Morbid - Episode 584: Peter Manuel: The Beast of Birkenshaw (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

When Peter Smart failed to show up for work on the morning of January 6, 1958, officers in Lanarkshire, Scotland were dispatched to Smart’s home to conduct a well-being check. When no one came to the door, the officers forced their way inside, where they found Smart, his wife, and their eleven-year-old son all dead from gunshot wounds to the head.  A week later, Peter Manuel was arrested and charged with the murders of the Smart family, but in time the police in Lanarkshire would learn that was only one of Manuel’s horrific crimes.Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!ReferencesBirmingham Post and Gazette. 1958. "3 shot dead: no gun found." Birmingham Post and Gazette, January 7: 1.Coventry Evening Telegraph. 1956. "Three dead in bungalow beds." Coventry Evening Telegraph, September 17: 1.Daily Record. 1956. "Fifth tee murder." Daily Record, January 5: 1.—. 1956. "Fifth tee murder: dramatic appeal." Daily Record, January 6: 1.—. 1957. "Teenager vanishes." Daily Record, December 30: 1.—. 1958. "Two sensations as trial opens." Daily Record, May 13: 7.Daily Telegraph. 1958. "1958." Daily Telegraph, May 15: 15.Evening Sentinel. 1956. "Bloodstains found on bed sheets." Evening Sentinel, September 17: 1.—. 1957. "Tjhick snow hampers moors hunt." Evening Sentinel, December 11: 1.Hull Daily Mail. 1957. "Police seek fresh clues in murder mystery." Hull Daily Mail, December 10: 5.Lundy, Iain. 2007. "Psychopath who brought terror to the west." Evening Times, December 27.MacLeod, Hector. 2009. Peter Manuel, Serial Killer. Edinburgh, Scotland: Mainstream Books.Nottingham Evening News. 1956. "Bungalow riddle: two women and girl dead in bed." Nottingham Evening News, September 17: 4.Silvester, Norman. 2022. The story of Scotland's first known serial killer Peter Manuel. October 10. Accessed June 9, 2024. https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/23034356.story-scotlands-first-known-serial-killer-peter-manuel/.The Times. 1958. "Statement on 8 murders." The Times, May 22: 5.Western Mail. 1958. "Watt denies shooting his wife." Western Mail, May 16: 5.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hey, Weirdos. I'm Alina. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. I don't know. It's morning. Morbid in the morning. I'm so tired. I stayed up all night last night. Elena and Deb Deb came over and we were watching that Sherry Papini documentary.

I know it was a good one. It was good. And then you guys left before the last episode finished and I said, fuck this, I'm finishing it. So I finished that. And then I was exhausted. So, or no, then I wasn't exhausted. I was still awake. So I watched Life After a Walk Up. You really went for it. I had a night watching just- You partied last night. Some crazy ass television. You would think that I'd have

crazy dreams, but I don't remember any of them. But I didn't go to bed until like 2.30 and then I had to wake up so early. And now I'm just like, why did I do that? You know, I have been like, so I haven't been watching a lot of true crime. Yeah. Really couple of years to be honest. Yeah. I kind of like, I leave it here and it's, I got burnt out from it a little bit. So in order to not be burnt out for it, for my job, I don't consume it outside of my job. And so, which has been fine and kind of great because I'm not as burnt out. But then last night I was like, Oh, I do want to watch this one. It's an interesting case.

And watching that one, I was like, Oh, yeah. Like these are the kinds of ones that are very interesting. The ones like where I think though, maybe I was just like too burnt out on like murders and death. You know what I mean? Like, cause I was also working in like the death industry. So it was just a lot, but things like this, which is also the Sherri Papini case is also tragic on a totally different level. It's, but it's more mind boggling and just like, what the fuck? It's dorks added. It is dorks added.

It is given sinister vibe. Holy shit. And just the way like she fooled fooled everyone in the length she went. She was just posted up at her ex's house the entire time, just running into hockey shit. Banked hockey pucks off of her. What the fuck? And literally running into hockey sticks. And the way that they were, one of the ways that they were able to catch

that she had made the entire thing up, you know how she was literally branded? She had a Pinterest board with all these wood-burning tools on it. Shut the fuck up. Because I didn't get to watch the last episode. You have to watch the last episode because it's how they started kind of like unraveling everything and obviously like the DNA was like the biggest thing.

But then they found like these little things just because like they were like we need to build this case as much as we can. Yeah. And that I was like you just say you pinned those like you just pinned how to do this knowing you you were going to brand yourself? Like what? And then just like, you're just like, you decided to bring your racism into it as well? Like what the fuck? That thing blew my goddamn mind. Well, because there's like, obviously there's the racism in the fact that she was like, oh, it was two Hispanic women.

Yeah. Like, and there were never two Hispanic women ever. Except for her ex. Like Hispanic people within that, within that area were like what they faced after she came out and said that is, I mean, and she didn't give a shit. Oh, no, it wasn't her problem. Because then they exposed her in this documentary for a whole bunch of other racist views. I was like, girl, you're a trash. You mean, oh, truly, I feel bad for the kids. I was like, girl, you're a trash human. Nicole Sattler Truly. I feel bad for the kids.

Nicole Sattler I do too. It seems like the dad is pretty chill and he has full custody of them. Nicole Sattler And I feel bad for the whole- Nicole Sattler Yeah. I mean, anybody that was involved in this and believed that it was true and dealt with the grief that they felt for those three weeks thinking she was gone. Nicole Sattler Like her sister, her family, everybody. Yeah, her best friend.

She also just looked at him one day, and she was, like, mad at him about, like, something. And she looked at him and she goes, I have to deal with the fact that you never found me. And, like, put it on... What the fuck? Basically, I think a lot of what she did was like, she sat there and watched as the nation searched for her and like, watched her loved ones on film, like crying, sobbing,

pleading with her fake ass kidnappers. Yeah, knowing her kids have no idea where their mom is and it's traumatizing them daily. And it was literally the holiday season. Yeah, she doesn't give a shit. It was like, oh, for Thanksgiving. I was like, what the fuck? It's about her. But yeah, and then she just like,

she literally sat there and watched the entire thing unfold. And then when she decided to go back, she, he said she brought it up every single day. And then one day she got pissed at him and said that. And he was like, I did the best I could. And also you weren't willing to be found. Yeah. Also you weren't actually missing. Yeah. Like it wasn't like this was a big exciting game of hide and seek and I lost.

