Tell Me The Crime
One tells the crime. One hears it for the first time. Tell Me The Crime is a weekly true crime podcast where real-time reactions meet careful storytelling and the psychology behind the case.
Tell Me The Crime
Episode 3: The Cardiff Three — A Confession That Shouldn’t Have Happened
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A brutal murder.
A confession that seemed to settle everything. A case the system considered closed.
But something didn’t sit right.
Years later, one piece of evidence forces a second look—
and raises a much darker question:
What if they got it completely wrong?
Right, I think it's time for us to join. We're not really sure because we have the headphones like plugged in and uh not on iPhone. I think you added something to the opening. We added something. Yeah, we added a little heartbeat kind of thing at the beginning. We're like, ah, could sound cool. I don't know. We'll see if it annoys people or if they love it. Um okay, so welcome back everyone to our third episode. And um, we actually did come up with a name for our podcast because we were just like, well, we should probably have like a name or something, not just, you know, two nerds in the podcast, which was a terrible name.
SPEAKER_02Did you mention that name last week?
SPEAKER_00No, I don't think so. I don't think we did, but um we are now calling the podcast uh Tell Me the Crime.
SPEAKER_02Tell me the crime, bro. Without bro.
SPEAKER_00Without bro, but but we will say bro quite a bit. So okay. Tell me the crime. Exactly. So tell me the crime. That's what you're supposed to say now, because I'm about to tell you the crime.
SPEAKER_02Okay, tell me the crime.
SPEAKER_00Tell me the crime. All right. So today's episode, episode three, is called The Cardiff Three, and it's a really famous case from the UK. So if you if if you're not, if you've never heard of it, it's um probably because you're North American and we're all self-absorbed and don't don't uh don't know anything else. Um hold on.
SPEAKER_02What's the title again? The Cardiff?
SPEAKER_00The Cardiff III. The Cardiff III. The Cardiff III. And it and it's based on the the three people who were wrongfully convicted. So No Yeah, exactly, right? So let's start with giving you sort of an overview of the opening here, okay? Sure.
SPEAKER_02I am ready.
SPEAKER_0050 stab wounds, okay? Valentine's Day, 1988. 20-year-old, yep. 1988. 1988. So it's a little bit old, but 50 stab wounds is what this victim had. Okay, that's a lot of stab wounds, right? Um, so it's a 20-year-old woman, she was found brutally murdered in um a flat or an apartment as us the North Americans and I guess Indonesians call it.
SPEAKER_02I don't know, I'll call it apartment. Yeah, I call it apartment.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly anyway. But you know, I kind of like the word flat. It's it's nice. Um so 20-year-old woman, she was found brutally murdered, and like I said, 50 stab wounds. Um, and she was living in this apartment above a betting shop in Cardiff, Wales. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00I see you looking confused because you're probably wondering what a bedding shop is. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because I wondered before you shop, like bet, she always.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, no, like T T.
SPEAKER_02Like pet.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Like you're playing like you're placing a bet on something. So I thought it was like, is it a casino or some sort of gambling room? Um, and it turns out it kind of like a gambling room. Um, it's uh, I guess people have TVs and you place bets on like horse races and things like that. And apparently it's still a thing. Yeah, apparently it's still a thing today, and uh it's pretty popular, and it especially was popular back in the 80s. So she lived above one of these shops, right? Um, so probably a pretty high traffic area. Um the the pr the police, you know, following this murder, they arrest a local man. Or sorry, they arrest local men, three of them. Uh actually five of them, but only three of them ended up being convicted, and they were sentenced to life in prison. Then 15 years later, DNA proves that the killer acted alone, and it wasn't any of those three whatsoever. Right? So that just gives you a little bit of context, sort of an overview of the case.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And this is the murder of Lynette White, and the confession that nearly buried the truth. So, part one, let's let's start with the setting here. Okay, so like I said, this happened in Cardiff in an area called Butte Town, and it's historically known as Tiger Bay.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Now, um, and I think it was named Tiger Bay because of something to do with um the area that they're living in and how diverse uh uh the area was, and how people were pretty prejudiced back then too. And um certain populations, especially diverse populations, were more seen as um lower class and dangerous, right? So it was it was um more of a stereotype than anything. It wasn't actually more violent or crime-ridden. Uh anyway, that by the 1980s, the area was economically deprived and still carried the Docklands reputation. And the reputation does actually matter here uh for when the pressure builds during this case. So, who was Lynette, right? Who was Lynette White? She was 20 years old, she had a young daughter, um, and she know.
