12

A Stab in the Dark

16 September

The case discussed is the murder of Lee Harvey, who was stabbed 42 times by his fiancée Tracie Andrews. Joe confuses the greek god Cronus with Chronos, and Sandra talks about "making wood things" and forgets that England has jury duty.

Sandra got her information from:

• True Crime England
• Murderpedia
• Wikipedia
• The images are from of Tracie and Lee are from Daily Mail
• The image of Tracie's blood soaked jumper is from BBC

Joe got his information from:

• This article from The Independent, by Michael Streeter
• Wikipedia
• Pure evil: How Tracie Andrews murdered my son, deceived the nation and sentenced me to a life of pain and misery, by Marureen Harvey

Audio transcript

Midweek murders contains graphic and explicit content, listener discretion is advised.

You know in ancient greece there was a whole bunch of gods, and the father of zeus was a funny little guy called chronos, who made time and chronology...

But if we present it at the start...

And the order of things in a sensible manner.

You are so much not a storyteller...

Your version of telling a story would be voldemort dies. So, once upon a time there's a little boy called Harry Potter...

No, if it was your story...

You start with once upon a time, order of the events in a continual timeline, voldemort dies. You know that that's not how time works right? What? As a straight line?

Yeah, that's just how we perceive time.

Oh no, don't start getting into theoretical physics. On the basic level of chronology you start at the beginning, you have the middle, you have the end. Not: you have the end, a bit of the middle. Or: we'll do a bit of the beginning now and then going back to that bit that I mentioned at the beginning that was actually the end.

If it was told from your point of view, you would have been like "yes, so James Potter met Lily Potter at school blah blah blah blah blah".

No because it's a story of Harry Potter. I know how to make things relevant, I'm not including useless background information about how long James's toenails were.

It is funny, but I thought I would give you a heads up so that you don't throw a fit when it comes up.

Well, I feel like that didn't work, did it?

[Music]

Why don't you do it this time?

I'll do it in the really annoying american enthusiastic podcast opening. All right.

You're listening to midweek murders, and that means that it's time to talk about crime. I'm your host Joe, and my co-host here is Sandra. Hi!

And this week we're gonna talk about Tracie Andrews. That chick is fucked up! Take it Sandra.

That was a bit disconcerting.

You're listening to midweek murders, which means that it's time to talk about crime. I'm Sandra, and with me is my co-host dot dot dot. What do I need to do to get you engaged?

Just do the introduction. I don't want to be peppy and happy to everyone.

You don't need to be peppy and happy.

And get this whole thing over with so I can go back to stroking my ego. I mean penis! I mean dog!

That's Joe. So the case for [laughter] The case we're gonna talk about today is the murder of Lee Harvey. I got my information from wikipedia, true crime england dot wordpress.com and murderpedia.org.

I also graced the pages of the free encyclopedia colloquially known as wiki wiki wah. And a book called Pure evil published by the deceased's mother, and giving her very emotional recollection of events from a particularly biased point of view. Because she's his mom.

She's his mom. That's a good presentation. Good job. I'm surprised, who knew you had it in you?

Wow.

Wait, I'm just gonna pour some wine.

[Coughs] Bitch.

Hey! Was that cough for me?

I was just coughing, it's flu season.

There's a pandemic, didn't you know? Okay.

Didn't you hear?

On the evening of the 1st of december 1996, Lee Harvey and his fiancee Tracie Andrews decided to go for a drink at the Malbrook pub. They had a couple of drinks and then got in the car to drive home at about 9.45. Which i find very disconcerting because 1. that is drinking and driving. Is that like super normal in the villages of England?

Well if you only had one drink then it's fine.

They had a couple of drinks.

Then probably not fine.

I saw this series on Netflix called the cobra kai, and they're drinking....

I've heard of it.

They're drinking so much in that series and driving, and I'm like, this is not okay. Why isn't anyone being like "this is not okay"?

It's very common in american media.

Doesn't seem like a thing there. I was like what the fuck.

