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[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: It's the stuff of nightmares. The person you trust most has been planning your murder
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from the day you met. DR. SARAH JARVIS: Malcolm Webster was a very calculating man.
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He persuaded Claire, his first wife to write a last will and testament leaving all her money to him
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before they even married. [MUSIC PLAYING] PETER MORRIS: He seemed a gentleman. He seemed the sort of person that Claire
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would be interested in. And it didn't take long for her to fall for him. NARRATOR: But she had fallen for a killer
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and was about to meet an appalling death. [MUSIC PLAYING] PETER MORRIS: Her skull was welded to the back
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of the chair at the front. Her bones were welded to the seat. Some wonderful firemen had to do his best to get what was left
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and wrap them into an ambulance. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: How had a picture perfect wedding
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story ended in a grisly murder. [MUSIC PLAYING] A hardworking and dedicated nurse
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Claire Morris had grown up admired by her friends, loved by her nearest and dearest.
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PETER MORRIS: We've been a close family since we lost my dad when we were 7 and 9 respectively.
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And we've been very close. Claire was more of a practical person. She'd help run the home a bit more.
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She was gardener and that sort of thing. Actually was a good sister. We had the noble brotherly sisterly
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things when we were kids. NARRATOR: Originally from Aberdeenshire in Scotland. Claire had moved to London to pursue her career
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ambitions in nursing. PETER MORRIS: She'd put her career as an important thing and she put that in front of relationships.
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She wanted to get qualified as a state registered nurse. She was sharing a house in Dallas with some friends.
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And I believe that she met Malcolm at a party. After which the next day he came down
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and was showering her with flowers and gifts what have you. And he seemed a gentleman.
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He seemed the sort of person that Claire would be interested in. And it didn't take long for her to fall for him.
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NARRATOR: Malcolm Webster had led a very different life. COLIN SUTTON: Malcolm Webster's father
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was the head of Fraud Squad in the Met and was a bit of a tat master, and a bit of a hard man.
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DR. SARAH JARVIS: Sounds as if his father was a very domineering character. [MUSIC PLAYING]
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And Malcolm was very much at the bottom of the pecking order. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: There were
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some behavioral difficulties noted with Malcolm Webster. From when he was a child, he was known to be attention seeking.
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COLIN SUTTON: There's a seven-year-old. He was known by his friends as Pyro because of his fascination
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with fire and burning things. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: That behavior is very unusual in a child and something
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that we would certainly consider to be a red flag for the future. ALAN SMITH: Undoubtedly, Webster needed
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to be the center of attention. So the fires what are your feature of Webster's life.
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Another feature that was abundantly apparent was his seeming need to feign illness and seek sympathy.
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DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: He would pretend to faint. And that probably got him the attention that he
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was craving at the time. COLIN SUTTON: Series illnesses, epilepsy, asthma, brain tumor,
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heart attack later on, he was somebody who used that as a tool to gain sympathy and to deflect and to change the situation if he needed it
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I think. NARRATOR: Unhappy at home, Malcolm also struggled at school. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: It certainly seemed that he
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wasn't an academic child. He left school with no qualifications at all and didn't have much success looking for a job
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after he left school. NARRATOR: Webster decided against following his father into the police force opting instead
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for his mother's career. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: Then he decided that he wanted to train to be a nurse.
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His mother had been a nurse. And I suppose it's not that surprising given that he was always ill himself or feigning illness.
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Malcolm Webster met Claire Morris as a result really of his job at the hospital.
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And it was there that they started to form a relationship together. NARRATOR: She had fallen for a man on a mission.
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He may have been marriage material to her but to Malcolm Webster, Claire was simply a meal ticket.
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DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: About 2 years after they started dating, I think even at that point,
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we can see that the there's an embryonic plan or maybe even a grand plan we don't know.
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But he gets Claire to change her will and he is the sole beneficiary. He gets absolutely everything.
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Probably didn't raise any red flags for her because that's not necessarily an unusual thing
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for a committed couple to do. COLIN SUTTON: He seems very certain to have somebody
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to whom you're not married or not engaged to get them to nominate you as their sole heir.
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It's quite incredible. And again, proof of this charm and this kind of control he was able to wield.
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NARRATOR: 2 years after meeting, Claire and Malcolm got engaged. And in 1993, . They were married.
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Her brother remembers the wedding day well. PETER MORRIS: It was a very happy wedding.