It's like, no. It's so Gone Girl though. Yeah. And it's like- It's so Gone Girl. And it's also just the resources that were expended upon this case. And it's like people who were in trouble and needed help, but resources were being put to this case, even if it was just like a minute of a delay because of what was going on. Still a delay.

The money, these people's time, these people's money, time, money, time, emotions, like being away. All of that. All the investigators, all the paramedics, all the people in the helicopters, spending time away from their families. Because this asshole decided to hole up at her ex-boyfriend's house and make up a racist story. Yeah, wild. To get attention. And not only that, like that in and of itself is all insane.

Like in the fact that that happened is so, I'm like, how do you do that? And just like not think about everybody that you're affecting. Then she, there was like $30,000, I think it was, raised for her for like, like through like victim advocacy work and like that kind of thing. Just good people. Yeah, just like people raising money to help her with like hospital advocacy work and like that kind of thing. Just good people.

Yeah, just like people raising money to help her with like hospital bills and stuff like that. She like stole $30,000 from everybody. It doesn't give a shit. It's like, what the fuck? And then she also, the girl that went missing, like I think it was like a few years before Sherry like staged her own abduction, Tara Smith.

They like went to high school at the same time and people were like drawing a lot of parallels because they're like both blonde women. They look a lot alike. That's weird. Yeah. She went to Tara's family and sat down with them and like talk to them about like everything that she had quote unquote gone through. That's the deepest kind of psychopath I've ever heard. Like sat there in front of a girl who actually went missing and was never found. Her family. Her family. Claiming that you-

You know what the experience is like. You know what she's experiencing or that she did experience. And like her husband actually thought that he could like somewhat relate to these people because like he had gone through, he had thought he had gone through a similar experience and very much like kind of did in a way. Yeah. And he was in an interview on the documentary and he was like, I can't believe she knew.

And put him in that position. And literally put me in this position to go stand in, like we were in those people's homes. Yeah, like I feel like an idiot now. Yeah, fucking wild, you guys. It's the perfect wife on Hulu. These poor kids too. And this isn't even an ad.

It's such a good documentary. No, I know. It's not even an ad. We just happened to watch it. It's like a three-part, three-episode documentary. It was so, so, just so fucking chilling, so bleak, mind-boggling. And I feel bad for those kids because those kids are going to grow up knowing that their mom is Sherry motherfucking Papini.

And it's like, that sucks because they didn't ask for that. They didn't ask for you to be a blazing asshole. They went through things of their own that you should definitely watch the documentary. It's awful. Allegedly. But definitely watch the documentary because it is. It was a wild one. It was a wild one.

I still watch so many of them. It was a wild one to jump into after a while. I highly recommend it. Now that we've gotten through that, we're going to continue with part two of Peter Manuel. True Crime All the Time, Except Outside of This Room. Oh, True Crime all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's a good one. Yeah. I was going to say that is the name of it. Correct. I was like, wait a second. I know that name. I used to actually love

that. I haven't listened to it in a long time. Cause again, I, I've like pulled away from like consuming true crime outside of here. Um, it's not because they're not good. It's just because of my own brain. Yeah. But I used to listen to them all the time. They were delightful. All the time. All the time. True crime. So yeah.

So when we last left you, Peter is another blazing asshole. And he's been, I mean, he's been labeled an aggressive psychopath that could never be, you know, helped and can never be helped. There is no chance for recovery. Several psychiatrists have said this. What do you do in that situation? Cause there's no, like you can't just like hold people because what do you do? You let them out of prison. And then this all happens. You let them out of prison in October of 1952.

I don't wanna. Yeah. It's not great what happens after he comes out of prison either. So we're now to, so it's easy to understand why so many members of law enforcement immediately suspected Peter Manuel in the murders of Anne Neelans and the Watt family. We talked about it in part one, he was top of their heads.

When you talk about his previous crimes, he was escalating. He's also talking about it all the time and knowing all these key details. Both of those crimes had a lot of the same like signature, like hallmark things from his previous crimes leading up to them, like dragging Anne Nealance into the wooded area. He did that to that woman, the wife of the man that he was coming, the staff member that he was coming to her or whatever. He dragged her into a wooded area, but he stopped before he did anything there because

he was an escalator yet. And then the trashing of the Watts home and the trashing of the home nearby the Watts, the Watt house, he had done that already. Like throwing the food everywhere, putting the cigarettes out. Like it all leads, it lines up, you can't deny it. Now, but unfortunately, Peter at this point had evolved into, for lack of a better word, a

better and smarter criminal at this point. Because like I said before, he was just not, he was a dumbass before. So he left a ton of evidence. He would always get caught. He had evolved, unfortunately, and he had evolved into a more cunning criminal. And so detectives, you know, before detectives were able to build really strong cases against him really quick. Right.

But now it's becoming harder and harder. They can't get anything on him. And his dad keeps giving him an alibi. Yes. After his release from Barlinnie, Manuel wasted no time getting back to his criminal ways and he was going to go bigger than ever. And he set into motion a horrifying series of events that fortunately in the end would eventually lead to his downfall, but it's fucking terrible that all of this had to happen for it to happen because it should

have happened a long time ago. Now on the morning of December 9th, police responded to a call and this was a strange call. It was a call about an abandoned taxi out in the Moors and Newcastle on Tyne. I looked it up. I think that's how you say it. Newcastle on Tyne. Okay. So abandoned taxi on the Moors. Random. So they're like, it's probably not good. So when they come to the area, they find that the driver's door was wide open. So they go and look and they see that there is a considerable amount of blood in this taxi. Oh no. And it wasn't until hours later that they finally discovered that the driver, they discovered the driver, 36 year old Sydney Dunn, who was a man laying face down about 150 yards away in a big bunch of heather, like this big bush. And they found that his throat had been cut and he had been shot in the head.

