Peter Manuel: The Beast of Birkenshaw (Part 2) | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Elina I'm Ash and this is [Music] morbid W I don't know it's morning morbid in
the morning guys I'm so tired I stayed up all night last night Elena and Deb Deb came over and we were watching that
Sherry Pini documentary I know it was a good one it was good and then you guys left before the last episode finished
and I said [ __ ] this I'm finishing it it was too late so I finished that and then
I was exhausted so or no then I wasn't exhausted I was still awake so I watched life after lock up you really went for
it I had a night watch some crazy ass television you would think that I'd have crazy dreams
but I don't remember any of them but I didn't go to bed until like 2:30 and then I had to wake up so early and now
I'm just like why did I do that I you know I I have been like um so I haven't been watching a lot of True Crime the
last really couple of years to be honest yeah I kind of like I leave it here and
it's I I got burnt out from it a little bit so in order to not be burnt out for it for my job I don't consume it outside
of my job yeah and so which has been fine and kind of great because I'm not as burnt out but then last night I was
like oh I do want to watch this one it's an interesting case and watching that one I was like a yeah like these are the
kind of ones that are very interesting the ones like where I think though maybe I was just like too burnt out on like
murders and death you know what I mean like cuz I was also working in like the death industry so it was just a lot but
things like this which is also the Sher B case is also tragic on a totally different level it's but boggling it's
more mindboggling and just like what the it's just [ __ ] it's dork sided it is dork sided given Sinister Vibe holy [ __ ]
and just the way like she fooled everyone in the lengths she went she was just posted up at her ex's house
the entire time just like running into ho hockey pucks off of her like what the [ __ ] and like literally like running
into hockey sticks and like the way that they were like one of the ways that they
were able to catch that she you know had like made the entire thing up you know how she was like literally branded yeah
she had a like a Pinterest board with all these like like wood burning tools on it shut the [ __ ] up yeah cuz cuz I
didn't get to watch the last episode you have to watch the last episode cuz it's
it's how they started kind of like unraveling everything and obviously like the DNA was like the biggest thing but
then they found like these little things just cuz like they were like we need to
build this case as much as we can and that I was like you just s you pinned those like you just pinned how to do
this knowing you were going to Brand yourself like what and then just like you're just like you decided to bring
your racism into it as well like what the [ __ ] that and also that whole thing blew my goddamn mind well
because there's like obviously there's the racism in the fact that she was like oh it was two Hispanic women like and
there were never two Hispanic women ever for her ex like Hispanic people within that within that area where the what
they faced after she came out and said that is I mean and she didn't give a [ __ ] oh no wasn't her problem because
then they expose her in this documentary for a whole bunch of other racist views
I was like girl you're a trash human truly I feel bad for the kids I do too it seems like the dad is like pretty
chill and like he has like full custody of them and I feel bad I feel bad for the whole yeah I mean he had anybody
that was involved in this and believed that it was true and dealt with the grief that they felt for those three
weeks thinking she was gone like her sister her family everybody yeah her best friend he also just looked she also
just looked at him one day and she was like mad at him about like something and she looked at him and she goes I have to
deal with the fact that you never found me and like put it on what the [ __ ] basically I think a lot of what she did
was like a like she sat there and watched as the nation searched for her and like watched her loved ones on like
film like crying sobbing pleading with her fake ass kidnappers yeah knowing her kids have no idea where their mom is and
it's traumatized them daily and it was literally the holiday season yeah she doesn't give a [ __ ] was like over
Thanksgiving I was like what the [ __ ] it's about her but yeah and then she just like she literally sat there and
watched the entire thing unfold and then when she decided to go back she he said
she brought it up every single day and then one day she got pissed at him and said that and he was like like you were
I did the best I could also you weren't willing to be found also you weren't actually missing yeah like you it wasn't
like this was a big exciting game of hide and seek and I and I lost it's like so God
girl though yeah and it's like it's so God girl it's and it's also just the resources MH that were expended upon
this case and it's like people who would you know were in trouble and needed help
but resources were being put to this case even if it was just like a minute of a delay because of what was going on
still a delay the money the these people's time these people's you know money time emotions like being away like
these all of that all the investigators all the like paramedics all the people in the helicopters spending time away
from their families right because this [ __ ] decided to hold up at her ex-boyfriend's house and make up a a
racist story yeah wild to get attention and not only that like that in and of itself is all insane like and the fact
that that happened is so I'm like how you do that and just like not think about every everybody that you're
affecting then she there was like $30,000 I think it was raised for her for like like through like Victim
Advocacy work and like that kind of thing just good people yeah just like people raising money to help her with
like hospital bills and stuff like that she like stole $330,000 from everybody it doesn't give
a [ __ ] it's like what the [ __ ] and then she also the girl that went missing like
I think it was like a few years years before Sherry like staged her own abduction um Tara Smith they like went
to high school at the same time and people were like drawing a lot of parallels cuz they're like both blonde
women they look a lot alike like that's weird yeah she went to Tara's family and
sat down with them and like talk to them about like everything that she had quote
unquote gone through that's the deepest kind of psychopath I've ever heard like sat there in front of a girl who
actually went missing and was never found in front of her family claiming that you you know what the experience
you know what she's experiencing or that she did experience and like her husband
actually thought that he could like somewhat relate to these people because like he had gone through he had thought
he had gone through a similar experience and very much like kind of did in a way
yeah and he was he was in an interview on the documentary and he was like I can't believe she knew and put him in
that position and literally put me in this position to go stand and like we were in those people's home yeah like I
feel like an idiot now yeah [ __ ] wild you guys it's the perfect wife on Hulu it's and this isn't even an ad it's such