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Met some family members I hadn't seen for years as you do these things. But it was a traditional Scottish wedding.
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It had a bit of close to it. Not so much a disco afterwards as a Kylie, which is good fun.
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Or prancing about things and he dances and that's good fun. NARRATOR: But he also has other more
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troubling memories suggesting Malcolm was a very controlling husband. MALCOLM WEBSTER: Pun, pun, she's got a microphone on.
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Earthquake. PETER MORRIS: There were times when Malcolm told her to take her hands out of my pockets.
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She did. It wasn't alot to Claire she should have told me to clear off. He'd managed to win the spell over her really.
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But at the time, he won that spell over all of us. MALCOLM WEBSTER: Now we are going to eat the cake.
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Made by my dear wife. [CHEERING] Whom I hope that Claire never finds out about. [LAUGHTER]
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COLIN SUTTON: Not so very long after, he persuades Claire Morris to name him as the sole beneficiary of her will.
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He starts taking out life insurance policies on her. And then he takes out another 2 policies.
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So by the time we get to the end of 1993 when they've still only known each other
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for less than 3 years, she just got all this insurance on her life. Mortgage protection, capital repayment, and an ordinary life
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insurance policy. She dies. Malcolm Webster stands to become quite a wealthy man.
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NARRATOR: Standing to benefit from the death of his wife, Webster also had the means to kill her.
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He had access to lethal drugs. DR. SARAH JARVIS: During the course of his life, he had had a lot of medical conditions
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which apparently miraculously disappeared and no question faked medical illnesses for his own ends.
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But he also of course worked as a nurse. Now having those medical illnesses would have given him some knowledge of drugs
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but being a nurse undoubtedly gave him much more knowledge. NARRATOR: Claire knew nothing of faked illnesses
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of his childhood, arson habits of his ability to be one person but appear another.
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ALAN SMITH: His whole adult life was nothing other than a performance. He was into amateur drama as a young man.
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And I think he played that through for the rest of his days. I think he lived his life in a complete fantasy.
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PETER MORRIS: They were very, very, cleverly spun lies. Very calculated and very clever.
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And they were there to achieve your trust. They were there to achieve your confidence and they did that.
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AUDIENCE: To Malcolm and Claire. To Malcolm and Claire. NARRATOR: Newly married and trusting her husband,
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Claire was happy to have left her family and friends in London and moved with him to Scotland.
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PETER MORRIS: It made no sense to me. I mean, she was in an environment she liked.
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Going back to University was the natural progression for her, for her career. And also she was very fond of Scotland
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and that sort of environment. So it was no surprise and the thought that she was being whisked away to a remote area
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didn't occur to me at all. NARRATOR: It didn't occur to anybody that Malcolm was
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anything but a loving husband. Nobody knew about his history of pyromania and hypochondria.
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Nobody questioned the life insurance policies that he'd taken out on Claire or the will that she had signed.
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And nobody suspected Malcolm win Claire's health. Began to deteriorate. COLIN SUTTON: During all of this time when he's taking out
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these policies, which was also plying Claire Morris with drugs, with sedative drugs,
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temazepam that sort of thing. NARRATOR: Would the consummate faker take everybody in, kill his wife, and get rich doing it?
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[MUSIC PLAYING] After 2 years of marriage, Mrs. Claire Webster began experiencing blackouts.
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Often, she was sleeping. She was being drugged. ALAN SMITH: On many occasions in the early months
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of their marriage, friends, family of Claire noticed indeed Claire herself was concerned that she was undergoing periods
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of blackouts, dizziness. Clearly, she knew herself that there was something wrong within her.
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And Malcolm, he would sideline that and he would minimize it and trivialize the symptoms
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that she was suffering from. DR. SARAH JARVIS: This is a classic case of gas-lighting.
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Making people believe that they are going mad. Of course in the past, it would have been done by telling
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them they'd imagine things. But here we're seeing somebody who believes that she's becoming iller and iller and iller
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and is incapable. She's tired. She's confused. She's forgetting things. And she doesn't know what's going on.
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That's terrifying for her. But there is her husband saying, don't worry. Rely on me and I will take care of it
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all because you are clearly not capable. It would not have taken very long at all for her
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to become completely dependent on Webster. NARRATOR: Webster was beginning the second phase of a plan.
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He had met Claire, convinced her to make him sole beneficiary of her will, taken out life insurance on her
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and then married her. It was time to up the stakes. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: During that time,
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Claire had 10 life insurance policies against her life and on a big mortgage protection policy.
