The Profiler with Kerry Daynes

On the night of March 3rd, 2021, during the Covid lockdown, 33-year-old Sarah Everard was walking home from a friend's house in south London. She never arrived. Days later, detectives raced the last person seen with her to one of their own: a serving Metropolitan Police officer named Wayne Couzens. In this episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes pieces together Sarah's final journey and examines the failings that let her killer hide in plain sight inside Britain's biggest police force. In this episode The eerie, near-empty London of lockdown, and why the phrase "she was just walking home" struck such a chord with the public The dashcam and bus footage, and the car registration that led detectives to Couzens Couzens's bodycam interview, and the "gang" story he invented when police pressed him How deception experts read his body language and his words His careful planning, the "kidnap kit" and the rehearsal drive The vigil on Clapham Common, the police response, and the sentencing at the Old Bailey What…

In January 2006, police in Hopkinton, Massachusetts found the bodies of 27-year-old Rachel Entwistle and her nine-month-old daughter Lillian. They were lying in bed, arm in arm, shot at close range. Rachel's British husband, Neil Entwistle, was already 3,000 miles away. In this episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes profiles a man who seemed to have it all, but who had actually built his life on lies. In this episode How a Nottinghamshire coal miner's son and an American exchange student met at York University and built a life together The "affluent professional" image Entwistle projected, and the debts, fake job and eBay fraud investigation behind it How Entwistle carried out the murders - using his father-in-law’s gun – before driving to Boston Logan Airport and boarding a flight back to England to stay with his parents. A recorded phone call with a Massachusetts state trooper, in which Entwistle says he was too upset to call 911 and hasn't even cried yet The murder weapon, the DNA evidence, and the…

In November 2011, 84-year-old Betty Guy died at her home in Johnston, Pembrokeshire. Her daughter, Penny John, called 999 to say her mother had passed away after a battle with cancer. A doctor certified natural causes, and Betty was cremated four days later. Nobody suspected a thing. Then, four years later, police received a call out of the blue. An ex-partner of Betty's grandson, Barry Rogers, claimed he had admitted to suffocating his grandmother with a pillow. Other former partners told detectives the same story. In this episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes looks at how what should have been the perfect crime unravelled. She also asks what the evidence reveals about the two people at its centre, and why Rogers couldn't keep quiet about it. In this episode The 999 call police pulled from the archive, and the two details in it that raised alarm bells What petechiae are, and why those tiny marks mattered so much How police plan and plant a covert listening device The secretly recorded conversations…

This episode features world-renowned body language expert Dr Cliff Lansley, director of the Emotional Intelligence Academy. For his online course on human behaviour and how to spot the signs of deception go to www.emotionintell.com/theprofiler On 31 July 2021, five-year-old Logan Mwangi's body was found in the River Ogmore in South Wales, shortly after his mother, Angharad Williamson, reported him missing. In this episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes examines how Logan was killed by Williamson, her partner John Cole, and Cole's teenage son Craig Mulligan, following a campaign of abuse rooted in Cole's racism towards his mixed-race stepson. Drawing on police bodycam and interview footage, and behavioural analysis from body language expert Dr Cliff Lansley, Kerry unpicks the calculated cover-up that followed Logan's death, and the catalogue of missed warning signs that preceded it. Key psychological themes This episode explores: child abuse and 'Cinderella Syndrome' • coercive control and complicity •…

On 8 December 2015, 24-year-old Charlotte Brown died in the Thames after a first date with web consultant Jack Shepherd ended in his speedboat capsizing near Westminster. In this episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes examines how Shepherd, driving drunk at nearly three times the speed limit with no life jackets and a disconnected safety kill-cord, tried to blame Charlotte for the crash, then vanished before his trial, living under a changed identity in Tbilisi for months while the case unfolded in his absence. Drawing on police, journalists and Shepherd's own defiant TV interviews, Kerry unpicks the verbal slips and self-serving language of a man who, even when confronted a second time over a violent offence, could only ever really think about himself. Key psychological themes This episode explores: narcissism and self-serving deception • victim-blaming and diffusion of responsibility • recklessness and disregard for safety • flight from justice and identity change • verbal slips and language analysis…