SPEAKER_02Wait, okay. 20 years old and she had a young daughter. She has a young daughter. How old?
SPEAKER_00I don't know how old the daughter was, but she was young enough. She was probably, you know, three or four or something like that. Um but you know, you gotta remember, too, this is back in the 80s, and um you know, people now kind of stay single until like their 40s. It's not uncommon, at least in bigger scenes.
SPEAKER_02There's no age limit for now. Like people can make their own choices for what they want to do in life.
SPEAKER_00Oh, exactly, right? I mean, we didn't meet until I was 42 and you're 35, which is you know very recent. Um anyway. Oh, yikes. Okay. Oh, yikes. I'm gonna have to cut that out. Or maybe not. Whatever. People like real, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So she did have um an involvement with sex work, so she did do sex work. Okay, so she's 20, she's carrying, she's caring for a young daughter, she was probably trying to make the bills, she was involved in sex work. And it actually wasn't illegal in the UK at this time. Um, it was illegal to solicit, but it wasn't um to to be a sex worker. Okay, so she had a boyfriend, and this boyfriend's name was Stephen Miller.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And this is important because this same Stephen Miller is one of the three um who was actually convicted in the end. So um, and evidence later suggests that Lynette uh may have been financially supporting Stephen, including helping him fund his drug use. So Stephen was a simple man. And we'll get into him a little bit more later. Um, and I'm not implying that if you use drugs, you're a simple person. That's not what I was saying. He just had a lot of issues.
SPEAKER_02Um I was wondering how old um how old is how old Stephen was?
SPEAKER_00I don't know his age, um, but I would assume that he was probably around the same age as Lynette. So when she was killed, um, police didn't just see a victim, they saw a network of relationships, right, including Steven, their friends, and things like that. So, how did the police actually find her? Now, this is pretty critical. Um, they didn't respond to any screams, there were no neighbors reporting violence, and Lynette had been loaned keys to the James Street flat by a woman named Leanne Vilde. Now Lynette failed to return the keys and couldn't be reached, right? Uh-huh. So Vilday became a little bit concerned, you know, she wants her keys back. Um, so she contacted a taxi driver that she knew, and together they approached the police.
SPEAKER_02Wait, so who approached the police? The uh woman.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the the woman who lent the keys to Lynette. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And Lynette.
SPEAKER_00Lynette's the one that got the keys, right? She she's the one that she's the victim that was found murdered in her flat, and um Vilde is the one Leanne Vilde is the one that um lent her the keys to the her flat. So police um now were also looking for Lynette um for a completely unrelated reason. Uh she was wanted, and there was a warrant out for her arrest already because she had missed some sort of um, I guess, court matter for being a witness for something else completely unrelated. Um so officers went with Phil Day to the flat, and there was no answer, right? So they forced entry at around 9 17 p.m. on Valentine's Day, February 14th, 1988. And that's when they found her body. So, now the attack, like I said in the beginning, there were 50 stab wounds, right? The attack was pretty extreme, and you know, the dozens of stab wounds, the severe throat injury, um the signs of sexual assault, um, you know, were all pretty evidence of an extreme and violent sort of aggressive attack, right? Um and there was biological evidence, semen also that was recovered. And now that detail is gonna be uh a really important element later in this story.
SPEAKER_02Maybe it has something to do with her sexual work.
