How To Get Away With Murder - Part Three (Murder & Method)

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This is a hypothetical exploration into the possibility or impossibility of getting away with murder, which over four episodes covers motivation, methods, surveillance, research, eacape and clear-up, as well as the legal ramifications of planning a murder of a victim called Bob... who is fictional.

HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER - PART THREE: UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT

Let’s pretend that I’m going to commit a pre-meditated murder and the target is my old pal Bob. But don’t fret dear friend, as the murder is made-up, the victim isn’t real and all of this is total bunkum.

Do I know where to kill him? Oh yes. Do I know how to kill him? Meh. And is it a 100% fool-proof plan? Not on your nelly. But that aside, I could easily extinguish Bob’s pitiful little existence by attaching his nipple piercings to the National Grid, by stapling his lips to a drag-racer’s exhaust, or by slowly feeding him into a pasta-maker tongue-first. And yes, I have given this some serious thought.

But the hard part isn’t the murder, the real challenge is to get away with it. So, across this four-part series I shall be planning and executing the hypothetical murder of a fictional idiot called Bob; soon he’ll be nothing but dust, I shall be one cakey-Eva portrait better off, and you shall keep schtum, right?

My name is Michael, I am a murderer, and this is How To Get Away With Murder.

Part Three: Murder & Method.

Last week, we established that – owing to the complete and utter sadness of Bob’s pathetic little life; where the only person he talks to is his own shadow, that sitting on a different sofa is his version of ‘taking a vacation’ and ‘spicing-up his sex-life’ means that sometimes he’ll ‘use a different hand’ (not unlike my own, if I’m honest) – I have made the momentous decision (based on weeks of research and surveillance) to murder Bob in his small lonely little bedsit. On his pizza-speckled sofa to be precise, as that is where he feels safest, where he is isolate and – more importantly – if he actually left his flat, just once in his life, he’d probably die of fresh-air overdose and his neighbours would die of shock. Now I may be a potential murderer, but I don’t want to be responsible for a massacre, do I? Do I?!

Admittedly, Bob’s bedsit may seem like a really dull place to say “tata” to his existence, given that so many infamous serial-killers have upped-the-stakes in terms of murder locations, such as;

• Herbert Baumeister, the I-70 Strangler, who’d lure young men back to his indoor swimming pool around which he’d placed mannequins dressed like they were enjoying a pool-side party
• PeeWee Gaskins carted the bodies of his victim’s around town in a hearse, on the back of which was a bumper sticker which unsubtly read “I haul dead people”
• Richard Kuklinski, nicknamed The Ice-Man, left a victim’s corpse in an oil drum right outside a diner, where he ordered sandwiches and sat waiting to see how long before anyone noticed
• David Ray Parker, the Toy Box Killer kitted-out and soundproofed a trailer with a torture chair complete with restraints, tools, torture devices and video playback
• Mack Ray Edwards was a construction worker for CalTrans and buried the bodies of many of his victims over the highways he would later help to build
• Vlado Taneski reported on his own murders in the Macedonian newspaper he worked for and was only caught when he released information that only the police or the killer knew
• Bela Kiss pickled people in barrels which he stored in his basement
• And – of course – H H Holmes converted a Chicago hotel into his very own ‘murder castle’ by installing trap doors, soundproof rooms, secret passageways and even execution chambers

Ah lovely. Now that may all seem very exciting, but there’s one teeny tiny problem with each of these murderers? They were all caught, trapped by their own arrogance and imprisoned by their own ego. By over-complicating a simple thing such as making someone dead, it was impossible for anyone to see either of these deaths as anything other than a murder… and where there’s a murder, there is always a murderer. So, to get away with Bob’s death, I need this to look like an accident or natural.   

Now, this is not going to be easy, as I am dead dirty. I am a real mucky Mickey McYuckfest and a filthy festering scuz-ball of absolute scum. Oh yes, that is a fact. In fact, you are too, genetically speaking; as with the average human being made up of roughly 10 trillion cells, as 16% of our bodies is skin, every year we shed around 8lbs (or 3 ½ kilos) of skin, we lose 27000 hairs and expel 4300 litres of sweat. Oh yeah, we are dead dirty. And give that our cells contain DNA which is uniquely-coded to us, I might as well go to the crime-scene and hand the Police a business card reading ‘Hi, I am Bob’s killer. Call me’.

