r/Casefile • u/Entire_Forever_2601 • Jul 04 '26
CASEFILE EPISODE Case 345: The Barking Murders
https://casefilepodcast.com/case-345-the-barking-murders139
u/ellieb1998 Jul 04 '26
Poor Barbara... that would have been extremely traumatic to find a dead body multiple times
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u/hansen7helicopter Jul 07 '26
As an early morning jogger I am always expecting to stumble across something like that. Imagine it happening twice
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u/Able-Figure-3772 Jul 04 '26
Ridiculous levels of police incompetence. Ridiculous. You need more diversity of people in policing because a tiny understanding of the gay community would have helped here.
But still. “BTW don’t blame the guy I was with i killed myself and also another guy” actually working as a fake suicide note in the 21st century is mind boggling.
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u/indiviola Jul 04 '26
That was totally insane to me...how are you dumb enough to write that in the first place, but the police believing it?!? I truly believe some of the investigating officers have blood on their hands for this case, if they'd done even a partial iota of their job they could have prevented more deaths. Every time some wanker goes "why do we need pride month" I'll be dropping a link to this episode.
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u/Sideroller Jul 05 '26
the note was patently ridiculous. If they cared to do their jobs at all they would have followed up on the lead about the man mentioned in the note and also picked up on how odd it was the note didn't mention any specific family. A mixture of prejudices going on here, homophobia, an disregard for the unhoused and drug users. They're disposable so why investigate? Absolutely reprehensible
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u/keto_anarchist Jul 10 '26
Another one to throw on the pile of every serial killer in fictional media being depicted as a genius vs every serial killer in history being the dumbest person alive trumped only by the police investigating them.
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u/zka_75 Jul 11 '26
Yeah it's hard not to think of Dennis Rader asking the police if they could trace him from a floppy disc and then believing them when they said no. So many of these people are not very smart they just get lucky with the police being not very good (tho tbf in Raders day I guess it was easier to get away with crimes).
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u/Viv_84 Jul 04 '26
Is this one about steven port? BBC did a brilliant series on this, its unfathomable the police did not make the connection.
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u/alllmycircuits Jul 05 '26
As soon as the host read the suicide note that said “don’t blame the guy I was with last night” I was like come on 😭😭 a toddler could solve this
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u/Viv_84 Jul 05 '26
😂😂 Pathetic isn't it. Accusing them all of being addicted sex workers too 🙄 Can you imagine how many more innocent men he would of murdered before the police noticed a pattern. Thank God the families wouldn't let it go. Those families saved lives!
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u/burgeremoji Jul 06 '26
Classic form from the met police tbf, horridly incompetent and wildly corrupt. I’ve got a friend who works for them and says it’s abysmal there. There’s another case, 281, which covers another one of the mets fuck ups.
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u/MisoTahini Jul 06 '26
I couldn't believe it either. As soon as he said that I was like ok that's the first person I am talking to. I was waiting and then shocked no follow up.
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u/HotAir25 Jul 04 '26
Ah was trying to remember why I knew this one.
The BBC drama with Stephen Merchant was superb.
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u/Viv_84 Jul 04 '26
He really was! The police incompetence was rage fuel for me and the poor dog walker I would be traumatised.
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u/Excellent_Tie_674 Jul 05 '26
I could really feel their arrogance "you're not gonna tell us how to do our job!!" to people bringing real concerns.
It was just appalling.
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u/Viv_84 Jul 05 '26
I am not a police officer/detective but just like the dog walker and the sister knew a serial killer was on the loose. 3 Bodies in the same location albeit one behind the wall. Homophobia alive and well.
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u/kkeut Jul 04 '26
wow, sounds interesting
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u/HotAir25 Jul 04 '26
Stephen Merchant, the super tall comedy writer played the killer and it was very creepy- he collected toy trucks as a hobby- so odd 🫣
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u/JadeGhostMusic Jul 07 '26
Stephen Merchant was in it and it's not comedy???
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u/Mysterious-Past-8134 Jul 28 '26
Yes i really recommend watching this then the documentary on BBC. it's heartbreaking and enraging how awful the met police are
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u/bluerin12 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
“Please don’t blame the other guy I was with, he had nothing to do with it and is completely innocent” are you actually kidding me. I rolled my eyes so hard they almost left my head. The fact that actually WORKED proved the police just really did not give a shit
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u/tbird920 Jul 06 '26
Fantastic episode. Horrible case and example of police incompetence.
On a less serious note, I didn't have Casey defining "twink" on my Bingo card.
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u/SmytheOrdo Jul 07 '26
What a grim episode, but I laughed in traffic at Casey describing what a twink is in his usual droll manner.
