Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer
Cinema Series US Film
  • yesterday
A Killer's Mistake Season 1 Episode 1

#cinemabuum
#CinemaSeriesUSFilm
🎞 Please join
https://t.me/CinemaSeriesUSFilm

Category

😹
Fun
Transcript
00:00in an idyllic place a mother disappears from the family home our kids had come home from school she
00:13wasn't there that was unexpected the door was left open she was meant to be collecting her
00:21child from school she didn't turn up police were called to the address later that evening
00:27not the father the husband had been contacted he was staying elsewhere at the time thereafter
00:35the investigation into her as a missing person began because it was totally out of character
00:39arlene fraser a family woman had simply vanished nobody could explain where arlene was weeks earlier
00:49she'd been attacked was there a link arlene was just an ordinary mum why would someone
00:57attempt to murder her a month before and then she goes missing in a case which frustrated detectives
01:04a specialist lip reader used by britain's security services her identity protected was drafted in to
01:11help uncover the truth and to another point he actually mimed sawing his wrist when he was talking
01:18about cutting up the bounds what had happened to arlene fraser detectives fear she's been abducted
01:24murdered murdered and if she has how will they solve the mystery every investigation is like a jigsaw each
01:33piece offering new evidence as a picture of a suspect emerges but which one will reveal the killer's mistake
01:40you
01:47you
01:52200 miles from Elgin, in the northeast of Scotland, on a blustery April evening, Carol
02:20Gillies, is at home near Glasgow. Her life is about to change. It all started with a knock on the door.
02:29There was a policeman standing there from Strathclyde Police and he'd said, your sister's
02:35been reported missing. Right away, I felt that was it. You know, Arlene wouldn't go missing.
02:43She had two children that she loved. Nothing added up. At her home in Smith Street,
02:50Elgin, the minutiae of Arlene Fraser's life, including vital medication, were discarded.
02:56If she'd really disappeared and run away, she would have packed the medicine she needed for
03:01her Crohn's disease. She would have packed her spectacles. She wouldn't have left her door open.
03:07She would have made arrangements, you think, as a loving mother for her child to be picked up from
03:11school. There were all these things that were very suspicious. A 14-year riddle of the mother
03:16who had disappeared had begun. What followed saw a cat and mouse game between killer and
03:22investigator. Would a murderer's mistake be uncovered in a story which begins with an inexplicable
03:29scene?
03:29It was as if she had just been spirited away. Some of her clothing was in the bathroom, just
03:38folded and ready to be presumably worn. It looked like she had been in the middle of some housework.
03:45The vacuum cleaner is plugged in as if she's just kind of stopped using it midway through
03:50cleaning.
03:51Arlene was a creature of habit. She had a set routine and she went missing on a Tuesday morning.
03:57Now, a Tuesday morning was pretty much the only period of time that she would have been at
04:02home alone or known to be home alone by those who knew her. She went to college. She had
04:08the kids, obviously, in the evenings and the weekends. So, the period of time that she would
04:14have had peace at home was really very much only on a Tuesday morning. And then she always
04:19met a friend for lunch in the town.
04:21From looking at all Arlene's, her life and the way she lived her life. I mean, she'd been a mother for 10 years. She was going back to college. She was doing that on a Tuesday. She was trying to build up her own wee life. The kids were now both at school.
04:42There was a strangeness around the house, but there was no upset. There was no signs of violence. There was nothing knocked over. There was certainly no crime scene. It just looked like the house had emptied.
04:56On the day itself, April 28th, police had little option but to ask for all of the relevant forces to be on the lookout and then alert the public of Arlene's disappearance. Perhaps she would return.
05:11The first thing you might consider is that they've just run away. Maybe they've run away with someone else. Maybe they've just run away by themselves. They just want to start a new life.
05:1824 hours went by. Still no sign of Arlene.
05:24The next day, it was becoming a little bit more sinister in the sense that there was just no obvious explanation why Arlene hadn't come home.
05:34The practicalities of a mother who suddenly vanishes from a family home present an immediate problem for those called in to help. Like what to do with two school-aged children.
05:44We collected the kids, Jamie and Natalie, and obviously they needed night clothes, the school uniform, etc. They were both standing in the doorway with two plastic bags.