To avoid that, I need to erase any trace of myself before I go anywhere near Bob’s bedsit. There are a few ways I could ensure I leave no traces of my DNA behind

• #1 – Scrub every inch of my skin red-raw with a rough scouring pad
• #2 – Tightly wrap my whole body in a thin plastic film
• #3 – Take a swim in a bubbling pool of neat battery acid
• #4 - Peel off my flesh, boil wash it in bleach and stitch the pieces back on
• #5 – Remove all of my skin in one piece and swap it with someone else’s

Which would be very effective, if I actually survived either of these processes.

And besides, although I’d be unable to walk, talk, see or touch, any witness could easily identify Bob’s killer as “the wailing dripping chronically-bleeding Frankenmonster who left smoking bits of his fizzing flesh all across the floor and grumbled endlessly about how he wished he could have swapped skin with someone who had a nicer bottom, a six-pack instead of a barrel of blubber, and how he can’t go to the loo as that technically means he’ll be touching another man’s winkle”.

Alternatively, there are some simpler options:

• #1 – Shower first, it’ll limit the cascade of genetic confetti I would accidentally scatter, and besides, in Bob’s last moments alive wouldn’t it be nicer to treat him to the fragrant smell of tropical fruits rather than the pungent whiff of stale BO, pongy pits and rampant toe-cheese?

If a shower is not readily available for a quick scrub beforehand, I must remember to never ask to use Bob’s, or his neighbour’s shower, or to set-up a portable shower on his lawn, or to ring his doorbell while standing under a broken drainpipe and rubbing fistfuls of Mr Matey-Bubble into my parts.

• #2 – Clean up after myself. Simply put, I shouldn’t be a pig but neither should I be a prude.

So, the rule of thumb should be; I won’t wipe my shoes on his curtains, his mouth on his sofa, my nose on his bedsheets, and (conversely) I shouldn’t turn up in a floral tabard, clutching a Henry Hoover and giving the place a once-over as I’d hate the Police to see his bedsit in this state and think it was me.

• #3 – Don’t wear anything which is new or mine; instead steal someone else’s clothes, or better still swipe a bag of second-hand crap from outside a charity shop. It’ll be old and unwashed so the Police will waste years chasing a corpse who had died one week before Bob. Genius.

Obviously, it’s vital to make sure that these clothes suit me. Not just size-wise but style-wise too. For example: jeans, jumpers and suits are good; floral dresses, Spiderman onesies and tutus are bad.

• #4 – Limit my DNA and disguise my appearance, by rubbing my exposed skin in a high alcohol anti-bacterial hand-gel, wearing latex gloves, hiding my face with a mask, goggles and – if I choose to – wearing a full nuclear HazMat suit as if I’ve escaped from Chernobyl. Which may look a tad suspicious, but given that we’re in a viral pandemic, this is the new normal.

Just to say, if the human race is wiped out and you’re listening to this in the future, the virus happened because a Chinese man shagged a bat, ate it, pooped it out and then fed that to a horse, or something, I think. To be honest, anything which resembled the truth was abolished in 2016, so we have no idea.

Of course, if I don’t want the Police to go searching for my DNA, I have one simple way to ensure that they don’t: don’t make Bob’s death look like a murder. So, obviously, him drifting-off into the forever sleepy bye-byes is good, but a hatchet to the head and daubing the walls with his entrails is bad.