Oh my God. So it was very violent, very violent. Now, normally investigators would say, okay, this is fucking terrible and very violent, but it looks like it's a very violent botched robbery probably. He's a taxi driver. It makes, it's got money on him. Yeah. But Dunn's wallet was still in his pocket and the money from his fares still on there. Still there. Nothing was taken. What? So whoever had killed Sydney Dunn had not done it for money. They didn't take a dime. Right. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know what we're not doing? We're not comparing our lives to other people's and getting all caught up on it. We're not scrolling through social media

saying, I wish I looked like that. I wish I had that backyard. No, because guess what? Comparison is the thief of joy and it's really easy to envy other people's lives. Maybe it looks like they have it all together on their Instagram, but guys in reality, they probably don't. They're just slob kabobs like you and me. We're all slob kabobs together and that's beautiful. And guess what? You should embrace your inner slob kabob and you can do that with therapy. Therapy can help you focus on what you want instead of what others have. So you can start living your best life, whether that's being a Slob Kebab or not. Personally, I have benefited from therapy and I'm obsessed with it.

I love my weekly therapy sessions. It's my time to just unload everything that I'm going through, have a nice little cry if I want to without feeling bad about it. And then guess what? In therapy I learned I can actually cry whenever I feel like it. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give Better Help a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule, and all you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash morbid today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp H-E-L-P dot com slash morbid. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, and new ways of thinking. Find the genres you love and discover new ones along the way. Explore bestsellers, new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and originals that members can listen to all they want, with more added all the time. Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as part of your daily routine without needing

to set aside extra time. There's more to imagine when you listen. If you know, you know that I've been listening to my best friend's exorcism because baby, it's the Weirdos Audio Book Club Title of the Month! As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including latest bestsellers and even new releases. New members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500. That's audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500 to try Audible free for 30 days. Audible.com slash morbid. From the beginning, the investigation into this murder was really like an uphill slog.

In addition to the heavy rain and snowfall that was really making it really difficult to process the crime scene, there wasn't really any evidence to be collected anyways. And there was no leads. So they were just working from like zero, right? And they just couldn't move to one. Like they couldn't get anywhere. Another taxi driver, Thomas Green, did tell detectives that two men who appeared to be in their mid-20s had approached he and Dunn around 430 a.m. before the murder.

One of them was looking for a ride to Edmund Byers and the other to New Bern. Thomas took the man going to New Bern and the man going to Edmund Byers got into Dunn's cab. Now the man was described as being 25 years old, five foot eight inches tall of swarthy complexion. What is swarthy? With dark hair, straight and brush back. But that was really all they could get from the witness is that really good description. But like, that's really it. That's all he had.

So by the end of December, detectives had become so desperate for information that they resorted to actually like boots on the ground door to door with questionnaire in hand. Well, that someone in the neighborhood near the Moors maybe heard something, see saw something, anything a coroner's inquest was held, but other than confirming the cause of death to be murder, the jury came to really no other conclusions and the inquest was adjourned on December 31st. So they just had nothing. Just absolutely nothing.

Now while police in Newcastle were literally like pulling their hair out about this case, detectives back in Lanarkshire were dealing with now a new case of a missing teenage girl. Oh no. And they saw that this case felt very familiar, very familiar. On the evening of December 28th, 17 year old Isabel Cook left home a little after 7 p.m.

and she was going to attend a dance. No. Does this sound already like going to attend a dance. No. Does this sound already? Like Anne Neelans. Exactly. 17 years old, leaving to go to a dance. She was going to be going to a dance at the Masonic Hall in nearby Eddingston. And she was going to, there was a whole plan in place.

She was going to be meeting her boyfriend, Douglas Bryden, and the two were going to go to the dance together. But 45 minutes passed by the hour that they were supposed to meet up. And Isabel still hadn't shown up to meet him. So he just went inside by himself. He was like, what the heck? Which I was like, I mean, I don't know what else you do

at that point, it's in the fifties. It's not like you're pulling out a cell phone and calling someone. Yeah, exactly. But the next morning when Isabel still hadn't come home, her parents called the police. Police immediately launched a huge search for Isabel. They had police dogs, they went full tilts.

And they determined through the police dogs, they were able to determine that she had taken a shortcut off the main road on her way to meet her boyfriend. The shortcut went through a wooded area along a footpath. This footpath was very familiar to them because it was where 11 years earlier, Peter Manuel had attacked a young woman. It was the same exact footpath.

It was on that path that investigators discovered Isabel's purse. Most of her belongings were still in the purse. Some of them were like, shot like, you know, scattered around. They also found one of her shoes. Now, a police spokesperson told reporters that afternoon, we're treating this as more serious than just a girl missing from home. And a day later, the case took a really ominous turn

because more pieces of Isabelle's clothing were discovered along the banks of a river near the Calder Park Zoo. A local diver actually came forward and volunteered to search the river. Just a local diver. Wow. Which like, this community seems like they tried really hard to help out, but they didn't find any more items in the river. Now for many investigators in this case, the details, and for us probably too, and you

listening, you're probably thinking this is Anne Neelan's murder. This is very similar. Yeah, it sounds a lot like that. And they thought that too. They immediately thought of that. And the press, they thought it right away too. It's not like anybody wasn't putting these pieces together.

Like Anne, Isabel had been on her way to a dance when she deviated a little bit from the path and then ran into someone presumably dangerous. Right. Unfortunately, after a week of intensive searching, I mean, like full tilt searching, they hadn't found any additional evidence, no leads. So speculation was really all they could do until new information came their way. But it was the same thing, just dead end, nothing. Now, while detectives on the Cook case

waited, a new and honestly more shocking case came their way at this moment, shocking at this moment, at least. On the morning of January 6th, two patrol officers were investigating a call about an abandoned vehicle. And while they were investigating that call, they went to the home of the vehicle's owner. His name was Peter Smart. So not Peter Manuel, this is a different Peter. I know there's a lot of Peters in this. When they arrived at Peter Smart's house, several of Peter's coworkers were actually already there,

waiting for them. They had gone to look in on him because he didn't show up for work that morning and he wasn't answering his phone. Which again, she was like, people are like real, there's like a community over here. They're like taking care of each other. Like they're showing up at his house because they're like, he's not answering his phone and this isn't like him.

