This intriguing documentary is now scheduled for next Tuesday (12 Feb) at 9pm on BBC4. Dark Son: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is a 90-minute look into one of the most appalling and unsolved serial killer cases in British history. In 1964-65 a kerb-crawler murdered six women in west London. He left their naked bodies in the River Thames or various outdoor secluded spots. Scotland Yard mounted its biggest ever manhunt but could uncover no strong suspects. The killer […]
John Cooper was a man with a powerful streak of badness in him. A bully, a psychopath and a vicious killer, he terrorised an area of Pembrokeshire for two decades. He is the subject of a forthcoming episode of CBS Reality’s Murder by the Sea (Tuesday, 29 January, 10pm). As a contributor to the series, I must say Cooper made the biggest impression on me for the heartless, chilling nature of his crimes. He was jailed for 30 counts of […]
Joseph Wambaugh, former LA cop, has had an interesting writing career, spanning fiction and non-fiction. I’ve read several of his books and just finished this true-crime title from 1973. It recounts events from 1963 when two LAPD officers stopped a pair of small-time but dangerous characters. Greg Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith pulled a gun and took the policemen, Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger, hostage. The officers were ordered to drive to an onion field near Bakersfield. Campbell was executed […]
Dark Son: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is now available to view on BBC iPlayer. I have been talking about this documentary for a while now. It was almost a year ago that I got involved with filming some sequences for this re-examination of the unsolved Hammersmith Nude Murders. My involvement was sought because of findings in my book The Hunt for the 60s Ripper. This employed some modern policing theories to understand why Scotland Yard’s biggest ever manhunt […]
Here’s the trailer for the documentary I’ve been talking about for several months. Dark Son will go out on BBC Wales on 12 January and on BBC4 on 22 January. The revelations will be ‘astonishing’, according to Professor David Wilson, the leading criminologist who presents the film. It is remarkable that since I wrote The Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper in 2017 this film has been made exploring fresh angles. Leading criminologists, former detectives, a genealogist and writers have come […]
This new series about how police question suspected killers begins on CBS Reality on Thursday 3 January. I am a contributor to it and had to do a lot of research on the six cases included. Watching or listening to lengthy questioning sessions was tedious at times. Unlike TV dramas, there usually isn’t much drama. At the same time it requires patience for those vital moments when a callous killer may give themselves away. They vary considerably here, from chilling […]
Thanks goodness deference to authority largely gets the middle finger today. This means we can give short shrift to claptrap like this: ‘Sadistic crime is probably more rare in England than in any other country in the world. Curiously enough, even the few known exponents in our English records are apt to bear an alien name.’ So, just to be clear – sadism is a vice of foreign blighters. The English do not stoop to such shameful behaviour. This view, […]
Originally posted on robinjarossi.com 2 9 18 Last Tuesday saw the conclusion of evidence being presented and filmed for Dark Son, the forthcoming BBC documentary about 1960s serial killer Jack the Stripper. It a was a big day’s filming: for me 12 hours long, but for the Monster Films’ team much longer. I was interviewed in the morning and was later on hand for a long session of afternoon-evening filming. Fascinating research from contributors, former police officers and others was […]
First posted on robinjarossi.com 8 11 17 Andrew Crofts and Mark McCrum spoke entertainingly about their specialism, ghostwriting, at a Society of Authors talk in Piccadilly last week. They have written a huge variety of autobiographies and memoirs on behalf of people with stories to tell, from pop stars to soldiers to adventurers to victims of abuse. Though it sounds like a job that can be fascinating and occasionally well rewarded, it seems the gold-rush days are over. Not so […]
Originally posted on robinjarossi.com 31 7 18 ‘To this day, the case has puzzled me.’ These are the words of Professor Brian J Ford during BBC4’s Murder in Soho: Who Killed Freddie Mills? And the death of Britain’s former boxing hero has certainly attracted rumour, legend and some wacky theories since his apparent suicide in 1965. I was pleased that this documentary took a fairly sober approach to the case. It is far better than the recent irritating and overlong Ruth […]
Please take a look at my Substack – www.personsunkown.net – for in-depth features on true crime and non-fiction books on the subject 
