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[thrilling music] - When a murder's committed, it's always a race against
time to find the truth,
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to separate fact from fiction, to catch the killer, and to make sure that
justice is served.
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But what happens when the truth vanishes with the victim? I'm Dr. Richard Shepherd and
I've spent my entire career
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as a forensic pathologist performing nearly
23,000 autopsies. I've learned that the
dead don't hide the truth
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and they never lie. Through me, you'll be hearing
directly from the victim. With the aid of a
state-of-the-art laboratory
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using groundbreaking technology, I'll be investigating a
series of intriguing crimes,
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where, from the victim's
bodies, I'll reveal to you the truth behind these murders.
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[camera shutters] [air swooshing] [siren wailing at the distance] [phone dialing]
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- [Operator] Emergency,
what service? - At the beginning
of December 2012, police in Newcastle
received a tip off,
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telling them that there
was a body in a flat in the west end of the city. Neighbors had also
been complaining about
a terrible smell.
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[police siren wailing] And when officers got there, they found something
that was truly shocking.
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[computer trilling] - Officers are dispatched
to that address. [tense music] They go to a block of flats
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to a flat on the eighth floor. [elevator bell dings] As the responding officers are actually going
up in the lift,
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it's obvious that
something is not right. [tense music] [responding officer sniffs]
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There is an odor, a smell, and it's one of those things
that a police officer, once you've smelt that smell,
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you will never forget it. [intense music] As they approach the address, they smell decomposition.
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- The eighth floor
flat was the home of someone called Joe Collins. Collins opened the door.
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He pointed to the bedroom
and said, "He's in there." [uneasy music] - In the bedroom, there
is a chest freezer.
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They know that the next
thing they've got to do is open up that chest freezer. [uneasy music]
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- And when they open it up, there's a body inside. [suspenseful music] - [Dr. Richard] The
tenant of the flat,
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Joe Collins, was arrested and taken away for questioning. - The officers now have to go
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into crime scene
preservation mode. The most important time
of any forensic evidence
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is when it's first found. You're working for the victim. You are the victim's voice.
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If you don't get the best
forensic retrieval possible, you're losing evidence. You lose evidence, potentially
you'll lose the case.
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- This would've been a really unusual crime
scene for police. Here, you have a
body inside a freezer
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up in a high tower block flat, but they somehow have to get
the body out for examination.
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- To get that chest
freezer into that apartment would've been an operation, but to get that freezer
out of that apartment,
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many floors up, with critical
evidence contained within it must have been an extremely
difficult operation.
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- You're on the eighth floor. It's gotta go in the lift. So it's gonna have
to go on one end.
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And the danger there is, even though the
contents are frozen there may be some leakage.
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It needs to be taken
as quickly as possible to the mortuary so that you are in a controlled,
sterile environment
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when eventually you
remove the victim. [uneasy music] The perpetrators
actually helped you.
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They have actually frozen your
forensic evidence for you. Any blood, any DNA, any fibers,
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all fair still and frozen. [uneasy music] - Once the body's been
brought to the mortuary,
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the pathologist's
real work can begin. This means finding out who
it was and how they died.
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This body had been tightly
wrapped in a blanket and crammed into a freezer. And of course, it
was frozen solid.
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- The challenges for the
pathologist in this case was the fact that the body's
decomposition was such
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that there was fluids frozen
to the bottom of the freezer. It was very hard for them to
pinpoint exactly when he died.
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- It took a long time
for the body to thaw out and reveal a white middle
aged man in his 60s.
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But how had he died? Sometimes the cause of death
is immediately obvious, but not in this case.
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When I'm working on
a case like this, I always work methodically, starting at the head and
moving slowly down the body,
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looking everywhere for
any marks or injuries that might help me understand
the cause of death.
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And also, if a crime
had been committed. There were a number of
injuries to the head,
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and there was bruising
to the central chest and extensive bruising to
the muscles of the back.
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The question here is, were they caused by an assault or by some kind of fall? One thing is certain though,
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is that no single injury
was enough to cause death, and that's quite intriguing.
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[light music] The grim hunt for clues about
the cause of death continued. But in the meantime, detectives
had identified the body.
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It was local pensioner,
Peter McMahon. - The victim was a 68-year-old
retired civil servant.
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He retired from the civil
service when he was 50. - He was a man who had
done quite well for himself
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and his working life. He had two pensions
from his jobs, so he was comfortably off.