They were concerned that something was wrong. So they had shown up and the officers ended up forcing their way inside the house because nobody was answering. And that's where they found Peter, his wife,is, and their 11-year-old son Michael, all were dead from gunshot wounds to the head. I just saw a picture of little Michael, and he's like the sweetest little babe. Oh, it breaks your heart.

It's so sad. It's, he had like no true victim profile whatsoever. It was like whole families and young women. Yeah, like, so like anybody, but then also Sydney Dunn, who was in his thirties and a man, right? Like, to just like no really no rhyme or reason. And it's also like, why did you, like, why did you kill anybody? But like, why did you kill Sydney Dunn too? Like you didn't take his car or anything. Like what just fuck, just to kill.

But it's the same with everybody. You're not taking anything. With the women it seems, and we'll get into it as much as we can because he doesn't really get into it, but there is some sexual element there that we've discussed in part one with the like hiking up those skirts

and pulling down the pants and displaying in certain ways. There's definitely a sexual element. He was just never willing to touch upon it. But there was a point when, you know, there's sexual assault involved in a lot of these. And also there was the, during his escalation period, the wife of that staff member at the school that he ran away from, he was fully intending to rape her. When he dragged her out into the woods, he ran away from, he was fully intending to rape her when he dragged her out into the woods. He just stopped.

Yeah. So like the disappearance of Isabel Cook, the murder of the Smart Family, like we're probably thinking, immediately called into mind a different murder. It was the murders of Marianne and Vivian Watt and Margaret Brown the previous year. The Watt family, it was like a direct pair.

It was like Ann Neelans, Isabel Cook. Watt family, Smart family like a direct pair. It was like, it was like Ann Neelans, Isabel Cook, Watt family, smart family. It's like he's paralleling. So each member of the family, like the Watt family had appeared to be asleep when they were shot in the head at point blank range. That's the other thing. And given that many of the valuable items they had in the house were in plain fucking sight. Robbery was definitely not the motive. He had not taken anything, not anything of value. He takes things, but nothing of value.

Like little trinkets, like trophy. He doesn't go and sell it. Yeah. It's his shit. And did he trash this house? He did, he trashed the house. Superintendent Murdo McKenzie told reporters during a press conference, there is no sign

of the house being broken into. Huh. Yeah. And McKenzie also noted that no gun had been found in the house, so they ruled out a murder suicide immediately because it's a family annihilation. The coroner estimated that all three had been murdered in the early hours of New Year's Day. And according to the neighbors, the Smarts had been planning to visit family that day.

So no one really thought it was odd when Peter Smarts' car wasn't in the driveway. And the curtains in the house were all drawn. What was odd though, was that in the days after that, the curtains in the front windows changed positions several times over the course of several days. That means whoever and who they didn't know at the time, but whoever killed the smarts had come back to the house or stayed in the house for several days.

Oh, I hate that. I have chills. And that's between the murders on January 1st and the discovery of the bodies on January 6th. So like a week. Yeah. Fuck. Later after Peter manuals trial, investigators learned that someone had tried to break into the home of John McMunn and his wife, the neighbors who live just a little ways away

from the smarts in the early hours of January 4th. So he had killed the smart family on January 1st. By January 4th, he was trying to break into one of their neighbor's house, a family to kill them as well. Which is so similar to what he had done in the previous thing, except that family wasn't home. Yep. And this time, Mrs. McMunn woke up in the middle of the night to find a man looking at her through their bedroom window trying to break in.

Shut the fuck up. Luckily she sat up and honestly everybody should do this if you ever see somebody trying to break into your house. She sat up and screamed for her husband to get the guns. Yeah. Like she said out loud, like get the guns. Good. And he got the fuck out of there

cause he was like, well shit, I don't wanna be in a firefight. Oh my God. I'm just picturing that is so fucking terrifying. And seeing a man outside your bedroom window trying to break in. Goodbye. Goodbye. Oh my God.

Fuck that. Like, thank goodness she had the foresight to be like, get the guns. Because I feel like that's something most intruders don't want to hear. So it's like, but what the fuck. And thank goodness she did it. Her whole family would have been gone. And thank goodness she woke up.

And thank goodness he wasn't like brazen, cause obviously he had a gun too. And thank goodness she woke up. I don't think he liked when they woke up. He liked them in a vulnerable position where he could put the gun against their head and do it. Oh my God, that's so fucking scary. But he fled and it was only after he had been executed that the McMuns confirmed

that the man they saw through their window was Peter Manuel. Damn. Yeah. And you said executed. Did you mean to say arrested? No, he got executed later. Oh, okay. I was like, no, no, no. He got executed. Oh shit.

Spoiler alert. So since his release from Barlinni in November, detectives had been keeping an eye on Peter Manuel. He was under close surveillance. Yeah. DCI William Muncy, who had arrested Manuel several years earlier for the housebreaking, was assigned to lead the investigation

into Isabel Cook's disappearance. And when he got the case, Muncy immediately thought of Ann Neelans and Peter Manuel. But other than that gut feeling and knowing that there's a connection here somehow, there was no evidence to connect it so he couldn't really do a lot.

It was just like, my gut is telling me this is it. Right. But Manuel's name came to mind a few days later when Muncie heard about the murders of the Smart family as well. The more his name came up in connection with murdered and missing people, the harder it was to deny that there is a connection. And investigators intensified their surveillance. Now they really

honed in on him, just waiting for him to fuck up. Just waiting for that moment. You know it's going to happen. And it happened. But their big break did finally come about a week later. In the course of the investigation, detectives had learned they'd use some criminal informants to try to get more information about Peter Manuel. And they learned from one of these informants that Peter Manuel had been seen and witnessed by several people spending brand new five pound notes at pubs around Glasgow. And what they had found out was just before the murders, they had found out that Peter Smart, the father of the murdered family, had withdrawn several new five pound bank

notes from the bank because he was going to use them on their family holiday, which is really sad. And so armed with a warrant and a list of the notes Smart withdrew from the bank, a group of detectives arrived at Peter Manuel's house on the morning of January 14th. Now Peter's father, Samuel answered the door and detective superintendent Alex Brown handed him a copy of the search warrant and explained that they were looking for any five pound notes, they were looking for keys and any other evidence potentially taken

from the smart home. Samuel, the father, immediately got hostile and very verbally abusive with the officers, but ultimately ended up letting them into the house. They got a warrant bro. He fucking had to. When they got in the house, they found Peter asleep in a chair in the living room.

