If you haven’t seen The Staircase, the original true-crime series just re-released on Netflix with three new episodes, then you must. And if you have seen it, you will know something – quite a lot, actually – about blood spatter analysis. In which case your interest will be piqued by that aspect of the new true-crime series Conviction.
It is an absorbing one. Conviction looks at the case of Glyn Razzell, who was convicted of killing his estranged wife Linda, even though her body was never found. The most damning evidence was the blood – her blood – found in the boot of the car he had been driving. Glyn points out that the blood was found only on the third time of searching, and asks how the police could have missed so many spots on two previous searches. He says the blood could have been planted, and that Linda staged her own disappearance. For the past 15 years he has maintained his innocence.
Now, he has contacted Louise Shorter and her organisation Inside Justice, which looks into possible miscarriages of justice. Shorter used to be a producer/director on the BBC’s Rough Justice programme. Now she and her advisory panel of forensics experts, former police officers and lawyers, most of whom seem to be women, are re-examining evidence to see if there are grounds for a new line of inquiry.
So the team visit the scene of the crime, a residential close in suburban Swindon, and more specifically the alleyway along which Linda walked to work and where her phone was found. They re-examine police videos from the time, and visit a lake that was extensively searched. A couple of forensics experts get to work on re-examining the reports of the blood spatters in the boot of Glyn’s car, and Shorter retraces Glyn’s movements with his lawyer.
And she speaks to Glyn himself. Speaks on the phone, because he is in prison. If this was in the US, Shorter and the film crew would almost certainly have got inside to interview him on camera. They do good access to jails and courthouses over there – come on in, have a great day.
It might not make any difference to whether the case is going to be reopened or not. But from the armchair detective’s point of view, it is a shame. It is probably unfair to compare this with The Staircase, given that the latter is a (now 13-episode) series, filmed for more than a decade, and Conviction is a two-part documentary. But it is also perhaps inevitable – given that both are about men convicted of killing their wives and claim they are innocent, and that blood spatter analysis is a big part of the evidence. (Also because I’m a little bit obsessed with The Staircase at the moment.)
The greatest true-crime documentaries – for example, The Staircase (!) but also Making a Murderer or The Keepers – aren’t just about whether they dunnit or not; they say something more significant about a time or a place. And they have great characters, whose psyches are explored and into whose eyes you can look for clues as to who they are and what they might have done. Though you don’t even need to look into their eyes – the Serial podcast achieved that with audio alone. This hasn’t done that – yet; it is really just about the case and the evidence. It is more CSI than Happy Valley, if it was a drama. Nothing wrong with that, if you’re not expecting more. And the case – as I said - is fascinating.
Shorter starts to look at a possible connection Linda had with another – double – murderer in the area. That sounds promising. She visits Glyn’s sister. And she finds out about his two previous court appearances, on domestic violence charges. He was acquitted, but it doesn’t sit comfortably. Maybe this is getting into who Glyn is …
Not that that will play much part in whether or not the case is reopened. What will is the evidence, the only real evidence there is: the blood in the car. Shorter’s blood spatter analysts are still looking into that, re-examining the patterns and spots to see if they were more likely to have been made by a body in the car or by being planted. We will find out tonight. Unless we have already had a sneaky peek …