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- Peter McMahon was
just a lovely guy. Anybody who knew him
said the same thing,
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that he always had
time for people. He was very generous. - He would give
money to charity.
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He was someone that
people genuinely did like and I think with good reason. - He was a very
friendly Geordie guy
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who liked nothing more
than a visit to the pub and some banter with his mates. He was just one of
those likable guys
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that nobody had a bad
word to say about. [light music] - Peter had previously
been married.
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He had two grownup sons who
didn't live in the local area. They lived some distance away.
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- One had moved to London,
one had moved to New Zealand, so he lived alone in Newcastle.
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He didn't have
any family around. [light music] He didn't really have
anyone to rely on,
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anyone looking out for him. So he was quite a
solitary figure. [light music] So he started to become a
regular at the Metropolitan Bar
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in the west end of the city. And he very much became
one of the locals there. The people in the pub pretty
much became like family to him.
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[light thrilling music] - [Dr. Richard] It's here
detectives discovered that Peter met 44-year-old
Sharon Swinhoe.
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- He was attracted to her. She was a woman much
younger than he was, and she's very
quickly seemed to get
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some kind of hold over Peter. He was very much drawn to her. - They met one evening
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and he was completely
entranced by her. They got on, they got on well, and before long they
started seeing each other.
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- Peter was 20 years her senior. Now, that gap in a relationship is usually associated
not just with intimacy,
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but with a sense
of paternal care, that she expected him to
provide like a father would.
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To provide money and to
have no limits to that, to provide her with good times
and good clothes, jewelry.
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And that expectation led
to a symbolic relationship. He liked to furnish
her with good things
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and she appreciated it. In the beginning, it
was just a friendship and it became more intimate
the more he spent money on her.
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- A lot of Peter's
friends were concerned about this relationship. They didn't think that what
Peter believed it to be
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was what it actually was. But really, he wanted
a future with her and he wanted to make
this relationship work.
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- Peter loved Swinhoe. He bought her an
engagement ring, a very expensive
engagement ring.
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And he really did sort of,
you know, dance to her tune. He would do anything for her.
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[tense music] - [Dr. Richard] Meanwhile,
detectives were making inquiries about Joe Collins,
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the man who'd stored Peter's
frozen body in his flat. They made a
surprising discovery.
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- Joe Collins has
been infatuated with
Swinhoe for 10 years. He was besotted with her.
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He wanted a
relationship with her and he would do
whatever she asked. [suspenseful music]
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[tense music] - In December 2012,
the frozen corpse of pensioner Peter McMahon was found in a
flat in Newcastle.
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He had extensive bruising
and injuries to his head, but no confirmed cause of death.
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Could his body reveal
any more truths about what had happened to him? We need to determine
whether the injuries
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were the result of an accident or if they were
caused by an attack. And to answer that question,
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we need to look more
closely at the body. And it's the injuries to the
face that are most revealing.
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In this case, all of the muscles underlying the skin of
the deep soft tissues are damaged by
blunt force trauma.
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And there's extensive
bruising all over the face, but it's most prominent
to the left-hand side.
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But more importantly, as we look deeper into
the structure of the face, when we look at the bones
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we begin to see the areas
that were fractured, indicating severe force. Not only is the nose broken,
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but if you look here, you can
see the fracture of the jaw. And in the orbital bone
around the left eye,
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there's another fracture. So what we have here
is a number of blows, each with sufficient
force to break bone.
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This was no accident. Peter suffered multiple
injuries to his face, most likely punches and kicks.
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But these injuries are
clearly very serious ones. But even so, they're
not enough to explain
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the death of this man. So we still haven't
answered the question, what was it that did kill him?
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[light music] The extent of Peter's injuries confirmed this was foul play. - The scale of the
injuries to Peter
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were really severe. He was black and blue. He'd been kicked in his testes, and his body was in a
terrible, terrible state.
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[light music] - [Dr. Richard] With the cause
of death still a mystery, police made a breakthrough
in the investigation.
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They discovered Joe Collins,
the tenant of the flat, knew Peter's girlfriend,
Sharon Swinhoe.
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- He's known her and had
a relationship with her for 10 years. He desperately wants
that relationship
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to be a sexual relationship, but Swinhoe doesn't allow that. - She always led him on.
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She always let him think there might have been a chance. He had learning difficulties,
she exploited those.