I was like, you fucking bum. But once he was woken up, Brown read the warrant out loud to Peter and he, Peter immediately became abusive and like flipped out hostile, like lost his mind, but eventually had to comply with the whole thing. And after getting himself ready, he willingly went down to the precinct with two of the officers. Did you know that Americans with diabetes pay almost twice as much for their health care? GoodRx is here to help with big savings on diabetes medications, devices, and other everyday prescriptions. Using

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I have found such great deals on there, and I actually have insurance, but a lot of times I'm using GoodRx instead. For a simple, smart savings on diabetes and other everyday prescriptions, check GoodRx. Go to GoodRx.com slash morbid. That's GoodRx.com slash morbid. I'm Dan Tuberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.

No, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios.

Hysterical. Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Now I'm just taking a detour really quick because this Superintendent Brown, I found an interesting article about him. He was apparently like a badass detective. And he was one of like one of a small group of detectives in this case that was like very well known to have like cracked this like with hardcore police work. So they called so his name was Superintendent Brown and he, he was known, I found this from an article called it's in the Glasgow times and it is the story of the cop who caught Peter

Manuel and it's by Norman Sylvester. This, this article, I just want to point out a few things about him. So he was known to be very methodical in his methods and he really had a good understanding of how people ticked. That was like his, his like his forte was psychology. Right. And he was, um, so apparently he was known to like also do the most methodical searches of houses. Like if he had a warrant, you better hope nothing is in your house because he's going to find it. Like that man is going to find it. One of man is going to find it. His fellow detective said if he didn't find what he was looking for in a house, he would strip the paper off the walls if necessary.

He wasn't letting it go. If I have a warrant, I'm finding this thing. And his favorite advice to young detectives was let the other fellow do the worrying. He was like, the criminal should worry, not you. And then he said, use the minimum amount of words and maximum amount of action. He was super ahead of his time with the psychology stuff. In 1943, he wrote an article for a police magazine titled Psychology and the Investigation of Crime.

That was in the 40s. Yeah, that's big. That was ahead. And he said that the most successful investigators are the ones who best understand human behavior. I mean, yeah. And which again, ahead of his time with that stuff. And apparently when he was investigating the Peter Emanuel case, he set up an office in the Bothwell police station and he set up a bed. He literally had it installed in the police station because he said he wanted to be on call and ready to jump into action at any given moment to get this guy. Or if any new information came

up, he wanted to be able to just like pop out of bed and just off he goes. So he was literally like day and night on this thing. Like eating, sleeping, breathing. Yes. He was one of the main ones that decided it was time to strike and get Peter Manuel, like go to his house and arrest him. They were. He was like, I'm sick of waiting. Like we need to get this guy. We have something. He knew that this was the guy. And he told Manuel actually

that the way they were able to get him, cause what we'll see is Peter ends up confessing. And what he was able to do was he told Peter that they had found stuff related to another, how like, um, uh, I think a reverence home had been broken into in the area. And he said they, they had found stuff in the manual household from that break-in. So it was Peter who did it. But he told them, Brown told Peter, we're charging your father. And he was like, so he was like, it's his house. We're going

to charge him with it. And that's how he was able to get him to crack. He didn't want to turn out his dad. He knew via psychology that that was going to be the thing that was going to get him. That's a smart move. And later when the, you know, the manual case goes to trial and he ends up being convicted for this, um, The trial judge, Lord Cameron, actually did something that never happens. He invited Brown and two other detectives back into his chambers afterwards and he thanked them personally for their efforts to get Manuel arrested. Wow, that's amazing. And in 1959, he was given the Queen's police medal before retiring.

Hell yeah, he deserved it. And later, Peter Manuel himself said about Superintendent Brown, I could handle the others, but I couldn't handle Brown. Shit. Isn't that crazy? I had to Google this guy. That's why I was like, when I read that, I was like, that's, that guy sounds like a bad ass. He does.

The fact that he was that like committed to making this hat, like he knew that we got to get him off the streets. Like, what a badass. So, I had to. That's cool to have all that. Yeah, you got to do it. So, at this point, Peter Manuel is going to the precinct. He's going downtown.

And they took him out of the house and down to the precinct. And this wasn't just something they had to do. This was a tactical decision. And this tactical decision was made by Brown. Nice. Because he was using psychology. He's he knew with Peter out of the way, his elderly parents are going to become a lot less defiant. Yeah. And a lot less aggressive. 100%. Peter's the thing that's the main component that's making them this way. So he said, get them out of the house so we can talk to them.

And so they were able to search the rest of the house with very little interference. And they found items in the home that were related to several crimes. They found a pair of men's gloves and a camera which had been stolen from that home of the local reverend on Christmas day, actually. Oh my God.

And at the precinct, Peter was included in multiple lineups while this was going on. And during these lineups, they had Glasgow bartenders come in and identify him as the man who was spending all those brand new five pound notes. There it is. And the numbers on those notes matched the ones

that were taken out of the bank by the Smart Family. And it was during this time that Peter was also identified by patrol officer, Robert Smith. He identified him in a totally different scenario. Apparently Robert Smith said that Peter Manuel was the man who gave him a ride on the morning of January 2nd, which would be the day after he killed the Smart family. That's terrifying.

According to Robert Smith, he had been hitchhiking to work that morning when a man he identified as Peter Manuel stopped to pick him up in a gray A30. And that's Peter Smart's car. And the two men made small talk and Smith, Robert Smith mentioned he was on his way actually to work and he was going to be participating in the Isabella Cook search. And he said Peter Manuel had a very strong reaction very quickly to even talking about that. And he had a very strong interest in talking about the case with him.