So, given that Bob rarely gets up from the crispy chocolatey outline of himself on his sofa, and leaves the inside of his one-room bedsit, how do I get in? Here’s a few do’s and don’ts which I plan to follow:

• Don’t break in; as he only has one window which is behind his telly and the only good excuse for bricking his glass is that I’m a thug, a burglar or a very enthusiastic double-glazing salesman
• Don’t drive through his wall and shoot the place up, as showy shit like drive-by shootings are reserved for bandana-wearing dick heads with brains the size of a gnat’s stamp collection
• Don’t abseil in and smash through his windows SAS style, as although we all look good in black, he may think I’m delivering him a box of Milk Tray chocolates (or any one of one thousand other tenuous references which only British people born before the 1980’s will understand)
• Don’t kick his down door and make a witty Arnold Schwarzenegger style one-liner before killing him; like “let’s shoot the breeze”, “you look dead tired” and “yah, I f**ked my maid”, which probably wasn’t his wittiest line ever, especially to his wife
• Don’t crawl through the cat flap, as it’s too small for my cake-filled chunkage, it’ll be too hard to explain and – if I get stuck – it’ll leave my bum-hole exposed to any passing perverts
• Don’t pose as an abandoned little baby lying in a wicker crib on his doorstep, as he may wish to adopt me, or – more likely – he might mistake me for basket of complimentary garlic bread

Obviously, those were the don’ts, but there are two do’s which are absolute doozies:

• Do check for a key, as many people still leave a spare under a mat, a plant pot or a loose brick, although they shouldn’t as it invalidates their insurance. Admittedly, leaving a key somewhere safe is like admitting “I can trust myself with everything... except a tiny piece of shaped metal”.

I mean, would you leave a spare phone under a rose bush, emergency credit cards behind the beans tins at Tesco’s, or perhaps your least favourite child at the nursery in case the one that you do like goes missing? No! Of course you wouldn’t. But the keys to all of your worldly possessions? That’s fine.

• And finally, I could pose as someone that Bob trusts; not the postman, the milkman, a charity collector, the Avon lady, a Jehovah’s Witness, the Corona fizzy pop man, the Littlewoods Football Pools person, or anyone else who once went door-to-door many years ago when I still lived in a house. No, there’s only one person Bob’s door is always open for… the Pizza Guy.

Brilliant; his uniform is a simple red jacket, his name is unknown, his transport is anonymous, his face is disguised by a helmet, his hands are hidden by gloves, the cardboard boxes are easy to steal, the pizzas are easy to buy or make, many pizza delivery bags are often discarded in bushes by disgruntled employees, he’s a very familiar sight at this address, and Bob definitely won’t say no to a free pizza.

It was a no-brainer really, wasn’t it? That was like luring a faded reality TV star out of a rehab centre by posing as a tabloid hack and promising you definitely won’t take slightly slutty photos of them and are only interested in telling their “true story”, but… if they spill the beans on a real celeb and flash a bit of tit, butt of chuff to the camera, then their vapid uninteresting mug will suddenly move from just under the crossword puzzle to front page news. And lo, the Christmas panto roles will come a flowing.

Hmm. Is that really how the tabloid media works, or doesn’t work? Sadly, yes.

Any-who. To ensure that I’m not caught for my dastardly crime, I must ask “is there a way to kill Bob, but not actually be in the room when his clogs are forcibly popped and his bucket is firmly kicked”?

Well, yes. I could use explosives (only I don’t own any), I could hire a hitman (only I don’t know any), I could launch a nuclear attack on his house (only I seem to have misplaced my membership of Kim Jong Un’s Apocalyptic Boom Club), I could pray for a tornado (only I’m not religious and the worst weather Bob’s street gets is a mild gust when he’s been on the sprouts), I could initiate some gangland violence between Bob and a local crew by telling them that he cussed their mommas (except the only gang in Bob’s town is the over 80’s sewing circle and - although they are vicious - all of their mommas are probably dead), and I could also engineer a gas explosion, drill a sink-hole under his floor and reroute the airport’s flight path to land on his house (only I have enough trouble turning my phone to silent when it goes off in a cinema), so although a simpler alternative is to accuse him of treason by rudely suggesting he dared to say that Princess Kate isn’t lovely (that’s illegal), that Prince Phillip isn’t a racist (that’s untrue) and to claim that he has conclusive evidence about Prince Andrew (which we know no-one will ever see), so although it may seem safer if I’m not there when Bob’s resigns from Team Life, how can I be sure that he’s actually dead and that I didn’t leave any incriminating evidence behind?