05:57They just looked so bewildered and so lost as to what was happening. Bearing in mind Natalie was five and Jamie was ten, you know. For me, you know, that just rubber-stamped it, that this was not Arlene's doing. There was no way Arlene would do this to her children. Absolutely no way.
06:19She loved her two children and there was no way. She was going to run away. She would have taken the children with her. So I knew right away that Arlene was dead.
06:38Dead. Arlene's father feared she was dead within a day of her disappearance.
06:45When evaluating the case, it's important to understand why there was such disbelief that Arlene would simply run away.
06:54It would have meant leaving a ten and five-year-old in an empty house because the children's father was not living in the family home.
07:02Nat Fraser, Arlene's husband, was someone investigating Detective Alan Smith, based in Glasgow, knew all about from his days as a local policeman in Elgin.
07:13Understanding Nat Fraser becomes vital to uncovering a killer's mistake.
07:19My first conversation with Nat Fraser, the husband, was probably a matter of days after I arrived up in Elgin.
07:26I'd known Nat from a previous life. He was a local businessman. He was involved in the delivery of fruit and veg to local businesses.
07:38He was a popular individual in Elgin. He played in a local band, a music band, at weekends. So he was a popular individual in the town.
07:51Nat Fraser was an incredibly manipulative man who could make friends quite easily. He set up a business. It was very successful.
08:06And none of these things go against his general personality. He wasn't one of those people who was a loner, who kept himself away from people.
08:14He very much the opposite. He was out there. He was in control. He was the boss. He was the master of what was going on.
08:22But he was no longer master in his own home. Arlene had seen a solicitor. She wanted a divorce. Nat had beaten her.
08:34Charged with attempted murder, later downgraded to assault, he was living out of the town on bail.
08:40Nat Fraser had a very definite history that would have raised him as a potential risk to his wife.
08:52Some of the things that were reported about him and his behaviour would even, I think, have made him a high risk to his wife.
09:00That assault was a very, very serious one. He had put his hands around her throat and threatened her life.
09:08The police begin to build up this picture of an unhappy relationship, one which she was trying to escape, and a potentially violent partner.
09:15But when his wife disappeared, Nat had his sympathisers. He was a popular man.
09:23When locals and the police asked about Arlene, Nat would answer, revealing how tormented he was.
09:29There's two sides to Nat Fraser. There's the public Nat Fraser, the hellfellow well-met, the popular van delivery guy.
09:39Everybody in the town thinks he's a cheeky chappy.
09:42Always cracking a joke, flirting with the ladies. That's one side of Nat Fraser.
09:47The other side that we began to unearth, as we looked very much more closely into him as an individual,
09:55is that there was very much a dark side. A dark side to the private Nat Fraser.
10:00And what we saw there was quite alarming. He clearly had a history of domestic abuse.
10:06Arlene had been subjected to domestic abuse on many occasions.
10:10He was a controlling individual.
10:13He didn't necessarily have any real loving or emotional investment in Arlene herself.
10:20And there was strong evidence of controlling and coercive behaviours and violence.
10:29Knowing all of this, why was Nat Fraser not immediately a significant person of interest to the police?
10:36Irrespective of our hunch, you've got to follow the evidence.
10:40And the evidence that we had was very, very thin.
10:43We didn't have a crime scene. We didn't have any witnesses. We didn't have any forensic evidence.
10:49We didn't have any CCTV that helped us. We didn't have any confessions.
10:55So we didn't have a crime.
10:57So our first challenge as an investigation was, is Arlene alive? Or has she gone missing?
11:03There was something else which deflected suspicion from Nat Fraser.
11:08He had an alibi. He was known to be out of town, delivering fruit and veg the day that Arlene went missing.
11:16He was accompanied by a van delivery boy.
11:19His vehicle was seen on CCTV at a particular location on that particular day.
11:27He was on a telephone call to a lady who he'd previously had a relationship with but hadn't phoned in years.
11:35And, ironically, never phoned again.
11:39So he made sure that he was marking his scent that morning.
11:44Detectives were in constant dialogue with Nat Fraser.
11:47But if something sinister had happened to Arlene, he had made no mistake to put him in the frame.
11:53She had gone missing and there was nothing to say to the contrary.
11:57He was not a suspect for months and months and months because there was no evidence.
12:03Why had a doting mother walked out on her children?