And before he got out of the car, Peter said he felt that the police weren't looking in the right places. He's so gross. Oh, and just the fact that he's driving around this man's car, like how fucking brazen. He's driving around this man's car knowing he's going to go back to their house and spend time there. And then talking to a man about a murder he committed. Talking to a police officer about a case of a young woman that he murdered who is still missing and he's telling him like you're not looking in the right places. And they still haven't found her.

And they still haven't found her. Oh God. Now, Peter Manuel has been pretty good up until this point at like avoiding authorities, especially since he's inserting himself into the fucking investigation at this point. And so it does seem like at this point, you're like, you're getting fucking sloppy. But I think he just was. I think it's like you can't hang on to this kind of shit for that long. Nobody can.

Like he's going, he's too brazen and he's too, he's going so hard, so fast that there's no way he could keep up with this. And the evidence around him seemed to be piling up at this point. And detectives were beginning to make connections between Peter Manuel and several open murder cases in the area. So he became pretty aware that he was running out of options at this point. So on the morning of January 15th, Peter asked that his parents be brought to him at the station. And this was after Brown had told him, oh, okay, it's like, it's so cool that you're not involved in any of this.

But like, we're going to be charging your dad because he apparently stole shit from a reverend's house on Christmas day, like wild, this is really mad this, but like he's going to jail forever. And so he said after, so Peter told detectives after I have told my parents and made a clean breast of it to them, you can take them away and I will clear everything up for you. Okay. And he said, and I will take you to where the girl cook is buried. So apparently he sobbed and confessed to his parents that he had killed Ann Neelans, Marion and Vivian Watt, Margaret Brown, Isabel Cook, and all three members of the Smarr family. What the fuck?

So at this point, everyone's aware of Peter Manuel and who he is and his history as a compulsive pathological liar. Right. So the prosecutor was like, yeah, yeah. Like we, yeah, we probably, we probably did that, but we're going to need a little more before we accept this. We can't just hear that you did it. Give us some details. Tell us what you did.

Now according to Peter Manuel, he broke into the smarts house through an open window, killed everyone inside, then stole whatever cash he could find. And the days after that, he returned to the house daily to eat the food and relax in their living room and even fed their cats. What the fuck? Yep. He would just relax in their living room and hang out.

With their cat while their dead bodies are just upstairs. Or just rotting inside. What the fuck? And just the fact that he would, to do something like, like feed the cat, like what? And he'd be like eating their food, sitting in their living room. What? Yeah. Just making food in their kitchen while they're dead in their bedrooms.

And you know that. An 11 year old and his parents. Yeah. Oh, that's so gross. He's like next level. Beyond. And obviously his knowledge of the Smarts house, the layout and everything and what it looked like inside

and the details of the crime could only have been known to the person who was intimately involved in it. And the same was true for the other cases that he confessed to, he had details that no one else would have. And after giving a full confession, he was taken to Barlinny for the evening. The next day he led detectives to a large field near an old brickworks.

So I looked up how to say this and I found several different ways. So I'm going to say the way that seemed the most to me. Okay. Feel free Scottish listeners to be like, what the fuck did you just say? About us. I think it's Bailey Esten. I don't know what that is. It's B-A-I-L-L-I-E-S-T-O-N.

I found like three different ways to say it. Bailey Estin is the only one that seemed right to me, but I could be wrong and I apologize if I am. But he led them to this large field near an old brick works there and directed their attention to what it was like a, a little ditch like a shallow ditch Okay, and he told investigators I dug that hole I had her body here But I was disturbed by a man taking a shortcut out of the brickworks and I had to take her away Okay, so they were like, okay

So after taking the detectives on this long circular route around the field and into the recently plowed fields of burnt broom farm the field and into the recently plowed fields of burnt broom farm, he reached, he brought them over to like a patch of land that looked like it had been recently disturbed. And he said, and I quote, I think she's in there. I think I'm standing on her. Oh my God. Yep. And he was right. He was standing on her. When investigators dug about two feet into the earth, they discovered the body of Isabel Cook. Just so callous. I think I'm standing on her. I think I'm standing on her. Yeah. I think she's in here. Her skirt had been bunched up around her waist and her underwear was missing because he stole underwear. He's a fucking perv. Her scarf had been forced into her mouth as a gag, and her bra had been wrapped around

her neck and was used to choke her to death. She also had a lot of bruising on the left side of her face, like she had been struck several times, very aggressively. Back at the station, Peter drafted formal confessions in writing to every single one of the murders and provided details of each one. He also confessed to several robberies in the area as well. And in all his confessions, he emphasized that robberies were the motive for the attacks, but none of that made sense

because he didn't steal stuff from most of them. Right. And they were- He just wanted to make it look like that he had a reason, quote unquote. Yeah. But like we said earlier, in each one, there is a very undeniable sexual element here, but he would not talk about it and he would not go into it. They could not get anything about it.

Huh? Yeah. Like ever? No, we never would. It's frustrating. Now while Peter Manuel sat in the cell at Barlinni, there was a large team of investigators just gathering up evidence and collecting any witness statements they could to build up that case against him. And with the critical evidence collected at this time, there was a Beretta pistol and

Webley revolver that were used in the Smart and Watt murders. Apparently Manuel had thrown them into the River Clyde after the murders and they found them. Oh, shit. Yeah. At the same time, investigators learned that Manuel had been in the New Castle area for a job interview the very night that Sidney Dunn was murdered. Imagine that. Yeah. And he was identified as the man seen getting into Dunn's taxi. Oh, man.

On January 29th, he was eventually charged with the murder of Sidney Dunn as well. Okay. But that crime actually occurred in England. So it couldn't be included in the other charges, and the prosecution was going to have to wait until after the trial in Scotland to do that. Move it over. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondry's podcast American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, events that have shaped who we are as a country and continue to define the American experience.