Yeah, I've read a lot of books that have been set in america where the protagonist has gone to a bar, slammed down a few whiskies, and then driven to his next destination.

It's so weird. I'm like this is not okay. Have you seen cobra kai?

No.

It's a series following the 1980s movie of karate kid. Have you seen karate kid?

No.

Okay, then fuck it.

I know wax on wax off.

Yeah, yeah, obviously. You do know the memes, you just don't know the context of the memes. Well you know where they come from...oh fuck it.

On the way home, Lee overtook a dark Ford Sierra that then started honking and flashing its lights at them. Tracie said that Lee had gotten agitated because the Ford kept tailgating them, and decided to pull over at Copper's Hill. The Ford also pulled over and an 18 or 19 year old, with short dark hair got out of the Ford and instigated an argument, which led to Lee also getting out of their car. Tracie stated that she asked Lee to get back in the car because she was scared. After a couple of minutes an older overweight man with a donkey jacket.... I have no idea what that is. What is that?

No idea.

Okay, fuck it. Fashion - not the right podcast for it.

And quotes, staring eyes, also exited the Ford Sierra which prompted Tracie to also get out of their car. When she went up to the altercation the older man called her slut and punched her, knocking her to the ground. As she got up she realized that the same man was attacking Lee, and she screamed at him to stop. She also stated that the younger driver told the older man to "leave it", and they both got back in their car and sped off. Tracie then realized that Lee was seriously injured and checked for a pulse. A man who was nearby heard Tracie screaming, and ran to the road, where he found Tracie beside the lifeless body of Lee. The call was made to the police at 10.45. When police reached the scene of the crime Lee was pronounced dead, and Tracie was taken to the hospital with bruising on her face and in shock. The autopsy of Lee Harvey revealed 42 stab wounds on his chest, neck and back. Lee also had defensive wounds on his hands, as he had tried to protect himself from the knife. The police brought Lee's family and Tracie back to the pub, to retrace her evening, on the 3rd of December. She pointed out where they are pulled off of the road and where the men had attacked them. But Lee's family noted that her statements about how fast they were driving did not really add up, because they were on like small countryside roads, and the police car had to slow down a lot because of the curves. What followed was a press appeal where Tracie retold the story without being prompted. She was then asked about the timeline of them leaving the pub and changed her story from what she had told the police. Tracie then at the same day as the press release returned to her mom's flat, or her flat, differing reports on that, and attempted suicide by taking an overdose of pills. Her mom had found a suicide note in her own handbag addressed to Tracie's daughter and called the ambulance. Tracie was taken back to the hospital. The police went back to the scene and tried to make sense of the timeline of the crime, as Copper's Hill was only 10 minutes away from the pub, and the police had been called an hour later than Tracie had stated that they had left the pub at. So Tracie said that he left the pub at 9.45, at 10.45 is when they had the call to the police. Two witnesses came forward after the press appeal. One girl who lived nearby, who stated that she had heard a man and a woman arguing, but no other voices. The other witness had seen their car with an arguing couple inside it, but stated that there was no car following them. On the 7th of December the police go to the hospital to arrest Tracie for the murder of Lee Harvey. She wouldn't speak to them or answer any questions.

I've got a couple of points in there that become quite important later on. So when she was first giving her testimony she said that Lee was attacked in front of his car. So this mystery stairy-eyed man must have walked past their vehicle to get in front of it. And then that's where she said Lee was attacked. Also an interesting point is when she tried to overdose, she took 200 pills of whatever she could find in her house.

That is a lot.

200 pills.

I would say that that is probably, not that i'm judging...

It's been verified by the empty pop sachets and stuff, that's a fact.

I'm not judging anyone, but I would say that, now that I hear that it's 200 pills, it sounds like a genuine suicide attempt.

Yeah, for reasons unknown. Yeah, I think they forced her to vomit when they found her, and she had her stomach pumped. She was in intensive care, and then yeah like you said, she was charged on her release. But also, the first time that she was admitted to the hospital after the attack, the sister that was in charge of the ward noticed some very suspicious behavior from Tracie...