12:06Was husband Nat involved in her disappearance?
12:10Where was Arlene Fraser?
12:12Detectives with little to go on in the hunt for Arlene Fraser simply kept a watching brief on her husband, Nat.
12:27His demeanour did not compute with what they knew had been going on behind closed doors on Smith Street.
12:34Nat's behaviours were odd around the time that she was reported missing.
12:39Now, on the evening that she was reported missing, he was staying with a friend.
12:46And he had received a phone call that Arlene had gone missing.
12:49Now, in the context at that time that they were a couple going through a divorce and there was no love lost there between them.
12:57Bizarrely, he went straight into the Telgen where she lived.
13:01And within no time at all that evening, he was checking the hospital.
13:04He was showing all signs of distress and concern, which was completely out of character.
13:11After only a few days, he seems kind of very blasé about the whole thing.
13:15And he goes from being the extremely concerned partner to police actually having to contact him to give updates on the case.
13:22A few weeks later, he's making jokes to friends about, oh, the kids will get used to her being away and so on.
13:27And that's not the behaviour of somebody who's genuinely worried about their partner and the fact that they've been missing for several weeks now.
13:37The media locally and nationally began to speculate.
13:41But not about Nat Fraser.
13:43Coverage focused on the mother who'd abandoned her children.
13:46There was a lot of bad press about Arlene, which was, you know, it was hard to read.
13:52There was talks of her being on drugs, which was just ridiculous, you know, absolutely ridiculous.
13:59About having boyfriends, things like that.
14:02Where were the stories coming from?
14:05None other than Nat Fraser.
14:07And of course, naturally, those who know Arlene, that would make no sense.
14:14So he introduced some elements to create an impression that she was involved in drugs, that she was promiscuous, that she was involved in other relationships.
14:27He blackened her character.
14:30I think these things come with the territory, but at the time you don't realise that.
14:35You just have to, you know, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen sort of thing.
14:41So we just tried our best to kind of rise above it.
14:44But undoubtedly, this was part of Nat's plan to create an impression, plant a seed that Arlene was into amphetamine, into drugs.
14:53Which was never the case, because we were able physically to get samples of Arlene's hair from a hairbrush post-disappearance.
15:02And that evidence scientifically told us that Arlene was not involved in drug abuse.
15:10Similarly, the relationships that he suggested and others close to Nat suggested she was involved in never came to anything.
15:19Detectives wondered why Nat Fraser would start these stories.
15:24As the months passed, Nat pushed a plausible story.
15:28Arlene had run away.
15:29It became vital to him that the picture he painted of Arlene was seen to be true amongst the community, including the police.
15:37Arlene's betrayal of her family was a story which Nat repeated to anyone who would listen.
15:43They believed, through fantastic propaganda by Nat Fraser and his close friends,
15:49that this woman had up sticks, abandoned her kids, disappeared, leaving him and the kids with a difficult situation.
15:59So she was being painted as a prior.
16:01Fraser embellished the story as the anniversary of her disappearance neared.
16:07Arlene had funded her new life with a stash of Nat's cash taken from his house.
16:12But Arlene's father, Nat's father-in-law, a quiet man, told a different story.
16:17I knew that Arlene hadn't run away, despite what Nat Fraser was saying.
16:24I just knew because she would have phoned me on the Tuesday, so I suspected right away that she had possibly been killed.
16:37And he had an idea of his own as to who was responsible.
16:40They always blamed the husband in murder cases, so possibly Mr. Fraser would be a prime suspect.
16:51Although I think there might have been one or two others up there.
16:56But he was a suspect.
17:01And I think the police knew that, you know, they were looking at a murder investigation.
17:05By 1999, detectives were convinced that Arlene had indeed been the victim of a violent crime and was dead.
17:19But if so, no killer had revealed a mistake.
17:23They set about proving their suspicions in stages.
17:26First, that Arlene was not alive.
17:28The proof of death, which is what we were doing, the proof of death in relation to Arlene, is about closing doors of life possibilities.
17:40So, no activity on her bank or any finances for X period of time.
17:46No apparent interaction with pharmaceutical outlets for medication that she needed.
17:52In the UK, not just locally, in the UK, similarly with her contact lenses, her renewable contact lenses.
18:00No activity in that regard.