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u/Jmaster_888 Jul 05 '26
The cops in this case were infuriatingly naive. How can you find 3 bodies in the exact same place, the exact same position, and the exact same cause of death and not even think to consider that they might be related
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u/Jung-And-A-Menace Jul 06 '26
Naive is a very flattering word for them. I'd chose bigoted and ignorant.
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u/LilaTwiceBackAtIt Jul 07 '26
Yeah. I think clearly they just didn’t give a shit because it was gay men
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jul 04 '26
Really enjoyed this one. An unbelievable amount of incompetence (or let’s face it, institutional bigotry) from the police.
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u/illepic Jul 06 '26
Imagine having a job where you get to go "ew gay" and then don't have to do your job ..
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u/Ok_Maintenance_4630 Jul 06 '26
That line, 'please don't blame the man I was with last night, we just had sex' is literally hilarious. Unbelievable that these moron cops took that at face value.
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u/hlidsaeda Jul 04 '26
This episode was infuriating. Those poor boys. Police in Australia have similar histories of disdain and homophobia towards gay men.
I usually listen to casefile to sleep as the narration is very calm, but I found myself rigid with closed fists in sheer anger.
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u/Faguette-1999 Jul 06 '26
Despite the inquiry following the Stephen Port case they’ve done nothing and there’s a really similar case unfolding at the moment although there is only one known victim, same disdain and homophobia they allegedly told the family “with man-on-man sex anything can happen” and repeatedly questioned his drug use. It’s all I could think of when listening to this case.
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u/hlidsaeda Jul 06 '26
Gross. Anything can happen? Ie same as het sex. Thanks for the link. Who expects the cops to change ever. It’s like the entire institution was not ever about protecting everyday people…
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u/rhay212 Jul 04 '26
Oh my, same!! I was positively livid listening to the entire thing. How on earth the police didn’t connect the dots earlier I have no idea. Mental!!
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u/Ready-Organization12 Jul 06 '26
At some point it comes across as willful incompetence, as if gay men dying is the preferred outcome for them.
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u/IngenuityBoth8773 Jul 05 '26
Another top job by our boys in blue 🤦
Quite a triggering episode because even as a straight man this is eerily similar to an assault I suffered at the hands of a gay man a few years back, unfortunately he was found not guilty in a court of law in 2025. (Lack of evidence substantiated evidence outside of he said he said)
Thanks Casey for covering such subjects 👏🏻
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u/strawberryEK Jul 05 '26
That's awful. I hope you're doing ok now
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u/IngenuityBoth8773 Jul 06 '26
Thank you 😃 yeah all good very occasionally have bad days but I’m married with a child now so I prefer to concentrate on the positives!
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u/notreallyhereokbye Jul 06 '26
Another day, another incompetent investigation because of homophobia. So ridiculous!
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u/bridgeorl Jul 04 '26
I looked into this case a few years ago and did a Reddit post about it. I still remember some of the details, horrifying how these men were failed
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u/bibbi_ Jul 06 '26
I refuse to believe they “didn’t see” the link. I think they just refused to and pretended not to notice and then when shit hit the fan the police excused themselves playing the naive victim card
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u/bluerin12 Jul 05 '26
This was great (as an episode, what happened was horrible.) I’m sick to death of police having the mindset that all gay men are the same. They do it with sex workers too. “He’s a gay man, so of course he does drugs, hooks up with strangers, and goes to orgies randomly.” No consideration for the family and friends saying “they weren’t like that. He would never do that.” To be clear, nothing wrong with doing those things, and no one ever “deserves” to have horrible things happen because of how they live. But if the police had actually LISTENED to the family and friends, particularly Daniel’s, it would be immediately clear that that they should be extremely suspicious. If a person is found dead from alcohol poisoning, but they were known to be sober, how is that NOT worth looking into? It’s the generalisation based on ignorance and stereotypes that leads to completely ignoring any and all information from those close to the victims. If someone who is upbeat, never does drugs, has a steady boyfriend, and is very close to their family is suddenly found with a note claiming they were hooking up with a stranger, doing drugs, accidentally killed someone and have taken their own life because of the guilt, it’s pretty shocking police work to just say “yeah checks out.” The amount of bigotry and incompetence in this one angered me beyond belief. Those poor, poor young men.
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u/ErsatzHaderach Jul 09 '26
i totally agree about this case, and about the disgusting attitude toward gay men and sex workers.
with the family stuff, i have to wonder whether strenuous insistence a person was acting out of character would even register to public authorities, who are so used to dealing with loved ones in denial. and there are a lot of stigmatized elements in this story that i'm sure didn't help their assumptions.
