Great Crimes and Trials is an early 90's BBC documentary television series. The program consists of archival material combined with never before seen interviews to reconstruct a renowned crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

, examining the felon's motives, details of the crime, the investigation

Criminal procedure

Criminal procedure refers to the legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated criminal law.-Basic rights:Currently, in many countries with a democratic system and the rule of law, criminal procedure puts the burden of proof on the prosecution – that is, it is up to the...

s and the trial

Trial (law)

In law, a trial is when parties to a dispute come together to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court...

. Each episode is narrated by actor Robert Powell

Robert Powell

Robert Powell is an English television and film actor, probably most famous for his title role in Jesus of Nazareth and as the fictional secret agent Richard Hannay...

.

In the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 the program is shown on weekdays on the Crime & Investigation Network. The first series was released on DVD in 2005.

Episodes

• Note: Included are the original episode titles. The titles of several episodes have been changed since their initial broadcast.

Series 1 (1992)

Number	Episode	Notes
1	The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping Lindbergh kidnapping The kidnapping of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., was the abduction of the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The toddler, 18 months old at the time, was abducted from his family home in East Amwell, New Jersey, near the town of Hopewell, New Jersey, on the evening of...
2	Lucky Luciano Lucky Luciano Charlie "Lucky" Luciano was an Italian mobster born in Sicily. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for splitting New York City into five different Mafia crime families and the establishment of the first commission...
3	Al Capone Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
4	Son of Sam
5	The Hillside Stranglers Hillside Strangler The Hillside Strangler is the media epithet for two men, cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, who were convicted of kidnapping, raping, torturing, and killing girls and women ranging in age from 12 to 28 years old during a four-month period from late 1977 to early 1978...
6	John Dillinger John Dillinger John Herbert Dillinger, Jr. was an American bank robber in Depression-era United States. He was charged with, but never convicted of, the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana police officer during a shoot-out. This was his only alleged homicide. His gang robbed two dozen banks and four police stations...  - Public Enemy No. 1
7	The Manson Family Murders
8	The Jonestown Jonestown Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby...  Massacre
9	The Green Beret Killings Jeffrey R. MacDonald Jeffrey Robert MacDonald , is an American convicted in 1979 for the murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970. At the time of the murders, MacDonald was an Army officer, medical doctor and practicing physician...
10	The Case of Dr. Sam Sheppard Sam Sheppard Dr. Samuel Holmes Sheppard was an American osteopathic physician and neurosurgeon, who was involved in an infamous and controversial murder trial. He was convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, in 1954, while residing in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Sheppard served...
11	Neville Heath Neville Heath Neville George Clevely Heath was an English killer who was responsible for the murders of at least two young women. He was executed in London in 1946.-Early career:Heath was born in Essex, England...
12	Ted Bundy Ted Bundy Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy was an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women during the 1970s, and possibly earlier...
13	Gary Gilmore Gary Gilmore Gary Mark Gilmore was an American criminal, and murderer, who gained international notoriety for demanding that his own death sentence be fulfilled following two murders he committed in Utah. He became the first person executed in the United States after the U.S...
14	The Trial of Adolf Eichmann
15	John Gacy
16	The Massacre of the Tsar and the Imperial family
17	Dr. Crippen
18	The Great Train Robbery Great Train Robbery (1963) The Great Train Robbery is the name given to a £2.6 million train robbery committed on 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England. The bulk of the stolen money was not recovered...
19	The Boston Strangler
20	Haigh the Acid Bath Murderer John George Haigh John George Haigh , commonly known as the "Acid Bath Murderer" , was an English serial killer during the 1940s. He was convicted of the murders of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine...
21	John Christie John Reginald Halliday Christie John Reginald Halliday Christie , born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, was a notorious English serial killer active in the 1940s and '50s. He murdered at least eight females – including his wife Ethel – by strangling them in his flat at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill, London...  of Rillington Place
22	The Black Panther Donald Neilson Donald Neilson is a British multiple murderer and armed robber...
23	Murph the Surf
24	The Hammersmith Murders Jack the Stripper Jack the Stripper was the nickname given to an unknown serial killer responsible for what came to be known as the London "nude murders" between 1964 and 1965 ....
25	The McKay Kidnapping
26	The Yorkshire Ripper

Series 2 (1993)