a good it's not even an ad we just happen to watch it it's like a three-part um three episode documentary
it was so so just so [ __ ] chilling so Bleak mindboggling and I feel bad for those kids because like those kids are
going to grow up mhm knowing that their mom is Sher [ __ ] Pini it's like that's that sucks cuz they didn't ask
for that they didn't ask for you to be a blazing [ __ ] they went through things
of their own that you should definitely watch the documentary it's awful allegedly but
definitely watch the documentary because it isoo uh it was a wild one for it was a
wild one to jump into after a while so highly recommend it but now that we've gotten through that uh we're gonna
continue with part two of Peter Manuel True Crime all the time except outside of this room uh oh true crime all the
time yeah yeah and I think it's a good one yeah I was going to say that is the name of it correct I was like wait a
second I know that name yeah I used to actually love that I haven't listened to it in a long time because again I I've
like pulled away from like consuming True Crime outside of here um it's not because they're not good it's just
because of my own brain yeah but I used to listen to them all the time yeah they
were delightful all the time all the time true GM so um so yeah so when we last left you
um Peter is another blazing [ __ ] yeah uh and he's been I mean he's been labeled an aggressive psychopath who
never never be you know helped helped and can never be helped there is no chance for Recovery several
psychiatrists have said this what do you do in that situation cuz there's no there like you can't just like hold
people because what you do you let them out of prison and then this all happens you let them out of prison in October of
1952 I don't want to yeah it's not great what happens after he comes out of prison either so we're now to it's so
it's easy to understand why so many me members of law enforcement immediately suspected Peter Manuel in the murders of
an neand and the watt family yeah like we've we talked about it in part one he was like top of their heads when you
talk about his previous crimes escalating he's also talking about it all the time and like knowing all these
like key details and both of those crimes had a lot of the same like signature like Hallmark things from his
previous crimes leading up to them like dragging an neelan into the wooded area he did that to that woman the wife of
the man that he was coming the staff member that he was coming to hurt or do whatever he dragged her into a wooded
area but he stopped before he did anything there because he wasn't escalated why and then the trashing of
the Watts home and the trashing of the home nearby the Watts the watt house he had done that already like throwing the
food everywhere putting the cigarettes out like It All Leads lines up you can't deny it no now but
unfortunately Peter at this point had evolved into for lack of a better word a better and smarter criminal at this
point because like I said before he was just not was a dumbass before so he left
a ton of evidence he would always get caught he had evolved unfortunately and he had evolved into a more cunning
criminal um and so detectives you know did before detectives were able to build really strong cases against him really
quick right but now it's becoming harder and harder they can't get anything on him and his dad keeps giving him an
alibi yes after his release from barin Manuel wasted no time getting back to his criminal ways and he was going to go
bigger than ever and he set into motion a horrifying series of events that fortunately in the end would
eventually lead to his downfall but it's [ __ ] terrible that all this had to happen for it to happen cuz it should
have happened a long time ago now on the morning of December 9th police responded
to a call and this was a strange call it was a call about an abandoned taxi out in the Moors in Newcastle on Ty I looked
it up I think that's how you say it Newcastle ontin okay so abandoned taxi on the Moors random so they're like it's
probably not good so when they come to the area they find that the driver's door was wide open so they go and look
and they see that there is a considerable amount of blood in this taxi oh no and it wasn't until hours
later that they finally discovered that the driver they discovered the driver 36-year-old cydney Dunn who was a man
laying face down about 150 yard away in a in a like a a big bunch of Heather like this big bush and they found that
his throat had been cut and he had been shot in the head oh my God so it was very violent very violent now normally
investigators would say okay this is [ __ ] terrible and very violent but it looks like it's a very violent botched
robbery probably he's a taxi driver you know makes got money on him yeah but Dunn's wallet was still in his pocket
and the money from his fairs still in there all still there nothing was taken what so whoever had killed CD dun had
not done it for money they didn't take a dime right from the beginning the investigation into this murder was
really like an uphill slog uh in addition to the heavy rain and snowfall that had was really making it really
difficult to process the crime scene there wasn't really any evidence to be collected anyways and there was no leads
so they were just working from like zero right and they just couldn't move to one
like they couldn't get anywhere another Taxi Driver Thomas Green did tell detectives that two men who appeared to
be in their mid 20s had approached he and dun around 4:30 a.m. before the murder um one of them was looking for a
ride to Edmund buyers and the other to Newburn Thomas took the man going to Newburn and the man going to Edmund
buyers got into Dunn's cab okay now the man was is described as being 25 years old 5' 8 in tall of swarthy complexion
what isy yeah with dark hair straight and brushback but that was really all they could get from the witness is that
really good description but like that's really it that's all he had so by the end of December detectives had become so
desperate for information that they resorted to actually like boots on the ground door too with questionnaire in
hand to hope that someone in the neighborhood near the Moors maybe heard something see saw something anything um
a Coroner's inquest was held but other than confirming the cause of death to be murder the jury came to really no other
conclusions and the inquest was adjourned on December 31st so they said nothing just absolutely nothing now
while police and Newcastle were literally like pulling their hair out about this case detectives back in
lanarch sheer were dealing with now a new case of a missing teenage girl oh no and they saw that this case felt very
familiar very familiar on the evening of December 28th 17-year-old Isabelle cook
left home a little after 700 p.m. and she was going to attend a dance no does this sound already like an nean exactly
17 years old leaving to go to a dance she was going to be going to a dance at the Masonic Hall in nearby eddingston
and she was going to there was a whole plan in place she was going to be meeting her boyfriend Douglas Brien um
and the two were going to go to the dance together but 45 minutes passed by the hour that they were supposed to meet
up and Isabelle still hadn't shown up to meet him so he just went inside by himself I like what the heck which I was
like I mean I don't know what else you do at that point it's in the 50s it's not like you're pulling out a cell phone