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- He was known to
sometimes be on the phone to her for hours on end. He would do anything she asked,
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and he was under her control. [suspenseful music] - Once he's under her control,
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there's no letting go. - You can only imagine
that Joe Collins wouldn't have liked Swinhoe
having Peter in her life.
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He would've been jealous. This was essentially
a love rival to him. - [Dr. Richard] But
it was Peter McMahon
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Swinhoe had more interest in. - In some ways, Swinhoe probably
saw Peter as a sugar daddy.
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He was someone much
older than her. He had a reasonable amount
of money in the bank
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and someone that she
could easily manipulate to maybe get her
hands on that money.
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- As the relationship
progressed, a few cracks began to develop. Peter was spending lots
of money on Swinhoe
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to the point that he had
very little money left. He spoke to a bank
clerk and told the clerk
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that his girlfriend
was bleeding him dry. You know, he could
see it happening, but he somehow couldn't stop it.
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- What was not sweetness and
light in this relationship, it had periods where
it was quite volatile.
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They would argue and it
was an on-off relationship. They would split up, and then they'd get
back together again.
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- Peter was totally blind at
Swinhoe's real intentions. He was in love with her.
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[light music] - The relationship
will become violent. Peter told friends of
his that at one point
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she actually came
at him with a knife. But Peter went back to
her even after that,
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and things started to escalate. - Swinhoe actually
made an allegation of
rape against Peter,
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and he was interviewed
by police about this. We can only imagine that
Peter would've been devastated
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and mortified by this. He was a kind, generous,
law-abiding man. You have to wonder
why Swinhoe would make
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such a serious
allegation against Peter. Was this a way to
get rid of him? Did she no longer
want him around?
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Or was this just another way
to exert control over him? - [Dr. Richard] No charges were
ever brought against Peter,
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but the accusation
left its mark. - Peter was devastated, and he attempted even to
commit suicide as a result
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of this allegation, which really was the first sign that she had another side to her
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that saw him negatively. - Even after Swinhoe had
made this serious allegation of rape against Peter,
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he still wanted to
get back with her. Again, his friends
warned him off, warned him not to stay with her.
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One of them actually went
as far as to say that, "If you stay with her,
you'll end up in a box."
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But Peter still
wanted to be with her. [uneasy music] - [Dr. Richard] Police still
didn't know how Peter died,
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but there was a clue
to when he died. - One of the items of
evidence that police recovered
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from Peter's body
was his wristwatch. Peter's wristwatch was still
set to British summertime.
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This means that Peter was dead before the end of the
British summertime period, the end of October.
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- [Dr. Richard] This tied in
with the last known sighting of Peter that
detectives could trace.
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[suspenseful music] - On the 18th of October, Peter takes a taxi
from his home address.
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He's dressed up to the nines. He's on his way to meet Swinhoe. - After a short separation,
he was invited to her house,
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which he must have been really
excited and pleased about thinking that it was his
chance for reconciliation.
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- He even told the taxi driver that he was going
to get back together with his much
younger girlfriend.
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He was clearly
excited about this. But after he was dropped
off, he was never seen again.
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- So what happened to Peter after he reached
Swinhoe's address? Could his frozen body, found
in Collins's apartment,
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yield more clues about
where and when he died? The body was surrounded by
frozen liquid in the freezer,
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which would suggest that
decomposition had taken place some days or weeks before.
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And this could have
suggested that Peter was killed somewhere else, and then taken to the flat
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and put into the
freezer after death. [climactic music] CCTV around Collins's flat,
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filmed in the month after
Peter's disappearance, was to give police the
breakthrough they needed.
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[climactic music] - CCTV shows Swinhoe,
Collins, and a third man arriving at the flat
with a large suitcase.
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[climactic music] - Swinhoe, for some
reason, is actually trying to disguise herself
by wearing a wig,
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but it is so obviously her. - They get in the lift, and they go up to
where Collins lived.
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Collins holds the
door open for them. There's no question at
all that these three
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are working together. - [Dr. Richard] Detectives
identified the third figure in the footage.
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A 77-year-old Ronald Douglas, another man romantically
linked with Swinhoe. - Their relationship
was built around
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a sexual relationship
that had happened a couple of times previously. Douglas still wanted
something to happen.
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He wasn't ready to give it up. Swinhoe wasn't
remotely interested in
picking that up again,
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but just like Collin, she
kept Douglas hanging around, somebody else to
build into her web.