SPEAKER_00It could, right? And that's that's a good theory, right? And we'll see if that actually is the case or not. So the early leads, um uh early witnesses described that a distressed white male near the area around the time of the murder, disheveled, possibly injured. Um people said that he might have had a cut on his hand. Uh so police created sort of a composite and pursued that lead, right? They you know created one of those sketches. And um at least one similar-looking man was uh was detained initially, um, but he was quickly released after he had a pretty um pretty good alibi. So the investigation initially cast a wider net, but quickly that became pretty focused. And it became focused on those three, right? But let's let's talk a little bit first about sort of the theory that formed, right? Why they went after three people to begin with.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And like I said, it the one of the reasons they thought it might have been multiple people is that um it was so brutal and there were so many stab wounds that they thought for sure it must have been uh a group of people attacking this person, right? Because who the hell gets stabbed 50 times unless you know, I mean you hear of cases unless someone is, you know, in a in a fit of rage and attacking someone, or if it's um, you know, multiple people and they're just going at it. Um, but that's what they initially thought, right? So um forensics later did not support this, but that's initially what they thought. And so they initially arrested five local men, and three of them were eventually convicted, two of them were let go. Now the three were Stephen Miller, Yusuf Abul Abulay, and Tony Paris. Now, Stephen Miller, as I mentioned before, was Lynette's boyfriend. Yeah. The one that was financially reliant on her and using drugs. And using drugs, and um, you know, he was also uh he was also sort of described as as a little bit slow and um a little bit uh yeah um yeah, he he was a little bit slow. He had some issues cognitively.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00Um okay, so the let's talk about this part of um this part of the case is really fascinating, right? So one of the biggest reasons that the three of them went to jail is that there was a confession involved with one of the three of them. And that one person was Stephen Miller.
SPEAKER_02Why? What did he say?
SPEAKER_00Well, what did he say? So that's a great question, but let's just talk about the setting in terms of you know where he was and.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I want to know his alibi.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Like, why is he well, here's the thing is he initially denied everything, right? But he was interrogated repeatedly over several days. So um, and at the beginning, because he didn't do it, um, he initially denied involvement, and apparently he denied involvement hundreds of times. Okay. But eventually he confessed. And in his final statement, he claimed that he was present at the flat, that he participated in the attack, that Yusuf and Tony were also there. Yeah, exactly. The assault escalated to multiple men were involved, and multiple men were involved, and that um, you know, and and because of this statement and because of this confession, that really became the only evidence that the police had. Right? That became the backbone of their entire prosecution case. But problems emerged because his account did change across interviews. Now they must have had a pretty good legal team at the beginning because um that didn't seem to matter for the end, um, for the end for them because they ended up going to prison. But um details appeared throughout um these interviews while police were questioning them. Uh well he police are questioning uh Steven in particular. And some aspects did not align with the forensic evidence. Uh he was later described, and like I mentioned before, he was a little bit cognitively impaired. He was a little bit slow. Um he was described as vulnerable and highly suggestible too, right? So there are some people that are just more vulnerable to suggestibility, right? And um, you know, you think of something like hypnotism. Uh they the people that are more likely to get hypnotized are the ones that are that tend to be more suggestible, right?
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00Um, okay. So despite the biological evidence not matching any of the three men, the confession was massive and it carried enormous weight, right? It basically carried the entire case of the city.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I still don't get it why he made a confession as if he did not do that.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's that's that's exactly it, right? And and we're gonna get into that. We're gonna we're gonna talk about why would someone confess. And we'll talk about a couple of the psychological issues too. You know, and and one of the big reasons though is that he was in there for days and days and hours and hours and hours. And police have these techniques that they use that um can suggest to the victim or can suggest to the person that um you know they might have actually done it. Or they, you know, they pushed them to the point where they just get so tired that they just give in because they want to do that. So we'll talk yeah, and we'll talk about a little bit more of that. But in 1990, all three of those individuals, because of this confession, were sentenced to life in prison. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00Long time, right? And these are all innocent people. So let's, you know, let's talk about it. Why confess, right?