and calling someone yeah exactly but the next morning when Isabelle still hadn't
come home her parents called the police mhm police immediately launched a huge search for Isabelle they had police dogs
they went full tilts and they determined through the police dogs they were able to determine that she had taken a
shortcut off the main road on her way to meet her boyfriend okay this shortcut went through a wooded area along a foot
path this foot path was very familiar to them because it was where 11 years earlier Peter Manuel had attacked a
young woman oh it was the same exact foot path it was on that path that investigators discovered Isabelle
purse most of her belongings were still in the purse some of them were like shot
like you know scattered around they also found one of her shoes now a police spokesperson told
reporters that afternoon we're treating this as more serious than just a girl missing from home yeah and a day later
the case took a really ominous turn because more pieces of Isabelle's clothing were discovered along the banks
of a river near The Calder Park Zoo a local diver actually came forward and volunteered to search the river just a
local diver wow which like a lot this community seems like they tried really hard to help out uh but they didn't find
any more items in the river now for many investigators in this case the details and for us probably too and you
listening you're probably thinking this is an Nan's murder this is very similar sounds very similar and they thought
that too they immediately thought of that and the Press they thought it right away too it's not like anybody wasn't
putting these pieces together okay like and Isabelle had been on her way to a dance when she deviated a little bit
from the path and then ran into someone presumably dangerous right unfortunately
after a week of intensive searching I mean like Full Tilt searching they hadn't found any additional evidence no
leads so speculation was really all they could do until new information came their way but it was the same thing just
dead end nothing now while detectives on the cook case waited a new and honestly
more shocking case came their way at this moment shocking at this moment at least on the morning of January 6th two
Patrol officers were investigating a call about an abandoned vehicle and while they were investigating that call
they went to the home of the vehicle's owner his name was Peter smart so not Peter Manuel this a different Peters I
know there's a lot of Peters in this when they arrived at Peter Smart's house several of Peter's co-workers were
actually already there waiting for them okay they had gone to look in on him because he didn't show up for work that
morning and he wasn't answering his phone oh wow which concerned people are like real this is like a community over
here taking care of each other they're showing up at his house cuz they're like he's not answering his phone and this
isn't like him they were concerned that something was wrong so they had shown up
and the officers ended up forcing their way inside the house cuz nobody was answering and that's where they found
Peter his wife Doris and their 11-year-old son Michael all were dead from gunshot wounds to the Head I just
saw a picture of little Michael and he's like the sweetest little babe oh it breaks your heart it's so sad it's he
had like no true victim profile whatsoever it was like whole families and young women yeah like so like
anybody but then also Sydney Dunn who was in his 30s and a man right like to just like no really no Rhyme or Reason
and it's also like why did you like why did you kill anybody but like why did you kill Sydney done too like you didn't
take his car or anything like what the [ __ ] just to kill but it's the same with
everybody it's like you're not taking anything you're not with with the women it seems and we'll get in we'll get into
it as much as we can because he doesn't really he doesn't really get into it there is some sexual element there that
we discussed in part one with the like hiking up the skirts and pulling down the pants displaying in certain ways
yeah there's definitely a sexual element He was just never willing to touch but there was a point when you know
there's sexual insult involved in a lot of these and also there was the during his escalation period the wife of that
of that staff member at the school that he ran away from he was fully intending to rape her when he dragged the woods he
just St yeah so like The Disappearance of Isabelle cook the murder of the smart family like we're probably thinking
immediately called into mind a different murder it was the murders of Marian and
Vivian Watt and Margaret Brown the previous year the watt family it was like a direct par it was like it was
like an nean Isabelle cook watt family smart family it's like he's paralleling yeah so each member of the family like
the watt family had appeared to be asleep when they were shot in the head at Point Blank Range oh God that's the
other thing and given that many of the valuable items they had in the house were in plain [ __ ] sight mhm robbery
was definitely not the motive he had not taken anything not anything of value he takes things
but nothing of value little trinkets it's more for him he doesn't go and sell it it's his [ __ ] and did he trash this
house he did he trash the house um superintendent Murdo McKenzie told reporters during a press conference
there is no sign of the house being broken into huh yeah and Mackenzie also noted that no gun had been found in the
house so they ruled out a murder suicide immediately because it's a family Annihilation you have to um the coroner
estimat that all three had been murdered in the early hours of New Year's Day and
according to the neighbors the smarts had been planning to visit family that day so no one really thought it was odd
when Peter Smart's car wasn't in the driveway right and the curtains in the house were all drawn what was odd though
was that in the days after that the curtains in the front windows changed positions several times over the course
of several days that that means whoever who they didn't know the time but whoever killed the smarts had come back
to the house or stayed in the house for several days oh I hate that I and that's
between the murders on January 1st and the discovery of the bodies on January 6th so
like week what the [ __ ] later after Peter Manuel's trial investigators learned that someone had tried to break
into the home of John mcmun and his wife the neighbors who lived just a little ways away from the smarts oh God in the
early hours of January 4th so he had killed the smart family on January 1st by January 4th he was trying to break
into one of their neighbors house a family to kill them as well which is so similar to what he had done in the
previous thing except that family wasn't home yep and this time Mrs mcmun woke up
in the middle of the night to find a man looking at her through their bedroom window trying to break in shut the [ __ ]
up luckily she sat up and honestly everybody should do this if you ever see somebody trying to break into your house
she sat up and screamed for her husband to get the guns yeah like she said out loud like get the guns good and he got
the [ __ ] out of there cuz he was like well [ __ ] I don't want to be in a firefight F oh my God just picturing
that is so [ __ ] terrifying up and seeing a man outside your bedroom window trying to break in goodbye goodbye oh my