On 18 December 2022, 32-year-old Natalie McNally was murdered in her home in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, stabbed, beaten and strangled while 15 weeks pregnant with her son. Her boyfriend, Stephen McCullagh, appeared to have the perfect alibi: at the exact time of the attack, he was hosting a six-hour 'live' YouTube broadcast, watched by thousands. In this episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes reveals how McCullagh had actually pre-recorded the stream four nights earlier, slipping in chilling ‘hints’ at the murder he was about to commit, before slipping out to kill Natalie and returning home undetected. Drawing on CCTV, digital forensics and a harrowing 999 call, Kerry examines the mind of a killer capable of an extraordinarily calculated deception. Key psychological themes This episode explores: coercive control, misogyny and femicide • premeditation and staging a false alibi • narcissism and performative grief • digital forensics and deception detection • domestic homicide in Northern Ireland…

On 26 August 2016, 19-year-old Shana Grice was murdered in her Brighton home by former colleague Michael Lane — a man she had reported to Sussex Police multiple times in the months before her death. In this first episode of the new season, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes reveals how officers dismissed Shana's complaints, branded her a liar, and even fined her £90 for wasting police time, while Lane, a serial stalker with a hidden history of predatory behaviour, grew increasingly bold. Drawing on interviews with journalists who covered the case, and secret recordings Shana made herself, Kerry traces the eight-stage 'Homicide Timeline' that led inexorably to tragedy, and asks how many warning signs a victim has to raise before anyone listens. Key psychological themes This episode explores: stalking and coercive control • the Homicide Timeline and escalation to lethal violence • victim-blaming and institutional failure • obsession, jealousy and loss of control • blackmail and manipulation in abusive…

In the final episode of our summer specials, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes talks to Steve Keogh, a retired Metropolitan Police detective inspector who spent twelve years on Scotland Yard's Murder Investigation Team and helped convict around 100 killers. Steve reveals how murder squads achieve an extraordinary 90% clear-up rate, why smartphones have become a detective's most valuable piece of evidence, and what working the devastating aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings taught him about trauma and resilience. He also shares the theory it took him thirty years to develop: that virtually every murder is driven by one of just three underlying motives. It's a rare look at homicide investigation from the other side of the interview room. Key psychological themes This episode explores: the three drivers of murder — emotion, power and control, and gain • trauma, resilience and delayed grief in frontline policing • coercive control and domestic homicide • missed warning signs in mental-health-related killings •…

In this special episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes sits down with Dr Cliff Lansley, the body language expert often called the “Human Lie Detector,” to unpack the real science of spotting deception. A former motor mechanic turned behavioural analyst, Cliff spent a decade working alongside the late Dr Paul Ekman, the world's foremost expert on facial expression, before developing SCAnS, the Six Channels Analysis System now used by police, lawyers and intelligence services. Kerry and Cliff pick apart real police interview footage from three of Britain's most notorious killers — Harold Shipman, Ian Huntley and Wayne Couzens — to reveal how a micro head shake, a dropped shoulder or a change in breathing rate can betray a lie the words are trying to hide. Key psychological themes This episode explores: deception detection and body language • micro-expressions and subconscious “leakage” • psychophysiology and the polygraph vs SCAnS • cognitive load and lying • myths about gender and lie detection •…

In a special summer episode, Kerry Daynes is joined by journalist and TV documentary maker Jeff Anderson as she revisits one of Britain’s most obscure legal landmarks: the 1964 execution of Gwyn Owen Evans and Peter Allen, the last two men ever hanged in Britain. The pair were convicted of the brutal murder of 53-year-old delivery driver Jack West in Workington, Cumbria, a robbery that spiralled into violence. Kerry and Jeff trace the chaotic trail of evidence that led police straight to the killers within 48 hours, and Kerry offers her psychological assessment of Evans — a compulsive fantasist whose lies extended even to his own identity — and asks whether either man deserved to hang. Key psychological themes This episode explores: pathological lying and fantasist personality disorder • joint enterprise and criminal responsibility • the psychology of criminal incompetence • diminished responsibility as a legal defence • capital punishment and its abolition in Britain Contributors featured in this episode ●…

While the team spends August preparing fresh cases for the autumn run, hosts this special ‘Ask Me Anything’ episode of The Profiler. The questions, posed by producer Jeff Anderson, come from listeners who signed up to Kerry's weekly email, covering stories already featured on the podcast, live news events, and Kerry's own career and life. Topics covered: The UK government's plan to release thousands of prisoners early to ease overcrowding, and why Kerry believes it shouldn't go ahead in its current form — she makes the case for deporting foreign nationals eligible for removal and clearing the remand backlog instead of releasing unassessed offenders. Whether Rachel McLean's killer, John Tanner, could ever be rehabilitated, given he committed a chillingly similar assault on a later partner almost three decades after murdering Rachel in 1991. The extraordinary manipulation of bus driver and child killer Darren Vickers, who moved in with the family of his victim, ten-year-old Jamie Labes, posing as a concerned…