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00So what happened in the actual interrogation room matters because people hear, you know, he confessed, and they assume that's the end, right? The end of the story right there. But confession doesn't automatically mean truth. And there are three broad categories of false confession that psychologists often talk about, right? So the first is voluntary. Someone confesses without pressure, sometimes for attention or psychological reasons, right? And that's, you know, that happens once in a while. It's not, you know, not common that people voluntarily, you know, confess to a crime that they didn't do.
SPEAKER_02They don't do the crime.
SPEAKER_00But it happens, right? It does happen once in a while. Um, that's not what happened here, though. The second reason is coerced compliant um confession, right? And that's when someone confesses to escape stress, end questioning or avoid perceived consequences, or because the situation becomes psychologically unbearable, right? Think about the the room that the person's in. It's probably uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, they're staying awake for hours and hours and days on end, and you know, they're they're not exactly in a very comfortable environment. And so a lot of people might try to escape. They'll say, okay, I just I just want to get out of here, right? They just can't handle the stress anymore. So that's coerced compliant. And then the third is coerced internalized. Now, this is the most disturbing one, right? Because that's when a vulnerable suspect begins to doubt their own memory and they partially believe the narrative being suggested, right? Which is scary, right? Like to think that you didn't do something, but you can remember that you did all of a sudden.
SPEAKER_02I mean, even if it's not in a crime scene, like in day-to-day life, when people say something about us, let's say, yeah, we will start to believe what we hear frequently. Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_00So I don't know, maybe that's exactly exactly, and that and that's the way that things work in terms of associations and neural networks in the brain, right? So you have these connections that keep getting activated over and over and over. And the more times those are activated, the more times they pair with other events and other truths about yourself, and you start to mix up the truths from the false memories and it becomes ingrained. Yep. Yeah. So you start to believe it and you start to you start to lose the source of that memory, right? You'll you'll know that that memory's there, but you won't be able to sometimes dissociate between what's real and what's not because of how strong that memory has become. So, um, so that's that's a really, you know, that's a really disturbing one. But it's very real. So when a vulnerable person suggests uh suspect, sorry, vulnerable suspect begins to doubt their own memory and partially believe the narrative being suggested, that's coerce internalized. So just the definition again. Um now, like we mentioned, Stephen Miller was described as vulnerable and highly suggestible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And he was interrogated multiple times over multiple sessions, and he denied it several times before he actually confessed. Now, when you look at how modern interrogation psychology works, you can see how this can unfold, right? So interrogation often follows a structured model. First, you isolate the subject or the suspect, right? Second, you assert certainty of guilt, right? You'll say, We know you did it. You absolutely did it. And they they keep saying that. They speak as if you know he's done it, right? Yeah, yeah. It's a matter of fact rather than oh, you know, you're suspected of this or that. You know, it's we know you did this, so and it goes back to those suggestibility memories, right? Um, so third, you minimize the moral severity of the act. So statements like, We know you were there, um, this isn't the worst thing anyone's done. Other people were involved, you don't want to be the only one t taking the blame. So they try to downplay some of the things so that they'll feel more comfortable opening up, make it make it sort of a lesser, you know, evil in a sense. So over hours and sometimes days, this creates pressure, add sleep deprivation, add confusion, add authority, and the suspect's desire to end the situation. A confession can become the path of least resistance, right? We talked about that. Now it is. Exactly, right? I mean, long term, it will not because it will not, but how many people do you know, though, that you know, would choose a fast short-term outcome over something that you have to wait for, right? Yeah. It's a classic, like, you know, um kid with the marshmallow in front of them, right? The experiment where you you put it in front of them, you say, well, if you wait for two minutes, we'll give you two marshmallows. But a lot of kids and a lot of adults act the same way, right? They they're, you know, more likely to spend money right away rather than wait and double it, you know, over two years.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's understandable. Yeah. But again, I considering the long term consequence, you know.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. I know, but but when you when you're messing with people psychologically they haven't seen it.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, you're right, that's true.