God [ __ ] that like thank goodness she had the the foresight to be like get the guns
because I feel like that's something most Intruders don't want to hear yeah so it's like but what the [ __ ] and thenk
goodness she did it her whole family would have been gone and up cuz obviously he had a gun too like and
thank goodness she woke up I don't think he liked when they woke up yeah he liked
to them in a vulnerable position where he could put the gun against their head and do it oh my God that's so [ __ ]
scary but he he LED and it was only after he had been executed that the mcms confirmed that the man they saw through
their window was Peter Manuel damn yeah you said executed did you mean to say arrested no he got executed there oh
okay I was like no no no he got executed spoiler alert um so since his release from barin in November detectives had
been keeping an eye on Peter Manuel that he was under close surveillance yeah uh
DCI William Muny who had arrested Manuel several year years earlier for the housebreaking was assigned to lead the
investigation into Isabelle Cook's disappearance and when he got the case Muny immediately thought of Anne nean
and Peter Manuel but other than that gut feeling and knowing that there's a connection here somehow there was no
evidence to connect it so he couldn't really do a lot it was just like my gut is telling me this is it right uh but
Manuel's name came to mind a few days later when myy heard about the murders of the smart family as well the more his
name came up in connection with murdered and missing people the the harder it was
to deny that there is a connection and investigators intensified their surveillance now they really honed in on
him just waiting for him to [ __ ] up just waiting for that moment CU you know it's
going to happen and and it happened but their big break did finally come about a
week later in the course of the investigation detectives had learned they' used some criminal informants to
try to get more information about Peter Manuel and they learned from one of these informants that Peter Manuel had
been seen and witnessed by several people spending brand new 5B notes at pubs around Glasgow huh and what they
had found out was just before the murders they had found out that Peter smart the father of the murdered Family
Y had withdrawn several new 5 pound Bank notes from the bank because he was going
to use them on their family holiday right which is really sad heartbreaking and so armed with a warrant and a list
of the notes smart withdrew from the bank a group of detectives arrived at Peter Manuel's house on the morning of
January 14th let's go now Peter's father Samuel answered the door and detective superintendent Alex Brown handed him a
copy of the search warrant and explained that they were looking for any 5B notes
they were looking for keys and any other evidence potentially taken from the smart home Samuel the father immediately
got hostile and very very verbally abusive with the office ERS But ultimately ended up letting them into
the house they got a war [ __ ] had to um when they got in the house they found Peter asleep in a chair in the living
room I like you [ __ ] bum yeah uh but once he was woken up brown read the warrant out loud to Peter and he Peter
immediately became abusive and like flipped out hostile like lost his mind but eventually had to comply with the
whole thing and after getting himself ready he willingly went down to the precinct with two of the officers
now I'm just taking a detour really quick CU this superintendent Brown I found an interesting article about him
oh he was apparently like a badass detective [ __ ] and he was one of like two one of a small group of detectives
in this case that was like very well known to have like cracked this like with hardcore police work right so uh
they called so his name was um superintendent Brown and he he was known I found this from an article called it's
in the Glasgow times and it is the story of the cop who caught Peter Manuel hey and it's by Norman Silvester this this
article I just want to point out a few things about him so he was known to be very methodical in his methods and he
really had a good understanding of how people ticked that was like his his like his Forte was psychology right and he
was um so apparently he was known to like also do the most methodical searches of houses like if he had a
warrant you better hope nothing is in your house because he's going to find it like that man is going to find it one of
his fellow detectives said if he didn't find what he was looking for in in a house he would strip the paper off the
walls if necessary [ __ ] like he wasn't letting it if I have a warrant I'm finding this thing and his favorite
advice to Young detectives was let the other fellow do the worrying huh like he was like the criminal should worry not
you yeah and then he said use the minimum amount of words and maximum amount of action nice um he was super
ahead of his time with the psychology stuff he in 1943 he wrote an article for a police magazine titled psychology in
the investigation of crime huh that was in the 40s yeah that's big that was ahead and he said that the most
successful investigators are the ones who best understand human behavior I mean yeah and which again ahead of his
time with that stuff and apparently when he was investigating the Peter Manuel case he set up an office in the Bothwell
police station and he set up a bed he literally had it installed in the police station because he said he wanted to be
on call and ready to jump into action at any given moment to get this guy or if any new information came up he wanted to
be able to just pop out of bed and just off he goes so he was literally like day
and night on this thing like eat eating sleeping breathing this he was one of the main ones that decided it was time
to strike and get Peter Manuel like go to his house and arrest him they were he was like I'm sick of waiting like to get
this guy he knew that this was the guy and he told Manuel actually that the way they were able to get him um you know
because what we'll see is Peter ends up confessing okay and what he was able to do was he told Peter that they had found
stuff related to another H like um uh I think a reverence home had been broken into the area and he said they they had
found stuff in the manual household from that Breakin so Peter who did it yeah but he told them Brown told Peter we're
charging your father and he was like so he's like it's his house we're going to charge him with
it and that's how he was able to get him to crack he didn't want to turn his dad
he knew via psychology that that was going to be the thing that was going to get him Dam that's a smart move and
later when uh the you know the manual case goes to trial and he ends up being convicted for this um the trial judge
Lord Cameron actually did something that never happens he invited Brown and two other detectives back into his Chambers
afterwards and he thanked them personally for their efforts to get manual arrested wow that's amazing and
in 1959 he was given the Queen's police medal before retiring hell yeah he deserved it and later Peter Manuel
himself said about superintendent Brown I could handle the others but I couldn't
handle Brown [ __ ] isn't that crazy I Google this guy that's why I was like when I read that I was like that's that
guy sounds like a badass he the fact that he was that like committed to making this H like he knew that we got
