Hello and welcome to Outlaw Podcast. I'm Ellen O'Neill, and in today's episode, we're in Brighton

in 1986, where two sets of parents are beside themselves, after both of their nine-year-old

daughters went out to play in the streets and never came home. Their community rallied together

searching for the girls out in the dark cold night but time was running out

and soon this would become one of the biggest and most devastating true crime cases

to hit the UK.

In a misty cold woodland on the outskirts of Brighton, a search for two little missing girls

has just been disrupted by a volunteer and his dog. He claims that his dog has specialised abilities.

It's a tracker dog. Police could borrow him for the investigation if they wanted.

Only, there was something weird about this guy, right from the jump.

Police couldn't quite put their finger on it, but it wouldn't be the last time they came into contact with this suspicious man.

Today, we're covering a case so notoriously tragic it's been given its own name.

It's called the Babes in the Wood murders.

And chances are, if you're from the the UK you've heard of this one.

It might have even been used as a cautionary tale by your parents to scare you into staying safe and close to home as a kid.

We're going to be covering a lot of sensitive topics today, including murder, sexual assault, rape and violence against women and children,

kidnap and torture.

As always, viewer discretion is advised.

The two nine-year-old girls at the center of today's case are Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows.

Karen was the slightly older one of the two, born on December 21st, 1976. She was the middle child of her family,

but her bestest friend in the whole entire world was her neighbour, Nicola Fellows. Nicola was born on February 22nd,

1977, so just a few months after Karen, and while they didn't attend the same school, they were very, very close from a very young age, simply from living on the same estate and their families hanging out together.

...