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Great Crimes and Trials

Field	Value
genre	Documentary
creator	Philip Nugus and Johnathan Martin (Nugus/Martin Productions LTD)
starring	Robert Powell
country	United Kingdom
num_episodes	78
runtime	30 minutes
network	BBC2
first_aired
last_aired
num_series	3

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	Notes
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 also features the cases of the San Diego serial murders, 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.

References

"Great Crimes and Trials".
"Great Crimes and Trials of the 20th Century (TV)".
(2 February 2001). "Life for 'depraved' killer". BBC News.
Alvarez, Lizette. (21 June 1996). "Zodiac Suspect Obtained Gun-Making Materials Via Mail Order, Detectives Say". The New York Times.
(1 December 2001). "Arrest in Green River Murders".
"Search Results – BBC Genome".
"Great Crimes And Trials Of The 20th Century, Volume 2: The Original Gangstas".
(20 August 2007). "Great Crimes and Trials – TV Series – Crime And Investigation Network".
"ISBN 9781858680163 - Great Crimes and Trials".
Begg, Paul. and Fido, Martin (1993). ''Great Crimes and Trials of the Twentieth Century'', p. 5. Carlton Books, London. {{ISBN. 1858680166
(4 October 2004). "Great Crimes And Trials Of The 20th Century: Series 1".
"..: Great Crimes And Trials of the 20th Century :..".
"Great Crimes And Trials Of The 20th Century – Volume 1: Gruesome California – Sony Pictures".
"Great Crimes And Trials Of The 20th Century – Volume 2: The Original Gangstas – Sony Pictures".
"Great Crimes And Trials Of The 20th Century, Volume 1: Gruesome California".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1990s-british-documentary-television-series 1993-british-television-series-debuts 1996-british-television-series-endings bbc-television-documentaries british-crime-television-series british-english-language-television-shows television-series-by-sony-pictures-television

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