SPEAKER_00It's basically a f that form of abuse, right? You're you're you're ensuring that they can't make consensual decisions. Right. Um and so, you know, that's that's the problem. So um, you know, it's it's um it's always, you know, it's often the case too that in these situations investigators already have a theory. And in this case, they thought that there were multiple attackers. So the questioning unconsciously sometimes steers the suspect toward details that fit that theory. So if a suspect guesses wrong, they're corrected. If they guess right, they're reinforced for their theory, right? So, you know, if if they're just saying something, in other words, right, to appease the interrogator, right? Like just say something. The interrogator, if he gets it right or in line with his theory, he'll say, Well, yeah, okay, that's great. Now tell us more about that. That just reinforces that that's something that happened and the other thing didn't happen, right? Um, so over time the narrative becomes more detailed, and those details may not originate from the suspect. They might be from the interrogation, but that's where things get messy, right? And once a confession actually exists, then you have confirmation bias taking over, right? You're you're trying to uh you're you're looking at everything and paying attention to the details that confirm your theory, and you're ignoring or um uh just not paying attention to the other details that uh don't confirm your theory. Right? So you have this huge confirmation bias. Um so forensic ins inconsistencies can get rationalized, uh, contradictions get minimized, and that's how the case becomes confession-driven instead of evidence-driven, right?
SPEAKER_02Wow, that's so dangerous.
SPEAKER_00Isn't it?
SPEAKER_02It's cra it's scary because people's lives, you know.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And and you know, these these like memory errors and uh issues happen a lot with with people in general in day-to-day life, right? Our memories are reconstructive, they're not like a video camera, they're not like um snapshots like a picture. Our memories, you know, are reconstructive, meaning they are are formed in pieces. We take bits of information that come together and they're stored as pieces of information. So we have to reconstruct that in order to bring it to mind again, right? And sometimes little pieces of information get pulled in from the wrong place, and so you can create a false memory. Okay, so um, you know, this um these false confessions are are are really not rare anomalies. They um they're often associated with youth, um, with cognitive limitations, with long interrogations, suggestive questioning, and high pressure environments. Now, every one of those risk factors was present in this case, right? We talked about that. And that's why the Court of Appeal ultimately ruled the convictions unsafe. Or basically, they said um, you know, the the the convictions are were based on these confessions that had way too many variables that were just not um not good enough conditions to elicit a real confection uh confession. Confession, yeah. So um, you know, they they they the Court of Appeal ruled them unsafe, and it wasn't because the murder wasn't real or because the crime wasn't brutal, but because the mechanism used to prove that guilt just really couldn't be trusted. Right?
SPEAKER_0215 years?
SPEAKER_00How long ago was this?
SPEAKER_02No, uh like the first time um the guy confessed, and then three innocent men, including Stephen Miller.
SPEAKER_00Stephen Miller was the one who confessed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Like Stephen Miller was the one who confessed, and the other two guys were sent to prison with him.
SPEAKER_00Exactly, yep. But then some years later, yeah, they can't they, you know, the lawyers and people, you know, kept pushing and pushing to get this case appealed um because of all the issues, and people saw how you know how corrupt some of these these issues were, and it it became a really big issue at the time, um, showing that you know sometimes the police force can't be trusted because they were doing some pretty shady things at the time. So um anyway, so so when the justice system relies on more than I guess what someone says under pressure than on what physical evidence shows, mistakes are are pretty possible, right? They're very possible to happen. Um and in this case, the physical evidence was um quietly waiting. It just couldn't speak yet, right? And that's where um we'll come up to the DNA evidence later.
SPEAKER_02Wait, the time when she was killed, uh they did not do the DNA test DNA test right away.
