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podcast contains elements that may be

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alarming to some listeners. Listener discretion

1:04

is advised. You. Right now

1:06

are so long to my fish

1:08

fry fish will cry hi. Everyone.

1:25

I'm back here with Doctor Richard Shepherd

1:27

returning to the showed. Can you remember

1:29

when we was moved to? No One

1:32

That was Gosh that is it. Briefly

1:34

know it was a long time. Go

1:36

back and exonerate. I remember it well,

1:39

but let's not. I struggle with dates

1:41

at the minute. A for. You to

1:43

kind it was June twenty twenty two interviewed

1:45

them but and much and to have you

1:47

are right that was pretty cool. Cut was

1:49

called know remember turning Let's call it a

1:52

celebration. I'm one number fifty an hour just

1:54

to have right about graduation this before we

1:56

got. I will actually thank you. The reason

1:58

we've got you here. If anyone wants

2:00

to know about your career and stuff, right? We're not really

2:02

going to go over all ground like that. So just check

2:05

out that other episode. But we're talking

2:07

about the second season of

2:09

The Truth About My Murder. So this is a

2:12

true crime original series. Let's

2:15

talk about how this show was

2:17

conceived because it's quite a unique concept. This

2:20

isn't it? I've not seen anything like it.

2:22

How did it come about? Well,

2:25

I would love to claim credit

2:27

for it, but sadly, sadly, I

2:29

can't. I mean, it came about

2:31

because we were looking at interesting

2:34

different cases. And

2:36

there are quite a few, as you

2:38

know, now around on various channels. And

2:40

we were just trying to get a

2:42

different aspect to it. And the key

2:44

thing was, it was trying to tell

2:46

the story from the victim's perspective and

2:49

understand better what was going on

2:51

and taking their view, which is

2:53

often the forgotten view, hence

2:56

the name and the title. You know,

2:58

we've got 10, actually, although I say

3:00

it myself, stunningly good stories this time.

3:02

Really good indeed. So you've

3:04

got four from the US, six from

3:06

the UK. Yes. It's

3:09

interesting you touched on the victim focus there, because

3:11

I think in recent times there has been a

3:13

bit of a shift within the

3:15

true crime niche where

3:18

years gone by, the perpetrator

3:20

was typically the focus,

3:22

whether it was documentaries, books,

3:24

films, TV series. Have

3:27

you noticed that shift? And when

3:29

do you think that kind of started that

3:32

will become more victim focused? I

3:34

think as we've started to get

3:37

in court, the

3:39

victim's family standing up and giving

3:41

their impact statements, and

3:43

that really opened a door

3:46

to make people think, yeah, this

3:48

is no, this isn't just her

3:51

perpetrator. Look what it's

3:53

done to that family. Look at the

3:56

effects it's had for over weeks, months,

3:58

years on that. family, and

4:01

understanding that the ramifications

4:03

of these terrible crimes

4:05

just ripple through

4:07

the community. I think that was

4:10

that change in the law has

4:13

altered people's perspective, and I think it's

4:15

an excellent thing to have happened. I

4:18

agree. I think the more you're in, I

4:21

don't want to call it an industry, but the more you're

4:23

in the community, let's say, and

4:26

if you're hearing from victims, if you're going to

4:28

conventions or if you're going to talks or panels,

4:30

whatever it may be, reading books, a lot of

4:32

people who've had children

4:34

killed of releasing books

4:37

about their story, which I think is

4:39

really powerful. Well, I think we can

4:41

forget. We do focus

4:43

on the victim-victim, but there are

4:46

so many victims often in the

4:48

close and the wider family, and

4:50

indeed, just neighbors and the local

4:53

community are really very traumatized by

4:55

some of these events. Yeah,

4:57

it's not just the person who, in

4:59

a murder case, gets killed, is it? It's the family,

5:02

the friends. It could even be, like

5:04

yourself, the pathologist, if it's a particularly

5:07

harrowing case. Was there any of these

5:09

tend to maybe affect you

5:11

the most? Was there any that spoke

5:13

out to you as being ultimately disturbing?

