Though judging by the way TV commissioners keep shovelling it into the schedules, audiences can’t get enough of the stuff.
While most true crime documentaries rehash historic murders or – like Channel 4’s In the Footsteps of Killers – delve into unsolved cold cases, Murder 24/7 cameras are there from the moment police first arrive on the murder scene.
In the opening episode of this second series, we are taken to a quiet backstreet in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on a Monday afternoon in August 2023, where 23-year-old DPD driver Aurman Singh has been ambushed and killed by a gang of masked individuals.
CSI Operations Manager Paul Beeton from West Mercia Police (Photo: Expectation Entertainment Ltd)
A caption tells us that the time is 13.07 and the clock starts ticking. “The first days are crucial,” the voiceover tells us. And so it proves.
The sheer size of the team is the first of several insights into how a murder is really investigated – crime dramas would have us believe that most killings are solved by four or five detectives.
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Another revelation is how the widespread use of Ring doorbells is helping the police with their enquiries – these security devices being far more reliable than often contradictory human eyewitnesses.
Soon, the action plays out like a real-life episode of Channel 4’s Hunted – complete with number-plate recognition, helicopter surveillance and car chases.
“He’s on his Jack Jones,” his boss puts it back at HQ. Exciting stuff, and – unlike Hunted, an extravagant game of tag where the fugitives are caught with just a tap on the shoulder – the four killers here face a barrage of snarling police dogs and taser-wielding cops.
PC Bradley Mercer-Wilkinson (Photo: Expectation Entertainment Ltd)The processing of the suspects and the “no comment” interviews are invariably a bit dull, especially as the assailants require an interpreter, which means every question is asked twice before the inevitable stonewalling.
As always with true crime documentaries, the temptation is to Google the outcome, and it’s clear that even after a trial, nobody fully understands why Aurman Singh (“a beacon of love, kindness and selflessness”, according to his mum) was targeted.
Indeed, it might even spoil your future enjoyment of less authentic cop dramas.
‘Murder 24/7’ continues tomorrow at 9pm on BBC Two. The full series is streaming on BBC iPlayer
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