Why Do People Kill?

In the final episode of our summer specials, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes talks to Steve Keogh, a retired Metropolitan Police detective inspector who spent twelve years on Scotland Yard's Murder Investigation Team and helped convict around 100 killers. Steve reveals how murder squads achieve an extraordinary 90% clear-up rate, why smartphones have become a detective's most valuable piece of evidence, and what working the devastating aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings taught him about trauma and resilience. He also shares the theory it took him thirty years to develop: that virtually every murder is driven by one of just three underlying motives. It's a rare look at homicide investigation from the other side of the interview room.

Key psychological themes

This episode explores: the three drivers of murder — emotion, power and control, and gain • trauma, resilience and delayed grief in frontline policing • coercive control and domestic homicide • missed warning signs in mental-health-related killings • digital evidence and behavioural profiling

Contributors featured in this episode

•       Kerry Daynes — Forensic psychologist, presenter, and author of Dark Side of the Mind and What Lies Buried.

•       Steve Keogh — Retired Metropolitan Police detective inspector, Scotland Yard Murder Investigation Team; author and host of Murder Unpacked.

What you'll learn in this episode

•       Why murder has a 90% clear-up rate in the UK, far higher than crimes like burglary, and how a team of up to 50 detectives makes that possible

•       How cuts to the Met's murder teams, from 29 down to 18, have left detectives permanently playing catch-up

•       Why nearly a third of London's murders are domestic-violence related, and why a woman's greatest homicide risk comes from a partner or ex-partner

•       What it was really like working the Edgware Road bomb scene for two weeks after 7/7, and why the psychological toll didn't hit Steve until years later

•       Why phones, not CCTV or forensics, are the single most valuable piece of evidence in a modern murder inquiry

•       Steve's theory that almost every killing is driven by one of three motives: an emotional trigger, the desire to feel powerful, or material gain

•       Why Steve believes many domestic and mental-health-related homicides were preventable, and the warning signs that kept being missed

Relevant links and further reading

•       Kerry Daynes — Dark Side of the Mind (Endeavour, 2019)

•       Kerry Daynes — What Lies Buried (Endeavour, 2021)

•       Steve Keogh — Murder Investigation Team: How Killers Are Really Caught

•       Steve Keogh — Murder Investigation Team: Jack the Ripper

•       Steve Keogh — Murder Unpacked (murderunpacked.com)

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Credits

•       Presented by Kerry Daynes, with guest Steve Keogh

•       Produced by Shearwater Media

•       Executive producers: Jeff Anderson and Steve Anderson

•       Editing and Music: Rob Warner

Content note

This episode discusses murder, domestic violence, and the July 2005 London bombings. Listener discretion is advised. If you have been affected by the issues raised, support is available from Refuge's National Domestic Abuse Helpline (0808 2000 247).

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