’t asked which friend.He then drove to an Anadarko oil-well site beyond Hudson, where he was alone for a period of time.Later, Detective Dave Baumhover asked Watts to walk him through the period when he had last seen Shanann. Watts gave a broadly similar account, but the detective recorded the separation conversation as...
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    29 min
  • Jack the Ripper Part 2: Martha Tabram

    Jack the Ripper Part 2: Martha Tabram
    13 Oct 2026
    Four months after the death of Emma Smith, another woman was murdered in Whitechapel.Her name was Martha Tabram.And although her murder would later become tangled up in the story of Jack the Ripper, I want to resist doing what history so often does with these women: reducing them to a name on a list.Before Martha became a murder victim, she’d already lived quite a life.MarthaMartha was born in Southwark on 10th May 1849, the youngest of five children.In 1869, she married Henry Samuel Tabram, a furniture warehouse foreman. They went on to have two sons: Frederick, born in 1871, and Charles the following year.But the marriage wasn’t a happy one.Martha drank heavily and, by 1875, Henry refused to continue living with her. For several years he continued to give her money, but their relationship deteriorated. Eventually, when Martha began living with another man, Henry stopped supporting her altogether.That other man was William Turner.Martha lived with Turner on and off for around nine years but, again, alcohol caused problems.William later told the inquest into Martha’s murder that whenever he gave her money, she spent it on drink. He said they would continually split up and get back together again until, around three weeks before Martha died, they broke up for the final time.By August 1888, Martha was living at a common lodging house, 19 George Street in Spitalfields.She tried to make money selling trinkets and other small items on the street. For women living as Martha was, there was often no single way of making an income. She needed money for drink, for food and, crucially, for somewhere to sleep. When selling stuff wasn’t enough, prostitution could be another way of finding the few pence needed to get through the night.Martha was five feet three inches tall, with dark hair and a dark complexion.She was 39 years old when she died.On Monday 6th August 1888, Martha went out into Whitechapel.It was Bank Holiday Monday.And it would be the last night of her life.The MurderMuch of what we know about Martha’s final hours comes from another woman, Mary Ann Connelly, who was more commonly known as Pearly Poll.According to Pearly Poll, she had known Martha for around four or five months, and the pair would sometimes go out together looking for men willing to pay them for sex.That evening, she said they met two soldiers.One was a corporal and the other was a private.From around ten o’clock until shortly before midnight, the four drank together in several pubs around Whitechapel. Their final stop was the White Swan.At around 11.45 p.m., they separated.Pearly Poll went off with the corporal, while Martha went with the younger soldier.That was the last time she was seen alive.It’s worth keeping one thing in mind here.Pearly Poll’s account became central to the police investigation, but it was never independently verified.Detectives later visited the pubs where she claimed the group had been drinking but couldn’t find anyone who remembered seeing them together. Martha’s sister-in-law did remember seeing Martha going into the White Swan, but said she appeared to be alone.That doesn’t mean Pearly Poll was lying. The soldiers may already have been inside.But it does mean we should be careful about treating her account as fact.What we do know is that sometime during the early hours of Tuesday morning, Martha ended up inside George Yard Buildings, a large block of cheap rented rooms and home to dozens of working-class families and lodgers.At around 1.40 a.m., Elizabeth Mahoney returned home to Geroge Yard Buildings with her husband. Shortly afterwards she went back downstairs to buy some food.She noticed nothing unusual.At around two o’clock, PC Thomas Barrett was nearby when he saw a soldier.Barrett asked what he was doing and he told him he was waiting for a friend who had gone off with a girl.That may be important.Or it may have had absolutely nothing to do with Martha.At around 3.30 a.m., another resident, Alfred Crow, came home.As he made his way upstairs, he saw somebody lying on the first-floor landing.It was dark.And in a building like George Yard, finding someone sleeping in a communal area wasn’t unusual, so Alfred assumed the person was homeless or drunk and carried on to his room.More than an hour passed.Then another resident, John Reeves, came down the stairs on his way to work.By then there was more light.And this time there was no mistaking what was there.A woman lay on her back on the landing.And underneath her was a large pool of blood.John went looking for a policeman and found PC Barrett, the same officer who had spoken to the soldier a few hours earlier.PC Barrett made his way to George Yard Buildings where he could see that the woman appeared dead.Her hands were clenched.Her clothes had been pushed up towards the middle of her body.Her lower body was exposed.Her legs were apart.The position gave Barrett the impression that sexual activity might recently have taken place.As ...
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    22 min
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