to get him off the streets like what a badass so that's that's cool to to have all that yeah you got to do it so they
took um so at this point Peter Manuel is going to the precinct he's going downtown you know and uh they took him
out of the house and down to the precinct and this wasn't just something they had to do this was a tactical
decision and this tactical decision was made by Brown nice because he was using psychology he's he knew with Peter out
of the way his elderly parents are going to become a lot less defiant and a lot less aggressive Peter's the Peter's the
thing that's the the main component that's making them this way so he said get them out of the house so we can talk
to them and so they were able to search the rest of the house with very little interference and they found items in the
home um that were related to several crimes they found a pair of men's gloves and a camera which had been stolen from
that home of the local Reverend on Christmas Day actually oh my God and at the precinct Peter was included in
multiple lineups while this was going on and uh and during these lineups they had
Glasgow bartenders come in and identify him as the man who was spending all those brand new 5B notes there it is and
the numbers on those notes match the ones that were taken out of the bank by the smart family and it was during this
time that Peter was also identified by patrol officer Robert Smith he identified him in a totally different
scenario uh apparently Robert Smith said that Peter Manuel was the man who gave him a ride on the morning of January
2nd which would be the day after he killed the smart family that's terrifying according to Robert Smith he
had been hitchhiking to work that morning when a man he identified as Peter Manuel stopped to pick him up in a
gray a30 and the two that's Peter Smart's car right and the two men made small talk and Smith Robert Smith
mentioned he was on his way actually to work and he was going to be participating in the Isabelle cook
search and he said Peter Manuel had a very strong reaction very quickly to even talking about that and he had a
very strong interest in talking about the case with him and before he got out of the car Peter said he felt that the
police weren't looking in the right places M he's so gross oh and just the fact that he's driving around this man's
car like how [ __ ] Brazen he's driving around this man's car knowing he's going
to go back to their house and spend time there by the way talking to a man about
a Mur police off about a case of a young woman that he murdered still missing telling him
like you're not looking in the and they still haven't found her and they still haven't found her oh God now Peter
Emanuel has been pretty good up until this point at like avoiding authorities especially since he's inserting himself
into the [ __ ] investigation at this point and so it does seem like at this point you're like you're getting [ __ ]
sloppy right but I think he just was I think it's like you can't hang on to this kind of [ __ ] for that long nobody
can no like he's going he's too Brazen and he's too he's going so hard so fast there's no way he could keep up with
this and the evidence around him seemed to be piling up at this point and detectives were beginning to make
connections between Peter Manuel in several open murder cases in the area um so he became pretty aware that he was
running out of options at this point so on the morning of January 15th Peter asked that his parents be brought to him
at the station and this was after Brown had told him oh okay it's like it's it's
so cool that you're not involved in any of this um but like we're going to your dad cuz he apparently stole sh from a
reverence house on Christmas day like wild thisly man did this but like he's going to jail forever and so he said
after um so Peter told detectives after I have told my parents and made a clean breast of it to them you can take them
away and I will clear everything up for you okay and he said and I will take you
to where the girl cook is buried so apparently he sobbed and confessed to his parents that he had
killed Anne nean Maran and Vivien watt Margaret Brown Isabelle cook and all three members of the smart family what
the [ __ ] so at this point everyone's aware of Peter Manuel and who he is and his history as a compulsive pathological
liar right so the prosecutor was like yeah yeah like we yeah we prob he probably did that but we're going to
need a little more before we accept this we can't just hear that you did it give
us some details tell us what you did now according to Peter Manuel he broke into
the Smart's house through an open window killed everyone inside then stole whatever cash he could find in the days
after that he returned to the house daily to eat the food and relax in their living room and even fed their cats what
the [ __ ] yep he would just relax in their living room and hang out with their cat while they're dead bodies are
just upstairs just like rotting inside what the [ __ ] and just the fact that he
would like do something like like feed the cat like it's like what and he be like eating their food sitting in their
living room what yeah just making food in their kitchen while they're dead in their bedrooms an 11year old and his
parents yeah yeah oh that's so gross he's like next level Beyond and obviously his knowledge of the Smart's
house the layout and everything and what it looked like inside and the details of
the crime could only have been known to the person who was intimately involved in it and the same was true Pro of the
other cases that he confessed to he had details that no one else would have right and after giving a full confession
he was taken to barin for the evening the next day he um he led detectives to a large field near an Old Brick Works
and um so I looked up how to say this and I found several different ways so I'm going to say the way that seemed the
most to me but feel free Scottish listeners to be like what the [ __ ] did you just say at us I think it's Bailey
eston I don't know what that is it's b a i l l i e s t o n I found like three different ways to say it Bailey eston is
the only one that seemed right to me but I could be wrong and I apologize if I am
but he led them to this large field near an Old Brick Works there and directed their attention to what it was like a
like a little ditch like a shallow ditch okay and he told investigators I dug that hole I had her body here but I was
disturbed by a man taking a shortcut out of the brick works and I had to take her
away okay so they were like okay so after taking the detectives on this long circular route around the field and into
the recently plowed fields of burnt broom farm he reached um he brought them over to like a patch of land that looked
like it had been recently Disturbed and he said and I quote I think she's in there I think I'm standing on her oh my
God yep and he was right he was standing on her when investigators dug about 2 feet
into the Earth Jesus they discovered the body of Isabelle cook just so callous I
think I'm standing on her I think I'm standing on her yeah I think she's in here her skirt had been bunched up
around her waist and her underwear was missing cuz he stole underwear [ __ ] Cur her scarf had been forced into her
mouth as a gag and her bra had been wrapped around her neck and was used to choke her to death um she also had a lot
of bruising on the left side of her face like she had been struck several times very aggressively back at the station
