10 HOT STORIES
WITH MILLIONS of podcasts at our fingertips, few can cut through the noise to demand the attention of loyal listeners. Yet Scottish journalist Isla Traquair’s true crime podcast The Stor yteller: Naked Villainy has left us desperate for more.
The spine-chilling audio series delves into the 1978 murder of 32-year-old genetic scientist Dr Brenda Page. Her killer was finally convicted in March this year – 45 years after her death and, for the first time in UK history, Traquair was able to record the full murder trial, which saw retired research scientist Christopher Harrisson, 82 – Brenda’s ex-husband – found guilty of her murder. The ongoing series has made for addictive listening ; with unprecedented access to the courtroom, it’s like you’re stepping into the jury box.
Traquair first came across the stor y 20 years ago, when she investigated the case for the Scottish crime docu-series Unsolved. ‘It was the first documentar y I ever wrote,’ she recalls. ‘I met Brenda’s closest friends, her sister and her colleagues, some of whom have since died. I also met the police officer who was in charge of the case at the time, and that was 25 years after the murder.’ The episode led to a young Traquair boldly confronting Brenda’s ex-husband after tracking him down to Holland.
‘We’d managed to get the address of Dr Harrisson, known as ‘Kitt’, so we went straight there. We were outside his home for two days before he finally came out and I just went for it,’ she says. ‘I was 22 and tiny in comparison to this giant that I was chasing after with a microphone, asking if he’d murdered his ex-wife.’ The audio from the encounter forms part of the podcast, which also captures the moment Harrisson is found guilty, four decades after the crime.
For Traquair, Brenda’s case hits close to home. She recently went through her own court trauma, after being stalked by a neighbour, Jonathan Barrett. It left her fearful and anxious. ‘[Harrisson’s] was the first court case I sat through since I was a victim of stalking and had to give evidence,’ she says. ‘I found myself getting really upset, partic