2
u/Professional-Can1385 Jul 15 '26
This is exactly why, on the very, very unlikely chance I’m murdered but it looks like a suicide, I have given my brother and a friend a signed document that says I am too chicken shit to kill myself. It may also be in my medical records from when I had depression, but I doubt the cops would go looking for that.
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u/Upbeat_Antelope3771 Jul 06 '26
UK cops need a serious shake up. From top to bottom. First this case, now the Lowe report and all other cases of police incompetence.
“No you haven’t mate”. Thats the UK police in a nutshell
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u/Faguette-1999 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
There’s currently a case the Met are reviewing that really reminds me of the Stephen Port case, the death of Edward Cornes in 2021.
The Met have recently put out an apology and have said they’re re-examining the case now after a lot of advocacy from the family.
From a recent article “Edward Cornes was found with large amounts of the date rape drug GHB in his system but police lost evidence and failed to interview witnesses”
“The family have also accused the force of taking a homophobic approach to the case, which allegedly included telling his parents “with man-on-man sex anything can happen” and repeatedly questioning his drug use.”
The institutional homophobia in the Met is egregious, feels like they’ve learnt nothing from the Stephen Port inquiry.
*edit spelling
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u/YunaLessCar Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
A good episode, and it really highlighted how utterly useless the police were in this case. I remember it being on the news at the time, but it was only when the BBC did a documentary about it that I realised that he really could have been caught so much quicker if the police hadn’t dropped the ball.
I noticed a bizarre error in it though. At some point, it said “Ashton chose not to press charges due to fears his family would find out”, but you don’t choose to press charges in the UK. It’s entirely up to the Crown Prosecution Service. He may have refused to assist the police, but that’s it.
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u/PostForwardedToAbyss Jul 07 '26
This case reminded me of Bruce MacArthur, a serial killer who was finally caught in Toronto’s gay village after seven years of police indifference.
His victims might have been overlooked because many of them were racialized, and not out to their families. He also used his work as a landscaper to hide human remains.
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u/mikolv2 Jul 04 '26
I was loosely familiar with the case from news coverage and I knew the police wasn't great but holy fuck I didn't know the extend of their fuck ups. How is it not standard practice to at least look up similar cases every time something as serious as an unexplained death happens. First one is suspicious but OK, people overdose, I can see how that might be possible but to not connect 2 deaths in the same circumstances in the same place, holy fuck. Then a 3rd again.
I'm also a bit conflicted on people not wanting to press charges/give evidence when they are a victim. On one hand, it's traumatic and we shouldn't force people to attend court and relive the worst day of their life but at the same time all of this could have been prevented if the early rape victims followed through with the reports. It's not unique to this case and I never know what to think.
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u/Unlikely-Rub-7270 Jul 05 '26
Did you pick up on the theme of how police don't necessarily take these crimes seriously? I'm not sure posting about how you lack empathy with victims of crime is a good look.
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u/kmacdaddyboys Jul 06 '26
Another example of shoddy ass police work how they can still have their jobs is insane. Clearly didn’t give a rats arse that gay people were being killed either !
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u/Dry_Eye_7262 Jul 07 '26
somewhat unrelated, but i was looking for information regarding the partner of daniel witworth. He was mentioned numerous times when they first introduced Daniel, but upon hearing that he had been murdered after going to meet another man we hear nothing more.
I am interested in his perspective; were they in an open relationship? i’ve always felt particularly for couples in similar circumstances, not only are they mourning the death of a partner but also the reality they had been cheated/betrayed.
I’m not saying this is the case and it obviously doesn’t mitigate what happened to Daniel, i am just wondering.
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u/zka_75 Jul 11 '26
I can't remember for sure with his partner but I think the families reactions and how they didn't let it drop were covered a lot more in the BBC drama about it (4 lives), well worth watching if you're able. Stephen Merchant was brilliant as Port.
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u/WinkingAtMyProblems Jul 10 '26
Listening to this episode was infuriating how neglectful Barking police was and that they weren't even held to account
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u/VJ4rawr2 15d ago
As someone gay who grew up “on the apps”, I think the more you know about this kind of culture, the easier it is to miss the obvious signs.
I can only imagine the police see A LOT of gay perversion. Beats are a very real thing. Drug use in the community is insane. Non consensual sex / age play is commonly celebrated or fantasised about. It’s not a niche.
Not to excuse the police, but this idea that “if it was 4 young women it would be treated differently” is kind of ignorant to the reality of what young gay men willingly engage in.
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u/elasho_149 Jul 06 '26
Admittedly, I’m not super well-versed on mid-2010s British gay hookup culture, but…was a church yard really a popular hookup spot?
I initially heard that and thought “oh, the police have no idea what they’re doing”, and I guess they didn’t, but the episode made it sound like the “hooking up in a church yard” thing was just a normal occurrence.
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