Number	Episode	Notes
1	Charles Starkweather Charles Starkweather Charles Raymond Starkweather was an American teenaged spree killer who murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming during a two-month road trip with his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate. The couple was captured on January 29, 1958...
2	Howard Hughes Biography Hoax
3	Jean Harris Jean Harris Jean Harris was the headmistress of The Madeira School for girls in McLean, Virginia who made national news in 1980 as the defendant in a high-profile murder case of her lover Dr...
4	The Kidnap of Patty Hearst
5	Richard Speck Richard Speck Richard Franklin Speck was a mass murderer who systematically tortured, raped and murdered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital in Chicago, Illinois on July 14, 1966.- Monmouth, 1941–1950 :...
6	Caryl Chessman Caryl Chessman Caryl Whittier Chessman was a convicted robber and rapist who gained fame as a death row inmate in California. Chessman's case attracted worldwide attention, and as a result he became a cause célèbre for the movement to ban capital punishment.-Crime and conviction:Born in St...
7	Roberts, Duddy and Witney Massacre of Braybrook Street The Shepherd's Bush murders, also known as the Massacre of Braybrook Street, was the murder of three police officers in London by Harry Roberts and two others in 1966....
8	Jeremy Bamber Jeremy Bamber Jeremy Nevill Bamber was convicted in England in 1986 of murdering five members of his adoptive family—his father, mother, sister, and her six-year-old twin sons—at his parents' home at White House Farm, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, in the early hours of 7 August 1985...
9	Hitler and the Nuremberg Trials Nuremberg Trials The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
10	Stalin and the Massacre at Katyn Wood Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs , the Soviet secret police, in April and May 1940. The massacre was prompted by Lavrentiy Beria's proposal to execute all members of...
11	The Assassination of Gandhi
12	The Assassination of Martin Luther King Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination Martin Luther King, Jr., a prominent American leader of the African-American civil rights movement and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39...
13	The Kennedy Assassination John F. Kennedy assassination John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
14	The A6 Murder
15	Dennis Nilsen Dennis Nilsen Dennis Andrew Nilsen also known as the Muswell Hill Murderer and the Kindly Killer is a British serial killer who lived in London....
16	Charles Whitman Charles Whitman Charles Joseph Whitman was a student at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Marine who killed 16 people and wounded 32 others during a shooting rampage on and around the university's campus on August 1, 1966....
17	US Brinks Robbery
18	The Night Stalker Richard Ramirez Ricardo "Richard" Muñoz Ramírez is a convicted serial killer awaiting execution on California's death row at San Quentin State Prison...
19	The Rosenbergs Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg were American communists who were convicted and executed in 1953 for conspiracy to commit espionage during a time of war. The charges related to their passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union...
20	Jimmy Hoffa Jimmy Hoffa James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa was an American labor union leader....
21	Dan White Dan White Daniel James "Dan" White was a San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978, at City Hall...
22	Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow were well-known outlaws, robbers, and criminals who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934...
23	Wayne Williams Wayne Williams Wayne Bertram Williams is an American serial killer who committed most of the Atlanta Child Murders that occurred in 1979 through 1981. In January 1982, Williams was found guilty of the murder of two adult men...
24	Alcatraz	Episode features several stories of attempted escape from Alcatraz
25	The Ku Klux Klan Ku Klux Klan Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
26	The Rise of The Mafia

Series 3 (1995)

