The Mysterious Case of Fred the Head

1969 - The Cold War is at its height. The clandestine battle of secrets, spies and espionage is raging on both sides of the Iron Curtain. It sounds glamorous, but in reality espionage was a dirty, sordid, small time business. Was Fred's death related to these activities. 

My request to the senior levels of the Police service about Isotopic Analysis yields results of an unexpected kind and I get to speak with someone who's been working on the Fred case for far longer than me.

We hear about something that may change everything. A possible link between the body and the killer. 

We've got work to do in our continuing investigation into whether there was any connection between Bible John and Fred. That starts with a deep dive into the dentistry and that process generates a new idea that I need to get to the bottom of.

We've been systematically combing through marriages in an ever-widening circle from Burton as part of an ongoing process to capture marriages in around 1969. Those few who we can't trace afterwards populate the worry list. In the meantime Iain has been on the trail of Anthony Hardy in a process that yields unexpected results, bring a completely fascinating new possibility into our thinking.

Welcome to Season 2 - Where we learn more about Fred's dentistry. plan our campaign for the new season and investigate two incidents from the time of the murder that might have a bearing on the case.

I need to understand more about how Czechoslovak refugees found their way to the UK in 1968 and fortunately I find someone who could help me with this, and I get to learn a great deal that could prove very useful in the fullness of time.

In the second half of the podcast, I try to construct a hypothesis of what might have happened. By taking a step back and selecting the key findings over the last year which we believe to be true, I try to formulate a working hypothesis that can form the basis of how we move forward in Season 2.

 

I receive an offer of help on analysing Fred’s dentistry, the results of which open up a new avenue of investigation. One that links our victim to the broader political upheavals that were happening around the world in in the late 1960s. And a conversation with Zoe Kun adds more intrigue to that possibility. There’s also some interesting news I wanted to share with you.

I’m following the trail to discover more about Mr A, the man at the centre of the story in Episode 23. I manage to find and speak with someone who knew him really, really well. So here was my chance to test the accuracy of the account.
 
That call proved very interesting, but not only in the way I had imagined. I also learned something else that cast a new light on the case. One that linked to earlier stages of the investigation.

Trying to trace George Robinson, who died in his shack in Stapenhill is proving difficult, very difficult, but we’ve simply got to find him. But in the process of trying to find him, I discover another witness. Someone who can tell me much, much more about one of the other main characters in the story. Mr A – the man at the centre of the murder.

I’m trying to find the identity of the man in the shack, to understand who he was and whether he was involved in the case in any way.  That investigation leads us down another fascinating avenue.

I needed to dig deeper and deeper into the story that we had been told, and that involved another conversation with the person who told me the story. That conversation revealed something I hadn’t quite understood…. Exactly when he was told about the murder, and if thats true, it could have major repercussions for the investigation.