18:02Telephony, nothing that would suggest contact with friends, family.
18:06All of these elements had to be proved in a negative sense to be able to then say,
18:16it looks very much like there's just no evidence that this woman is alive.
18:20Nat Fraser went about his life, running his fruit and veg business around the town, in and out of the family home on Smith Street.
18:28He maintained an impression that he thought she had gone on holiday.
18:34And I remember saying to Nat, this is some length of holiday that Arlene's gone on.
18:39And even then, he tried to maintain, no, that it was credible, she's gone off to Spain.
18:46And despite trying to reason with Nat, that this is so out of character, how can you really believe this of Arlene?
18:56It just seemed illogical, incredible.
18:59But he couldn't but maintain that position because to give an inch would be a weakness in the sense of it would have given ground back towards where he didn't want to go.
19:13Arlene's father and sister, meanwhile, were finding it hard to cope.
19:18It was really difficult because one minute you're living quite a normal life.
19:23You know, you're just every day, you're going to work, you've got two children, you're doing your housework, etc.
19:28And then all of a sudden you've stepped into this really almost dark life.
19:34You know, when you're talking, I mean, the word murder, you know, you're talking about that, that's horrible.
19:4018 months after Arlene's disappearance, some in the police had concluded there'd been foul play.
19:46And privately, some acknowledged that they had a suspect, the same man that the family believed responsible.
19:53The man who was about to face charges for the attack on Arlene five weeks before she went missing, Nat Fraser.
20:01There seemed to be no other theories possible.
20:04The question has to be who would gain the most from Arlene's disappearance.
20:09Now, in terms of motivation, Nat had a huge amount of motivation to get rid of Arlene.
20:19And statistically speaking, when a woman is murdered, in about half of cases, it's a partner or ex-partner who turns out to be to blame.
20:28So Nat Fraser is going to be an obvious suspect.
20:30The number one motivation was that he was already awaiting criminal trial for her attempted murder, just weeks before she disappeared.
20:42So freedom, if she wasn't there to give evidence, was obvious.
20:48The second thing is we knew that she had been in talks with her solicitor around about a divorce settlement, a six-figure divorce settlement,
20:56which was going to hugely damage him financially.
20:59Motivation number two, with Arlene out of the equation, he's not going to lose his money.
21:05If Arlene was no longer there, he would get back into the family home, he would control that, he would get back with the kids and control that.
21:15All of his finances, he would be back in control.
21:18So from a perspective of motivation, there was no shortage of motivation.
21:26Whilst there were still plenty of people in Elgin who supported the popular Nat Fraser, time was not on his side.
21:38By the second anniversary of Arlene's disappearance, there seemed no sensible reason to support the claim that she had abandoned her children and left home.
21:46It was only the passage of time, weeks, months, years with some individuals, before they began to reflect on the likelihood of this as being sensible.
22:01Birthdays had passed, Christmases had passed.
22:04The kids, she was a devoted mother.
22:05The one thing that we knew was that she was a devoted mother.
22:09And yet birthdays passed, Christmases passed.
22:12It was absolutely illogical.
22:19I mean, obviously, the police were getting information from all angles about Arlene.
22:24They would talk to her friends.
22:26They would talk to Nat Fraser.
22:28And most importantly, they'd talk to the people that actually, you know, really, really know her.
22:37But Nat had an impregnable alibi and there was no body to confirm Arlene was dead.
22:43Neither Arlene nor her remains had been found.
22:46She might still be alive.
22:48So what charge could detectives possibly bring?
22:52If she had been murdered, they needed the killer to reveal a mistake.
22:55Nat Fraser, a suspect as time passed for something, but for what?
23:08A turning point in the case came when a key piece of evidence was uncovered.
23:13An Elgin mechanic revealed that he'd sold a vehicle to a friend of Nat Fraser.
23:18The case went very quiet and then there was talk of a car being used, a beige Fiesta.
23:28We uncovered a significant break for the first time in relation to a vehicle.
23:36And police were very excited about this and I think it is relevant to the inquiry.
23:41And the Ford Fiesta had been purchased the night before Arlene had gone missing on 27th of April
23:49by a very close associate of Nat Fraser.
23:57In circumstances that could only be described as very covert, cash in hand and say nothing,
24:03there was a third party used to purchase the vehicle.