Number	Episode	Notes
1	Mark Chapman Mark David Chapman Mark David Chapman is an American prison inmate who murdered former Beatles member John Lennon on December 8, 1980. He committed the crime as Lennon and Yoko Ono were outside of The Dakota apartment building in New York City. Chapman aimed five shots at Lennon, hitting him four times in his back...  and the Killing of John Lennon
2	Gaston Dominici
3	Henry Lee Lucas Henry Lee Lucas Henry Lee Lucas was an American criminal, convicted of murder in 189 cases and once listed as America's most prolific serial killer; he later recanted his confessions, despite professing information only the assailant would know and flatly stating "I'm a liar" in a letter to researcher Brad Shellady...
4	Donald Hume Donald Hume Donald Bruce Hume was an American rower who competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics.In 1936 he won the gold medal as member of the American boat in the eights competition.-External links:* *...
5	John Duffy John Duffy and David Mulcahy John Duffy and David Mulcahy are two British rapists and serial killers who together attacked numerous women at railway stations in the south of England through the 1980s...	Episode made before revelation of Duffy's acquaintance John Duffy and David Mulcahy John Duffy and David Mulcahy are two British rapists and serial killers who together attacked numerous women at railway stations in the south of England through the 1980s...
6	Graham Young
7	Sir Harry Oakes
8	Lord Haw-Haw William Joyce William Joyce , nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an Irish-American fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He was hanged for treason by the British as a result of his wartime activities, even though he had renounced his British nationality...
9	DeFeo Ronald DeFeo, Jr. Ronald Joseph "Butch" DeFeo, Jr. is an American murderer. He was tried and convicted for the 1974 killings of his father, mother, two brothers and two sisters...  and Benson Steven Benson (murderer) Steven Wayne Benson is a convicted double murderer of his mother, tobacco heiress Margaret Benson; and his brother , tennis player Scott Benson...	Episode features the individual stories of Ronald DeFeo, Jr. Ronald DeFeo, Jr. Ronald Joseph "Butch" DeFeo, Jr. is an American murderer. He was tried and convicted for the 1974 killings of his father, mother, two brothers and two sisters...  and Steven Benson Steven Benson (murderer) Steven Wayne Benson is a convicted double murderer of his mother, tobacco heiress Margaret Benson; and his brother , tennis player Scott Benson...
10	Donald Merrett
11	Roy Fontaine Archibald Hall Archibald Thomson Hall , 17 June 1924 - 16 September 2002, was a British serial killer and thief. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he became known as the Killer Butler or the Monster Butler after committing crimes while working in service to members of the British aristocracy...
12	Buck Ruxton Buck Ruxton Dr Buck Ruxton , also known as Buktyar Rustomji Ratanji Hakim, was a Parsi doctor and murderer, involved in one of the United Kingdom's most publicised murder cases of the 1930s, which gripped the nation at the time...
13	Leonard Lake Leonard Lake Leonard Lake was an American serial killer. He often used the alias Leonard Hill. The crimes he committed with Charles Ng became known when Lake committed suicide by taking a cyanide pill shortly after being arrested for a firearms offense.-Life:Lake was born in San Francisco, California...  and Charles Ng Charles Ng Charles Chi-Tat Ng is a serial killer. With Leonard Lake, he is suspected of murdering between 11 and 25 victims at Lake's ranch in Calaveras County, California, United States....
14	John Bodkin Adams John Bodkin Adams John Bodkin Adams was an Irish-born British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between the years 1946 and 1956, more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances. Of these, 132 left him money or items in their will. He was tried and acquitted for...
15	Heidnik Gary M. Heidnik Gary Michael Heidnik was an American murderer who kidnapped, tortured and raped six women and kept them prisoner in his Philadelphia, Pennsylvania basement.-Childhood:...  and Dahmer Jeffrey Dahmer Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender. Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1987 and 1991. His murders involved rape, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism...	Episode features the individual stories of Gary M. Heidnik Gary M. Heidnik Gary Michael Heidnik was an American murderer who kidnapped, tortured and raped six women and kept them prisoner in his Philadelphia, Pennsylvania basement.-Childhood:...  and Jeffrey Dahmer Jeffrey Dahmer Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender. Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1987 and 1991. His murders involved rape, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism...
16	Judge Joe Peel Curtis Chillingworth Curtis Eugene Chillingworth was a Florida attorney and state judge who disappeared from his Manalapan, Florida home, and was later murdered along with his wife, Marjorie Chillingworth.-Background:...
17	Sacco and Vanzetti Sacco and Vanzetti Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
18	The Trunk Murders Brighton trunk murders The Brighton trunk murders were two unrelated murders linked to Brighton, England in 1934. In both, the dismembered body of a murdered woman was placed in a trunk....	Episode involves two similar stories of murder
19	Brown and Kennedy and other Police Killings	Episode features the case of Brown and Kennedy as well as Bently and Craig and Guenther Podola Guenther Podola Guenther Fritz Erwin Podola was a German-born petty thief, and the last man to be hanged in Britain for killing a police officer. His trial was notable and controversial because of his defence of amnesia and the use of expert witnesses to determine whether his illness was real.-Life:Podola was...
20	The Siege of Sidney Street Siege of Sidney Street The Siege of Sidney Street, popularly known as the "Battle of Stepney", was a notorious gunfight in London's East End on the 2nd of January 1911. Preceded by the Houndsditch Murders, it ended with the deaths of two members of a supposedly politically-motivated gang of burglars supposedly led by...
21	Leopold and Loeb Leopold and Loeb Nathan Freudenthal Leopold, Jr. and Richard Albert Loeb , more commonly known as "Leopold and Loeb", were two wealthy University of Michigan alumni and University of Chicago students who murdered 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks in 1924 and were sentenced to life imprisonment.The duo were...
22	The Zodiac Killer	Episode features the cases of the California Zodiac Killer Zodiac Killer The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women...  as well as the New York Zodiac Heriberto Seda Heriberto "Eddie" Seda is an American serial killer who struck New York City from 1990 to 1993. Before being caught on June 18, 1996, Seda killed three people and critically wounded four. Seda is believed to have admired San Francisco’s Zodiac Killer for avoiding capture. Seda was convicted in...  and the Green River Killer. Episode made before capture of both the New York Zodiac Heriberto Seda Heriberto "Eddie" Seda is an American serial killer who struck New York City from 1990 to 1993. Before being caught on June 18, 1996, Seda killed three people and critically wounded four. Seda is believed to have admired San Francisco’s Zodiac Killer for avoiding capture. Seda was convicted in...  and the Green River Killer
23	The Assassination of Robert Kennedy Robert F. Kennedy assassination The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, a United States Senator and brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, took place shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles, California...
24	Pol Pot Pol Pot Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....  and the Killing fields of Cambodia The Killing Fields The Killing Fields are a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War ....
25	The Malmedy Massacre Malmedy massacre The Malmedy massacre was a war crime in which 84 American prisoners of war were murdered by their German captors during World War II. The massacre was committed on December 17, 1944, by members of Kampfgruppe Peiper , a German combat unit, during the Battle of the Bulge.The massacre, as well as...
26	Ma Barker Ma Barker Kate "Ma" Barker was the mother of several criminals who ran the Barker gang from the "public enemy era", when the exploits of gangs of criminals in the U.S. Midwest gripped the American people and press... and Other Public Enemies

External links

• (Official website with episode listing)
• (Crime and Investigation listing)
• (IMDb Listing)