5:16

None of them are my cases, and

5:18

each of them has its own unique

5:21

twist and turn, which makes

5:23

them so interesting

5:25

for telling these stories. I

5:28

mean, I have said the one that I

5:30

sort of found most was

5:32

the one where the perpetrator

5:35

was the husband, and

5:37

he killed his wife,

5:39

but he was also a pastor. I'm

5:43

not sure why. I mean, I still

5:45

place some people in society on

5:47

a bit of a separate stall, and I

5:50

thought of a pastor actually being

5:52

involved in this. This is

5:54

Dawn Hackney. Her husband, the

5:56

pastor, being involved in this, and his

5:58

behavior was just amazing. It's

6:01

interesting the religious concept. I've watched a

6:03

couple of the episodes there. And

6:05

there was one, it might have been

6:08

the first episode, and I think

6:10

both the lady who got murdered,

6:12

was it Deborah Chong? That's right.

6:16

She got killed by Gemma Mitchell.

6:19

Yep. Right. And both of them

6:21

were quite devout Christians from memory.

6:23

And that was an interesting

6:25

aspect. You wouldn't necessarily associate because

6:27

that was a particularly gruesome one.

6:29

You wouldn't necessarily associate that with

6:32

them. So were there any other things that sort of

6:34

took you by surprise in this series? I know they

6:36

weren't your cases, but anything like that? Well,

6:39

as I say, in a sense,

6:41

all of them have something unique,

6:43

something different, something a little

6:45

unusual to see. Peter

6:48

McMahon, who's killed by

6:50

his partner, and she

6:52

and her co-conspirators just put his body in

6:55

a freezer. I mean, that was quite amazing

6:57

to me. And then sort of continue to

6:59

live with this body around in a

7:02

freezer. I've certainly had my

7:04

own cases where that sort of thing has

7:06

happened as well. But you still left thinking,

7:08

well, how would you carry on living in

7:10

a house where the body of

7:13

your partner is in the freezer and

7:15

you're continuing to work around it? Amazing.

7:18

Each one has its own twist and

7:20

turn that makes them interesting. For

7:23

anyone that hasn't seen the first series, let

7:25

me just sort of briefly outline what the

7:28

concept is, because I've kind of skipped over that

7:30

because this is the second season. So

7:32

essentially, Dr. Shepherd presents this show, and

7:35

it's in the second series, 10 separate

7:38

murder cases, far from the US, six

7:40

from the UK. And it's

7:42

basically focusing on the pathology side

7:45

of how these perpetrators

7:47

ended up being caught. And to

7:49

do that, you use this technology.

7:51

I did write it down here. I'm trying

7:54

to find it. Anatomage. The Anatomage table. Yes,

7:56

I talked through that because this is some

7:58

groundbreaking tech. The Anatomage table. The

8:00

table is really a teaching. Aid

8:02

is a teaching screen

8:05

and it's loaded with.

8:07

M R I Images.

8:10

Off. For. People

8:12

to males to females are and

8:15

these people who have donated their

8:17

bodies to science. And after

8:19

they were dead their bodies have been

8:22

M R I scanned. And

8:24

the data is stored. Inside.

8:26

This machine. Now that what that means. Is

8:29

that I can go and look at

8:31

the to say. The. Hip joints,

8:33

And I can remove all the muscles

8:35

like the removal of blood vessels was

8:37

to highlight the blood vessels and look at

8:40

them. or I can look at the

8:42

brain I can look at the nervous

8:44

system is this is fantastic bit of equipment

8:46

taken a lot of time I'm sure

8:48

by the people who taken the M

8:50

R I scan and then manipulated it

8:52

to give it the coloration in the balance.

8:55

But. In a if I want

8:57

to show someone because of the

8:59

common oil, yeah, contrary, I can

9:01

do that. I can show where

9:03

I come from, where it goes,

9:05

to what it supplies. All of

9:08

those things it is and it's

9:10

truly incredibly powerful bit of teaching,

9:12

which we now use to demonstrate

9:14

when we hear what the murderer

9:16

has done. We. Can now use

9:19

this and Nasa's Mars Table. And.

9:21

Not of the body of the victim of course

9:23

we can't get that, but using one of the

9:25

body stored within his memory banks we can look

9:27

they've gotten into to the head and they got

9:29

damage to a past When we can look at

9:31

that part of the brain and then we can

9:34

talk about what that was the brain might do.

9:37

So. Does it? Super. Salt because

9:39

that you mention with the the First that It

9:41

Ebert song that she had. Arthritis.

9:43

Which helped to identify her age.

9:45

yeah, and. On. The table the

9:47

image was saw of of a. An. Arthritic

9:50

shoulder joint. oblivion was so.