Peter drafted formal confessions in writing to every single one of the murders and provided details of each one
he also confessed to several robberies in the area as well and in all his confessions he emphasized that robberies
were the motive for the attacks but none of that made sense because he didn't steal stuff from most of them right and
he just wanted to make it look like he had a reason quote unquote but like we said earlier in each
one there is a very undeniable sexual element here but he would not talk about it and he would not go into it they
could not get anything about it huh yeah like ever no he never would was frustrating now while Peter Manuel sat
in the Cell at barin there was a large team of investigators just Gathering up evidence and collecting any witness
statements they could to build up that case against him and um with the critical evidence collected at this time
there was a Beretta pistol and webly revolver that were used in the smart and W murders apparently Manuel had thrown
them into the river Clyde after the murders and they found them oh [ __ ] yeah at the same time investigators learned
that Manuel had been in the Newcastle area for a job interview the very night that Sydney Dunn was murdered imagine
that yeah and he was identified as the man seen getting into Dunn's taxi oh man on January 29th he was eventually
charged with the murder of Sydney dun as well okay but that crime actually occurred in England so it couldn't be
included in the other charges and the prosecution was going to have to wait until after the trial in Scotland to do
that one move it over now his trial began May 12th 1958 at the high court in Glasgow and his defense team was um had
John ferns Ian dockerty and Lead Council Harold Les Leslie apparently like they're all volunteer Council assigned
by the Scottish bar okay Dave found that they do it a little different there where like here in America you know
there's like public defenders and like you know you're you're given this person if you can't afford a lawyer that's
their job they do that but apparently over there they just like randomly grab people from the barah association and
we'll be like this is yours now like it's just like they volunteer quote unquote like it's like here it is damn
you get like thrown onto this case essentially that must be tough that must be really tough like what if you have a
bias that's the thing it's like you I guess you can't you know like that's your job you just can't damn but in the
months leading up to the trial the case and headlines around the around this whole thing had definitely crossed over
into like Sensational yeah at this point I can imagine and Spectators were lining
up around the courthouse as early as 8:00 p.m. the night before to get a seat in there people were [ __ ] tailgating
this tailgating it damn yeah and the time between Peter's arrest and the start of the trial investigators had
colle collected a lot of evidence at this point sounds like it and that included over 150 exhibits including the
guns used in the murders and pieces of an Nan's skull oh wow uh the witness list for the prosecution had like 300
people on it so before any opening statements had been made Harold Leslie shocked the court by uh making a
statement on behalf of his client oh God this statement said I appear on behalf of the panel the panel would be like his
you know Peter Manuel right who aderes to his plea of not guilty and there are special defenses
lodged okay despite having made a full [ __ ] confession in writing and verbally and giving details of each
crime including leading them to the missing woman right he changed his plea to not guilty and on May 13th in front
of the entire court he said he wasn't the one who killed the watt family but actually it was William watt the father
that was on the fishing trip are you kidding so he's bringing him back into it that's good that's kind yeah we love
that the court went nuts like the judge took so much time to have to restore order here but eventually it all resumed
as it was supposed to go he's just having fun no and this was not the last time that he was going to stun everybody
so in his the opening statement the lead prosecutor Maurice Gillies laid out the
case against Peter in pretty simplistic terms he just highlighted the evidence against him made the connections between
his whereabouts at the times of the murders were that when they were committed his criminal history that
included specific Hallmarks that happened at these crimes the cigarette the trashing the places the dragging the
woman the the method of killing y all that stuff everything and so their strategy was not really to convince the
jury of his guilt because like he's guilty like he confessed um but to it was basically to let the Witnesses in
evidence demonstrate his irrefutable responsibility for the murders so in the days after that one witness after
another came up and just presented compelling [ __ ] testimonies and evidence against him including the four
men on the work site nearby the discovery of an neilan's body okay um this person confirmed that Manuel had
shown up for work the following day with fresh scratches on his face he was like
y yep that was right after right and that same witness also told the jury he had seen Peter Manuel removing a pair of
bloody work boots from the site a day or two after the murder oh yeah that's so a
few days into the trial the subject then shifted from an nean to the watt family
murders and among the first Witnesses in that whole thing was Lawrence dowle this was William watt's lawyer at
the time of the murders and he was the guy who Peter Manuel was sending letters to claiming William watt was
innocent and now he's turning around at the trial and being like actually he did
this well now he's he's the like so he's going to be saying like I got these yeah
the lawyer but Peter sitting there being like no he he's going to turn around and
be like well actually William W did it and it's like this guy's going to sit there and [ __ ] you up though he has
letters so among other things dowle described Manuel as the most vicious psychopath it has ever been my
Misfortune to meet [ __ ] which is wild for a defense attorney to say that yeah cuz they seen some [ __ ] Charles Talis
who was a known criminal and Associate of Peter Manuel also testified and he explained that he had actually given the
gun Peter used G to Peter that he used in the wat murder oh God he said he told me that he had some bullets and the
bullets wouldn't fit the gun but were falling through the magazine and he said that he helped Manuel make the gun oper
irational and he didn't know that this was what it was for oh man but William watt also
testified not only to give details about the murder yeah but also about Manuel's
contacts with him in the months that followed the murders what yeah so according to William watt he and Manuel
actually met in a hotel room in Glasgow and during this whole thing Manuel attempted to convince him that
three people had been involved in the shooting and one of them was was Charles Tal
what so he he had like kept in touch with William watt the man of the family he had killed and sat down with him at a
hotel like what the actual [ __ ] he really is beyond any kind of hope and he really is this shows you he'll go to the
ends of the Earth to be a [ __ ] slimy piece of [ __ ] he just enjoys it he does