On 14 May 2018, pharmacist Mitesh Patel called 999 from his home in Middlesbrough, telling the operator his wife Jessica had been attacked during a burglary. But as forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes reveals in this Season One finale of The Profiler, the true story was one of coercive control, a secret gay double life, and a chillingly calculated murder plot. Drawing on 999 recordings, CCTV footage, and interviews with detectives and journalists, Kerry unpicks how a ‘loving husband’s’ carefully staged crime scene unravelled — exposing a hidden relationship, a plan to start a new life in Australia, and a motive rooted in greed and betrayal. Key psychological themes This episode explores: coercive control and domestic abuse as a predictor of lethal violence • staged crime scenes and offender behaviour • the psychology of a ‘double life’ • victimology and how investigators build a motive • so-called ‘honour killings’ • warning signs missed by professionals Contributors featured in this episode ● Kerry Daynes —…

By April 1989, John Cannan had been convicted of kidnapping and murdering Bristol newlywed Shirley Banks, raping another woman, and attempting to abduct a third at gunpoint — crimes that led one psychiatrist to conclude he could “dispose of a human life with as much emotion as you and I throw away a toffee wrapper.” But was Cannan also responsible for the 1986 disappearance of estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, missing three years before his trial? In Part 2, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes examines the number plate that almost gave Cannan away, revisits a 2000 police re-interview in which his meticulous alibi collapses hour by hour, and asks why — despite compelling circumstantial evidence — he was never charged before his death in prison in November 2024. Key psychological themes This episode explores: performative charm masking predatory violence • narcissistic slips of the tongue • fabricated alibis unravelling under interrogation • third-person distancing as a psychological defence • the limits of…

On 28 July 1986, estate agent Suzy Lamplugh left her office in Fulham, west London, for a house viewing with a client she recorded in her diary as 'Mr Kipper'. She never returned. Despite one of the largest missing-persons investigations in UK police history, no body has ever been recovered — and no-one has ever been charged. In Part 1 of this story Kerry Daynes revisits the streets where 25-year-old Suzy was last seen, examines the original investigation, and follows the trail of a chilling lead: just three days before the disappearance a convicted sex offender named John Cannan was freed from a nearby prison. Within a year he would be linked to the abduction and murder of another young woman in Bristol. Was he, as many detectives believe, the real Mr. Kipper? Key psychological themes This episode explores: opportunistic predation • the psychology of women's safety in public-facing work • the language of identification — Photofits, witness recall and trauma • the recklessness of a serial offender…

Oxford, April 1991. English student Rachel McLean vanishes from the house she shares with friends, mid-way through a weekend of exam revision. Her tutor calls 999. Her boyfriend — a British-born New Zealander named John Tanner — tells detectives he last saw her at Oxford station chatting to a mystery stranger. He gives a detailed description. He fronts a televised appeal. He plays the grieving boyfriend to perfection. But police soon discover that the ‘stranger’ is a figment of his imagination. And, by the time they arrest Tanner, Rachel’s body has been found under the floorboards of her home. Forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes traces a case that changed the way Britain looked at controlling relationships, and asks what Tanner's later New Zealand conviction — for serious violence against another partner — reveal about a man who has always insisted he simply 'snapped' as a result of provocation. Listen now to The Profiler with Kerry Daynes. Key psychological themes This episode explores: coercive control…

In November 2015, schoolgirl Kayleigh Haywood told her parents she was going to stay at a friend’s house. She wasn’t. For the previous two weeks the fifteen-year-old had been groomed online by Luke Harlow, a man twelve years her senior. He had bombarded her with over a thousand Facebook messages persuading her to come to his flat in Ibstock, Leicestershire. After she finally agreed, he plied her with alcohol, assaulted her, then introduced her to a rapist and killer. In this episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes examines how two predators — a calculating online groomer and a violent opportunist living next door — converged on one teenage girl who had no idea her life was in danger. Listen now to The Profiler with Kerry Daynes. Key psychological themes This episode explores: online grooming and the psychology of digital predation • the escalation from flattery to control in sustained coercive communication • the ‘bubble’ dynamic — how secrecy isolates victims from protection • opportunistic sexual…

