Smoking Gun

Episode 19: The Cat Hair

After a body was discovered on Southsea Beach in Hampshire, it became a race against time to establish who it belonged to, and how they’d died. But as so many of the body parts were missing, this was no easy feat. This is the heart-breaking story of friends turned enemies, mental health issues, and the perils of owning a cat if you’re a murderer.
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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.