Manchester Murders: A True Crime Podcast

In the autumn of 1900, thousands of people in Manchester began falling ill. They were mostly working-class beer drinkers, and the diagnosis was straightforward: alcoholic neuritis, the doctors said. The drinking had caught up with them. For four months, no one looked further. Then one physician at the Manchester Workhouse Infirmary noticed something that didn't fit. What he found changed everything - and almost nothing. This is the story of the 1900 Manchester arsenic beer epidemic: how industrial corner-cutting put poison into the city's pubs, how class assumptions in medicine allowed it to go undetected for months, and how, when the truth finally emerged, the people who suffered most received the least.

On Boxing Day 2011, twenty-three-year-old postgraduate student Anuj Bidve was walking through Ordsall, Salford with friends when he was shot dead in an unprovoked and motiveless attack. He had been in England for threemonths. His killer, local factory worker Kiaran Stapleton, was convicted of murder in July 2012 and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of thirty years. This is Anuj's story.

In December 1972, a sixteen-year-old boy beat seventy-four-year-old shopkeeper Margaret Potts to death in her shop in Scouthead, Oldham. He was convicted and sentenced. Then he escaped. Then he escaped again. Then he vanished to Ireland for fifteen years under a false name, while Margaret's daughter Irene spent four decades calling for him to be found. This is the story of a murder, an indeterminate sentence, and a family still waiting for closure that never quite came.

Karen Youdell was fifty years old, a mother of four, known and well liked in Newton Heath. In the early hours of a July morning in 2023, she was attacked in the garden of a house on Rosebank Road and left with catastrophic injuries. She never regained consciousness. She spent nearly ten months in a persistent vegetative state before dying in May 2024. Her daughters said it plainly: they had to lose their mum twice. This episode covers the attack, the hours that followed it, the cover-up constructed by three people who arrived at the scene and chose not to call for help, and the legal process that eventually brought a murder conviction - nearly two years after the night on Rosebank Road. Dean Johnstone was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2025.

On 18 September 1867, Sergeant Charles Brett became the first officer of the Manchester City Police to be killed on duty. He was inside a prison van on Hyde Road when a group of armed Fenians ambushed it, attempting to free two leaders of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. A shot was fired through the keyhole. Brett died instantly. The two prisoners walked free and were never recaptured. Three men were hanged for his murder two months later — the last public executions in the Manchester area. None of them had fired the shot. The man who had almost certainly fired it escaped to America. The three men hanged became the Manchester Martyrs. Monuments stand to them across Ireland. The song their defiance inspired became, for a time, the unofficial national anthem of a nation. Charles Brett lies in Harpurhey, his headstone fallen and cracked, largely forgotten by the city he served. This episode tells the story of a September afternoon on Hyde Road, the trial that followed, and what the law decided — and what it got wrong.

In 1997 and 1998, two women went missing from the same stretch of Manchester's red light district. Julie Jones was found six days later, her body hidden at the old Smithfield Market site near Shudehill. Helen Sage has never been found at all. Julie's murder has never been solved. A £50,000 reward remains unclaimed. DNA evidence exists, but no one has been charged. Her mother has spent twenty-seven years asking the same question. Helen Sage is still classified, in the formal language of Greater Manchester Police, as a missing person. This episode asks what happened to two women on the same streets in the same summer — and what it means that, more than two decades later, neither case has been resolved.

Mariann Borocz was fifty-five years old, originally from Hungary, and had been living and working quietly in Bolton for five years. On the morning of the fourteenth of December 2024, she walked into a shop on Chorley Old Road. A man followed her in. When she left, he followed her out. She was reported missing the next day. For nine days, Greater Manchester Police searched for her — issuing appeals in English and Hungarian, speaking to hundreds of residents, reviewing hours of CCTV. The breakthrough came from a neighbourhood officer, a shop doorway, and a photograph taken years earlier on a Bolton street.

Rania Alayed was twenty-five years old when she was killed by her husband in a flat in Salford in June 2013. She had grown up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, married at fifteen, and spent years trying to find a way out. By the time she reached Manchester, she was learning English, building something new, and fighting through the courts to protect herself and her children. Her body was not found for twelve years. This episode covers the murder, the cover-up, the investigation, and the long, slow work of bringing Rania home — including the moment in 2025 when her son Yazan helped police find what his father had hidden.

Susan May left prison in 2005 having served twelve years. Her conviction was intact. She had refused, throughout, to say she was guilty of something she maintained she had not done — and the system had made her pay for that refusal at every turn. This episode covers what came next: the appeals, the scientists, the politicians, and three applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Twenty years of fighting. The conviction was never overturned. Susan May died in October 2013.

In episode 11, we covered the murder of Ibrahima Seck in summer 2025, a young man who went out to play football and never returned. His killers have now been sentenced. This brief update covers the sentencing, and some additional information which came out during the trial.