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He also selected his weapon of choice. COLIN SUTTON: But it is notable that he buys a car for the first time.
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And within 3 or 4 months of that his murder plan comes to fruition. [MUSIC PLAYING]
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NARRATOR: He was going to make murder appear as a car accident, in a remote area
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of the Scottish Highlands. ALAN SMITH: We know from witnesses that he had visited the location in the days
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leading up to the accident so he defectively record the location. And the circumstances on the night where that he
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enticed his wife to join him on an unnecessary journey from their farmhouse to the city of Aberdeen some 15,
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16 miles away to drop off some paperwork to do with a project. So that cleared the reason to have to be in the vehicle
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at that particular time. [MUSIC PLAYING] DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: At the end of May 1994,
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he gave her sedatives until she was unconscious. And then he carried her to the car,
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put the seat down so that as he was driving nobody would be able to see that she was in the car.
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DR. SARAH JARVIS: He deliberately put her into the car and took her to the site where he was going to drive that car slowly into a tree
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and then pretend that it swerved and it had been a high speed. Out of control crash.
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I have rarely heard anything more calculating in my life. He then proceeded to ensure that his new wife was burned alive.
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ALAN SMITH: He simply emptied petrol fuel in the vehicle. Set on fire NARRATOR: Webster's plan had worked.
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Even when passers by stopped to help, he made sure Claire couldn't be saved. PETER MORRIS: But subsequently at the trial,
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I found out that there had been some people that stopped and on 2 occasions he was asked if there was anybody else
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in the car and he denied it. And it was only when the thing actually exploded into flames
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and he said that, Oh, my wife's in there. COLIN SUTTON: He's achieved what he wants in killing her.
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It looks like it's an accident and a car's caught fire, it's very sad. But that's what it is.
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It's a tragic accident. And that's how it's viewed by the authorities, put away and there's no real suspicion that he's committed a murder.
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NARRATOR: Webster's lies didn't end there. Claire's brother remembers Malcolm at the funeral.
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PETER MORRIS: I was afraid to admit it. I was the most messed at the time. It was already unusual for me.
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Takes a lot for me to break down. But that was a point that yeah, the sky had collapsed for me.
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And I do remember feeling quite sorry for myself and then looking up at Malcolm, he was on my right.
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Thinking well I've lost my sister but he's lost his wife. And as they lower Claire to the grave,
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I had a cord in this hand which was with several other cords lowering the coffin down.
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And with his hand I was holding on to Malcolm. Squeezing his hand. And I looked up at him and he was in tears as well.
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It took a long time afterwards to convince me that somebody could fight that. ALAN SMITH: He almost was able that
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seemed to be able to justify what he was doing in pursuit of his own goal of course, wealth.
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And he just compartmentalized what he was doing as part of his plan to make money.
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NARRATOR: Webster wasted no time getting his hands on the insurance money. ALAN SMITH: Having accumulated significant wealth
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and benefited from Claires' death to the sum of well over 200,000 pounds which in the 90s
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was a significant this remains a significant amount of money. But he managed to squander that very, very quickly.
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So within 6 months of Claires' death, he found himself in a situation where he was
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pretty much empty in the bank. And so he was in this cycle of financial need and he had a lavish lifestyle.
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He liked the good things in life. NARRATOR: Finding himself strapped for cash just 6 months after he had killed Claire Morris,
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Malcolm Webster began planning his next moneymaking murder. [MUSIC PLAYING] In May 1996, Malcolm and Felicity Drumm a New Zealander,
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met at a dinner party in the Middle East. PETER MORRIS: All I'd heard from mom was that he'd got married again.
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He met somebody in Saudi Arabia and he got married again. That's literally all I knew.
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I didn't know who it was, what nationality she was or anything like that. I only found out about Felicity from her evidence at the trial.
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NARRATOR: Malcolm proposed in January of 1997. And the couple were married just a few months later, setting up
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home in Auckland, New Zealand. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: In the relationship with Felicity,
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he starts to repeat the pattern almost exactly the relationship that he had with Claire.
