BEYOND the grave

Philip Glenister stars in a true-crime drama about a groundbreaking murder investigation

- SEAN MARLAND

NEW CRIME DRAMA
Steeltown Murders
Monday, 9pm, BBC1 (box set, BBC iPlayer)

In 1973, a Welsh community was torn apart by the unsolved murders of three teenage girls – but two of the police detectives who worked on the case never gave up hope of identifying the killer.

This week, powerful BBC1 drama Steeltown Murders tells the story of how advances in forensic evidence in the 2000s gave DCI Paul Bethell and Phil Rees the chance to solve the mystery that had haunted Port Talbot for almost 30 years.

Set in two timelines in the 1970s and early 2000s, the four-part series reveals how the killer was finally identified with the use of pioneering familial DNA evidence – the first time the technique was used anywhere in the world.

Beginning in 1973, the series starts with the original investigation into the murders of 16-year-old best friends Geraldine Hughes and Pauline Floyd, who were killed as they hitch-hiked home together late at night after leaving a Swansea disco. Their bodies were found in woodland the next morning.

Hundreds of officers worked the case, including junior detectives Paul Bethell (Scott Arthur) and Phil Rees (Siôn Alun Davies). The girls had been seen getting a lift in a white Austin 1100, and thousands of drivers had to be visited by police, while steelworkers at the Port Talbot plant were also questioned in the biggest murder enquiry in Welsh history.

CRIME CONNECTION

Bethell and Rees believed the case was connected to the murder of another teenager two months earlier, when 16-year-old Sandra Newton was also strangled while hitch-hiking home from a nightclub.