The book, written by myself and David Howard, has just been published. It’s a companion to the CBS Reality television series, recounting 10 notorious cases with fresh material. Here’s the promo video for the book, with details of the blog tour.
Category: Murder by the Sea
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Murder by the Sea – the book
Murder by the Sea is the CBS Reality series that launched in 2018. Around 100 episodes have been made, exploring murders in a variety of seaside settings.
Murder by the Sea Vol1 will be published on 7 July 2022 Towns by the sea offer an intriguing backdrop to such crimes. The seaside is where we go for a holiday, to enjoy a better quality of life, or to retire.
What could go wrong amid the sunny beaches, funfairs and lovely views?
From Blackpool to the Orkneys
Plenty, of course. The larger resorts, such as Blackpool, have suffered economic decline and have large transient populations. Not everyone who heads there for work or play is a model citizen.
Residents of smaller spots, from Barry in South Wales to the Orkney Islands, have been shocked when private pressures have exploded in such peaceful settings.
Cases featured on Murder by the Sea have been compelling because they explore how normal people in these often stunning environments have encountered those we dread. Violent husbands, the greedy, callous relatives, the psychopathic.
Companion book
Nell Darby, current presenter of Murder by the Sea Because the series has built quite a following since 2018, the idea of a companion book came up. Two new seasons are currently in the pipeline. In addition, there is much valuable interview material that can’t always be squeezed into the hour-long slots.
So the book is not just a rehash of the programmes, but adds new and often moving insights.
I’ve been lucky enough to be asked to appear on several series of Murder by the Sea. I usually contribute to five or six cases as a true-crime author and got to know the makers of the documentaries, Monster Films.
Murder by the Sea exclusive
And so with David Howard, the series director who conducts the interviews, I’ve worked on the forthcoming book. This features 10 cases from past series.
David has interviewed relatives of victims, detectives, crime experts and psychologists. They offer powerful insights into the cases. However, there are often interesting observations that there is no room for in the finished episode.
I’ve had the opportunity to read through interview transcripts and include some striking exclusive information in the book. For those who have seen Murder by the Sea and those who have not, the cases should make fascinating – sometimes astonishing – reading.
A trailer for a previous Murder by the Sea series Why did Alfred Merrifield go free while his wife hanged?
Cases covered ask some strong questions. Why was serial killer Malcolm Green released on probation to commit a second horrendous crime?
How was it that Alfred Merrifield was not convicted alongside his wife, Louisa, for the 1953 poisoning of their employed, Sarah Ricketts? Is there any way to understand the awful murder committed by teenager Mathew Hardman on the isle of Anglesey?
Answers can be elusive. However, exploring the cases and asking the right questions offers insights into how and why a few people commit crimes that are dismaying and seem inexplicable. And how they get caught.
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Murder by the Sea: The Mochries
Mochrie family portrait on the front page of the local newspaper I learned a chilling term while researching my contribution to tonight’s episode of Murder by the Sea – the ‘Family Annihilator’.
It’s hard not be saddened, perplexed, annoyed that a man can rationalise the act of killing his whole family. One newspaper summed what many thought back in 2000 – How could he do it?
To all appearances Robert Mochrie, 49, and his wife, Catherine, 45, lived a comfortable life in Rutland Close, Barry, South Wales. They shared their £250,000 home with their children – Bethan, 10, Luke, 14, Sian, 16, and James, 18 – on a neighbourly suburban estate.
Robert and Catherine Mochrie – an ideal couple?
Robert and Catherine had been married for 23 years and were, so most people thought, a loving couple.
That was until a good friend of Catherine’s, Debbie Zeraschi, who lived on the estate, became impatient to know why the Mochrie house was so quiet. It was usually bustling with the youngsters coming and going.
Catherine had said nothing to Zeraschi about going away. During 11 days of eerie quiet at the Mochrie’s home, Zeraschi noticed that there was a smell, and the flies.
With the help of a friend, Zeraschi climbed a ladder and looked into Luke’s bedroom. On the bed was a shape.
She called the police.
One of the many appalling aspects of this case was how difficult it must have been for the officers who answered that call. No amount of training could have readied them.
A note for the milkman
Robert Mochie, a former civil servant turned businessman, had gone around his darkened home and bludgeoned his wife and children to death.
