Manchester Murders

Manchester Murders

Manchester Murders is a true crime podcast uncovering the city’s darkest stories — from infamous cases that shocked the nation to hidden tragedies that never made the headlines.

  1. Episode 11 Bonus: Ibrahima Seck's Killers Sentenced

    1D AGO · BONUS

    Episode 11 Bonus: Ibrahima Seck's Killers Sentenced

    In episode 11, we covered the murder of Ibrahima Seck in summer 2025, a young man who went out to play football and never returned. His killers have now been sentenced. This brief update covers the sentencing, and some additional information which came out during the trial.

    5 min
  2. Episode 14: Hilda Marchbank and Susan May, Part 1. The Crime and the Case

    2D AGO

    Episode 14: Hilda Marchbank and Susan May, Part 1. The Crime and the Case

    On the morning of the 12th of March 1992, Susan May arrived at her aunt's house on Tandle Hill Road in Royton with a sandwich for lunch. She found Hilda Marchbank dead. She was eighty-nine years old, and she had been beaten and suffocated in her own bed. Susan had cared for Hilda almost every day for years. She described her as a second mother. Eighteen days after the murder, she was arrested and charged with killing her. The case against her rested on three marks on the wall of Hilda's bedroom, a lie she had told police, and questions about money. But behind the forensic evidence presented to the jury lay a series of decisions - about what was tested, what was disclosed, and what was pursued - that would take decades to fully come to light. This is Part 1 of a two-part episode, covering the murder, the investigation, and the trial. Part 2 follows Susan into prison, and through the long fight to prove what she always maintained: that she didn't do it.

    38 min
  3. Episode 13: The Manchester Cab Mystery

    FEB 20

    Episode 13: The Manchester Cab Mystery

    On the evening of 26 February 1889, a respectable Manchester businessman climbed into a hansom cab with a young stranger. By the time the cab reached the infirmary, he was dead. No marks of violence. No obvious crime scene. Just an empty pocket where a gold watch and a purse of sovereigns had been. This was the case that would test Detective Chief Inspector Jerome Caminada — Manchester's most celebrated detective — like no other. With the city's nerves still raw from the unsolved Whitechapel murders, the pressure to find answers was immense. What followed was a meticulous three-week investigation that would make British legal history: the first criminal prosecution ever attempted for chloral hydrate poisoning. We trace the route of the cab, the network of witnesses Caminada quietly assembled, and the reluctant bookkeeper whose testimony changed everything — all the way to a packed courtroom in Liverpool, a death sentence, and the question of whether justice and mercy can occupy the same verdict.

    42 min
  4. Episode 12: Dylan Scanlon

    FEB 13

    Episode 12: Dylan Scanlon

    On New Year’s Eve 2021, five-year-old Dylan Scanlon was found dead in his home in Oldham. What followed was a criminal trial that revealed harrowing details: a child poisoned with his mother’s antidepressants, repeatedly assaulted, and killed by the one person meant to protect him. Dylan’s mother was later convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. But Dylan’s death was not only a criminal case. It also exposed a much wider story; of a family breaking apart, a mother’s deteriorating mental health, a father fighting to stay connected to his son, and repeated points of contact with professionals that, in hindsight, did not come together to keep Dylan safe. In this episode of Manchester Murders, we tell Dylan’s story in full. Who he was. What was happening in his life before he died. What the court heard about the final hours of his life, and the devastating impact on those left behind. We also examine the subsequent safeguarding review carried out by Oldham Council, which scrutinised the actions of multiple agencies and identified serious shortcomings in information-sharing, recording, and professional curiosity - failures measured against national safeguarding standards in place at the time. Content warning: this episode contains discussion of child abuse and the death of a child. Listener discretion is advised.

    22 min
  5. Episode 11: Ibrahima Seck

    FEB 6

    Episode 11: Ibrahima Seck

    On a summer evening in New Moston in 2025, fourteen-year-old Ibrahima Seck left home to play football with his friends. Minutes later, a brief confrontation between two groups of teenagers spiralled into a fatal chase, ending with a single stab wound in a local car park. Bleeding and terrified, Ibrahima reached a nearby house and pleaded for help, telling strangers, “I don’t want to die.” Despite their efforts and the rapid arrival of emergency services, he would not survive. In the hours that followed, his attackers fled and boasted of what they had done. Within days, police had traced their movements through CCTV and phone evidence, leading to arrests, charges and a complex trial that would test the law’s approach to shared responsibility for violence. This episode tells the full story of Ibrahima Seck: the ordinary afternoon that turned deadly, the investigation that pieced together the truth, the courtroom battle over murder and manslaughter, and the lasting impact on a grieving family and shaken community. A deeply human account of loss, accountability and the devastating speed with which a single knife can change everything.

    14 min

  6. JAN 30

    Episode 10: The Maid in the Well

    In the summer of 1906, the body of nineteen year old servant Eliza Jane Mackay was pulled from a fifty foot deep well beside a farmhouse on the bleak Pennine moors above Oldham. Her throat had been cut. A razor was missing. And just hours earlier, she had walked out of her home in tears, saying, “If I don’t see you again, goodbye.” An inquest quickly ruled her death a suicide “while of unsound mind” - a verdict that closed the case, but left a trail of unanswered questions behind it. Was Eliza driven to take her own life? Was she being bullied and shamed? Or was there something far more dangerous at the heart of her final night? In this episode of Manchester Murders, Susan Witterick revisits Eliza’s forgotten story, exploring the harsh realities of life for servant girls in Edwardian England, the hidden risks faced by young women with no power, and the persistent rumours that Eliza may have been carrying a secret someone wanted buried. More than a century later, her death still refuses to stay silent.

    14 min

  7. JAN 23

    Episode 9: Dorothy Leyden

    On a rainy Saturday night in April 1971, seventeen-year-old Dorothy Leyden went to see Motown star Jimmy Ruffin perform at Manchester’s Golden Garter nightclub. She laughed with her friends, caught a towel thrown from the stage, and left just after 1am to make her way home. She never arrived. A few hours later, Dorothy was found beaten to death behind a pub in Collyhurst. Witnesses had seen a young woman being dragged through the dark, screaming for help - but by the time police arrived, it was too late. In this episode of Manchester Murders, Susan tells the haunting story of Dorothy’s final night, the massive police investigation that followed, and the disturbing pattern of attacks on other women in the same area. Decades later, despite forensic breakthroughs and renewed appeals, Dorothy’s killer has never been identified. This is the story of a teenage girl whose life was cut short, and of a city still waiting for answers.

    17 min

  8. JAN 16

    Episode 8: Angel of the Meadow

    In the heart of Manchester, beneath the concrete of a quiet car park, construction workers made a chilling discovery: the skeletal remains of a young woman, wrapped in carpet and hidden for decades. She had no name, no missing persons report, and no known killer. The city would come to call her The Angel of the Meadow. In this episode, we unravel her story — from the haunting history of Angel Meadow, once Britain’s most notorious slum, to the forensic breakthroughs and lingering mysteries that surround her case. Who was she? Why was she never reported missing? And why has no one come forward, even now? This is more than a cold case. It’s a human story — of violence, silence, and the relentless pursuit of identity and justice. Join our Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583892939793 Or reach out, hello@manchestermurders.com

    18 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Manchester Murders is a true crime podcast uncovering the city’s darkest stories — from infamous cases that shocked the nation to hidden tragedies that never made the headlines.

Information

  • Creator
    Manchester Murders
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    16
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Manchester Murders