24:06A car was purchased the night before Arlene went missing and then it was disposed of.
24:14And so that vehicle, the whereabouts of that vehicle, sightings of that vehicle,
24:19really re-energised the investigation because we began to believe that the purchase of that vehicle
24:25was inextricably linked to her disappearance.
24:29And could that have been the vehicle that was enticed her out?
24:32Police had a lead.
24:35They sundered up like this.
24:37A car had been bought by a Fraser confidant the day before Arlene had disappeared.
24:43And then it had been destroyed.
24:46It's very, very strange.
24:48Why would you do that?
24:50Other inexplicable evidence had been uncovered,
24:53like the mystery of the missing and then reappearing wedding rings.
24:57The initial crime scene examination of the house within a day of Arlene gone missing,
25:04the house was sealed and it was looked at forensically.
25:09And including that forensic examination was a full video sweep of the house.
25:17Days after that, once the family had moved back into the home,
25:21one of the family members recovered from the bathroom three rings,
25:27Arlene's wedding ring, engagement ring and eternity ring.
25:31But they hadn't been there during the course of the video.
25:36Now bear in mind Nat had had fairly regular and free access to the house at that point in time.
25:41So the belief was that the rings had been returned to the house by Nat.
25:48He was crazy to think that the police hunting for this woman who's gone missing,
25:53and even her family, wouldn't notice that the rings weren't there
25:57and then they've suddenly appeared again.
25:59So that really suggests that somebody has gone in and planted those rings.
26:03And he's doing it to support his story that she's just run off and she was trying to leave him.
26:07But, you know, if she was running off, really trying to run off and leave him,
26:10surely she would have taken her rings and tried to sell them for money.
26:13It seemed such an obvious mistake from Nat.
26:17Why would he not dispose of the rings?
26:19Why commit the cardinal error of returning to the scene of a crime,
26:23so further exposing himself to suspicion?
26:26Alan Smith put it down to Nat's greed.
26:29As unbelievable as that might be,
26:33it is not that unbelievable if you understand how close Nat is to money.
26:39and the value of these rings.
26:41And by reintroducing them into the family home
26:44was his way of being able to regain control of the rings and their value.
26:53Yet another piece of evidence emerged to further draw suspicion on Nat Fraser.
26:58His story about Arlene walking out on the family
27:01with Nat's cash kept in the house.
27:04It simply wasn't true.
27:07So his assertion was that Arlene had taken the money and disappeared
27:12and it was all part of the plan, her plan.
27:17But what he was unaware of
27:18was that days before Arlene went missing,
27:22she'd humiliatingly had to borrow money from a friend for housekeeping.
27:28So she was low on cash.
27:30Now if she had known there was a stash of cash in the house,
27:34she wouldn't have had to borrow from a friend,
27:37never would have.
27:38So that didn't square.
27:41And even if that stash had been uncovered post-borrowing money,
27:47Arlene would not have gone missing
27:49without having repaid her friend the money.
27:52So that whole staged piece of theatre by Nat
27:58to again build on the fact she's gone missing
28:01and ran off and abandoned her family,
28:04when you actually looked in behind that,
28:07that was a mistake.
28:12But there was still a big problem to overcome
28:15for police to prove that Nat was a killer.
28:17With so many sightings of Fraser miles away from Smith Street,
28:20home of Arlene, on the day that she went missing,
28:23how could Fraser be responsible?
28:25Police dug deeper into the part played in the mystery
28:28by a friend of Fraser, a man called Hector Dick.
28:32So Hector Dick was a business partner.
28:36It was Hector Dick who bought the now-destroyed beige Ford Fiesta
28:39and may have helped dispose of Arlene's body.
28:44Nat believed that if Arlene's body was never found,
28:50there could never be a conviction for murder.
28:53So his real driving force, I think,
28:56was in her body disposal, her body deposition.
29:01In a rare twist at this point in their investigation,
29:04the year 2000,
29:05police had Nat Fraser exactly where they wanted him,
29:08in prison.
29:09Whilst the investigation into her disappearance
29:11and possible murder continued,
29:13Fraser had been tried for the assault of Arlene,
29:16for which he'd been arrested in 1998.
29:19Convicted, he was sentenced to two years in prison.