9:53

Attack his stuff like that can be

9:55

added in. To. The system is up rye

9:57

or is all that case of the the for people that

9:59

done it. what have every ailment going. No,

10:02

that would be a bit rough on them, I

10:04

think. We'd like you to have 15 different

10:07

diseases just so we can share

10:09

them. No, there are these fall

10:11

people which provide a suite, age,

10:13

sex, all sorts of differences are

10:15

covered in those fall. But there

10:17

are also other components

10:19

that have been specific

10:21

areas like arthritis. And

10:24

these were scans taken from

10:26

people in life and

10:29

they are also loaded in. But it's not a whole

10:31

body, it will be a smaller

10:33

area. A chest x-ray

10:35

sort of thing, you could actually look

10:37

at a specific disease process in the

10:39

chest but that would just be in

10:42

the chest rather than the whole body.

10:44

The powerful thing about this thing is

10:46

I can look at every inch of

10:48

these four bodies from toenails to hair

10:50

follicles on their head. Absolutely

10:52

amazing. Would this technology be

10:54

used in conjunction

10:56

with a real life

10:58

post-mortem for example? So say if

11:01

you were training someone, you can't

11:03

really train someone on a screen. Sure you could,

11:06

I guess, like you said move the

11:08

piece. This sounds really awful because this is someone we're talking

11:10

about that's passed away. But you

11:13

could in theory look at this table, you

11:15

know, before you actually start an incision,

11:17

I guess if you're trying to, if you get

11:19

what I mean, probably put it in a real

11:22

layman way. Actually, yes,

11:24

we do actually do that

11:26

because post-mortem CT scans

11:29

are becoming very

11:31

common. Now in the UK

11:33

they're becoming more and more common

11:35

for use often in people who've

11:37

died suddenly, but also

11:39

in criminal situations or potentially

11:41

criminal situations to allow us

11:44

to look inside the body

11:46

to plan the post-mortem to

11:48

see what we might find,

11:51

things we might want to identify

11:53

more carefully. So that's already there,

11:55

this technology and it's being

11:57

used and it's sometimes used. the

12:00

most amazingly powerful way combine

12:02

it with 3d printing and

12:05

i can begin to print off almost any

12:08

bit of anybody's body and why

12:10

is that important when it can be important

12:12

because we don't like

12:14

to show juries. Photographs

12:17

with a lot of blood on or errors of injury

12:19

and we certainly would never take a bit of a

12:21

body to court and say look

12:23

at this it shows x y or zed. When

12:27

we get to see tscans 3d printing

12:29

we've got a very on

12:31

threatening bits of material on

12:34

threatening image that we

12:36

can show juries and juries are being

12:38

educated and reaching better conclusions because of

12:40

it. How significant would it

12:43

be and had this technology been

12:45

available i don't know couple

12:47

of decades ago let's say. Well

12:51

i'm ct scans actually do go back

12:53

you know you will know that lots

12:55

of people will have had ct scans

12:57

of the heads of their body is

12:59

movement in the last maybe

13:01

fifteen years. Maybe

13:04

a little bit more in australia

13:06

in switzerland there the two big

13:08

areas that have moved it on

13:10

so it has been around the

13:13

city scans and i remember. What

13:15

i was training as a very much

13:17

a junior doctor so that's why way

13:20

way back in the nineteen seventy four

13:22

which is a long time ago i

13:24

can't even do the sums there, what's

13:26

sitting with the man who invented the

13:28

ct scan and that machine is now

13:30

in the welcome museum of

13:32

medicine in london so long time

13:34

ago. If the years of

13:37

no i had a hard no i didn't want you

13:39

to do the math thank you. Is

13:43

there ever a risk i'm thinking from

13:45

devil's advocate side of you from the

13:47

defense aside so the prosecution can let's

13:49

say this evidence gets used to write

13:51

an example of an injury on someone.

13:55

Is that class has been a hundred

13:57

percent reliable so what i'm thinking about.

13:59

thinking is could the defense team use that as

14:02

a loophole to say, well, that's not an

14:04

actual image of X, Y and Z? Probably

14:07

not. But of course, everything is

14:09

reviewable, everything is challenging. And one

14:11

of the beauties of the CT

14:13

scan is it's all digital

14:16

data that's saved onto disks or saved

14:18

into a computer that you can go

14:20

back assuming no one's hacked into it

14:22

and changed it or done something like

14:24

that, which is always a possibility now.

