Forensics: Murder Scene - Season 1

In this episode, forensic teams are called to the scene of a young woman who has been brutally stabbed in her home in Leeds. A man is arrested nearby and is refusing to talk. Over the course of the critical next few hours and days we join the expert forensic teams and blood analysis experts as they meticulously assess the scene to establish what may have happened. Working alongside the detectives every forensic discovery is reported back to the murder team piecing together what might have happened.

At first glance this appears to be a violent domestic argument that has spiralled out of control, but then a forensics breakthrough emerges which reveals a clear element of pre-planning, where the assailant has been stalking the victim. It suddenly becomes clear that this is anything but an argument gone terribly wrong. This is pre-meditated murder.

West Yorkshire police call in the forensic teams to investigate when a man is shot and killed in a newsagents, the savage attack with a close-range shotgun blast sending tremors through the local community. They immediately bring in ballistics experts to assess the firearms discharge and deploy digital forensics to survey the scene and retrieve key CCTV footage. Arrests and urgent searches of properties follow to try and link potential offenders to the attack, and the forensics and detective teams race to get as much hard evidence to support the prosecution case as possible.

A recycling plant in Yorkshire makes a gruesome discovery when an intact human foot is found among the waste.

Detectives and forensic teams rush to the scene and work at the plant grinds to a halt. Experts are called in including a Forensic Anthropologist to find answers to three key questions in the investigation – to whom does the foot belong, is this a case of murder, and could there be more than one body hidden at the plant?

At the scene they are faced with an enormous task, with thousands of tonnes of waste to comb through. With no idea whether they are searching for one person or even a serial killer, what unfolds is a complex DNA mystery that takes the forensic team across the globe.

This observational documentary goes behind the blue police tapes at a crime scene. It reveals the inside story of how expert forensic teams work alongside West Yorkshire Police to solve and prosecute murders, on the scene as soon as the crime is reported.