29:23During this time,
29:24a third person entered the police investigation,
29:26another friend of Nat Fraser,
29:28a man called Glenn Lucas.
29:30He visited Fraser inside prison.
29:33Neither men knew they were being filmed.
29:36There was no audio on the tape.
29:38So detectives turned to a deaf,
29:40identity-protected lip-reading expert
29:42to help uncover what had been said.
29:45Nat Fraser was doing most of the talking.
29:49When he said something about,
29:50if the bones are smaller than that,
29:53he actually held up his hand.
29:55If the bones are smaller than that,
29:58they cannot be identified by DNA.
30:03The conversation between Fraser
30:04and his visitor Glenn Lucas
30:06seemed to confirm the prosecution case.
30:09Nat knew an awful lot more than he'd admitted.
30:11And to another point,
30:14he actually mimed sawing his wrist
30:17when he was talking about cutting up the bones.
30:21And Lucas was saying,
30:23no, good idea.
30:25Police don't suspect you at all.
30:29And stuff like that.
30:31And telling him that he hoped,
30:34he thought very much that Nat would get away with it.
30:37Whilst they didn't deliver hard evidence
30:42that was able to be admissible in court,
30:46what it did do was give us
30:48significantly interesting intelligence.
30:52And Nat was talking about how many alibis he'd had,
30:55how he'd been very sure that when he delivered,
30:58made the deliverance,
30:59that everybody had seen him.
31:01I could tell they were talking about cutting up bones,
31:04but I didn't know whose bones.
31:06I didn't even know that someone was missing,
31:08let alone dead.
31:10And that reinvigorated the investigation
31:13and gave us a number of lines of inquiry.
31:17The information given by the lipreader
31:19did not offer new evidence,
31:21but it did confirm the case against Nat Fraser
31:23and his harrowing crime.
31:25They were talking about a third party called Heccy
31:28and how much Heccy had helped him.
31:33There was mention of a car and a mobile phone.
31:36And I don't know what or how
31:41he had Arlene killed,
31:46but there was a mention of a third party
31:48who had offered or agreed
31:55to help Arlene for a price.
32:02By 2002, Alan Smith felt that he and the team
32:05had assembled enough to gain convictions
32:07related to the murder of Arlene Fraser
32:09against three men.
32:11Glenn Lucas was considered an accomplice
32:13to a conspiracy alongside Hector Dick
32:16with Nat Fraser, the orchestrator of the abduction
32:19and murder of Arlene Fraser.
32:21We had no hard and fast silver bullet,
32:24no forensic DNA link between the victim
32:27and the perpetrator.
32:29We didn't have the luxury of that
32:31in this investigation.
32:34Despite the absence of a piece of smoking gun evidence,
32:38Fraser, Hector Dick and Glenn Lucas were charged.
32:41What followed transformed Elgin
32:43from a delightful market town on the coast
32:45to the scene of complex legal arguments in court
32:48and the continued probing by police
32:51into what had happened to Arlene Fraser.
32:54Elgin and the picturesque Moray Firth
32:56became a temporary home to legal experts
32:58and senior detectives
32:59as prosecution and defence teams
33:02argued about, amongst other things,
33:04whether Nat Fraser and his alleged accomplices
33:07could ever get a third trial in the small town.
33:10Eventually, it was decided to move the case
33:12to another town, Dingwall, 52 miles away.
33:15But four years after her disappearance,
33:18three men, including her husband,
33:20were due to stand trial for the murder of Arlene Fraser.
33:23The case was thought by some dangerously thin,
33:27but as the trial neared,
33:29one of Nat Fraser's friends turned against him.
33:32He thought that he could confide in other people
33:37and that they would remain loyal to him.
33:39It didn't occur to him that they would not be loyal to him.
33:44Hector Dick now offered to support the prosecution case
33:47and he made an amazing revelation.
33:50He claimed that Fraser had hired a hitman from down south,
33:54that Arlene had been abducted, killed,
33:57her body dismembered,
33:59and then her body was ground up and burned
34:02and then her ashes were disposed of.
34:05He also claimed that Fraser had asked him to acquire a car
34:08to help with the abduction.
34:13Charges against Hector Dick were dropped,
34:15as were those against Glenn Lucas.
34:18At last, Arlene's sister could have her day in court
34:21to put the record straight about Arlene.
