TV review:
Cold Case Detectives.
Welcome to this week’s #TuesdayTip. This time it is a TV Review of ITVX’s Cold Case Detectives.
Recent decades have seen a proliferation in new investigative tools, especially those related to DNA analysis. Prior to the discovery of what is commonly known as DNA fingerprinting in 1984, many serious crimes were unsolved due to a lack of forensic evidence. That is now changing. In the UK, unsolved crimes such as murder, and other serious offences, are never closed. Instead the original evidence and samples are preserved and placed in storage, in the hope that one day new leads might surface that identify new suspects or even strengthen the case against existing suspects.
This has led to the formation of specialist ‘Cold Case Units’ that periodically review outstanding cases to see if there is anything that can be done to resurrect the investigation. With the advent of new technologies, even as memories fade and witnesses die, there remains a glimmer of hope that justice can finally be done. Even cases from the late 80s and 90s can be reopened as techniques that were in their infancy back then have evolved and matured to become usable on samples that were too small or degraded to analyse fully at the time.
ITVX’s Cold Case Detectives follows a team at South Wales Police who aim to do just that. A mixture of specialist serving officers and retired former detectives (some of whom have a personal connection to the original investigation) revisit cases that are decades old. This three-part series follows two cases in particular. The 60-year-old murder of a 6-year-old girl, Carol Ann Stephens, and a 40-year-old rape case. The documentary follows the team as they pore over the existing evidence and even identify new witnesses. The programme demonstrates how even with the passage of decades, these crimes still affect those involved. It is gratifying to see the passion of these detectives to bring the perpetrators to justice, or if that isn’t possible, to at least supply some answers to grieving relatives and traumatised victims. And there is a grim satisfaction to be had in seeing the face of somebody who has slept easy in recent years finally getting the knock on the door that they had assumed they had escaped.
I highly recommend this series for those interested in the application of state-of-the-art forensic techniques and modern detection methods on crimes committed long before those technologies were conceived.
The programmes are available to watch on ITVX. (https://www.itv.com/watch/cold-case-detectives/7a0172/7a0172a0001).
Do you have any recommendations for documentaries that are worth watching? As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
Recent decades have seen a proliferation in new investigative tools, especially those related to DNA analysis. Prior to the discovery of what is commonly known as DNA fingerprinting in 1984, many serious crimes were unsolved due to a lack of forensic evidence. That is now changing. In the UK, unsolved crimes such as murder, and other serious offences, are never closed. Instead the original evidence and samples are preserved and placed in storage, in the hope that one day new leads might surface that identify new suspects or even strengthen the case against existing suspects.
This has led to the formation of specialist ‘Cold Case Units’ that periodically review outstanding cases to see if there is anything that can be done to resurrect the investigation. With the advent of new technologies, even as memories fade and witnesses die, there remains a glimmer of hope that justice can finally be done. Even cases from the late 80s and 90s can be reopened as techniques that were in their infancy back then have evolved and matured to become usable on samples that were too small or degraded to analyse fully at the time.
ITVX’s Cold Case Detectives follows a team at South Wales Police who aim to do just that. A mixture of specialist serving officers and retired former detectives (some of whom have a personal connection to the original investigation) revisit cases that are decades old. This three-part series follows two cases in particular. The 60-year-old murder of a 6-year-old girl, Carol Ann Stephens, and a 40-year-old rape case. The documentary follows the team as they pore over the existing evidence and even identify new witnesses. The programme demonstrates how even with the passage of decades, these crimes still affect those involved. It is gratifying to see the passion of these detectives to bring the perpetrators to justice, or if that isn’t possible, to at least supply some answers to grieving relatives and traumatised victims. And there is a grim satisfaction to be had in seeing the face of somebody who has slept easy in recent years finally getting the knock on the door that they had assumed they had escaped.
I highly recommend this series for those interested in the application of state-of-the-art forensic techniques and modern detection methods on crimes committed long before those technologies were conceived.
The programmes are available to watch on ITVX. (https://www.itv.com/watch/cold-case-detectives/7a0172/7a0172a0001).
Do you have any recommendations for documentaries that are worth watching? As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Until next time,
Paul
If you are a writer with a tip to share, or fancy writing a fictional interview between you and one of your characters, please feel free to email me.