I can’t. So, I’ll have to witness his death up-close. Boo hoo! Boo hoo! Note to self: buy some popcorn.

Right! When’s the best time to cark the dozy little bleeder? Bob’s sleep pattern is screwed, as his body thinks that dawn is when the telly goes on and dusk is when it goes off, which it never does. So, even though the middle of the night would be the best time to murder most people – as we’re usually spark-out, dribbling, farting and dreaming of flushing our bosses down the sewer with the other little turds – there are a few moments when Bob is totally absorbed or distracted.

Admittedly, when he’s asleep, he’s as useless and immobile as most British politicians debating a new law which could cripple a pauper, but doesn’t affect the MP’s expense accounts, second-home, or which hooker they plan to bang at the tax payer’s expense (like the shower of shits that many of them are). And yet, when Bob is awake, there’s not a lot going on to be honest; it’s mostly an open mouth, a line of dribble, some food in, some poo out, a grunt, a fart and a burp, it’s all automatic.

But there are some TV moments which can affect his concentration span:

• Adverts: nobody watches them, everybody hates them and the only facts anyone can recall is that all children are little brats who only shut-up when they’re given sugar, all men are messy buggers who can’t wear a white shirt without getting egg or ketchup down it, and that the greatest day of a woman’s month is when she leaks an odd blue liquid while roller-skating
• Sports: it’s bollocks consisting of people either kicking balls, throwing balls, hitting balls, riding shit, driving shit or throwing shit, during which the one with the most money usually wins
• Nudity: Bob has an inbuilt radar which can spot boobs, bum or bush from three channel clicks away, or as he likes to call it ‘plot’ (in inverted commas), nudity is never gratuitous or rude, in fact, everything you need to know about a character can be expressed when they are getting soapy, slippery or humpy-bumpy. Unless the flesh flash involves a willy, then that is disgusting.
• Other crap that makes Bob’s eyes roll like lottery balls are; charity appeals, party political broadcasts, pension adverts offering a free pen or clock, and (of course) the Queen’s Speech

So, although I would do well to familiarise myself with Bob’s TV planner and to work out the timings of when his favourite crap-fests start and stop – including Dick Detectives (a STD based dating game), Old Junk Sold For a Tenner, Nosy Gits Poking Around Houses, Pet Architects, Celebrity Colonoscopy, and Useless Idiots Who Will Do Literally Anything Cos Their Careers Have Gone Crappy - the moment he is most alert is when he‘s awaiting the Pizza Guy’s arrival (as having a ‘delivery in 30 minutes or your pizza is free’ promise on every order) for that agonising half hour, Bob is as focussed as a cat about to pounce on a fat rat. But once it is delivered… he’s doesn’t give two hoots about anything.

Not his life, his home or his health. It’s just him, his mouth and a warm slice of floppy dough drenched in tomato, salami, chicken, beef, bacon, sausage, and even something they ominously also refer to as ‘meat’, as well as the world’s stretchiest mozzarella. And yes, you are sensing a running theme here?

So, can I make Bob’s death look like an accident? Possibly, but again, I am limited by choice, as Bob is the laziest person who has ever existed. Even his own body has given up; as his belly doesn’t rumble, instead it outsources all noises to someone else’s stomach; he’s spent so long lying on one side that the left hand-side of his body is technically taller than the right; and he looks so pale and deathly, he has been certified as dead six times… including once, while he was sitting up and talking to the doctor.

But there are several accidents even Bob could conceivably have. Those out-of-the-question include:

• Drowning: which is impossible as he doesn’t wash, bathe, wipe or spritz his bits and bumps, so unless the accidental spillage of custard, gravy or curry sauce counts as a wash, that’s out
• Electrocution: unlikely as he never switches anything off for fear that it’ll never turn back on, and next to his telly is a bank of back-up tellies (on at all times) should his reserve telly break
• Food Poisoning; not possible, as living on a diet of pure junk, his stomach acids are so caustic it can dissolve plastics, metals, concrete and even radioactive waste. It’s so toxic, the UK Government has been sneaking its stockpile of nuclear waste onto his pizzas for years

He could die in a fire, but his skin is so greasy I’m guessing he’s probably inflammable. He could choke on his food, but I doubt his body would allow even a mouthful to go down the wrong hole. And he could be strangled by the eight arms of his octopus onesie, but that’s just tragic, I couldn’t allow that.