34:24She was far from relaxed about it.
34:27Nothing was certain about the outcome.
34:30Being a witness in a high court
34:32is very, very scary.
34:36It's really scary.
34:37Well, it was quite an experience
34:39because you're in the box
34:42and you're trying to enter the secuses
34:44questions
34:46and half the time
34:47my hearing aids weren't working.
34:51So it was a bit of a challenge.
34:53It's just not a nice atmosphere at all.
34:58They have a way of doing things
35:00and you're asked a question
35:04and it's a yes or no
35:05and you come away feeling very frustrated
35:08because they've asked the question
35:10but you want to say,
35:11but, you know,
35:13but no, it's a yes or no.
35:17So you feel kind of unfulfilled.
35:20What would be the outcome?
35:24Had Nat Fraser made a killer's mistake,
35:27would he be found guilty
35:28of the murder of Arlene Fraser?
35:31Carole Gillies and her father Hector
35:47attended on the verdict of the court
35:49in January 2003,
35:51just three months short
35:52of five years since Arlene had disappeared.
35:56Nat Fraser was found guilty.
35:59The judge offered his opinion
36:02of Arlene's killer.
36:03The judge made it very clear
36:05that he felt that this was an evil crime.
36:08It was without any care for anybody else.
36:12It was planned.
36:14It was brutal.
36:15It involved other people.
36:17It even hurt, you know,
36:19his own child.
36:21So when the judge described him as evil,
36:24that's quite a big step to take.
36:26That's almost saying
36:28there is no mitigation
36:30in what you did whatsoever.
36:34But if the people of Elgin
36:36thought that it was case closed,
36:38they were wrong.
36:39Nat Fraser would appeal
36:40and his conviction would be quashed.
36:43Well, today's the day we'll find out
36:45if the police and prosecution
36:47have held evidence.
36:48If they're allowed to have held evidence.
36:51In 2008,
36:53after a series of court hearings
36:54both in Scotland and in London,
36:56on a legal technicality
36:58related to the Crown's evidence
36:59about the rings
37:00found in the Fraser family home.
37:03There was a question,
37:04a technical question,
37:06in relation to
37:07the integrity of the chain of evidence
37:09and the way that those rings
37:11were handled by the police.
37:13And on the basis of that,
37:16the conviction was quashed
37:18because the rings played
37:21such a significant part
37:23in the first trial.
37:24And that was devastating.
37:26It was devastating for the police
37:28and the inquiry team,
37:30but it was doubly devastating
37:33for Arlene's family.
37:34Oh, it was horrible.
37:36It was absolutely horrible.
37:37And of course we were disappointed.
37:41We were bitterly disappointed.
37:43The quashing of the conviction
37:45for the whole family
37:46was just devastating.
37:48Absolutely devastating.
37:51The whole court process
37:53for each and every one of us
37:55was just a living nightmare.
37:59It seemed so unfair
38:00to everybody involved.
38:03Buoyed by his success
38:05winning his appeal,
38:06Nat Fraser reverted to type.
38:08The old Nat came back.
38:10It was as if
38:12everything had lifted
38:13and he was back
38:14to being the cheeky chap
38:15in the high street in Elgin
38:16delivering his fruit and veg.
38:18He could not contain himself.
38:20And the family had to endure that.
38:22And it was hard.
38:23And it was hard.
38:24But he reverted to type.
38:27Nat reverted to type.
38:28And so that absolutely
38:31was all the motivation
38:33that was needed.
38:34If any was needed
38:35to get this train
38:38back on the track.
38:39Let's get this investigation
38:41and redouble our efforts
38:43to get him back into court.
38:45Police and prosecutors
38:46reconsidered their evidence.
38:48It may have seemed easier
38:49to let the investigation rest.
38:51But detectives wanted
38:52to take their case
38:53back to court.
38:55And so he went on trial
38:56for a second time.
38:57And this, again,
38:59was the first time
39:00that an individual
39:01who had a conviction quashed
39:04was re-indicted
39:06and put on trial
39:08for murder
39:09for the same crime.
39:13In 2012,
39:15Nat Fraser returned to court
39:16charged with the murder
39:17of his wife, Arlene.
39:19Would the case against him
39:21once again convince a jury?
39:23Had he made a mistake?
