On a spring night in 1987, private investigator Daniel Morgan was murdered in the car park of a South London pub. What followed wasn’t just a homicide investigation, it became a decades-long saga involving five police inquiries, collapsed trials, allegations of corruption, and one of the most damning independent reports ever published about the Metropolitan Police .

As detectives chased suspects, arrested associates, and built cases that repeatedly fell apart, something more troubling began to emerge. The story widened beyond one violent crime into uncomfortable questions about police integrity, tabloid journalism, and institutional self-protection .

This episode isn’t just about what happened in a pub car park, it’s about what happens when institutions close ranks. It’s gripping, frustrating, and at moments so chaotic it almost defies belief. Almost.

• Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report (2021)

• The Guardian – “Daniel Morgan murder: inquiry brands Met police ‘institutionally corrupt’”

• The Guardian – “Daniel Morgan: a timeline of key events”

• The Guardian – “Jonathan Rees: private investigator who ran empire of tabloid corruption”

• The Guardian – “Murder trial collapse exposes News of the World links to police corruption”

• The Guardian – “Daniel Morgan: Met to reportedly pay family £2m over ‘corrupt’ investigation”

• The Independent – “Daniel Morgan murder: What happened in the case of the murdered private detective?”

Sources

We head to Melbourne for one of Australia’s strangest and most disturbing true crime cases - the murder of millionaire Peter Shellard.

Shellard was wealthy, eccentric, litigious, and openly antagonistic toward almost everyone around him. He lived in a sprawling heritage mansion, feuded endlessly with neighbours, and seemed to enjoy pushing boundaries just to watch things burn - sometimes literally.

But his death wasn’t the result of one of his many vendettas.

It came from much closer to home.

Sources

• ABC News (2007) – Partner found guilty of murdering millionaire

• ABC News (2007) – 18 years jail for car dealer murder

• ABC News (2010) – Court overturns murder conviction

• Brisbane Times (2007) – De facto wife of millionaire jailed for his murder

• NZ Herald / News.com.au (2017) – Greed, vengeance and death in Australian millionaire’s mansion

• 9Honey / Nine News (2017) – The bondage-loving millionaire murdered for his fortune

• Deadly Women (2011), Season 5, Episode: “Love to Death”

• Casefile Podcast

• https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jun/21/spite-buildings-when-human-grudges-get-architectural-in-pictures

Dee takes Isla on a truly bonkers journey into wartime espionage, where the British government decided the best way to win a major strategic battle was to weaponise a dead body - with the enthusiastic help of history’s most famous forensic pathologist.

Yes, this episode is about Operation Mincemeat - the WWII intelligence plot so unhinged it involved:

• A corpse with a fake life

• Love letters, overdraft notices, and an engagement ring receipt

• A submarine

• A mildly disappointed dad

• And Bernard Spilsbury, applying forensic science not to solve a crime… but to commit the perfect lie

If you’ve listened to the podcast before, you already know Spilsbury - Dr Crippen, Brides in the Bath, forensic icon, and occasional menace.

Here, Spilsbury was asked one key question:

“Bernard, could we make a poisoned corpse look like it drowned… convincingly enough to fool the Nazis?”

Reader, he said yes.

He used forensic science, not to catch a killer, but to gaslight an entire enemy state.

Sources

• Hektoen International – “Forensic Medicine and Sir Bernard Spilsbury”

• NPR: Operation Mincemeat film review The National Archives

• Imperial War Museums

• MI5

• Commonwealth War Graves Commission

• BBC History

• History Today

• Smithsonian Magazine