SPEAKER_00No, so this was in 1988, right? And the first time, I think, in the UK that anyone used DNA in any sort of trial, it was in 1987. I believe that's true. So it was a very new technology, it was very like it wasn't something that people did, but they nonetheless at that time had started collecting samples, including the semen, right? That would later become critical evidence exonerating these people, right? And and um ultimately leading to a conviction. Okay, so um let's talk about the appeal. So the convictions just didn't sit comfortably, and there were lots of concerns on the reliability of Miller's confession in particular, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The vulnerability of Miller, right, of that suspect. Um, inconsistencies between the confession and the crime scene. Some of the things, some of the details just didn't line up. So the things that he said happened couldn't have possibly happened based on what the crime scene showed. Um, and disclosure issues uh regarding evidence handling, right? So there was there was some evidence that things might have been mishandled by the police. Um so in 1992, the Court of Appeal ruled the convictions unsafe and got rid of them, right? The men were released and after four years in prison. Yes, after four years in prison, which is a long time. Yeah, you know, like that will ruin your life. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I was wondering about the other two guys that were sent to prison with Mueller, too.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Because the confession came from Mueller, but what about the other two people? You think police should have different data. Well, here's the thing, right?
SPEAKER_00There's there's like confirmation bias happening, and they already have this theory that multiple men were involved. They, you know, they they want people often hear what they want to hear, right? So they they pushed this narrative on Stephen Miller, who was the most likely to give a false confession because he was, you know, cognitively compromised, and um he was very suggestible. And so when he said something, right, like I said, that was in line with their theory, they sort of praised him for it and said, Okay, tell me more about that, and got more. And then um, you know, yeah, the other guys denied it completely because they weren't involved.
SPEAKER_02Right, but the information that Miller shared with the police, the other two guys didn't listen to them right away, like directly from him.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02So I don't understand how the mismatch in the data was not really uh you know, seen and taken seriously right away.
SPEAKER_00I I don't know either. But I I mean this yeah, this was this was yeah, this is one of the reasons why this case was so big, right? It was it was a huge issue. Um and it kind of highlighted that things really needed to be handled better in the um in the court system and how data were handled amongst the police, investigators, etc. So it got a lot of media attention at the time. Okay, so but this means that the murder went unsolved again, right? Because now the three guys are let go. Um they're you know, they're exonerated. Um, but you know, now they gotta figure out who actually did this, right? And so um this is when DNA started coming coming in pretty strong, right? The biological evidence had been actually preserved, right? So that semen from the scene containing critical DNA um was usable and it was it was ready to be tested, and now things were coming more into focus with DNA testing and whatnot. So it was pretty clear though, right away, and one of the first things people did was okay, well, was it any of the CARDF three, right? Was it any of these three guys? And clearly was not, right? So that was that was the biggest evidence, just saying, here, here's you know, it's not that just that you guys mishandled the case, they didn't just get off on some sort of technicality, it's that they weren't the the ones that were involved based on the DNA evidence. None of their DNA.
SPEAKER_02Did they get anything though from the government? I mean, they they spent four years of their lives in reason for exactly.
SPEAKER_00And I was thinking the exact same thing too. So I had to look that up because um when I was doing my initial research on this, I didn't see anything about that, and I was like, I have to find out because that's yeah, like but yeah, they apparently got um a few million pounds. Um that was the you know, the three of them, so I don't know how much they got individually exactly. Different reports sort of say different things, but um apparently millions, uh, which is I mean, they deserve it, right?
SPEAKER_02I mean that's yeah, and your whole life is turning up. Their names are dragged through the mud.
SPEAKER_00Like how are you gonna especially you know when when you become uh a felon, right? It is so difficult to get a job after that, right? Because you have to put that on all your resumes now.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh. Well, they should get that. Yeah. I'm sure they probably got it, right?
SPEAKER_00Got what?