39:24Or would the cheeky chappy
39:26win the day
39:27and walk free?
39:28We always remember
39:30sitting in a room.
39:31We could hear them saying,
39:32jury verdict,
39:33court three,
39:33jury verdict,
39:34court three.
39:35And we up the stairs,
39:37we went,
39:38I mean,
39:38hearts were beating,
39:39absolutely beating.
39:41She need not have worried.
39:42For a second time,
39:43a Scottish jury
39:44found Nat Fraser guilty.
39:46It was just,
39:48the relief,
39:50you try not to be,
39:52you know,
39:52jump in the air,
39:53you know,
39:54you try to stay composed
39:55but the relief
39:57is unbelievable,
39:58just unbelievable
39:59because the alternative
40:02was that you would
40:03just walk through the doors
40:04and it would have
40:05all been in vain.
40:07And you know,
40:08and Arlene would still
40:09be out there
40:10and that seemed
40:11so unfair.
40:13Arlene's body
40:13remains undiscovered.
40:15It's somewhere
40:16out there
40:17but the trial outcome
40:18did bring some consolation.
40:21I don't suppose
40:21you could call it joy
40:23but it was a relief
40:24because we were down
40:27in London
40:28at the Supreme Court
40:29and it didn't seem
40:33to be going too well
40:34for us
40:34so I was a bit
40:37worried.
40:41Nat Fraser was sentenced
40:42to life in prison
40:43for a second time
40:44he will serve
40:45a minimum
40:45of 17 years.
40:47It had taken
40:4814 years
40:49to bring him to justice.
40:50What was the key mistake
40:52which convinced
40:52the second jury
40:54to find him guilty?
40:55It was the crime scene
40:57itself
40:57which betrayed
40:58the truths
40:59Nat Fraser wanted
41:00to be kept hidden.
41:01If he was to be believed
41:02the town of Elgin
41:04had been harboring
41:04a selfish mother
41:05who had taken
41:06what money
41:07the family had
41:08and then set off
41:09on an extended holiday
41:10to Spain
41:11having abandoned
41:12her children.
41:13But why
41:14would she leave
41:14behind vital medicine
41:16and her glasses?
41:17The unlikely claims
41:18by Fraser
41:19that a devoted mother
41:20would abandon her children
41:21a wife who had
41:22already sought refuge
41:23from the abuses
41:24of her husband
41:25did not ring true.
41:27Too many people
41:28knew too much
41:29about the nature
41:30of Arlene
41:30and that of Nat Fraser.
41:33Nat Fraser thought
41:34he'd planned
41:35the perfect murder
41:36but what he couldn't do
41:38is erase people's memories.
41:39He couldn't erase
41:40the things Arlene
41:41had told her solicitor
41:42and her friends
41:43about their relationship.
41:45The fact that he'd
41:46tried to kill her
41:47previously
41:48they couldn't erase
41:49the fact that she was
41:49a wonderful mother
41:50and that she cared
41:51about her children
41:52and when she didn't
41:53turn up to pick up
41:54her children from school
41:56that that rang alarm bells
41:57that was out of character
41:58for her.
42:00So that for many
42:01is the killer's mistake
42:03which Nat Fraser made
42:04planning a story
42:05which asked people
42:06to believe
42:07that a doting mother
42:08and family woman
42:09would leave behind
42:10her children
42:10and for what it's worth
42:12vital medication too.
42:14It was that
42:15which convinced police
42:16two juries
42:17and her sister
42:18that Nat Fraser
42:19was guilty of murdering
42:21Arlene Fraser
42:21a woman
42:22who nobody could believe
42:24would abandon her children.
42:25She wouldn't do that
42:27to her family
42:28and her parents
42:30and her sister.
42:31She just wouldn't
42:31because she knows us.
42:33She knows how
42:34we would
42:35you know
42:35the grief.
42:36she knows how
42:37she knows how
42:38she knows how
42:39she knows how
42:40she knows how
42:41she knows how
42:42she knows how
42:42she knows how
42:43she knows how
42:44she knows how
42:45she knows how
42:45she knows how
42:46she knows how
42:46she knows how
42:47she knows how
42:47she knows how
42:48she knows how
42:49she knows how
42:49she knows how
42:50she knows how
42:51she knows how
42:52she knows how