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So he was just another
pawn in her game. - What we do know about Sharon is she was very skilled
at manipulating men,
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at getting men to do what
she wanted them to do. Now, that manipulativeness is a characteristic that some
personality disorders have.
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[thrilling music] - You can see on the
CCTV that Douglas is dragging the
suitcase behind him,
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and it clearly contains
something heavy. Peter's blood and DNA were
later found on the suitcase,
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which obviously proved that
that's how his body got there. - [Dr. Richard] In the
light of this new evidence,
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police reconsidered the tip-off that had led them
to Peter's body. It came from none other
than Sharon Swinhoe.
00:20:17
[phone dialing] - [Operator] Emergency,
which service? - On the 1st of December, the
police receive a 999 call.
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Nothing is said during the call. It's silent. And then the receiver,
whoever is making the call,
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is put down. - It's normal practice
in these situations, where police get a call
where no one speaks,
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for officers to try
and trace the address, find out where the
call has come from,
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and go to check that there's
not someone in danger there. - That call was made by Swinhoe.
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When police arrive
and speak to Swinhoe, she tells them that
she has information
00:21:02
as to where they could
find Peter's body. - She tells police
that she believes Peter
00:21:08
is in a flat in the West End, but then she says
she hasn't seen or heard from him
for two months.
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- She also tells them that the person that lives there has been harassing her. [tense music]
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- She was there and then putting in the groundwork to
deflect the blame to Collins,
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somebody that she had
manipulated for almost a decade and somebody that
I think she thought
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might also take
the blame for this. - What she's actually
saying to the police as part of that deflection is,
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"I'm a victim here. I'm not a suspect." It will be fair to describe
Swinhoe as a female Svengali.
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She had this
ability to recognize what the men's
vulnerabilities were and to actually exploit them.
00:22:05
She had them eating
out of her hand. [tense music] - [Dr. Richard]
Following the CCTV find,
00:22:14
Swinhoe and Douglas
were also arrested and a search started
immediately at Swinhoe's home.
00:22:22
Nothing could prepare police for what they would uncover. - You think that
you've seen everything,
00:22:32
and then something comes along and you just wonder
about man's inhumanity to their fellow men.
00:22:41
It just beggars belief. [suspenseful music] [uneasy music] - In Newcastle, 2012,
Peter McMahon's body
00:23:03
revealed injuries to
his head and face. Now, his remains were about to
give up more gruesome secrets
00:23:11
about his death. We know that Peter's body
was found in the freezer and their extensive
injuries all over his torso
00:23:20
and his face, but that none of these
injuries were severe enough to cause his death.
00:23:27
But we also know
something else about what happened in
Peter's last hours 'cause someone had attempted
to gouge out his eyes.
00:23:35
Now, what we see of the
eyes when we look at someone is really only a very
small part of it.
00:23:40
In fact, the eyeball
itself is about the size of a ping pong ball and it's surrounded
by six muscles
00:23:47
that control the movements
and the actions of the eye. And then the whole
thing is encased
00:23:53
in a boney cavity
called the eye socket that provides structure
and support to the eye,
00:23:59
as you can see here. And then of course, the
whole of the outside of this is then covered by
the skin of the face
00:24:05
with the eyelids providing
that ultimate outer protection. So removing an
eyeball is difficult.
00:24:12
It takes a lot of effort and it must be a deliberate act. What this tells us is
that Peter was subject
00:24:19
to a long and sustained attack, and the truth revealed
by his broken body is that he was tortured.
00:24:27
[appalling music] - The attack on Peter
was absolutely brutal, and no doubt would've been
absolutely terrifying.
00:24:37
- It shows a level
of callousness, where there's no understanding
of what this person
00:24:41
might be suffering, or the pain that they
may be suffering. - This wasn't just an attack
00:24:47
where someone was
trying to kill someone. It was degrading,
it was humiliating. - The sort of person
that would premeditate,
00:24:54
plan that, and do that would be someone with
a personality disorder, probably of an antisocial
kind, antagonistic kind,
00:25:03
where you actually will
enjoy sadism or harm or pain of others. - [Dr. Richard] Police
were still questioning
00:25:10
Peter's girlfriend,
Sharon Swinhoe, about the killing. - To go as far as to try
and gouge his eyes out
00:25:17
is particularly callous. If it was Sharon, the
basis of her intimacy with him was money.