An indication of how detached from rationality he had become soon became apparent to detectives. Mochrie spent the next 24 hours getting everything in order.
He cancelled Bethan’s lifts to school. He left a note for the milkman – ‘No milk until Friday.’
He put the cat and dog out. He cleaned up the blood, even though he had no intention of hiding his crime. CONTINUED
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Murder by the Sea: Miles Giffard
I found one of the most interesting, but dismaying, cases in a previous series of Murder by the Sea to be that of Miles Giffard.
Giffard murdered his parents, Charles, 53, and Elizabeth, 56, at the family home in St Austell in 1952. Miles Giffard was 26 and something of a puzzle.
Miles Giffard told his girlfriend he had done ‘something frightful’ He had played cricket for Cornwall and attended Rugby public school. However, that was virtually the pinnacle of his achievements. He had trained to be a solicitor (his father was a solicitor and clerk of the court in St Austell), but this had come to nothing.
He ended up selling ice cream but was described at his trial as an ‘unemployed clerk’. To his father he was a sponger and something of a failure.
Charles cut his son’s allowance and refused to let him marry until he got a job. He had received a legacy of £750 but had squandered this.
Giffard’s life in turmoil
He had a girlfriend, Gabriel Vallance, 19, whom he met him in London. Events leading up to the murders coincided with a visit he made to her.
Gabriel sent him home to Cornwall to get fresh clothes, so dismayed was she by his shabby appearance. However, Giffard was so down at heel he could not then break free of his father.
He wrote to Gabriel to say ‘the old man’ had refused to let him return to London. His father, Giffard wrote, had rationed him to one pint of beer and 20 cigarettes a day – and no pubs.
‘Short of doing him in, I see no future at all,’ Giffard wrote.
Giffard senior was insisting Miles get a job and be independent. At some point while he was stuck at home, his father refused to let him use the family car.
After murders, Giffard takes his girlfriend to a Chaplin film
Miles drank all afternoon at home. When his parents returned home that evening, he confronted his father in the garage with a metal pipe and beat him to death. He attacked his mother at the house.
The Giffards were pillars of the community and lived in a grand house, Carrickowl, by the cliffs. Miles Giffard took their bodies to the cliff edge in a wheelbarrow and threw them off. CONTD…
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Murder by the Sea: Danny Dyke
Danny Dyke was leading a double life. To mates and colleagues in the Swansea area he was an osteopath.
A former rugby player for Rosslyn Park and Eastbourne before knee injuries cut his playing prospects short, he’d also had a spell as a physio for Neath and Aberavon rugby clubs.
However, as revealed in CBS Reality’s Murder by the Sea, he wanted more. This led to his developing a dangerous sideline – that of a drug dealer with a sophisticated network.
To anyone who looked he seemed to have it all for a time. This was the early 1990s. Rugby union was on the verge of going professional and Dyke had plenty of rugby contacts.
Grim headlines at the time of the Danny Dyke murder trial Osteopath’s dangerous double life
So he had his day job, but on the quiet was providing anabolic steroids to rugby players and clubbers. But he also had a lifestyle that was beyond the means of the average physio.
He had developed contacts in London who could supply him with the drugs he distributed in south Wales. The problem was that sooner or later he was going to do business with some seriously nasty criminals.
One London man who knew the scene said Dyke was a nice fella who had no muscle behind him.
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Murder by the Sea returns – series 6
CBS Reality’s Murder by the Sea returns for a sixth series on Tuesday (7 Sept, 10pm), with further engrossing accounts of notorious cases.
I’ve been fascinated to be involved in several previous series and filmed contributions to five cases in the upcoming collection, although the research can be grim at times.
Nell Darby presents Murder by the Sea However, the cases I was invited to talk about covered an intriguing range, from 1952 up to more modern murders. They include the case of a ‘family annihilator’ in south Wales, a gang murder and the shocking case of an extremely dangerous man released from hospital on conditional discharge.
Cruel husbands
When Monster Films first asked me to be part of the series in 2018, I was bemused by premise, which seemed a little random.
Having since looked into quite a few cases for the producers, I now appreciate what a strong idea the seaside angle is. A rich variety of lifestyles and people are found in coastal communities.
People retire there, or raise families or pass through on holiday. Murder has wreaked havoc on unfortunate members of all these groups.