We go behind the scenes looking at devastating financial crimes, like the fraud committed at Enron and Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. American Scandal also tells marquee stories about American politics. In our latest season, we retrace the greatest corruption scheme in U.S. history as we bring to life the bribes and backroom deals that spawned the Teapot Dome scandal, resulting in the first presidential cabinet member going to prison. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge this season American Scandal Teapot Dome early Now, his trial began May 12, legacy, and even the Royals. Now his trial began May 12th, 1958 at the High Court in Glasgow. And his defense team had John Ferns, Ian Doherty, and lead counsel Harold Leslie.

Apparently they're all volunteer counsel assigned by the Scottish bar. Dave found that they do it a little different there where like here in America, you know, there's like public defenders and like, you know, you're, you're given this person if you can't afford a lawyer. Yeah. That's their job. They do that. But apparently over there, they just like randomly grab people from the bar association and we'll be like, this is yours now. Like it's just like they volunteer quote unquote. Like it's like, here it is. You get like thrown onto this case essentially. That must be tough. That must be really tough. Like what if you have a bias? That's the thing. It's like,

I guess you can't, you know, like that's your job. You just can't. But in the months leading up to the trial, the case and headlines around this whole thing had definitely crossed over into like sensational at this point. And spectators were lining up around the courthouse as early as 8 p.m. the night before to get a seat. People were fucking tailgating this. Tailgating it.

Damn. Yeah. In the time between Peter's arrest and the start of the trial, investigators had collected a lot of evidence at this point. Sounds like it. And that included over 150 exhibits, including the guns used in the murders

and pieces of Anne Neeland's skull. Oh, wow. The witness list for the prosecution had like 300 people on it. So before any opening statements had been made, Harold Leslie shocked the court by making a statement on behalf of his client. Oh, God. This statement said, I appear on behalf of the panel.

The panel would be like his, you know, Peter Manuel. Right. Who adheres to his plea of not guilty and there are special defenses lodged. Okay. Despite having made a full fucking confession in writing and verbally and giving details of each crime, including leading them to the missing woman. Right. He changed his plea to not guilty. And on May 13th in front of the entire court,

he said he wasn't the one who killed the Watt family. But actually it was William Watt, the father that was on the fishing trip. So he's bringing him back into it. That's good. That's kind. Yeah, we love that. The court went nuts.

Of course they did. The judge took so much time to have to restore order here, but eventually it all resumed as it was supposed to go. He's just having fun. No, and this was not the last time that he was going to stun everybody. So in the opening statement, the lead prosecutor, Maurice Gillies, laid out the case against Peter in pretty simplistic terms. He just highlighted the evidence against him, made the connections

between his whereabouts at the times of the murders, when they were committed, his criminal history that included specific hallmarks that happened at these crimes, the cigarette, the trashing the places, the dragging the woman, the method of killing, all that stuff. And so their strategy was not really to convince the jury of his guilt because like he's guilty, like he confessed. But it was basically to let the witnesses and evidence

demonstrate his irrefutable responsibility for the murders. So in the days after that, one witness after another came up and just presented compelling fucking testimonies and evidence against him, including the foreman on the work site nearby the discovery of Anne Nealon's body. This person confirmed that Manuel had shown up for work the following day with fresh scratches on his face.

He was like, yep, that was right after. And that same witness also told the jury he had seen Peter Manuel removing a pair of bloody work boots from the site a day or two after the murder. Oh, yes So a few days into the trial the subject then shifted from Ann Neelins to the Watt family murders And among the first witnesses in that whole thing was Lawrence Dowdell This was William Watts lawyer at the time of the murders. And he was the guy who Peter Manuel was sending letters to claiming William Watt was innocent. And now he's turning around at the trial and being like, actually he did this. Well now he's, he's the like, so he's going to be saying like, I got these.

Yeah, the lawyer. But Peter sitting there being like, no, he's going to turn around and be like, well, actually William Watt did it. And it's like, this guy's going to sit there and fuck you up. He has letters. So among other things, Dowdell described Manuel as the most vicious psychopath it has ever been my misfortune to meet. Fuck. Which is wild for a defense attorney to say that.

Because they've seen some shit. Charles Tallis, who was a known criminal and associate of Peter Manuel also testified. And he explained that he had actually given the gun Peter used to Peter that he used in the Watt murder. Oh God. He said, he told me that he had some bullets and the bullets wouldn't fit the gun,

but were falling through the magazine. And he said that he helped Manuel make the gun operational and he didn't know that this was what it was for. But William Watt also testified, not only to give details about the murder, but also about Manuel's contacts with him in the months that followed the murders. So according to William Watt, he and Manuel actually met in a hotel room in Glasgow. And during this whole thing, Manuel attempted to convince him that three people had been involved in the shooting,

and one of them was Charles Tallis. What? So he had like kept in touch with William Watt, the man of the family he had killed. And like sat down with him at a hotel, like what the actual fuck. He really is beyond any kind of hope. And he really is.

Like this shows you, he'll go to the ends of the earth to be a fucking slimy piece of shit. And he just enjoys it. He does. And William Watt on the stand said, he said that Charles Tallis broke into the house. They went in and shot my wife and sister in bed. And then he broke down in tears on the stand.

Now most damning of all though, was the confession that Peter had voluntarily given to police. Very voluntarily. Told multiple people, wrote it down. They were detailed. They had intimate familiarity with the Watts home, like he was in that house. Yeah, all these homes. And he was in the other crimes, same thing.

He knew the layouts of the houses. He knew the details that were not reported. Yeah. And on the witness stand, Detective Robert McNeil explained the process by which they obtained this confession from him. Right. And that included the statement Manuel made just before he confessed. He said, there is no future for me.

Oh. And Manuel was alleged to have said, I've done some terrible things. I killed the girl Neilins at East Kilbride and I shot the three women at the house at Burnside. And following McNeil's testimony, Manuel's confessions were read in full to the jury. They were like, you gave these, we're not taking them out. On May 22nd, Peter Manuel shocked the court again because he dismissed his entire defense counsel and said, I'm going to act in my own defense. Oh no, no, honey. We always know how this goes. After a brief recess, Harold Leslie addressed the judge saying,

I'm no longer in a position with my colleagues to continue the cause, the panel being desirous of conducting the remainder of the trial. So he was like, peace. Deuces? In other words, he was fired. The judge allowed the change, but he insisted that the other two defense lawyers, Ferns and Doherty, needed to remain close by to possibly assist if needed. But it came very clear. I'd be pissed. I'd be like, no, I'm out.