and William Watt on the stand said he said that Charles Talis broke into the house they went in and shot my wife and
sister in bed and then he broke down in tears on the stand yeah now most damning
of all though was the confession that Peter had voluntarily given to police very voluntarily multiple people wrote
it down they were detailed they had intimate familiarity with the watt home like he was in that house all these
homes and he was in in the other crimes same thing he knew the layouts of the houses he knew the details that were not
reported yeah and on the witness stand detective Robert mcneel explained the process by which they obtained this
confession from and that included the statement Manuel made just before he confessed he said there is no future for
me oh and Manuel was alleged to have said I've done some terrible things I killed the girl nean at East Kilbride
and I shot the three women at the house at Burnside and following McNeil's testimony Manuel's confessions were read
in full to the jury they were like you're you gave these like we're not taking them out on May 22nd Peter Manuel
shocked the court again cuz he dismissed his entire defense Council and said I'm
going to act in my own defense oh no no honey we always know how this goes after
a brief recess Harold Leslie addressed the judge saying I am no longer in a position with my colleagues to continue
the cause the panel being desirous of conducting the remainder of the trial so he was like peace deuces in other words
he was fired uh the judge allowed the change but he insisted that the other two defense lawyers Ferns and dockerty
needed to remain close by to possibly assist if needed okay uh but it came very clear I'd be pissed i' be like I
was just going to say I'd be like I just got fired in front of everybody [ __ ] this guy yeah see you he can sink his
own ship you can sink your own [ __ ] ship and Peter didn't want their help yeah he made it clear he fired them yeah
and he never used their help he didn't want it so it's like I just have to sit here and watch this now apparently Peter
Manuel had done this before he had defended himself in court before several years earlier he defended himself in a
rape case in airry Sheriff court and he was unsuccessful he went to prison for that one that's great now regardless of
what happened throughout this whole thing apparently he had a lot of confidence he was very Charming in court
and he impressed even the most success experienced lawyers watching the trial according to Joe Joe B Beltrami who was
a very prominent Scottish lawyer who saw the trial he said judge Lord Cameron said he was surprised at the standard
and skill of the accused and so was I his cross-examination was quite skillful and well thought out which is like nuts
but remember Peter Manuel is pretty bright he was bright in school he just really he just didn't apply himself but
he was very bright sounds like um Ted Bundy yeah now confident or not the prosecution's case against Manuel was
just too strong yeah they had built a considerable amount of evidence like he literally LED them to a body it was very
compelling they didn't need to do a whole lot uh but Peter Manuel's defense on the other hand was uh I didn't do it
oh okay which is uh which is strange when You' confess voluntarily uh verbally and in writing so yeah uh but
when he finally took the own the stand in his own defense he refuted everything that he previously stated or confessed
and he fell back on that old habit of just saying it's everyone else's fault oh okay it's not my fault I didn't do it
final arguments were given on May 29th and the jury took barely two hours before returning guilty verdicts on
seven counts of murder six counts of capital murder for the Watton smart families one count of non- capital
murder for Isabelle cook and what kills me is in the case of Anne neand the jury
felt the evidence did not make the case and he was not found guilty that's shitty yeah now when the verdict was
read the courtroom went nuts and there was like 100 plus reporters in the courtroom too and they all just ran out
of there to go type up their [ __ ] thing for you know the next thing but judge Lord Cameron wasted no time
passing uh sentence he said the sentence of this court is that you be taken from
this place to the prison of barin glasgo therein to be detained until the 19th day of June next and upon that day in
the said prison of barin Glasgow and between the hours of 8 and 10:00 you suffer death by hanging which is
pronounced for Doom [ __ ] like which is pronounced for Doom I'm like damn you guys know they got that good [ __ ] you
have a grasp on that language like it just you know how to make it like after passing the sentence Lord
Cameron just dismissed the jury adjoined the adjin the adjourned I was like adjoined adjourned the court and refused
Peter Manuel the opportunity to make a statement love was literally like shut the [ __ ] up you've talked enough yeah so
for several years the crimes of Peter Manuel captivated the attention of the public across UK I mean they were who
wouldn't be right but once the trial ended and everybody was kind of satisfied he had been sentenced he had
been you know found guilty everything he got what he deserved attention kind of like shifted away so like you know other
stuff was happening so they just kind of were like [ __ ] Peter Manuel bye yeah when the day of his execution arrived on
July 11th 1958 the evening times reported quote as the hands of the prison clock pointed to the execution
hour fewer than a dozen people stood silently outside the prison there was no demonstration no protest by opponents of
capital punishment as the final Act was carried out under due process of law at 8:00 a.m. the Executioner pulled the
lever down he went he was gone hanged to death and the people of Scotland were finally free of the Beast of birkenshaw
damn [ __ ] Peter the fact that like less than 12 people were sh anymore they didn't even need to see him die they
were just like whatever Deuces you're gone you stupid [ __ ] oh what a case though he yeah just just the fact that
like there's no reason for murder ever but his was specifically so senseless and no victim profile no just like
killed to kill yeah it was his crimes were so [ __ ] senseless and so brutal yeah and like
you said like the fact that he didn't have a victim profile just freaky like any it was like a Richard Ramirez how
nobody was safe yeah like the break he had no he would go after couples kids women men families like didn't matter
who you were where you were what was going if he could get you he was going to get you and it's like so scary that's
so scary yeah and that um that McLoud source that I was talking about in the first part and this one is um uh Peter
Manuel serial kill and it's by Hector McLoud and we'll link it obviously in the sources but we used
it a lot but um yeah it's a wild case and one of Scotland's worst serial killers I mean yeah yeah he was a lot
and Scottish listeners let me know if I said baleston correctly or Bailey eston I think I think you had said baile yeah
I hope I did feels Scottish it felt good I'm thinking Bailey no Bailey baile baile fromo so we'll see but yeah
horrible horrible case yeah but he got his in the end yeah yeah and with that we hope you keep listening and we hope
you keep it weird but not so weird that you break into people's homes and kill them because wo cuz what the [ __ ]
horrible yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] oh my g oh my God