SPEAKER_02Um maybe like a letter saying that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you mean the having something like that? Yeah, that wasn't, I don't think no, they wouldn't have to say that on the record for sure. Because that would it's overturned, right?
SPEAKER_02It's um cleared up.
SPEAKER_00It's all cleared. Their records were were expunged, I'm sure. Um, okay, so the profile was entered into the national database, the the DNA evidence, the semen, and in 2002, it came up with a match.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So the match was Jeffrey Gayfor. Okay, so Gayfor had been arrested for a minor and completely unrelated offense that just so happened to require DNA submission. He had even been briefly interviewed during the original investigation, but that was dismissed. So they didn't really pay much attention to him. So it just goes to show you sometimes when people are so focused on their theory that they they're they're they have that type of thing.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's what they believe it's true.
SPEAKER_00And they don't pay attention to anyone else, even though it could be just as equally plausible, if not more, that that person was involved, and they sort of just maybe don't do their due diligence. I'm not saying they didn't, I'm just saying that that can happen, right? And it does happen. Um so in 2003, um, confronted with the DNA evidence, he pled guilty, right? Because I mean, he was placed at the scene, um, his DNA was all over the scene. Um so there was really nothing he could do to get out of it. Uh he stated also that he acted alone. And that yeah, exactly. And that's brutal. No connection at all to the other men. So he had zero connection to them. And it wasn't multiple people. Um so you know, just because it was a violent murder and had tons of stab wounds, you know, that initial assumption was that oh, it must have been multiple people. No, it was just a very angry, angry dude. Um so So what was his motive? So that's the crazy thing, is the motive is really not big at all. It's it's a vi it's very like holy shit, like that really happens. I'll get to that in a second, but I'll I'll tell you about it. Um well actually why don't we just talk about it right now? So um the the the reason that it escalated to the point of him stabbing this woman fifty times is all over a dispute of approximately 30 pounds. So thirty British pounds during uh an encounter with with the victim with uh he was trying to get a prostitute for the night.
SPEAKER_01Or a s a sex worker.
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm using the the term prostitute here because that's what they have in the notes. But yeah, um, yeah. He he was trying to get a sex worker and um and that, you know, he he was he was upset that she was trying to charge him an extra thirty dollars or something like that, and and it got him that angry that he yeah, he murdered her. Yeah. So it it's it's so ridiculous that there's um and there's no confirmed evidence that that he even ever knew her before this time. He was just out there looking for someone and it was a transactional um issue that he got pissed off at. And yeah. Um so from that he did end up getting a life sentence, right? So those guys were released, they got their money, and he got a life sentence. So that was that was pretty nice.
SPEAKER_02Um what about like the uh family side of uh the uh the murdered?
SPEAKER_00Oh right, yeah. So so so that is um that's an important question, right? So what you know w if you're if my family, if one of my family members, I would certainly be looking for some sort of con uh compensation, right? Because that's that's pretty crazy. Um I think they did go after the police, uh-huh, right? And the police did um, you know, go to trial over a lot of this, right? Because uh, you know, the family and and others were really pissed off about this whole situation. So um in 2011, eight former South Wales police officers were charged with conspiracy, yeah, were charged with conspira conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Now, the allegation was that they manipulated interview records and mishandled evidence. So there was evidence of um you know of of data tampering and and messing with the interview records.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So this became one of the largest police uh scandals in UK history. Um but unfortunately the case collapsed due to prosecution disclosure failures, and large volumes of documentation were simply not properly handled or disclosed, and because of that technical issue, the officers were acquitted. They faced no punishment. Oh so that's really that's crazy, right?
SPEAKER_02Like you know they're not see any connection of why they were doing that. Oh, why they were all we have the theory. Maybe they're doing that because they're trying to save this man who was the uh true killer, right? Then that would be something. But the man, I think the policemen were not doing it for him.
