# Great Crimes and Trials

Great Crimes and Trials (sometimes titled Great Crimes and Trials of the Twentieth Century) is a 1993–1996 BBC documentary television series. The program uses archival material to reconstruct a renowned crime, examining the felon's motives, details of the crime, the investigations and the trial. Each episode is narrated by actor Robert Powell.

## Series 1 (1993)

| Number | Episode |
| 1 | The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping |
| 2 | Lucky Luciano |
| 3 | Al Capone |
| 4 | Son of Sam |
| 5 | The Hillside Stranglers |
| 6 | John Dillinger – Public Enemy No. 1 |
| 7 | The Manson Family Murders |
| 8 | The Jonestown Massacre |
| 9 | The Green Beret Killings |
| 10 | The Case of Dr. Sam Sheppard |
| 11 | Neville Heath |
| 12 | Ted Bundy |
| 13 | Gary Gilmore |
| 14 | The Trial of Adolf Eichmann |
| 15 | John Gacy |
| 16 | The Massacre of the Tsar and the Imperial family |
| 17 | Dr. Crippen |
| 18 | The Great Train Robbery |
| 19 | The Boston Strangler |
| 20 | Haigh the Acid Bath Murderer |
| 21 | John Christie of Rillington Place |
| 22 | The Black Panther |
| 23 | Murph the Surf |
| 24 | The Hammersmith Murders |
| 25 | The McKay Kidnapping |
| 26 | The Yorkshire Ripper |

## Series 2 (1994)

| Number | Episode | Notes |
| 1 | Charles Starkweather | |
| 2 | Howard Hughes Biography Hoax | |
| 3 | Jean Harris | |
| 4 | The Kidnap of Patty Hearst | |
| 5 | Richard Speck | |
| 6 | Caryl Chessman | |
| 7 | Roberts, Duddy and Witney | |
| 8 | Jeremy Bamber | |
| 9 | Hitler and the Nuremberg Trials | |
| 10 | Stalin and the Massacre at Katyn Wood | |
| 11 | The Assassination of Gandhi | |
| 12 | The Assassination of Martin Luther King | |
| 13 | The Kennedy Assassination | |
| 14 | The A6 Murder | |
| 15 | Dennis Nilsen | |
| 16 | Charles Whitman | |
| 17 | US Brinks Robbery | |
| 18 | The Night Stalker | |
| 19 | The Rosenbergs | |
| 20 | Jimmy Hoffa | |
| 21 | Dan White | |
| 22 | Bonnie and Clyde | |
| 23 | Wayne Williams | |
| 24 | Alcatraz | Episode features the 1946 and 1962 escape attempts. |
| 25 | The Ku Klux Klan | |
| 26 | The New York Mafia Wars | |

## Series 3 (1996)

| Number | Episode | Notes |
| 1 | Mark Chapman and the Killing of John Lennon | |
| 2 | Gaston Dominici | |
| 3 | Henry Lee Lucas | |
| 4 | Donald Hume | |
| 5 | John Duffy | Episode made before revelation of Duffy's accomplice. |
| 6 | Graham Young | |
| 7 | Sir Harry Oakes | |
| 8 | Lord Haw-Haw | |
| 9 | DeFeo and Benson | |
| 10 | Donald Merrett | |
| 11 | Roy Fontaine | |
| 12 | Buck Ruxton | |
| 13 | Leonard Lake and Charles Ng | |
| 14 | John Bodkin Adams | |
| 15 | Heidnik and Dahmer | |
| 16 | Judge Joe Peel | |
| 17 | Sacco and Vanzetti | |
| 18 | The Trunk Murders | |
| 19 | Browne and Kennedy and other Police Killings | Episode also features the cases of Bentley and Craig and Guenther Podola. |
| 20 | The Siege of Sidney Street | |
| 21 | Leopold and Loeb | |
| 22 | The Zodiac Killer | Episode features the cases of the California Zodiac Killer, the New York Zodiac and the Green River Killer. Episode made before capture of both the New York Zodiac and the Green River Killer. |
| 23 | The Assassination of Robert Kennedy | |
| 24 | Pol Pot and the Killing Fields of Cambodia | |
| 25 | The Malmedy Massacre | |
| 26 | Ma Barker and Other Public Enemies | Episode also profiles the Barker–Karpis gang, Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly. |

## Broadcasting

The series was originally broadcast on Tuesday afternoons on BBC2 in the United Kingdom and in the United States on the A&E Network. In the mid-late 2000s the program was repeated on weekdays in the United Kingdom on the Crime & Investigation Network. The broadcast of the series began on Russian TV-6 channel in the fall 2000.

## The 2011 series

In 2011 the Investigation Discovery rebooted the series narrated by Alisdair Simpson, with infamous cases from the late 20th century and the early 21st century. The series aired one season with 26 episodes.

## Great Crimes and Trials (2011)

| Number | Episode | Notes |
| 1 | Brisbane's Lesbian Vampire Killers | |
| 2 | Monster of Belgium | |
| 3 | The Case of Christopher Porco | |
| 4 | Murdered by the Mob | |
| 5 | The Crimes of Harold Shipman | |
| 6 | The Ken and Barbie Killers | |
| 7 | Murder of Sarah Payne | |
| 8 | Murder on Cape Cod | |
| 9 | The Australian Outback Killer | |
| 10 | A Very Dangerous Game | |
| 11 | The Kennedy Connection | |
| 12 | The Case of Amanda Knox | Murder of Meredith Kercher |
| 13 | Long Island Railroad Massacre | |
| 14 | Murder in the Mansion | |
| 15 | Murder on the Mountain | The murder of Rinette Bergna |
| 16 | The Case of Ray and Faye Copeland | |
| 17 | Beast of Notting Hill | The murder of Janie Shepherd |
| 18 | Beast of the Bastille | |
| 19 | The BTK Killer | |
| 20 | The Boogeyman | |
| 21 | Case of Susan Smith | |
| 22 | Case of Ward Weaver III | |
| 23 | The Railroad Killer | |
| 24 | The Case of Arthur Gary Bishop | |
| 25 | Terror in Gainesville | |
| 26 | Death of a Mail Order Bride | |

## Book

A book to accompany the series was published by Carlton Books in late 1993 written by Paul Begg and Martin Fido. Comprising twenty eight true crime cases, the book profiles twenty five of those from series one (including The Hammersmith Murders), one case which would later be profiled in series three (Bentley and Craig) and two that were never featured on the programme (The Krays and The Moors Murders).

## Home Media

Several collections of Great Crimes and Trials have been released to VHS and DVD. The first and second series were released on video by Columbia Tristar in 1997. The first series was released on DVD by Columbia Tristar in 2005, and the third series was released on DVD by Network DVD in 2011.
In the US, two collections were released by Sony as part of the "Sony Choice Collection" line of burn-on-demand DVD-R's in 2013. Great Crimes And Trials of the 20th Century, Volume 1: Gruesome California features six episodes on one disc of crimes that took place in California and Great Crimes And Trials of the 20th Century, Volume 2: The Original Gangstas features five mob and gangster related episodes on one disc.