I was just going to say, I'd be like, I just got fired in front of everybody. Fuck this guy. See ya. He can sink his own ship. You can sink your own fucking ship, dude. And Peter didn't want their help. He made it clear. He fired them. Yeah. And he never used their help. He didn't want it. So it's like, I just have to sit here and watch this. Now, apparently

Peter Manuel had done this before. He had defended himself in court before. Several years earlier, he defended himself in a rape case in Airdrie Sheriff Court and he was unsuccessful. He went to prison for that one. That's great. Now, regardless of what happened throughout this whole thing, apparently he had a lot of confidence. He was very charming in court and he impressed even the most successful experienced lawyers watching the trial. According to Joe Beltrami, who was a very prominent Scottish lawyer who saw the trial, he said, judge Lord Cameron said he was surprised at the standard and skill of the accused.

And so was I. His cross examination was quite skillful and well thought out, which is like nuts. But remember, Peter Manuel is pretty bright. He was bright in school. He just really didn't apply himself. But he was very bright. Sounds like Ted Bundy. Yeah. Now confident or not, the prosecution's case against Manuel was just too strong. They had built a considerable amount of evidence. He literally led them to a body. Yeah, it was very compelling. They didn't need to do a whole lot. But Peter Manuel's defense on the other hand was, I didn't do it.

Oh, okay. Which is strange when you've confessed voluntarily, verbally, and in writing. But when he finally took the stand in his own defense, he refuted everything that he previously stated or confessed. And he fell back on that old habit of just saying, it's everyone else's fault. Oh, okay, it's not my fault. I didn't do it. Final arguments were given on May 29th

and the jury took barely two hours before returning guilty verdicts on seven counts of murder, six counts of capital murder for the Watt and Smart families, one count of non-capital murder for Isabel Cook. And what kills me is in the case of Ann Neelans, the jury felt the evidence did not make the case and he was not found guilty. That's shitty. Yeah. Now when the verdict was read, the courtroom went nuts. And there was like a hundred plus reporters in the courtroom too. And they all just ran out of there to go type up their fucking thing for the next thing.

But Judge Lord Cameron wasted no time passing sentence. He said, the sentence of this court is that you be taken from this place to the prison of Barlinny, Glasgow, therein to be detained until the 19th day of June next and upon that day in the said prison of Barlinnie, Glasgow. And between the hours of eight and 10 o'clock, you suffer death by hanging, which is pronounced for doom. Fuck. Which like, which is pronounced for doom. I'm like, damn, you guys know they got that good shit.

You have a grasp on that language. Like, it just, you know how to make it like, don, you guys know, they have a, you have a grasp on that language. Like, it just, you know how to make it like, don't don't don't. After passing the sentence, Lord Cameron just dismissed the jury, adjoined the adjoined the adjoined. I was like, adjoined, adjoined to the court and refused Peter Manuel the opportunity to make a statement. Love was literally like, shut the fuck up. You've talked statement. Love. Was literally like, shut the fuck up, you've talked enough.

Yeah. So for several years, the crimes of Peter Manuel captivated the attention of the public across UK. I bet, yeah. I mean, they were, who wouldn't be? Right. But once the trial ended, and everybody was kind of satisfied,

he had been sentenced, he had been found guilty, everything, he got what he deserved, attention kind of like shifted away. So like, you know, other stuff was happening. So they just kind of were like, fuck Peter Manuel by. When the day of his execution arrived on July 11th, 1958, the Evening Times reported quote, as the hands of the prison clock pointed

to the execution hour, fewer than a dozen people stood silently outside the prison. There was no demonstration, no protest by opponents of capital punishment as the final act was carried out under due process of law. At 8 a.m., the executioner pulled the lever down. He went. He was gone. Hang to death. And the people of Scotland were finally free of the beast of Berkinshaw.

Damn. Fuck Peter. It's the fact that like less than 12 people were outside. Nobody gave a shit anymore. Yeah, you were horrible. They didn't even need to see him die. They were just like, whatever. Deuces. You're gone, you stupid bitch.

Oh, what a case though. He. Yeah. It's just the fact that it's like. He's disgusting. There's no reason for murder ever, but his was specifically so senseless and no victim profile, no just like killed to kill.

Yeah, it was, his crimes were so fucking senseless and so brutal. Yeah. And like you said, like the fact that he didn't have a victim profile. That's always just freaky. Like any, it was like a Richard Ramirez, how nobody was safe.

Yeah, like the break-ins. He had no, he would go after couples, kids, women, men, families, like didn't matter who you were, where you were, what was going on. If he could get you, he was gonna get you. And it's like. So scary. That's so scary.

Yeah. And that, that McCloud source that I was talking about in the first part and this one is a Peter Manuel serial killer and it's by Hector McLeod and we'll link it obviously in the sources, but we used it a lot. But yeah, it's a wild case and one of Scotland's worst serial killers. I mean, yeah. Yeah.

He was a lot. And Scottish listeners, let me know if I said Bally-eston correctly or Bailey-eston, I think it was. I think you had said Bailey. Bailey-eston. Yeah. I hope I did. Feels Scottish.

It felt good. We're just thinking of Bailey's. Bailey. Bailey-eston. So we'll see. But yeah, horrible, horrible case. Yeah. But he got his in the end.

Yeah. Yeah. And with that, I hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird But not so weird that you break into people's homes and kill them because whoa cuz what that's horrible So So So Oh my god. Oh my god. If you like morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+, in the Wondery app, or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.

Divorced beheaded died, divorced beheaded survived. We know the six wives of Henry VIII as pawns in his hunt for a son, but their lives were so much more than just being the king's wives. I'm Arisha Skidmore Williams. And I'm Brooke Zifrin. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Royals. In each episode, we'll pull back the curtain on royal families, past and present, from all over the world to show you the darker side of what it means to be royalty. We rarely see Henry VIII's wives in their own light, as women who used the tools available to them to hold on to power. Some women won the game, others lost. But they were all unexpected agents in their own stories.

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