00:25:26
And I think, possibly, there
was some underlying cause that related to her hating
him seeing her naked
00:25:35
and she found this distasteful, and therefore one part of the
body that she wanted to attack
00:25:42
was that part of the
body that saw her. [tense music] - [Dr. Richard] But to
build a case against Swinhoe
00:25:51
and her henchmen, Joe
Collins and Ronald Douglas, detectives needed to
find the murder scene.
00:25:58
- It quickly became
clear to police that Joe Collins's flat was
not where Peter was attacked
00:26:04
and not where he died. - [Dr. Richard] So
scenes of crime officers directed their
search to the place
00:26:10
Peter was last seen alive, going into Sharon
Swinhoe's house in the east of the city.
00:26:19
- They look for things
like blood splashes, very minute details
to give them clues
00:26:27
of what might have gone on. - [Dr. Richard] The
search drew investigators to the bathroom.
00:26:35
- The curtain rail was damaged and there were blood spatters
in the bathtub itself.
00:26:41
- [Dr. Richard] DNA
analysis revealed the blood belonged to Peter, proving this was where he died.
00:26:48
And there was more. - There was a catalog of clues that led to police suspecting
00:26:56
that Swinhoe and Collins
had been guilty of this. Collins had been in
the house at the time,
00:27:02
and after the sustained attack, Collins and Swinhoe
then worked together to decide what to do
with Peter's body.
00:27:14
[light music] This was Newcastle, and the
ground was particularly hard. It had been quite
cold, quite frosty.
00:27:23
There was some talk
they were trying to dig a grave for him
in the back garden, but they couldn't because
it was just too difficult
00:27:29
to break the ground. So they put Peter's body in
a dog kennel in the backyard. They covered it in blankets
00:27:38
and they put air
fresheners around the body. [light music] - His body was just
discarded there.
00:27:48
Nevermind the fact that
he'd been murdered anyway. They treated him with total
disrespect and disregard.
00:27:55
[light music] - Peter's body stayed there
for more than a month. [uneasy music] - Because of the
passage of time,
00:28:07
decomposition has set in. And with that, as well as
the changes of the body, comes an odor.
00:28:18
- A neighbor's dog was
scratching the fence next to the kennel
for days and days
00:28:25
because all it could
smell was the odors coming from that kennel. And Peter McMahon, lay
in that dog kennel,
00:28:32
for good knows no how long. [light music] - They now have a problem. They have a dead
body on their hands,
00:28:44
and somehow they have
to get rid of that body. - At this point, they made
the decision to move the body.
00:28:51
And it was stored in a suitcase and taken over to the
West End of the city. [uneasy music]
00:28:58
- [Dr. Richard] A taxi
driver told police he picked up Swinhoe at her home a month after
Peter's disappearance
00:29:05
with an unusually
heavy suitcase. She was dropped off to
meet Ronald Douglas. - She told them
that Peter's body
00:29:15
was inside that suitcase and she needed Douglas
to drive her across town to Collins flat.
00:29:22
[climactic music] - In actually taking
Peter's body to that flat, all they've actually done is
given themselves more problems.
00:29:33
Neighbors start to
complain about the smell. It's explained by blocked
drains and toilets,
00:29:40
but of course there
is also infestation with flies and maggots that are also happening
at this point.
00:29:46
Their solution is to go
and buy a chest freezer. - Collins bought a freezer
secondhand for around 80 pounds.
00:29:56
He asked for it to be
delivered to his home. But unusually, once the
heavy item had got there,
00:30:02
he didn't allow it to
be taken into his flat. He asked for it to be left
on the corridor outside.
00:30:08
- They maneuver
it in themselves. The freezer is then put into
the bedroom, plugged in,
00:30:15
and Peter's body is
put in the freezer. - One of the most common
ways of disposing a body
00:30:24
is to put it in a freezer
and lock the freezer. So it's out of
sight, out of mind.
00:30:31
And there is this
notion that the freezer will keep the body cold and decomposition will be
less and the smell less,
00:30:39
which after time is not true. It will begin to leak
through the small spaces of the freezer and
begin to fill the room
00:30:47
with the decomposition smell. - Somehow, Swinhoe managed to
get such a hold over Collins
00:30:54
that he was willing to have
this body stored at his home. - I've seen a lot
of strange things
00:31:01
and circumstances in my career, but I've never
come across anybody that knows that
the end of the day,
00:31:10
they're gonna go into
the bedroom to sleep, knowing that next to them is a freezer that contains
00:31:18
a dead body. And I just, I'm
at loss for words as to how a human being
can reconcile that.