When Peter Smart failed to show up for work on the morning of January 6, 1958, officers in Lanarkshire, Scotland were dispatched to Smart’s home to conduct a well-being check. When no one came to the door, the officers forced their way inside, where they found Smart, his wife, and their eleven-year-old son all dead from gunshot wounds to the head. A week later, Peter Manuel was arrested and charged with the murders of the Smart family, but in time the police in Lanarkshire would learn that was only one of Manuel’s horrific crimes.

Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!

References Birmingham Post and Gazette. 1958. "3 shot dead: no gun found." Birmingham Post and Gazette, January 7: 1.

Coventry Evening Telegraph. 1956. "Three dead in bungalow beds." Coventry Evening Telegraph, September 17: 1.

Daily Record. 1956. "Fifth tee murder." Daily Record, January 5: 1.

—. 1956. "Fifth tee murder: dramatic appeal." Daily Record, January 6: 1.

—. 1957. "Teenager vanishes." Daily Record, December 30: 1.

—. 1958. "Two sensations as trial opens." Daily Record, May 13: 7.

Daily Telegraph. 1958. "1958." Daily Telegraph, May 15: 15.

Evening Sentinel. 1956. "Bloodstains found on bed sheets." Evening Sentinel, September 17: 1.

—. 1957. "Tjhick snow hampers moors hunt." Evening Sentinel, December 11: 1.

Hull Daily Mail. 1957. "Police seek fresh clues in murder mystery." Hull Daily Mail, December 10: 5.

Lundy, Iain. 2007. "Psychopath who brought terror to the west." Evening Times, December 27.

MacLeod, Hector. 2009. Peter Manuel, Serial Killer. Edinburgh, Scotland: Mainstream Books.

Nottingham Evening News. 1956. "Bungalow riddle: two women and girl dead in bed." Nottingham Evening News, September 17: 4.

Silvester, Norman. 2022. The story of Scotland's first known serial killer Peter Manuel. October 10. Accessed June 9, 2024. https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/23034356.story-scotlands-first-known-serial-killer-peter-manuel/.

The Times. 1958. "Statement on 8 murders." The Times, May 22: 5.

Western Mail. 1958. "Watt denies shooting his wife." Western Mail, May 16: 5.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

Brief Summary

Elina and Ash discuss the Sherri Papini case and Peter Manuel's violent crimes in true crime context.

Key points

The Perfect Wife Documentary. A chilling documentary about a woman who staged her own kidnapping.
Isabelle Cook's Disappearance. A teenage girl goes missing under suspicious circumstances, echoing a previous case.
Peter Smart's Family Tragedy. Officers discover a family murdered in their home, raising questions about the killer's motives.
The Smart Family Murders. The brutal murder of the Smart family reveals a chilling pattern of violence.
Detective Superintendent Brown. A dedicated detective known for his psychological approach to solving crimes.
Peter Manuel's Confession. Peter Manuel confesses to multiple murders, shocking investigators with details only the killer would know.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's about her but yeah.

Commenting on a selfish act during a tragic situation.

5:03WatchJul 22, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from Morbid | Podcast

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.