14:27

And assuming that the files are kept safe,

14:30

you can go back and you can relook

14:33

those digital images at six months,

14:35

at five years, at 20 years,

14:37

which of course we can't do with

14:40

the post-mortem. You know, the body is

14:42

as soon as they're dead, the body

14:44

is continually changing. And it's one of

14:46

the problems with working

14:49

for the defense team going

14:51

and looking and doing a second post-mortem

14:53

examination, the body will have changed in

14:55

that time being. Whereas the digital images

14:57

would say the same. And

15:00

everything is challengeable. Everything is reviewable. If

15:03

the defense say that's not what we think it should look like,

15:05

well, the answer is, you

15:07

produce from this digital image what you

15:09

think it should look like. And we

15:11

can argue what the wise and wherefalls

15:14

are. So this

15:16

technology then it's available freely.

15:19

It's not privatized or it's not just a certain

15:21

bit comfortable that has it or what's the situation?

15:23

As far as I'm aware, it is

15:27

run by a private company in the

15:29

UK that coroners

15:31

and the police will often buy

15:33

into that company. And

15:36

it has very important religious

15:39

grounds to it because there

15:41

are many groups who are

15:43

really very reluctant to allow

15:45

a post-mortem to be performed.

15:47

And if we can establish

15:49

a natural cause of death

15:52

using a CT scan, then we

15:54

can respect their religious beliefs more

15:56

closely. And that can be very,

15:58

very useful. help a

16:01

family cope with what is already a

16:03

distressing and unpleasant situation without having knowing

16:06

that their loved one has also had to

16:09

undergo a post mortem which is against their

16:11

fundamental beliefs. The story

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SIPC. And

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now back to the story. Take

16:50

me behind the scenes then. So

16:53

let's get into the actual filming

16:55

of this series. So it looks

16:57

like you filmed your portions in

17:00

this state-of-the-art lab Manchester

17:02

Manchester Met Una. So what

17:05

does a typical day of filming for

17:07

the truth about my murder look like for

17:09

Dr. Shepherd? Well

17:13

I have to say I thought I

17:15

worked quite hard but film crews do

17:17

work harder. I have to say. I

17:19

mean we're there at eight

17:21

o'clock in the morning which means I'm up at

17:23

six which is never a good time

17:26

for me to be crawling out of my

17:28

bed. And we start from then. I mean

17:30

we have the scripts. We will have gone

17:32

through them a bit beforehand but we'll go

17:34

through them again with a reasonably

17:37

fine tooth comb. And I

17:39

will be adding my input saying well

17:41

you can't say that or I would phrase it differently

17:43

or we could look at this. Looking

17:45

at the images that the anatomage table can produce for

17:47

us. How are we going to get to them? How

17:50

are we going to access them? How are we going

17:52

to record them? And then it's a question of working

17:54

with the team and I'm just trying to think who

17:56

we had now. We would have had a team of

17:58

about four or five. five most

18:00

of the time working away and

18:03

we would manage to do about

18:06

one program a day-ish.

18:09

But I mean it is

18:11

very variable. Obviously some have

18:13

a lot more pathology than others. And

18:16

are you memorizing your script like a good

18:19

actor or are you reading from a teleprompter?

18:21

I have to memorize it which is a

18:23

bit depressing. It does convince

18:25

me that I don't have short-term memory loss.

18:27

So I have undiagnosed myself

18:29

with dementia which I always have

18:32

first thing in the morning at

18:34

six o'clock. I very definitely am

18:36

not functioning terribly well. No, they're

18:38

very kind to me.

18:41

It is relatively short pieces

18:43

of speech that I have to do

18:45

but I may have to do the same one

18:47

three or four times of different angles and in

18:49

different ways. How involved

18:52

were you with choosing the cases that were covered? There's

18:55

quite a team because we have

18:57

10 which means we probably

19:00

identified double that number

19:03

as potentials and

19:05

then had to wean it down. And

19:08

obviously there was certainly one

19:10

case where the family contacted

19:13

the team and said this is still

19:16

too raw for us. We really

19:18

don't want you to to show this program.