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He starts giving drugs to Felicity. She starts feeling again, vulnerable and tired
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and fatigued. And after they got married, practically the first day after they got married, he gave her such
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a huge dose of sedative that she slept for 36 hours. COLIN SUTTON: He's really going down exactly the same path
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that he trod with Claire. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: Not only was he drugging her, he also did the same with Felicity
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and he got her to change her will in his favor. NARRATOR: Shortly after they were married,
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Malcolm suggested that he and Felicity move home to Scotland. A world away from her family and friends.
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It wasn't long before Felicity became pregnant. That fact, did not stop him. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: He was still giving her the drugs.
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He had no care at all for her or for his own unborn child. DR. SARAH JARVIS: Even the most calculated killers usually
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care for their own children. He was a man who was prepared to feed drugs to his wife
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knowing as a nurse the effects they might have while she was pregnant. NARRATOR: Indeed, Webster's pyromaniac ways
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seen in childhood never truly left him. In the winter of 1998 and now with a young son,
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the Websters house burned down in a catastrophic fire. They were lucky to escape the inferno
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and were forced to move back to New Zealand and live with Felicity's parents. NARRATOR: There are so many incidents of fire
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that Webster was involved in. 2 houses, one in New Zealand, one in Scotland went on fire that he was responsible for.
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Yet again in need of somewhere to live, the Websters began looking for somewhere to buy with Felicity
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providing the funds. But Malcolm was worried. Felicity would quickly discover that he had cleaned
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out their joint bank accounts. He needed to act. ALAN SMITH: On the morning that he
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attempted to murder Felicity, they were going to the bank. They were going to meet with their solicitors.
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And that was going to unveil the fact that he had no money in the account. He had embezzled money from her account.
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So he knew that that was not going to be a good meeting. So he was pretty much forced into that journey
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being the journey where he had to do this. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: In February 1999,
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Felicity is in the car, they're driving home from somewhere and he starts to say that the steering is gone funny
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and he can't control it and the car seems to veer off the motorway at high speed
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towards a pole in the road. So it's the passenger side that's heading towards the pole.
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But Felicity manages to grab the steering wheel and they do come to a halt and there is an accident.
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And he gets out of the car but he's shouting at her to stay in the car. Stay in the car.
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He doesn't want her to get out of the car. He's making his way to the booth where again,
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he has put cans of petrol. And it seems that his intention was that he was going to set fire to the car.
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But luckily, the police came upon them. COLIN SUTTON: And he falls back on his other great skill which
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is feigning injury or illness. And he manages to convince them that he's having a heart attack.
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So rather than going to solicitors to sort out their finances, Felicity goes with him
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to the hospital where he's dealt with and treated for a suspected heart attack. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: After the crash,
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the car gets towed away. It's getting taken to a garage. And Felicity's sister goes to the garage and the mechanic
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that tells her that there's nothing wrong with the steering at all. And they find the petrol in the boot
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and they find a cigarette lighter and nobody in the whole family smoked. So they became very suspicious.
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NARRATOR: Later that same month, Webster made another attempt on Felicity's life.
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Yet again, causing a car crash. This time with Felicity heavily sedated. PETER MORRIS: He'd attempted to kill Felicity in the same way
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that he did kill Claire. And from what I can tell, the evidence is that the difference was with Felicity that she
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had a mobile telephone. And they weren't really around in 94 when Claire had died.
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Or she didn't have one anyway. And it was her mobile telephone going off with a call from my father that
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woke her up out of a stupor. That basically saved her life. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: The family and Felicity
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started looking at some of the financial transactions that had been going on. And it came to light that there were forged insurance
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policies that had been money moving around that she knew nothing about. And such were their suspicions at that point
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that Felicity decided to go to the police. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: His plan was falling to pieces
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and with police taking an interest, Webster decided to flee New Zealand. He began a game to manipulate women.
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ALAN SMITH: He on several occasions groomed woman through sympathy in relation to a pattern terminal illnesses such as leukemia.
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[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Malcolm Webster's attempts to murder his second wife in New Zealand had failed
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and he had returned to Scotland. ALAN SMITH: He got back to the UK pretty much undetected and untainted in many ways and began his life again.
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And again, that pattern of behavior continued when he came back. So even having been very nearly caught,
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he still had sufficient confidence in his ability to do this again. And of course the overriding motive
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in all of Webster's actions will come back to his greed. His insatiable desire for wealth.
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And he had an ability to squander funds quite incredible. NARRATOR: Webster met Simone Banerjee,
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a nurse at a nearby hospital in Agile and began yet another charade. ALAN SMITH: And in fact, he went to the extent of apparently
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going for chemotherapy. And on absence from the family home he was actually engaging with other women.
