60. The Ruth Ellis Story

Murder They Wrote with Laura Whitmore and Iain Stirling

BBC

Comedy, True Crime

4.3 • 757 Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Laura explores the nuanced case of Ruth Ellis, the last woman hanged in Britain. In April 1955, Ruth shot her lover David Blakely outside a pub in North London. The case itself was open-and-shut, but the motivations behind it were far more complicated. Ruth paid for the crime with her life. But could things have worked out differently if the police had properly investigated the complexities of her relationship with not only David but her other lover Desmond Cussen?

Murder They Wrote with Laura Whitmore and Iain Stirling is available twice a week on BBC Sounds. Subscribe now so you never miss an episode. Email us at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ellis, if someone had never heard of our podcast before, how would you describe it?
0:05.3	Initially, I would sympathise, and I would say, I feel so sorry for you. You've missed out on so much
0:10.6	great content. And Alice, if someone had never heard our weekly BBC Sounds Only episode
0:15.3	Soundsbites, how would you describe that? Have you ever seen the Northern Lights?
0:20.9	So check out the Ellis James and John Robbins podcast. And the BBC Sounds only
0:25.8	Soundsbytes episodes. Listen on BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts.
0:35.2	Hello, welcome to the podcast Living Legends.
0:38.4	I've got one dead leg already, which is actually quite worrying for the start of a podcast
0:42.0	because we're going to be here for the guts of an hour.
0:45.2	Who killed it?
0:46.9	Mick.
0:48.0	I don't want to move him.
0:49.4	Well, he might get angry.
0:50.5	So I'm just going to have one workable leg.
0:52.1	It's fine.
0:52.3	Our dog's getting older and more miserable as the...
0:56.0	Like all of us. Like all of us really, actually. Welcome to the podcast, everyone.
1:00.4	It's my turn this week. I'm going to be looking into a case that we actually discussed a few episodes ago.
1:05.3	What?
1:06.1	Back in episode 45, we got an email from Karen. Normally, not nice getting an email from a Karen.
1:11.3	But in this situation, it was lovely.
1:13.6	And I was like, do you know what?
	...

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