In terms of a natural death?

• Old age? Technically he’s only forty, but then again, like a tree his true age is measured by the number of rings under his eyes, so (if that’s the case) he should have been firewood years ago
• Decapitation is possible, as the simple act of lifting his head a few inches off the sofa could be so unnatural to his muscles that I don’t think his neck would cope with the weight
• Exertion isn’t an option as many years ago scientists did attempt to measure him. At one point they thought he was moving, but it turned out he was gently being eroded by the wind
• Death by sex? Obviously, that’s how we’d all like to go, but as sex for Bob is a solo hobby, he has whittled what little he had down to a nub (so it’s like the little pink rubber on a HB pencil)

If I’m brutally honest, I’m amazed he’s survived this long, so who knows how much longer he’ll last. As if his body is made-up of 99% factory-produced chemicals, he may be immortal? But he isn’t.

I think we all know where this is going, so let’s just whizz through all of the possible ways that I can kill Bob, while avoiding anything messy, loud or obvious such as; shooting, stabbing, strangling, beating, bashing, slicing, dicing or mincing (that’s the method of butchery and not the slightly camp walk).

• Gassing – I could turn on his gas taps, only the gas he produces is worse
• Exhaustion – I could turn off all of his tellies and watch him panic
• He could die by falling out of bed, only this time onto a bed of rusty nails, a set of stalagmites made from congealed nose-cheese or a line of rats with spears looking to take over his home
• Auto-asphyxiation – he could die in a kinky self-pleasure session with stockings on his legs, a tangerine in his gob, a noose around his neck and knob and his body hanging by two nipple-piercings? Only how would anyone believe he could find himself sexy when no-on else does?

I could choose any of these possible options, but they are all still too elaborate, too difficult to set-up and too unbelievable for anyone who finds his body to accept that he died at his own hands.
Which leaves me with one simple option; I become the Pizza Guy.

It’s the perfect disguise, the perfect alibi and the perfect method, I turn up, clutching five free pizzas for being such a great customer and (as the perfect poison which fine for us, but is completely alien and toxic to him) I add humble salad leaf.

A tiny insignificant sprig of nature, full of vitamins and minerals, which will be discretely hidden under his usual mountain of dead pig shavings, ripped-off chicken’s arms and a cow’s eyeballs and anuses mashed into a sausage-y paste, on a thick white wall of stretchy buffalo tit-glue. Yummy! It’s how he would have wanted to go. Besides, it’s so simple that – if I do this right – no-one will suspect a thing, as Bob’s so unhealthy that the Grim Reaper has his heart on text alert. And all it took was a bit of common sense, some research and an understanding of Bob’s routine, strengths and weaknesses.

By next week, Bob will be dead and that lovely cakey portrait of Eva will be mine. Hmm. Admittedly, I have buggered this up by putting it out as a weekly podcast, so I’m just going to have to murder you all to cover my alibi. Sorry about that, but I’m sure you’ll understand, it is for a good cause after all.

See you next week, maybe, when I shall escape and – I hope - never become a suspect. Bye bye.

OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Part Three of How To get Away With Murder. This continues for one more week, when your regular Murder Mile episodes will return.

A big thank you to my new Patreon Supporters who are Christian Treppel, Lisa Yolland, Adele Mol, Eliisa Mark, Mandy Belshaw, Damian Ross-Murphy, Vanessa Casey and Jannike Molander, I thank you all muchly. You may even survive this podcast. Ooh. And thank you to Christine Mitchell for your very kind donation via the Murder Mile website. Plus a welcome to new listeners, a thank you to regular listeners and a thank you to everyone. Up next is Extra Mile.

Murder Mile was researched, written & performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name.

Thank you for listening and sleep well.



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The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime  podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totaling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk.