Episode 85 - Interview with Laura Richards, BSc, MSc, MBPsS
Épisode 85
vendredi 28 novembre 2025 • Durée 35:00
In this episode we are joined by Laura Richards, host of Crime Analyst podcast and criminal behavioural analyst. Laura is also an advocate and campaigner who worked for a decade at New Scotland Yard. Laura's previous roles include former Head of the Homicide Prevention Unit as well as former Violence Adviser to the National Police Chief's Council and the Home Office.
Laura has been the architect of law reform to better protect victims on eight occasions, spearheading law reform on stalking and coercive control in England and Wales and more recently America and Australia and has won many awards for her work.
Laura has created the brilliant podcast Crime Analyst which has brilliant analysis and in-depth expertise on a range of cases which centres the victims and tells their stories.
Check out Crime Analyst and find out more about Laura here:
In March 1974 39 year old Pamela Panes and her three children Graham aged 7, Angela aged 6 and Adrian aged 4 were killed by husband and father Roger Panes in Hampshire in the UK. Roger then took his own life.
The Panes family belonged to the Plymouth Brethren religion. Before the murders, Roger had been forcibly “shut up” — or shunned from the religious community he’d grown up in. His own wife and children were instructed to shun him as well. That isolation pushed Roger into a downward spiral: first an attempt on his own life, then the decision to murder his whole family.
A family were taken, and the community were left with questions about the role of religion in their murders.
In June 1994 Im Pun (Sylvia) Zakrzewski and her two children Edward and Anna were brutally killed by husband and father Edward Zakrzewski. Sylvia was planning on leaving Zakrzewski. As soon as he found that out – he planned the murders.
Nearly 30 years after he killed his whole family, on 31 July this year, Zakrzewski was executed by the State of Florida by lethal injection. His execution set the state’s record for the highest number of annual executions that year so far – totalling nine at that point.
A brutal man, who killed his family brutally, died brutally this year.
On Christmas Day in 1929 37 year old Fannie Manring and six of her seven children – Marie, Carrie, Maybell, James, Raymond and Mary-Lou were killed by husband and father Charles Lawson in North Carolina. Her eldest child Arthur was spared.
In a seemingly premeditated familicide Charles took his family to have a family portrait taken the day before he killed them all – apart from his son Arthur. He then took his own life.
With speculation about motives ranging from a head injury to incest and child abuse, this familicide remains one of the most infamous murders in American history.
In November 1983, in the town of Bloomington, Illinois, 30-year-old Susan Hendricks and her three children — 9-year-old Rebekah, 7-year-old Grace, and 5-year-old Benjamin — were found brutally murdered in their family home.
Their husband and father, David Hendricks, was away on a business trip at the time. But when calls home went unanswered, he rushed back — only to find his entire family gone.
Very quickly, suspicion turned toward him. The successful businessman, the devout family man — now the prime suspect. In 1984, David Hendricks was convicted of killing his wife and children.
But seven years later his conviction was overturned. He walked free in 1991 — and has never been charged again.
The murder of The Hendricks Family remains officially unsolved but was it – after all – their husband and father who killed his whole family and who got away with murder?
This is the story of the Hendricks Family. Information and support
In the early hours of June 20, 1994, police in Dunedin, on New Zealand’s South Island, responded to a horrifying call - a family had been murdered.
Inside the Bain home, officers discovered a scene of devastation: 58-year-old Robin Bain, his wife Margaret, 50, and their children Arawa, 19, Laniet, 18, and Stephen, 14 had all been shot dead.
Only one member of the family was still alive. Their eldest son, 22-year-old David Bain, was found inside the house after calling police himself. At first glance, it looked like his father Robin had murdered the family before taking his own life. On a computer nearby, a chilling message was left behind: “Sorry, you are the only one who deserved to stay.”
But just days later, the story twisted. David was arrested and charged with the murders of his own family. He would spend 13 years in prison before being acquitted in 2009.
With no one currently serving time for the murders of a whole family – was it David who killed his parents and siblings or his father Robin who killed his family and spared David?
In September 2021 56 year old Eileen O’ Sullivan and her 24 year old son Jamie were killed by partner and father Mossie O’ Sullivan. He then took his own life.
A familicide that left a rural Irish community reeling – there are still no definitive answers to why Mossie O’Sullivan did what he did.
On 10 August 1996 22 year old Liana Duke and her 5 year old son Erik died in an apparent accidental fall off a cliff near Green River in Wyoming. Their deaths were ruled accidental and husband and father Robert Bob Duke walked away not only a widower but also the beneficiary of his wife’s life insurance.
For two years, that’s where the story ended.
Until Bob’s childhood friend, Roger Brauburger, finally cracked. He told police that Bob had asked him to kill Liana and Erik back in 1996 — and now was pressuring him to murder Bob’s own parents too.
That confession blew the case wide open. Bob was arrested, tried, and convicted — not just for plotting against his parents, but for the murders of his wife and child. He remains in prison to this day.
In May 2002, 24-year-old Evelyn Hernandez vanished from San Francisco along with her 5-year-old son, Alex. Evelyn was eight and a half months pregnant — just weeks away from giving birth to a much wanted baby boy. Two months later, Evelyn’s body was pulled from the San Francisco Bay. Her unborn baby was gone. Alex was gone. Neither has ever been found.
Seven months later, in the same city, Laci and Connor Peterson disappeared — a case that would dominate headlines around the world. But Evelyn and Alex’s story was pushed to the shadows. Forgotten by many.
Her case remains unsolved and although her boyfriend was interviewed by police, questions about who killed Evelyn and where Alex and her baby are, remain to this day.
On 12 November 1976, 36-year-old Renee MacRae and her 3-year-old son Andrew vanished near Inverness. That night, her BMW was found burning in a layby on the A9. Blood in the car pointed to murder — but no bodies were ever found.
For over 40 years, it was one of the UK’s most haunting cold cases.
Then, in 2019, police arrested William MacDowell — Renee’s secret lover and Andrew’s biological father. In 2022, he was found guilty of murdering them both. He died five months into his sentence, taking the truth of what he did and where Renee and Andrew were - with him.
This is part two of the story of Renee and Andrew MacRae.
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