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But he would return home with his head shaved, his eyebrows shaven, apparently as part of his chemotherapy.
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DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: He made himself lose an awful lot of weight. And this was all a big manipulation
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to get her to feel sympathy for him so that she would stay in this relationship with him.
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He made promises to marry her, he wanted to be in this committed relationship with her,
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but he failed to mention that he was still married to Felicity. He had not gone through divorce proceedings with her.
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DR. SARAH JARVIS: In his third potential victim, we see a woman who was unaware that he was
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not yet free to marry again. And he tried to persuade her to write her last will
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and testament without having to go through the bother of marrying her. Leaving everything to him.
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NARRATOR: As he allegedly battled cancer, Malcolm asked Simone to marry him, moving in with her,
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and even persuading her to begin IVF treatment. Anything to accelerate their relationship.
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And so his access to her money. But while Malcolm was planning his next murder, back in New Zealand, Felicity Drumm's family
00:26:07
were looking for answers. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: At this point, Felicity started putting the pieces of the jigsaw together
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and started to make sense of some of the things that had been happening to her that she
00:26:18
was now seeing in a new light. So she made a statement to the police about her suspicions
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and she included in that that she hadn't been feeling well. So they tested her hair.
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And as a result of those tests, they found out that she had been drugged for quite
00:26:35
a long period of time. ALAN SMITH: The New Zealand authorities had made an attempt
00:26:40
to at least notify Grampian police that they had a person of interest as they put
00:26:45
it, living in their community. But there wasn't sufficient evidence. There was nothing to actually allow the police to authorize
00:26:54
another phase of Investigation. NARRATOR: 12 years have passed since Claire's death.
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And police in Scotland simply didn't have enough evidence to reopen the investigation.
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They needed something more. They were about to get it with a chance meeting at a conference for police in England,
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attended by the sister of Felicity Drumm. ALAN SMITH: Felicity's sister was in the UK on business.
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She was at a conference. She was there for a reason that she was heavily involved in a trust to do with domestic abuse.
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And her meeting with the police officers from England who was a Chief Superintendent, she similarly
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was attending that event. So the coming together of the sister and the police officer
00:27:38
in England was fortuitous. It wasn't a planned coming together. So there was an element of fate that they came together.
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Thankfully the police officer was sufficiently convinced about the account to contact
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Grampian police in Scotland. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: And I think at that point is when they decided that they were going
00:27:59
to do some digging, they were going to do some investigating, and they took a statement from Jane.
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And that's really how everything unraveled. NARRATOR: Fate had stepped in. But the accounts of Felicity's experience wasn't enough.
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Police wanted something more tangible to reopen the investigation. ALAN SMITH: They needed something more physical.
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And that physical evidence came from another remarkable source and that was a small piece of liver tissue
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that had been retained over many years from the original post-mortem of Claire back in 1994.
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And so there was a tiny sliver of liver tissue. With the passage of time and the advance of science,
00:28:49
the toxicology around that was remarkable. And this tiny sliver of liver led to the remarkable outcome
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that there was indeed scientific evidence that there was sedative in the liver tissue.
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PETER MORRIS: They found a way of testing a sample of Claire's liver. We're talking about 1,000 of a gram.
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Tiny piece. And they found a way of dividing that and testing it for unnatural substances.
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And that with this new method they meant to try it, they found temazepam in that sample.
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And that it was a 90 something percent chance that it was temazepam. And that is not something that could be naturally in there
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from the body generating it. It would have to be planted there. ALAN SMITH: That was the catalyst
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to ignite the second wave of police investigation. Because it. It needed that momentum.
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It needed something to trigger that investigation. NARRATOR: Looking again into the crash involving Claire Morris,
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investigators discovered that Webster's story didn't add up. PETER MORRIS: He said that he'd swerved to avoid a motorcycle.
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Crash investigators specialize in investigating the mechanics of an accident. Down to the most minute detail.
00:30:14
MARK CROUCH: So if you're dealing with an evasive steer, a case where a driver is reacting
00:30:19
to a hazard in the road to an oncoming vehicle or an animal or something like that, you would expect
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a significant amount of steering to be applied very quickly indeed. Exceeding the limit of grip for the vehicle.