19:21

And so that was a really good case. I mean

19:23

good from our point of view but awful from their

19:25

point of view and clearly they were suffering. And so

19:28

that case wasn't followed up. So

19:30

you know you have lots of cases but

19:32

they are cut down by all

19:35

sorts of things. Families sometimes and

19:37

of course we always respect what

19:39

the families want if we possibly can. I

19:41

mean I think if a case was 50

19:44

years old we might be less tolerant

19:46

of a family saying it's still depressing.

19:49

But then you know what other

19:51

evidence can be gleaned from the

19:53

press and from the usual

19:56

sources. So let's

19:58

just explore that family. interaction

20:00

a little bit more then. So first of all,

20:03

let's say easy numbers. You've got 20 cases. You

20:05

narrow it down to 10. Is

20:07

the team reaching out to those before

20:09

episodes get produced or is it an

20:11

after the fact thing? Oh no,

20:14

no, no, no. Very, very much before. They're

20:17

very sensitive about the effect that

20:19

this may have. I mean, this

20:21

young girl that was stabbed to

20:23

death quite recently, right? Rihanna, forgive

20:26

me if I've got her name

20:28

wrong. Rihanna. Rihanna, my apologies. Her

20:31

parents are clearly very distressed and yet

20:33

her mom is being just so good

20:36

about talking about her feelings and her

20:38

reactions and her daughter and

20:41

wanting to talk about how

20:43

it's affected them. So

20:45

some families can do that, but some

20:48

families clearly can't. And what we don't

20:50

want to do is have

20:53

what we think is a stunningly brilliant

20:55

program, but it is just

20:57

ripping a family apart somewhere in the

20:59

United Kingdom or America or wherever. So

21:01

we tread very carefully. The contacts always

21:03

early rather than late just to see

21:06

what their response is like to be,

21:08

and I think they always ask, do

21:10

they want to take part? Do they

21:12

want to talk about their loved ones,

21:14

about who they were, what happened, how

21:16

it's affected them so that they're there

21:18

and involved. Yeah, that was going

21:21

to be a follow up question as to whether it's just

21:23

a case of asking for permission or

21:25

seeking help with the research

21:27

because of the two episodes I've seen

21:30

so far, and I've got a couple more to

21:32

watch, one of the, the lady who

21:34

was killed, one of her best friends was on

21:36

the show. So it's not just Dr. Shepherd on

21:38

there. You've got law enforcement that's worked the case.

21:41

You've got people that worked in the hospital, friends

21:43

and family as well. So it's good

21:45

that they have the option to get involved, I guess. It

21:48

is very important. I mean, it's the

21:50

truth about my murder. And my, in

21:52

that sense, is broader than

21:54

the victim because of course the victim can't

21:56

speak, but we want to hear

21:58

the victim's voice. through their

22:00

family because they are who

22:02

know them best. And they say that the

22:05

last thing we would ever want to do

22:07

is produce the program. We think is absolutely

22:09

fantastic. But for that,

22:11

the showing of that program

22:13

to completely re devastate some

22:16

people anywhere in the world. That's, you know,

22:18

that's not what we're about. What's

22:21

the timeline between your involvement filming

22:23

and the show coming out? What

22:25

can you recall? I think

22:27

we were doing this filming, I think in about

22:29

August 2023. So

22:32

it's four or five months. There's

22:34

an awful lot of post-production stuff

22:36

goes on with you all together.

22:39

It premiered on January 9th, 2024 on True

22:41

Crime for those listening. So you will be

22:43

able to go watch it right now. The

22:46

full series will be out in total. I wouldn't have thought

22:48

that's right. Is it one episode a week? It's

22:50

one episode a week. Yeah. I

22:52

think they do run one episode

22:54

a week for 10 weeks, but it's going, it

22:57

goes on different platforms around the world. And

22:59

so I get lots of friends for

23:01

enemy up saying, I've just seen you

23:04

on telly and South Africa or Poland

23:06

or, or wherever, which is, which is

23:08

quite gratifying. A

23:10

natural question for me to ask in a

23:12

world where there's a plethora of

23:14

True Crime documentaries,

23:16

films, books. I

23:19

think I know the answer to this, but I'm going to

23:21

ask you, what do you think sets the truth about my

23:23

murder apart from the rest? Well,

23:26

I hope we're empathic. I mean, I

23:28

think it is almost comes with the

23:30

title, the truth about my murder. And

23:33

I do hope with the families and

23:35

with how we tell the tale

23:38

that we are empathic and understanding

23:40

of the victim and how it's

23:42

affected the people that are close

23:45

to them, as well as just

23:47

sometimes flagging up in

23:49

this, this world. I'm afraid that still

23:53

confuses and disturbs me

23:55

that people who are

23:57

your best mates and people who you.