On the morning of the 12th of March 1992, Susan May arrived at her aunt's house on Tandle Hill Road in Royton with a sandwich for lunch. She found Hilda Marchbank dead. She was eighty-nine years old, and she had been beaten and suffocated in her own bed. Susan had cared for Hilda almost every day for years. She described her as a second mother. Eighteen days after the murder, she was arrested and charged with killing her. The case against her rested on three marks on the wall of Hilda's bedroom, a lie she had told police, and questions about money. But behind the forensic evidence presented to the jury lay a series of decisions - about what was tested, what was disclosed, and what was pursued - that would take decades to fully come to light. This is Part 1 of a two-part episode, covering the murder, the investigation, and the trial. Part 2 follows Susan into prison, and through the long fight to prove what she always maintained: that she didn't do it.

On the evening of 26 February 1889, a respectable Manchester businessman climbed into a hansom cab with a young stranger. By the time the cab reached the infirmary, he was dead. No marks of violence. No obvious crime scene. Just an empty pocket where a gold watch and a purse of sovereigns had been. This was the case that would test Detective Chief Inspector Jerome Caminada — Manchester's most celebrated detective — like no other. With the city's nerves still raw from the unsolved Whitechapel murders, the pressure to find answers was immense. What followed was a meticulous three-week investigation that would make British legal history: the first criminal prosecution ever attempted for chloral hydrate poisoning. We trace the route of the cab, the network of witnesses Caminada quietly assembled, and the reluctant bookkeeper whose testimony changed everything — all the way to a packed courtroom in Liverpool, a death sentence, and the question of whether justice and mercy can occupy the same verdict.

On New Year’s Eve 2021, five-year-old Dylan Scanlon was found dead in his home in Oldham. What followed was a criminal trial that revealed harrowing details: a child poisoned with his mother’s antidepressants, repeatedly assaulted, and killed by the one person meant to protect him. Dylan’s mother was later convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. But Dylan’s death was not only a criminal case. It also exposed a much wider story; of a family breaking apart, a mother’s deteriorating mental health, a father fighting to stay connected to his son, and repeated points of contact with professionals that, in hindsight, did not come together to keep Dylan safe. In this episode of Manchester Murders, we tell Dylan’s story in full. Who he was. What was happening in his life before he died. What the court heard about the final hours of his life, and the devastating impact on those left behind. We also examine the subsequent safeguarding review carried out by Oldham Council, which scrutinised the actions of multiple agencies and identified serious shortcomings in information-sharing, recording, and professional curiosity - failures measured against national safeguarding standards in place at the time. Content warning: this episode contains discussion of child abuse and the death of a child. Listener discretion is advised.

On a summer evening in New Moston in 2025, fourteen-year-old Ibrahima Seck left home to play football with his friends. Minutes later, a brief confrontation between two groups of teenagers spiralled into a fatal chase, ending with a single stab wound in a local car park. Bleeding and terrified, Ibrahima reached a nearby house and pleaded for help, telling strangers, “I don’t want to die.” Despite their efforts and the rapid arrival of emergency services, he would not survive. In the hours that followed, his attackers fled and boasted of what they had done. Within days, police had traced their movements through CCTV and phone evidence, leading to arrests, charges and a complex trial that would test the law’s approach to shared responsibility for violence. This episode tells the full story of Ibrahima Seck: the ordinary afternoon that turned deadly, the investigation that pieced together the truth, the courtroom battle over murder and manslaughter, and the lasting impact on a grieving family and shaken community. A deeply human account of loss, accountability and the devastating speed with which a single knife can change everything.

In the summer of 1906, the body of nineteen year old servant Eliza Jane Mackay was pulled from a fifty foot deep well beside a farmhouse on the bleak Pennine moors above Oldham. Her throat had been cut. A razor was missing. And just hours earlier, she had walked out of her home in tears, saying, “If I don’t see you again, goodbye.” An inquest quickly ruled her death a suicide “while of unsound mind” - a verdict that closed the case, but left a trail of unanswered questions behind it. Was Eliza driven to take her own life? Was she being bullied and shamed? Or was there something far more dangerous at the heart of her final night? In this episode of Manchester Murders, Susan Witterick revisits Eliza’s forgotten story, exploring the harsh realities of life for servant girls in Edwardian England, the hidden risks faced by young women with no power, and the persistent rumours that Eliza may have been carrying a secret someone wanted buried. More than a century later, her death still refuses to stay silent.

On a rainy Saturday night in April 1971, seventeen-year-old Dorothy Leyden went to see Motown star Jimmy Ruffin perform at Manchester’s Golden Garter nightclub. She laughed with her friends, caught a towel thrown from the stage, and left just after 1am to make her way home. She never arrived. A few hours later, Dorothy was found beaten to death behind a pub in Collyhurst. Witnesses had seen a young woman being dragged through the dark, screaming for help - but by the time police arrived, it was too late. In this episode of Manchester Murders, Susan tells the haunting story of Dorothy’s final night, the massive police investigation that followed, and the disturbing pattern of attacks on other women in the same area. Decades later, despite forensic breakthroughs and renewed appeals, Dorothy’s killer has never been identified. This is the story of a teenage girl whose life was cut short, and of a city still waiting for answers.

