On the night of March 3rd, 2021, during the Covid lockdown, 33-year-old Sarah Everard was walking home from a friend's house in south London. She never arrived. Days later, detectives raced the last person seen with her to one of their own: a serving Metropolitan Police officer named Wayne Couzens.
In this episode, forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes pieces together Sarah's final journey and examines the failings that let her killer hide in plain sight inside Britain's biggest police force.
In this episode
- The eerie, near-empty London of lockdown, and why the phrase "she was just walking home" struck such a chord with the public
- The dashcam and bus footage, and the car registration that led detectives to Couzens
- Couzens's bodycam interview, and the "gang" story he invented when police pressed him
- How deception experts read his body language and his words
- His careful planning, the "kidnap kit" and the rehearsal drive
- The vigil on Clapham Common, the police response, and the sentencing at the Old Bailey
- What came out afterwards about his earlier offences, and the Met's promises of reform
Kerry's psychological insights
- Why Sarah's disappearance gripped the country, and affected the everyday safety calculations so many women make
- The warning signs colleagues reportedly saw, and why Kerry calls him a "ticking time bomb"
- What his planning tells us about the fantasies he had likely nursed for years
- How an egocentric killer can compartmentalise and put on a show of normality
Featuring
- Kerry Daynes, forensic psychologist and presenter
- Steve Keogh, former Scotland Yard homicide detective
- Dan Rivers, ITV News
- Minnie Stephenson, Channel 4 News
- Professor Dawn Archer, linguistics and deception expert
Content note: This episode deals with abduction, rape and murder. Listener discretion is advised.
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Go deeper with Audible
If you enjoy exploring the psychology behind these cases, Audible has a huge selection of true crime books, including a couple of Kerry's own. Sign up for a free 30-day trial at theprofiler.co.uk/audible and help support the podcast in the process.
Stay in touch
- Website and weekly email: theprofiler.co.uk
- Follow Kerry Daynes on all social media platforms, or via her Substack, which has articles to go with nearly every episode
- If you enjoy the show, please follow or subscribe, leave a five-star rating or review, and share it with fellow true crime fans
Credits
• Presented by Kerry Daynes
• Produced by Shearwater Media and Heromedia Productions
• Executive producers: Jeff Anderson and Steve Anderson
• Editing and Music: Rob Warner
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