24:00

think are you nice, you know,

24:02

I suddenly like to cut you up and put

24:04

you in suitcases and drive you down to Devon

24:06

and then go to church the following Sunday. So

24:09

the world is very strange. We

24:12

have to be trusting and caring and

24:14

magnanimous, but we also have to be

24:17

just a little aware that there

24:19

are some awful people out there. I

24:22

like the pathology aspect because

24:24

that's before I asked you that

24:26

question, I said, I kind of know the answer. Here's my

24:28

two cents, if you like. I

24:30

think the pathology side of these true crime

24:32

cases often gets overlooked

24:35

significantly. So when

24:38

researching something, typically

24:40

all you'll see is you're

24:43

lucky if you figure out who the actual pathologist

24:45

was that did the postmortem when you're doing general

24:47

research. But what you'll get, if you're lucky enough

24:49

to get that, it'll say

24:52

the cause of death was X,

24:54

Y and Z. And you might get

24:56

two sentences. And it's

24:58

sort of, you don't

25:00

want to dig into it too deep because

25:03

it's so devastating, but it almost doesn't scratch

25:05

the itch of, for me anyway, wanting

25:07

to know more about the actual anatomy

25:09

and how the incident

25:11

led to someone's death. The

25:15

fact that it's obviously you as well, you

25:17

know, it's you, which is great. But

25:20

the fact that you're explaining to us,

25:22

I think is really helpful because sometimes

25:24

there's no connection and that's why it

25:26

can sometimes not feel real because you

25:28

don't actually know how X caused Y,

25:31

if that makes sense. Yes, I do.

25:33

And I think this is the anatomarist table

25:35

is great for doing that. And

25:37

it is interesting having given evidence in

25:40

hundreds of trials over the years,

25:42

you know, there are some times

25:44

when it becomes clear that

25:47

the jury do actually want to understand

25:50

why a gunshot wound killed

25:52

someone, not just that they

25:54

were shot because lots of people get shot and

25:56

lots of people don't die as a result of

25:59

it. Lots of people do. So

26:01

sometimes there is this passion for

26:03

a real understanding of the anatomy.

26:06

And sometimes there isn't, and I'm always been

26:08

interested in this flux that

26:10

goes backwards and forwards. But if

26:12

the anatomy table gives us the

26:15

chance to explain what's going on.

26:17

And that's a really powerful tool.

26:20

I'm interested in how you

26:22

converted jargon speak, because I

26:24

imagine in any interest, it's the same, but

26:27

you'll have jargon work. Oh yeah.

26:29

That only means something to you guys. How

26:32

easy or difficult did you find it to

26:34

convert that to language

26:37

that the layman watching is going to understand?