In the heart of Manchester, beneath the concrete of a quiet car park, construction workers made a chilling discovery: the skeletal remains of a young woman, wrapped in carpet and hidden for decades. She had no name, no missing persons report, and no known killer. The city would come to call her The Angel of the Meadow. In this episode, we unravel her story — from the haunting history of Angel Meadow, once Britain’s most notorious slum, to the forensic breakthroughs and lingering mysteries that surround her case. Who was she? Why was she never reported missing? And why has no one come forward, even now? This is more than a cold case. It’s a human story — of violence, silence, and the relentless pursuit of identity and justice. Join our Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583892939793 Or reach out, [email protected]

In 1989, Inspector Raymond Codling was shot and killed during a routine patrol at Birch Services on the M62. This episode explores his life, military and police service, the tragic events of that day, and the legacy he left behind. A powerful story of duty, sacrifice, and remembrance. Join our Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583892939793 Or reach out, [email protected]

As the clocks ticked toward a new year, two men named Ashley set out on ordinary nights — and never came home. In this New Year special of Manchester Murders, Susan revisits the devastating cases of Ashley McGurk and Ashley Walsh, two unrelated men whose lives were violently cut short on the streets of Greater Manchester more than a decade apart. Ashley McGurk was just 32 when a Christmas night out in 2011 ended in a brutal assault on his walk home from a social club in Moston. Captured on CCTV, the attack lasted only minutes — but its consequences would echo for years, raising painful questions about violence, accountability, and why no one has yet been held responsible. More than ten years later, in January 2022, 34-year-old Ashley Walsh was reported missing after leaving home in Oldham. What followed was a deeply disturbing case involving exploitation, control, and catastrophic failures by multiple agencies — failures that an inquest would later lay bare. This episode explores the parallels and contrasts between the two cases: the randomness of street violence, the slow grind of investigations, the toll on families left behind, and the uncomfortable reality that justice does not always arrive swiftly — or at all. A reflective and hard-hitting New Year episode, Manchester Murders asks what these deaths tell us about vulnerability, responsibility, and the systems meant to protect us — as another year begins. Join our Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583892939793 Or reach out, [email protected]

In the early hours of a June morning in 1976, a quiet pub on the edge of Manchester’s Northern Quarter became the scene of one of the city’s most disturbing crimes. Mother Mac’s - then a modest backstreet local near Piccadilly - was run by Arthur Bradbury, a man known to regulars as reserved, private, and deeply devoted to his family. Behind closed doors, however, something was unravelling. When police were called to the pub, they discovered a scene that would shock even seasoned officers: a family annihilated, a building turned into a crime scene, and a man who had taken his own life after killing those closest to him. Join our Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583892939793 Or reach out, [email protected]

When a torso was discovered in the woodlands of Kersal Dale in April 2024, Greater Manchester Police faced a crime unlike anything the city had seen in decades. The victim was soon identified as 67-year-old Stuart Everett - and attention turned to his housemate, Marcin Majerkiewicz. In this episode, we track the investigation from first discovery to final conviction, examining the forensic evidence, the CCTV timeline, and the chilling attempts to cover up the crime. A devastating story of friendship, violence, and betrayal in the heart of Salford.

Two men dead. One dying word. An isolated inn on the moors. And a mystery that’s baffled historians for almost two centuries. The Bill O’Jack’s murders are as chilling today as they were in 1832. Join me to hear more about a story still whispered in the inns of Saddleworth...

In 1975, a young girl set out to run an errand to the local shops, and never returned. What followed was tragedy - not only Lesley's murder, but the wrongful conviction of an innocent man. Stefan Kiszko spent 16 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, while the true killer remained free.

Over the last two decades, more than 80 bodies have been pulled from Manchester’s canals - a statistic that has fuelled rumours of a serial killer stalking the waterways at night. Locals call him The Pusher: an unseen figure lurking in the shadows, shoving unsuspecting victims into the dark, icy water. But is the Pusher a real predator… or a modern urban legend born from fear, tragedy, and unanswered questions? In this opening episode of Manchester Murders, we delve into a mystery that has gripped Manchester. We explore the cases that sparked the theory, the haunting patterns that refuse to go away, and the experts who insist the truth is far more complicated. You’ll hear about the victims, the investigations, the controversies - and why the myth persists despite repeated police denials.

In the shadows of Greater Manchester lie stories long forgotten… and others whispered still. From moorland mysteries to inner-city conspiracies, Manchester Murders unearths the region’s most chilling true crimes — unsolved, unsettling, and unmistakably Northern. Step into the fog. Hear the echoes. And discover the truth… if you dare.