Three months after Helen Bailey vanished, a search team lowered themselves into a hidden cesspit beneath her luxury home. What they found there ended a twelve-week missing-person search — and led to Ian Stewart being exposed as a calculating, money-driven killer who had drugged his fiancée with his own sleeping tablets, dumped her body, and then spun a defence about phantom blackmailers. In the conclusion of this story, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes follows Stewart’s trial, conviction and sentence – then rewinds to 2010 as police begin investigating the mystery of his first wife’s death. Listen now to The Profiler with Kerry Daynes Key psychological themes This episode explores: psychopathy and the absence of empathy • the financial motive and the 'serial widower' pattern • the construction and collapse of an alibi • coercive control culminating in homicide • the role of forensic preservation in cold-case justice Contributors featured in this episode • Kerry Daynes — Forensic psychologist, presenter,…

In April 2016, the bestselling children's author Helen Bailey vanished from her £1.4 million home. Her fiancé Ian Stewart called the police, then wrote an open letter begging her to return. But, behind the public grief, he was hiding a terrible secret. Forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes traces how 51-year-old Helen fell for a quiet, unassuming father of two she met on a Facebook bereavement group after her husband’s death. She and Stewart got engaged. But as the wedding approached, she grew exhausted and forgetful. Then, on Monday April 11th, every trace of her online life suddenly went dark. This is the story of how detectives saw past Stewart's lies and began to suspect he was a man who had not only murdered once – but twice. Key psychological themes This episode explores: the predatory courtship of a grieving widow • performative grief and manufactured intimacy • coercive control disguised as care • the psychology of a killer who stays close to the investigation Contributors • Kerry Daynes — Forensic…

On Easter Sunday 2023, retired couple Stephen and Carol Baxter were found dead in the conservatory of their home on Mersea Island, off the Essex coast. Initially their deaths were - until toxicology revealed both had been poisoned with the powerful opioid fentanyl. Suspicion fell on Luke D’Wit, the unassuming IT consultant who had spent a decade quietly embedding himself in the Baxters’ lives as friend, employee and unofficial carer. In this episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes profiles a real-life puppet master — a man who built twenty fake online identities to control his victims, forged a will to inherit their business, and watched on a hidden phone feed as they died. Listen now to The Profiler, with Kerry Daynes. Key psychological themes This episode explores: psychopathy and the urge for control • the long con — grooming adults over a decade • catfishing and the use of fake online identities • performative care and the "surrogate son" persona • power, patience and the puppet-master mindset…

By the summer of 1997, eight-year-old Jamie Lavis had been missing for nearly a month — and the Manchester bus driver who killed him, Darren Vickers, had vanished too. Tracked down to a North Wales fairground, where he was strapping children in and out of rides, Vickers was arrested, then released for lack of evidence, and welcomed back to the Lavis family home with a celebration party. In Part 2, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes follows the police hunt for Jamie’s body in Reddish Vale Park, the trial that exposed Vickers as a grooming predator and child sexual abuser, and the chilling jailhouse confession he made only after the verdict was in. This is the story of how detectives finally broke through one of Britain’s most brazen killers. Listen now to The Profiler, with Kerry Daynes. Key psychological themes This episode explores: brazen manipulation • performative empathy and staged grief • the predator who returns to the scene • grooming and child sexual abuse • blame-shifting and false allegations •…

In June 1997, eight-year-old Jamie Lavis vanished on his way home in Manchester. As his family launched a desperate search, a local bus driver — Darren Vickers — led appeals, comforted Jamie's mother, and walked the same streets where, days earlier, he had killed the boy. Forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes profiles a manipulative predator who weaponises trust and proximity to deflect suspicion: a killer who didn't run, but moved closer. This is the story of how the search for Jamie was, quietly, being steered by the man who already knew where he was. Listen now to The Profiler, with Kerry Daynes. Key psychological themes This episode explores: manipulative predators • hiding in plain sight • staged grief and performative empathy • the psychology of proximity to an investigation • how communities mis-read familiarity as safety Contributors featured in this episode • Kerry Daynes — Forensic psychologist, presenter, and author of Dark Side of the Mind and What Lies Buried. • Roy Rainford — former detective who…

Behind every murder is a motive. From revenge to jealousy, from greed to control, identifying what drives people to kill is essential in bringing them to justice. For thirty years, Consultant Forensic Psychologist Kerry Daynes has unravelled the minds behind the darkest crimes. Now, in The Profiler, she takes you inside some of Britain’s most disturbing murder cases, presenting the full stories with the clarity of a seasoned documentary maker, but also stepping outside the narratives to do what she does best: getting inside the mind of each perpetrator to reveal what made them act the way they did. More than just true crime, these are journeys into the darkest extremes of human behaviour — with someone who has actually sat across the table from killers and studied them up close. New episodes every week. Cases drawn from the last three decades of British criminal history. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, or visit theprofiler.co.uk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.