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And often, getting these curved tire marks present on the road. That happens at or about the speed
00:30:39
that the vehicle was traveling at in the first place. You would expect the vehicle to lose control at or about
00:30:46
the speed limit from the road. It doesn't lose a lot of speed in the time that it's leaving those curve marks as it's
00:30:52
traveling across the road and eventually into the thing that it hits. So it would be slightly unusual to end up
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with quite a low speed impact at the end of a swerve or an evasive maneuver. NARRATOR: Investigators were beginning
00:31:06
to realize that Webster had in fact lied about the details of the car crash which led to Claire's death.
00:31:12
Meanwhile, Webster was moving forward with his plan with Simone. They were about to set sail on a glamorous yacht trip together.
00:31:20
Something detectives felt they could not allow. ALAN SMITH: When it became known that they were about to embark
00:31:28
on a fairly lengthy yacht trip around the Canadians, that's when the decision was taken that something had
00:31:35
to be done and there was an intervention through what we call an Osman warning prior.
00:31:40
If the police become aware of intelligence out of a depth of sincerity of knowledge that they believe that someone's
00:31:49
life is in danger, then you're obliged to advise and notify that individual. You don't have to reveal the source
00:31:57
but there is a duty of care in terms of advising. And of course, that's what was done.
00:32:01
Simone was warned that there was a genuine belief that she was in a relationship with a dangerous individual who
00:32:09
had a history that would suggest that she needed to think very carefully about continuing
00:32:15
that relationship. PETER MORRIS: And it turned out that he'd actually damaged her life jacket and was supposed to be taking her
00:32:22
on a boat for several weeks and I alone was thinking, this person was going to kill again.
00:32:30
NARRATOR: Initially in disbelief, Simon decided to confront Webster about the Osman Warning.
00:32:36
Realizing the net was closing in, he became frantic. ALAN SMITH: And I took a phone call
00:32:41
from Webster who had heard that there was investigations ongoing into the death of Claire.
00:32:48
And he was highly indignant. He was pseudo aggressive in terms of how could you possibly think that I could be involved in anything
00:32:58
to do with Claire's death. Very dramatic phone call. Definitely a determined phone call
00:33:04
to try and convince somebody on the other over phone that he wasn't involved. That struck me as being somewhat pathetic that somebody might
00:33:13
think that they could in a phone call just douch done the interest in a murder investigation.
00:33:21
NARRATOR: Webster was getting his defense in even before he'd been accused. Could the master faker get away with murder?
00:33:29
[MUSIC PLAYING] Webster's frantic phone call to police that simply made them more suspicious.
00:33:45
And more details were emerging of a car crash involving Claire. Details which simply didn't add up.
00:33:52
ALAN SMITH: The circumstances of the road traffic accident involving Claire, his first wife
00:34:01
were remarkable. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: They found that there were inconsistencies between what the mechanics were
00:34:08
able to find from the report and what Webster had said had happened. And they were able to disprove his story.
00:34:18
PETER MORRIS: You naturally assume that he was doing a reasonable speed. That we must be doing 50 or 60 on a little road or something.
00:34:25
NARRATOR: Put simply, if Webster's claims of a high speed car crash into a tree were true,
00:34:31
there would be more damage to the car. MARK CROUCH: Collisions or transfer of energy between 2 things, the car and the thing that it hits.
00:34:40
The harder it hits it, the more energy is dispersed. So the faster it's going, the more energy there is
00:34:46
to get rid of in a collision. So the amount of damage that's present is proportional to the speed that it's traveling at.
00:34:54
The faster the vehicle, the more damage you expect. NARRATOR: But there was no evidence that it
00:34:59
was a high speed collision. And in fact, the officers on the scene were suspicious about the crash itself.
00:35:06
ALAN SMITH: What is interesting is that the 2 traffic officers who investigated the collision and certainly the senior fire
00:35:15
officer who was on the scene, they all had suspicions that there was something not quite right.
00:35:20
And they did try to raise this up, the chain of command at the time. But there wasn't an appetite to actually acknowledge that this
00:35:27
could potentially have been something more sinister than a simple road traffic collision.
00:35:33
NARRATOR: In his mind, Webster believed he had committed the perfect murder. ALAN SMITH: You have to see it in the context
00:35:40
of the night itself. And rural Aberdeenshire, no police officer attending a road
00:35:46
traffic collision on a countryside road is going to be thinking about murder or premeditated homicide.