00:31:31
- [Dr. Richard] The
search at Swinhoe's home revealed yet more
about her deceit.
00:31:37
- They found lots of cash
hidden around the house. You know, there were
wads of cash in drawers.
00:31:43
Those two and a half
thousand pounds in drawers, you know, that's cash
that she had drained
00:31:48
from Peter's bank accounts
after he had died. - One of the
functions of his death
00:31:56
was to access his
money, as we know and she was financially driven. But of course, you can
only access his money
00:32:04
and take money from his bank
accounts without suspicion if it appeared he
was still alive.
00:32:10
[uneasy music] - [Dr. Richard] Police
even found evidence that Swinhoe had broken
into Peter's home.
00:32:18
- Swinhoe needed to
cover her tracks. She needed to explain
why Peter wasn't around.
00:32:23
So she packed a suitcase
full of his clothes to make out that he was
about to leave town.
00:32:29
- She even goes to the extent of getting one of
her accomplices to collect Peter's medication.
00:32:36
So, nobody's gonna be alarmed,
nobody's gonna worry that, why is he not collecting
his medication?
00:32:44
[climactic music] - They also found wigs
and other things she used to disguise herself as she
went about her business
00:32:54
after she had killed Peter. [light music] - When friends called Peter,
Swinhoe would answer the phone.
00:33:02
She would make up
excuses and tell lies. But she told people that
he no longer wanted contact
00:33:07
with his old friends. But this wasn't the
Peter that they knew. - And it's all to
continue that deception,
00:33:15
her scheming, evil deception that Peter's still here and nothing is wrong,
nothing has changed.
00:33:23
It's all just a facade. - [Dr. Richard] But Swinhoe's
worst deception was revealed
00:33:30
when detectives interviewed
one of Peter's sons. - Peter had been excited
about becoming a grandfather.
00:33:39
And when his son in New
Zealand rang to tell him that the baby had been born, Swinhoe answered the phone.
00:33:45
She said that Peter was asleep and simply couldn't
come to the phone. [phone vibrates]
00:33:50
- [Dr. Richard] Peter's
son continued phoning, [phone vibrates and rings] but his calls went unanswered.
00:33:57
- Obviously by this
point, he was dead. [uneasy music] - She was what people
would say cold-blooded.
00:34:04
Those are the characteristics of callousness
and deceitfulness. And she showed those
after his death
00:34:13
in the way she manipulated
his bank accounts and access them. And the way that she
pretended he was still alive
00:34:20
shows a level of just
not showing any empathy or concern for this
individual at all.
00:34:26
And those four things, hostility, callousness,
deceitfulness, and manipulation, would strongly suggest she had
00:34:34
an anti-social
personality disorder. - And all of this so that she can start
withdrawing money
00:34:41
from his bank accounts so she can fleece him
even though he's dead. - [Dr. Richard] With the weight
of evidence against them,
00:34:48
Sharon Swinhoe, Joseph
Collins, and Ronald Douglas were all charged
with Peter's murder.
00:34:56
But his body would
reveal the truth when his killers
finally faced justice. - It came as no surprise to
me that during the trial,
00:35:05
all three defendants
turned on each other. [suspenseful music] [light music] - In Newcastle, Sharon Swinhoe
and her two accomplices,
00:35:27
Joseph Collins and
Ronald Douglas, have been charged
with the murder of pensioner, Peter McMahon.
00:35:34
He'd clearly been tortured. He had extensive
bruising, broken bones, he'd even had his
eyes gouged out.
00:35:43
But that wasn't
going to be enough to get a conviction for murder. For a murder charge to stick
against Swinhoe and Collins,
00:35:51
police needed the
cause of death. We know that the
injuries Peter suffered, although horrific, would not
obviously have killed him.
00:35:59
The postmortem
determined that Peter had suffered a cardiac arrest. But to convict the
assailants of murder,
00:36:06
the prosecution had to prove
that it was their actions that had caused
his heart to stop.
00:36:11
So can torture actually
cause a cardiac arrest? The answer lies in the
autonomic nervous system,
00:36:18
a series of signals that
automatically control the most basic
functions of the body.
