Smoking Gun

Episode 16: The Vacuum

A rancher’s son spotted the body of a young woman lying by the banks of a river in remote Utah. Police could identify 17-year-old Krystal Lynn Beslanowitch, but what had happened to her – and how her body had ended up there - was a mystery. Follow us as we walk through the leads detective followed, experience the breakthroughs of this surprising case, and learn how a pioneering invention designed to stop food poisoning eventually convicted the killer.
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In every murder investigation, there's one key item that could bring a killer to justice.
But finding it....and knowing what evidence it contains....well that's the challenge. Because the smoking gun could be anything. A bouquet of flowers...a Chinese meal...a mosquito.
In this series we tell the remarkable true stories of how everyday items such as these have been the key to unlocking a criminal case. And we unpack the science - revealing the cutting edge techniques and the disciplines mastered over decades, which allow specialist forensic scientists to find this evidence.
Hosted by actor Romola Garai, and the UK's most prominent forensic scientist Tracy Alexander.