If you’re one of the millions of people fascinated by true crime shows, then there’s only one place you should look. CBS Reality, home to expert-led true crime. And true crime fans are in for a treat this month, with two chilling original crime shows premiering in September.
And you don’t have long to wait, for tonight sees the return of perennial fan favourite “Murder by the Sea”, which hits the screen at 10pm with the first show in its seventh season.
Dr Nell Darby, the esteemed crime historian and author, will host again, bringing all her renowned expertise and unique insights that have made “Murder by the Sea” a must see. She’s devoted her whole career to understanding what makes a killer tick and she’s a master of recognising trends in a killer’s behaviour. Join her every Tuesday from 6th September as she takes a deep delve into some of the most disturbing cases that have afflicted our coastal towns.
When the sun shines millions of Brits head to the coast to bask in the warmth and enjoy the traditional welcome and quaint attractions our seaside towns offer. What could be more British than fish and chips on a pier, a Punch & Judy show and a ride on a rickety Ghost Train? But behind the old-fashioned fun of our seaside towns lurks a darker side. Not only are they a magnet for pleasure seekers, but they have always seemed to attract an extraordinarily high number of murderers.
Season seven starts with a notorious case from the late 1990s in Willerby, near Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Kirsty Carver, a 22-year-old civilian employee of Humberside Police, stopped off for fuel late one night and was killed by Craig Belcher, a 24-year-old petrol station attendant. A huge search involving 3,500 people was launched by detectives desperate to find her. Her body was found miles away a month later by police dogs. Turned in by a friend Belcher had asked to help dispose of the body, he concocted a nonsensical tale to try and evade justice. Even after being convicted, he has maintained his story ever since.
The series also includes the strange case of Donald Hume, who stabbed his business partner Stanley Setty to death in October 1949. After gruesomely dismembering Stanley’s body, he then flew over the English Channel and dropped it in the sea. However, the remains surfaced up in the Thames Estuary and Hume was quickly traced and arrested. Denying murder, Hume somehow got away with a lesser charge of accessory to murder. After his release in 1958 he promptly sold his full confession to the Sunday Pictorial for £2,000. Due to the law of double jeopardy then in place, he could not be retried for the crime!
The seventh season also features the infamous Torquay Casino Killings in 1973, where deranged gunman Martin Charles Fenton killed four people in one evening, and the grisly killing of Clive Olive, a teenager beaten and thrown into a Sussex harbour by fellow members of his biker gang.
September also sees the continuation of a brilliant new show: “Descent of a Serial Killer.” Airing on CBS Reality on Monday 12th September at 10pm, this new series sees leading Psychological Criminologist and former FBI agent Dr Bryanna Fox investigates the lives of infamous serial killers to determine whether their descent could have been prevented.
In “Descent of a Serial Killer” Fox casts a microscopic lens over the path of the killer’s lives. Using Evidence-Based Profiling techniques, Fox identifies and explores behavioural red flags - worrying when seen individually but which become deadly in combination.
Each episode focuses in on the history of one serial killer. First up on 12th September is the case of Lonnie David Franklin, who brutally slayed at least 10 people in Los Angeles between 1984 and 2007, becoming known as the Grim Sleeper in the process. In later episodes, Fox investigates Cary Stayner, the older brother of a kidnapping victim who ended up killing four women, and Adolph James Rode, who murdered at least four women in Portland, Oregon in the early 1990s. Rode was a violent and antisocial teen who descended into a life of crime, eventually culminating in murder.
In this series, Fox is joined by contributors with first-hand knowledge of the crimes. We discover how the descent progressed, with Fox unearthing key insights into the behaviours that ultimately drove the killers to commit these terrible crimes. Could these serial killers have been stopped earlier? If you’re a true crime enthusiast, then “Descent of a Serial Killer” is the show for you.
Season 7 of “Murder by the Sea” airs on CBS Reality every Tuesday at 10pm from 6th September until 8th November
Season 1 of “Descent of a Serial Killer” airs on CBS Reality every Monday at 10pm from 12th September until 10th October.
Find CBS Reality on Freeview (67), Sky (146), Virgin (148) and Freesat (135)