00:36:25
Here's one part of that system, the vagus nerve
that runs directly from the brain to the heart
00:36:30
and it's electrical
impulses from that nerve that help the heart
beat correctly.
00:36:35
But if someone jumps out and
gives you a sudden fright, it's also the autonomic system
00:36:40
that creates that sudden
surge of adrenaline that makes your heart
beat instantly faster.
00:36:46
But with a sustained
level of pain and fear that Peter was experiencing, his body was already
flooded with adrenaline.
00:36:54
And so when the attempt was
made to gouge out his eyes, the extra terror and fear
00:37:00
were too much for
his heart to take and that's what killed him. [tense music] Finally, Peter's killers
were brought before a court.
00:37:20
- This was a trial that
Newcastle Crown Court I don't think had seen
in a number of years.
00:37:25
You know, as such was the
severity of what had happened, there was an awful lot of
interest in that courtroom.
00:37:31
[tense music] - [Dr. Richard] Swinhoe,
Collins, and Douglas pleaded not guilty to murder.
00:37:38
- They didn't flinch. They looked forward, they
didn't look at anybody. They didn't look at each other.
00:37:45
It was extremely interesting
to see the dynamic because we'd heard stories
of this femme fatal
00:37:51
that had power over
these two guys, and she was stood in the
middle of them in the dock.
00:37:56
There was a real tension. [tense music] - [Dr. Richard] The
prosecution outlined
00:38:01
their victim's final hours. [suspenseful music] - The taxi drops Peter
off at Swinhoe's house.
00:38:11
Peter's happy. He is under the impression
that this is a reconciliation. He's gonna get back together
again with his girlfriend,
00:38:19
and nothing could be
further from the truth. - [Dr. Richard] The
real motive, it seems,
00:38:24
was to demand more money. - When Peter arrived
at Swinhoe's home, Swinhoe wasn't alone.
00:38:32
Joe Collins was
waiting for him there. - And immediately,
Peter must have known that something wasn't right.
00:38:39
- [Dr. Richard]
Peter, it's believed, refused to stump
up any more cash. - Swinhoe took him to
the upstairs bathroom
00:38:48
and launched a tirade
of punches and kicks. She gouged his eyes to
the point that his eyes
00:38:55
were almost gouged out. It was just an
unbelievable assault. - He would've been tearful
and emotionally shocked
00:39:05
at what she was doing. And that may have been
too much for Sharon because she doesn't understand
00:39:11
the concept of showing emotion, being personality disordered, and therefore, would've
reacted in a violent way,
00:39:18
seeing it as a threat to her. [uneasy music] - The evidence in this trial was probably some of the
most harrowing evidence
00:39:29
I've ever come up against, I've ever had to report on. - When we heard the extent
of Peter's injuries,
00:39:35
it was just sickening. It wasn't something
that we'd ever really come across before.
00:39:40
- I don't think I've been
in a courtroom before where journalists were crying
as they heard evidence,
00:39:46
and that's exactly what
happened in this case. Peter's family were in
the courtroom every day,
00:39:52
listening to what
had happened to him. And on one particular day, as the injuries were
described to the jury,
00:39:59
it was just too much for his son and he collapsed in the
courtroom and he left. - [Dr. Richard] But
Peter's killer, Swinhoe,
00:40:09
kept trying to pull
strings from behind bars. - Collins legal team had
said that in the prison van
00:40:18
leaving court the
previous night, Swinhoe had been having
conversations with Collins,
00:40:23
urging him to plead
guilty to manslaughter, telling him to take the blame. And I think at that
point, Collins knew
00:40:29
that this woman had never,
ever had any feelings for him, that he was just a
pawn in her game.
00:40:35
And Collins was
infuriated by that. - [Dr. Richard] The defendants
turned on each other
00:40:40
when they took the stand. - Collins did give
evidence against Swinhoe and very much try
to tell the story
00:40:50
that he had played no
part really in this, and that it was
Swinhoe's responsibility.
00:40:56
Swinhoe for her part
did exactly the same and blamed it on Collins. It was dog eat dog.
00:41:02
- [Dr. Richard] Swinhoe
also tried using her powers of manipulation on the jury.
