A Dark City
Delve into the dark heart of Glasgow, a city with history steeped in mystery and violence. A Dark City takes you behind the headlines to explore the city's most notorious murders - stories that shocked the nation, shattered communities and left scars that still linger. From cold blooded killers to infamous gangland slayings, we uncover the chilling details, the victims stories and the impact on Glasgow's streets.
Episodes
24 episodes
Hector Smith
A gang turns up at a Glasgow tenement and demands £10 a week for “UDA protection”. Hours later, Hector Smith is dead on his living room floor, shot at point-blank range after refusing to be threatened. We follow the chain of events that begins ...
A Glasgow Execution
Three shots at a red light can change a city’s criminal map. We walk through the night Ewan E J Johnston is executed in Glasgow’s Kinning Park while sitting in his Audi RS-4, then follow the investigation as it builds from street-level chaos in...
Michael Lyons
Glasgow doesn’t just have famous streets and hard weather, it has a gangland history that still echoes in courtrooms, cemeteries, and school gates. We follow one of the city’s most violent organised crime feuds, the battle between the Lyons fam...
Jimmy Boyle
A seven pound debt ends with a man cut down on a Glasgow tenement floor and a 23-year-old sent away for life. That young enforcer is Jimmy Boyle, raised in the Gorbals where poverty, razor gangs and loan shark terror shaped a version of surviva...
George Redmond
Nine shots crack through Glasgow city centre on a Monday night, and within seconds George Redmond is dying on the pavement outside the Waldorf Bar. The gunman is gone, the stolen Porsche Cayenne disappears towards the M8, and by the time police...
Glasgow’s Square Mile Of Murder
A city’s pride can hide a thousand secrets, and Glasgow’s Square Mile of Murder shows how easily elegance can coexist with danger. We step through Blythswood Square, Sandyford Place, Sauchiehall Street and West Princes Street to trace four case...
Joe Hanlon and Bobby Glover
A gunman waits near the Ponderosa, a city braces for a high-profile funeral, and by morning two men lie in a Ford Orion parked on the route. We pull the thread through Glasgow’s underworld to examine how power, fear, and reputation collide in t...
Frank McPhie
A single shot on a quiet Maryhill street shattered more than a man’s life—it redrew the contours of Glasgow’s underworld. We revisit the assassination of Frank “The Iceman” McPhee with a clear eye on who he was, why he was feared, and how a roo...
Eddie Lyons Jr and Ross Monaghan
A warm night on the Costa del Sol, a crowded beachfront bar, and two sharp cracks that changed everything. We open on the Fuengirola double murder that left Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jr dead in under a minute, then trace the fault lines bac...
Daniel's V Lyon's
Glasgow's streets have long echoed with the footsteps of gangland rivalries, but none have cast as long a shadow as the bloody war between the Daniel and Lyons families. What began in 2001 with the theft of cocaine valued between £20,000 and £5...
Susan Newell
Glasgow's shadowy past holds few stories as haunting as that of Susan Newell, the last woman ever executed in Scotland. When 13-year-old newspaper boy John Johnston was found murdered in June 1923, few could have predicted the shocking chain of...
The Sandyford Murder
A bloody footprint led to the gallows. A divided city fought for justice.The brutal murder of servant Jessie McPherson in July 1862 shocked Victorian Glasgow to its core. Her body, discovered in the wealthy Fleming household at Sandifor...
Eleni Pachou
Eleni Pachou, a young Greek woman who moved to Glasgow for a fresh start, was brutally murdered in DiMaggio's restaurant where she worked as a trainee manager. Her killer, Juan Carlos Suarez Crispin, a former colleague, stabbed her 17 times bef...
Arthur Thompson jr
The brutal murder of Arthur Thompson Jr in the summer of 1991 wasn't just another gangland killing—it was the moment Glasgow's criminal underworld erupted into unprecedented violence, forever changing the city's criminal landscape.Fat B...
Fred West
Discover the haunting Glasgow chapter of Fred West's life before he became Britain's most notorious serial killer. This gripping episode delves into West's formative years in Scotland during the early 1960s, revealing disturbing patterns of beh...
Karen Buckley
The brutal murder of Karen Buckley shattered Glasgow's sense of safety in April 2015. A vibrant 24-year-old nursing student with dreams of becoming an occupational therapist, Karen's life ended after a chance encounter with Alexander Pacteau ou...
Moira Jones
A talented professional with a zest for life vanishes after parking her car on a spring evening in Glasgow. When her body is discovered in Queen's Park the next morning, the community is plunged into fear and disbelief.Moira Jones was e...
Kevin 'Gerbil' Carroll
The brutal assassination of Kevin "Gerbil" Carroll would forever change Glasgow's criminal landscape. On a cold January day in 2010, two masked gunmen approached an Audi in an Asda car park and, in just 25 seconds, fired 13 bullets that ended t...
Peter Manuel
Few names strike fear into the hearts of Scots like Peter Manuel - the Beast of Birkenshaw. Born in New York but raised in Scotland, Manuel's transformation from bullied outsider to Scotland's first documented serial killer represents one of th...
The Ice Cream Wars
What if a city's beloved ice cream vans were at the heart of a deadly turf war? Journey with us to 1980s Glasgow, where the seemingly innocent world of ice cream sales was a front for a far more sinister operation. You'll hear from witnesses Br...
Kriss Donald
What if a single tragic event could expose the racial and societal tensions simmering beneath the surface of a city? Join us as we unravel the harrowing story of 15-year-old Kriss Donald, whose senseless murder in Glasgow in 2004 became a landm...