00:35:54
It doesn't largely exist in the minds of the investigating officers. So basically what we had was a man who
00:36:03
had planned this quite well. He decided he was going to stage a road traffic collision
00:36:09
and effectively set the vehicle on fire with his wife in the passenger seat incapacitated
00:36:16
and effectively burnout to death. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: It wasn't just the collision
00:36:23
itself that presented questions but also the resulting fire. DR. JANE MONCTON-SMITH: They were
00:36:27
able to find that the fire didn't even start till about 15 minutes after the impact.
00:36:34
MARK CROUCH: The time that a fire takes to get hold in a vehicle can vary dramatically.
00:36:41
Not least on the amount of fuel that's available and the amount of air that there is that aids the combustion.
00:36:47
There were 2 key areas to look at here. Where the fire started itself. But also not just about the flames that
00:36:54
are coming out of the vehicle. Where the heat is. Where the smoke first started from.
00:36:59
But it would be unusual for a fire to start considerably later, when everything in the vehicle
00:37:04
was cooling. NARRATOR: With evidence mounting against him, Webster fled to Surrey in England.
00:37:11
But in February 2009, he was arrested and charged with the murder of his first wife Claire Morris
00:37:18
as well as the attempted murder of his second wife Felicity Drumm. ALAN SMITH: During the investigation,
00:37:23
we randomly got a phone call from a police Sergeant in England who had seen the publicity
00:37:30
and recognized Webster and recognized him as a fellow scout when they were 14, 15 years old.
00:37:38
And he was compelled to tell us that even in those days, young Webster had a reputation involving fires.
00:37:49
[MUSIC PLAYING] So on scout trips, things had gone on fire and Webster was never far away.
00:37:56
And that nickname he had was Pyro. NARRATOR: He was a hypochondriac. He was a pyromaniac.
00:38:05
And he was also a consummate liar. It transpired that he had lied to witnesses at the scene of the crash.
00:38:11
ALAN SMITH: He maintained at least one, possibly 2 of the first witnesses who arrived in the scene because the question was asked is there
00:38:17
anybody else in the vehicle? And he was adamant no. He actually had the confidence in his own actions
00:38:23
to prevent any potential rescue of Claire by the passersby, which again gives you a depth of insight
00:38:32
into callous this man is. NARRATOR: Callous and with no sense of remorse for his actions.
00:38:39
PETER MORRIS: As we all know, he had no feelings of guilt. He doesn't have any feelings guilt.
00:38:44
So despite the fact that he's done that despicable thing, he's got no guilt on it.
00:38:51
One of the things that I asked Derek Ogg, the QC at the time of the trial was that after the supposed accident,
00:39:01
Malcolm had been picked up by an ambulance and taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
00:39:06
They tested his pulse and that was normal. They tested his pupil dilation and that was normal.
00:39:13
And I said to Mr. Roarke, how can that be? Because if you've been in a genuine accident,
00:39:21
your pulse and everything would be all up anyway because of the shock of what's happened.
00:39:26
And if you committed a crime, surely you'd be excited as well. So how could they be normal?
00:39:32
And his replied to me was astonishing. He said, Malcolm is a psychopath. He can put himself into a bubble when he's committing a crime.
00:39:42
And he can completely detach himself from what he's doing whilst he's doing it. Which I didn't even know people like that
00:39:52
existed prior to this. That is something for me which is astonishingly scary. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:40:06
NARRATOR: 17 years after Claire's death, the pieces of the puzzle finally came together.
00:40:11
ALAN SMITH: The whole pattern of behavior by Webster was well described by the judge who summed up in his trial
00:40:19
when he described as being like 1,000 piece jigsaw that was strewn across the floor.
00:40:24
And until such time as the jigsaw was put together, not just by the police, but by family, by friends, there was a whole network who helped
00:40:33
put this jigsaw together. But only then did it become clear that Webster's whole life
00:40:39
was predicated on lies, fantasy, wealth driven plans to take advantage of often vulnerable women
00:40:48
who fell for him. NARRATOR: On the 5th of July 2011, Malcolm Webster was sentenced to life in prison.
00:40:55
He will serve a minimum of 30 years. PETER MORRIS: I think the chances are Malcolm is a serial killer.
00:41:02
Not officially but I think the chances are that he is. And certainly if he'd been left out of prison much longer,
00:41:10
he definitely would have been because another one of his schemes would have come off.
00:41:18
How anybody can treat life with that much disregard is not natural. [MUSIC PLAYING]