26:39

Because it's quite a complex thing, pathology, of

26:41

course it is. Well, I

26:43

mean, medicine is a language on its

26:45

own. And when doctors are talking to

26:48

each other, we talk in medicine because

26:51

it's precise, it's quick, and

26:53

it means we can convey sometimes

26:56

quite complex ideas quite

26:58

quickly and precisely, but I've

27:01

spent my whole career writing

27:03

reports in medicine, but

27:05

then giving evidence to

27:08

juries in plain English. And

27:10

it's, you know, I can't, there's no point

27:12

in standing up in front of a jury

27:15

and speaking medicine because they won't

27:17

understand. And yet

27:19

they have to understand not

27:21

just the gross findings, but

27:24

the minutiae sometimes. And

27:26

part of my skill, if I have any,

27:28

is this ability to talk at

27:31

that level two without

27:34

being condescending, I hope. I mean, that's the

27:36

thing you have to be wary of and

27:38

going too silly, but I always

27:40

try and talk to a jury or

27:42

actually talk to the lawyers in that

27:44

sense, because they can speak law, but

27:47

they can't speak medicine. And

27:49

so we have to talk in

27:51

ways that an intelligent person

27:54

can understand. What

27:56

do you hope people take from this series? Hope,

28:01

all sorts of things. The

28:03

fact that actually we pathologists

28:06

and police, although we can

28:08

sometimes seem very hard and

28:10

professional about how we do our job,

28:12

you know, such and such and such,

28:15

it's very clear this happened. I

28:18

think that to take away from that,

28:20

that actually we have to protect

28:23

ourselves by being slightly professional,

28:26

but actually we are all much

28:28

more empathic and caring. I mean, people will

28:31

often say to me, you know, oh, what

28:33

are you just, you know, I know what

28:35

you do. You dissect people and there's

28:38

nothing caring about that, but there is

28:40

because I'm caring for that person's life

28:42

and for the resolution of their murder

28:45

and the conviction of the people that

28:47

did it. So there can be care

28:49

even in what seems to be quite

28:51

a destructive process. And I hope people

28:54

will understand that it is

28:56

a process, but there is behind

28:59

it and within it care that

29:01

will support them. But there's also

29:03

technology, there's also intelligence,

29:05

there's also hard work. Do

29:08

you think there would be scope in the future? I mean, we're in

29:10

the middle of season two at the moment, so I'm not gonna jump

29:12

the gun, but it seems like

29:14

there's a, you've explored the US, the

29:16

UK, do you think there

29:18

would be scope to go further afield

29:21

potentially if future seasons were commissioned? I

29:23

think that murder is

29:25

an international event. And

29:28

I can think of two or three cases,

29:30

I mean, without really

29:32

struggling to put my hat on, I

29:34

can think of two or three cases

29:36

in Japan and the Far East that

29:38

are really quite fascinating. But

29:41

would be worthwhile exploring. The key thing

29:43

is, of course, that the people watching

29:45

it have to be able to relate

29:47

on a level with it. And

29:49

we have to be careful that

29:51

that understanding and

29:53

that social link can

29:55

still be there. But sadly, sadly,

29:58

sadly, murders are... worldwide.

30:01

I think that's, would it be in American and

30:03

English, UK, whatever you want to

30:05

call it, British? I think there's

30:08

enough of a cultural

30:10

link there, isn't there? So that it

30:12

makes sense. Be cautious possibly

30:15

if you went further afield, you

30:17

spend half the time trying to set the scene and

30:20

provide culture context that

30:22

it could detract from the story, you

30:24

know? Yes, you know, and I think

30:26

that often the culture can be

30:28

very different. Sometimes only in a very small

30:31

area, but in that small area it is

30:33

so totally different that

30:36

explaining why people aren't particularly fussed

30:38

that X has happened, whereas

30:40

we would be horrified that that

30:42

had happened anywhere. They go, well,

30:44

it's just the way we manage

30:46

in our community. Well, you know,

30:48

and there is that problem of

30:50

dealing with the cultural differences. So

30:54

just to remind everyone, The Truth About My Murder

30:57

Season 2, it

30:59

premiered on January 9th, 2024 on

31:01

True Crime, so you can

31:03

watch the ones you've missed already if you haven't caught it

31:05

and the new episodes will come out. I

31:08

believe in April you

31:10

are going to CrimeCon in Glasgow, which is partnered

31:12

by True Crime. Do you want to plug that?

31:15

Yes, oh please, yes, it's

31:17

a weekend in Glasgow. I think I've

31:19

been persuaded that I'm going to go

31:22

and enjoy a virtual reality crime scene,

31:24

which will be fun. I'm

31:27

always wary about these things because I'm not sure

31:30

I'm going to get it right.

31:32

So that should be good. I mean, the

31:34

CrimeCon things are always fantastic fun. If you're

31:37

interested in crime, in the investigation of

31:39

crime and the outcome of crime, then

31:41

you know, come along to Glasgow and

31:44

just to plug the London one, the

31:46

date of which I can't remember, but I'm sure someone

31:48

will provide you with some time in June. I think

31:50

there's a two-day one in London, which

31:53

has been fantastic when I've been there. Well,

31:55

this year it's in September. Oh well,

31:57

thanks. So you're off. September.

32:00

I'll be going to Glasgow, but I'll be in

32:02

September, which is the 21st and the 22nd. Use

32:05

the code British for 10% off. And

32:08

that's CrimeCon partnered by True Crime.

32:11

Well, Dick, thank you for that. And I hope

32:13

the show is received well. And I'm sure we'll

32:15

cross paths again in the future.

32:17

Thanks for coming. Another year and

32:19

a half, maybe? Maybe. I'll

32:22

probably soon. Thank you. Cheers.