00:41:09
- Swinhoe alleged that
Peter had raped her. And she said that that
is the type of abuse
00:41:15
that she had to contend
with in this relationship. That this was an act somehow
of self-defense in a way,
00:41:21
that this was a woman
who'd been driven to it. - What she was saying
was, "I'm the victim here.
00:41:26
I've got nothing to do with
what happened to Peter." And nothing could be
further than the truth.
00:41:33
[tense music] - [Dr. Richard] The eye gouging
that triggered Peter's death was finally pinned on Swinhoe,
00:41:41
thanks to evidence from
her fellow inmates. - Swinhoe boasted in
prison about the blood
00:41:47
that was under her fingernails after she'd gouged
out Peter's eyes. She was the main player.
00:41:54
She was the catalyst,
undoubtedly. - There are a number
of facts that suggest that this was
premeditated and planned.
00:42:04
One, that she involved
two other men, and they too seemed to
have an affection for her
00:42:11
that she manipulated. And their involvement means that this was all a planned activity.
00:42:19
- Swinhoe was someone
who had the ability to control and manipulate
the people around her,
00:42:25
especially the men around her. For some reason, she
managed to attract men, often much older men,
00:42:32
and control them, got
them to do things for her. In fact, in court, the
judge described her
00:42:37
as being someone who could
attract men like magnets, and then she was able to
control them once she'd done so.
00:42:44
[uneasy music] - [Dr. Richard] At the end
of a grueling six-week trial, the jury delivered
their verdict.
00:42:52
Sharon Swinhoe and Joseph
Collins were found guilty of Peter's murder. - When the verdicts came back,
00:43:01
there was a sense of relief among the family of Peter, and among the
journalists as well,
00:43:08
that this had come to
some sort of conclusion because we felt that justice
needed to be done in this case.
00:43:17
- [Dr. Richard] Swinhoe,
the master manipulator, was jailed for a
minimum of 25 years.
00:43:23
Her accomplice, Collins,
a minimum of 20 years. - Swinhoe remained the
same way that she'd been
00:43:31
throughout the trial. She looked dead ahead. She was expressionless. She showed no reaction
and no remorse.
00:43:39
- Swinhoe and Collins
received life imprisonment. The judge made comment
at the sentencing
00:43:47
that the murder was a brutal,
callous, sadistic murder. - The judge said to Swinhoe,
00:43:53
"She loved her rats more
than she loved Peter," and that was probably
one of the most powerful
00:44:00
summing up statements
I've ever heard and he nailed it bang on. - [Dr. Richard]
Ronald Douglas though,
00:44:06
was cleared of Peter's killing. - Douglas received
11 years imprisonment for preventing the
lawful burial of Peter.
00:44:17
The 11-year sentence was
reduced to four years due to his age. He was 77 when he was convicted.
00:44:26
- [Dr. Richard] But justice
had at last been served on Peter's killer. - She obviously let
him believe that
00:44:34
this might be a relationship. She strung him along, and she'd clearly seen
a chance with Peter
00:44:40
to take advantage of him. - She was only
interested in people that could serve her ends.
00:44:48
How can this person
get me what I want? That's what she was;
cunning, manipulative.
00:44:57
Nothing more, nothing less. [light music] - From everyone we've spoken to, Peter just seemed
like a lovely man.
00:45:06
He didn't deserve to die and he definitely didn't
deserve to die in this way. And Swinhoe's never shown
any remorse for that at all.
00:45:18
- [Dr. Richard] Swinhoe
didn't live out her sentence. Eight years later, in 2021,
00:45:24
she was struck down
by COVID in prison and later died in hospital. But her crimes left their mark
on the northeast of England.
00:45:37
- Peter's murder is
probably one of the most disturbing cases that
we've had in Newcastle,
00:45:42
just the sheer violence. - There's very little, I think,
shocks people in Newcastle.
00:45:49
This crime shocked
people in Newcastle. It shocked them at the time. It shocks them
still to this day,
00:45:55
the brutality that happened
here in their city. That this had happened
almost in broad daylight
00:46:01
in front of their eyes. It's just beggars belief. [light music] - What Peter endured in
the final hours of his life
00:46:11
must have been truly horrific, but his body revealed the truth of what had really
happened to him.
00:46:18
How the horrific
gouging of Peter's eyes had pushed his heart
to breaking point and led to his death.
00:46:25
And from that, prosecutors
were able to get justice by securing a murder conviction.
00:46:32
[thrilling music] [thrilling music continues]