SPEAKER_00It's just no, they just wanted to get a yeah, they just wanted to close the case, right? There, you know, there is a lot of pressure on on police officers though, and and and the police stations to close cases though, right? They want, you know, the the public is like, why haven't you found them yet? And you know, and and I do feel for them in that in that sense, but they do have a high pressure job. Um, but it doesn't excuse taking shortcuts, right? Um, you know, I'd rather they get the job done right and get it done properly and make sure you have the right person because these are people's lives you're dealing with. You you can't like appease the public, you know, go you know, you can't prefer to appease the public rather than just go for the truth, right? Like, I mean that's that that doesn't make sense. But um unfortunately, yeah, there were no consequences for them. But the the the guys that went to prison though definitely got some nice compensation out of it at the very daughter? Is that any story about the uh the daughter Oh right, what happened to the daughter? Ooh, um uh the daughter of the victim of Lynette. Um I don't know what Lynette's daughter, what happened to her, but she was really young at the time, right? So I don't even know if if she you know remembers much, you know, where she was at the time. But I mean she was, you know, her her mom, Lynette, was out um by the docks, right? And and and that's where apparently um the perp found her, right? So so so I think that she probably had someone babysitting her daughter at the time. Yeah, yeah. At least that's what that's what I'm I'm suspecting, right? Um but anyway, uh so the police got away, the people got some compensation that went to prison, but I mean again, that that's it kind of ruins your life. You're gonna be pretty jaded after that, right? Um okay, so you know, this this case overall just tells you sort of a little bit about how tunnel vision forms, how confessions can override contradictory forensic evidence, and how vulnerable suspects are really at risk, right? Like is the case here.
SPEAKER_02Interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and how, you know, preserved evidence, yeah, even though sometimes you you think, oh, well, maybe this is not important, right? That's why, you know, they they often preserve everything in the form that they can. You try to keep it in its original format as much as possible. And in this case, the semen became critical DNA evidence to um correct an injustice that was done earlier, right?
SPEAKER_02I was actually wondering how they are they're they start they started matching the DNA.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because in the uh DNA banks, let's say, there's a lot of data in there, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So how did they do that and find the match of Well that's that's the thing, right?
SPEAKER_00Is is that the the DNA simply matched someone who was already in the system.
SPEAKER_02Oh right.
SPEAKER_00Right? Because he was he had gone in for something minor, like nothing crazy, but um, you know, it was it was just like something very minor, and he had to give DNA because at the time DNA was becoming more of a thing. So yeah, so that was uh that was the case, yeah. So um yeah. Tell me the crime, the card of three. Yeah, I know, right?
SPEAKER_02We also get the psychological points of view from the interrogation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, I yeah, I I tried to add a little bit in there because I was like, well, last time we did like no last the first two episodes we had zero like research on it, because it was just you know, hey, can we put out a couple of episodes to see if people hate us or you know care to listen to it?
SPEAKER_02No, but I think that's a very interesting um discussion on that part because if we look at the perspectives, maybe the cops think that that's my job and that's how I do the interrogation, right? But um the uh people who got the interrogation, they have different psychological stakes and uh they I don't know, as you said, some people could handle the pressure very well, but some others. So just two different perspectives from the cop side and I don't know what you call it. N not really the suspects, but yeah, right the interrogated people.
SPEAKER_00Well, there's just yeah, they're they're suspects. Yeah, you can call them suspects. They're not they didn't get convicted of anything, right?
SPEAKER_01But yeah.
SPEAKER_00Anyway. Yeah, well, um that's my story. So next uh next week you're gonna have to uh you're gonna have to come bring your big in, you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh okay. The fine as well. Job this time. It was pretty terrible.
SPEAKER_00But um, but anyway, yeah, uh, so we also decided, right, that we're gonna start releasing things regularly on a on a specific date. So we're gonna do it on Fridays. So every Friday, tune in uh for a new episode of Tell Me the Crime.
SPEAKER_02Tell Me the Crime.
SPEAKER_00Tell me the Crime. Let's see if that sticks. All right. Thank you, everyone. See you next week.