Wait, is that the sister or a nurse?

Well, a sister is a nurse.

Oh is it?

Yeah.

I didn't know. Okay, cool.

But a sister is in charge of all the nurses, so it's like a higher rank. But they're still a nurse.

Okay.

She noticed that Tracie was going to the toilet in her suite way more often than anybody should. I think in an hour she'd been seven or eight times, something ridiculous like that. Which Tracie rationalized as being in shock and having been to the pub. Now I've been to the pub, and I've had a lot of alcohol, I don't think I've ever been to the toilet that much.

Yeah. I also read that she apparently repeatedly asked: "is Lee okay?" and they told her repeatedly that Lee was deceased.

That could be put down to shock.

Yeah, definitely. But that was like a thing that they had to repeatedly tell her, that he was deceased, and she was apparently hysterical about it. Which is, I know hysterical is not like an accurate description of someone's mental state, but she was probably very upset.

Yeah. She also claimed that the headlights were left on in their car, which is kind of a trivial fact, until it gets disputed by the guy that ran over when he heard her screams who said that there were no headlights on on the car at all. The ignition was turned off, and the lights were turned off, and it was almost pitch black. That's another little bit of conflicting evidence from what she's said to the police, compared to what other people have said around the crime.

The guy that ran up to her on the road after hearing her screaming also said that she said nothing about other people.

No, she didn't. When she was first asked what had happened, I can't remember if it was to the guy that ran up to her or to the police, she gave no description of the car or of the people that were in the car until later.

Okay, I would say that that's a lot of detail to take in, just...

It would be a lot of detail to take in, but they weren't expecting... I don't think you could expect anybody from that kind of trauma scene to be able to recall eye color, or what shoes they were wearing, or whether they were wearing a watch, or whether they had rings on or anything like that. But she gave no description of them at all, like height, weight, hair color, nothing. And then she was asked to give her story again, and then she started coming up with more and more things to add to her plot line.

What I would say is that, if I was in that situation, now preface to that: just so you know, I don't know shit about cars. But I would not know what kind of car it was.

No, and that's understandable.

I could've probably said like "a Ford", but a Ford Sierra, I would have had no idea.

The main point of that, is that she didn't give a physical description of the two guys. The counter argument being, sure, it was trauma she wouldn't have taken anything in. But you would recall if they were male or female.

Yeah.

You would recall if they were tall or short.

Yeah.

Like middle height, probably wouldn't be able to specify, but if they were six foot plus you'd describe them as tall, if they were five foot you'd describe them as short.

Would I be able to say 18 to 19 years old? Probably not. I would say like a very young man.

Yeah, not in the dark you wouldn't be able to be that specific.

Yeah, I would have had no idea, I think.

And especially with moisturizing routines, it's impossible to tell.

Or a baby face. I still get ID'd for buying alcohol, I'm fucking 30.

Another thing that I might have missed saying is that after she told the police about this thing, and after she added the details and stuff, they found a woollen hat in the ditch somewhere and she said "yeah that matches a hat that one of them was wearing". And they tried to get DNA of that hat, but they couldn't.

Well, we'll get to it but that is the detail that might be...

I was going to say, they did get DNA from it.

Did they?

Well yeah.

What?

But if we're going to discuss it later we'll bring it up then.

No, I'm not going to discuss it later, I just meant that... Whose hat was it?

The hat was actually used as piece of evidence in her trial, and the hat was presented to her and they said "does this belong to you or Lee?" and she said "I've never seen that in my life before". Which, you know...

It's weird because she told the police it matched a hat that one of the supposed...

Conflicts with her previous testimony. So yeah, they'd managed to retrieve some hairs from the hat which were a perfect match for mums cats.

Whose cats?

Tracie's mums.

Oh!

So the cats were the murderers! [Laughs]

But also, so it should have been her hat?

It was her hat that had been in her mum's house, that she had obviously worn and obviously seen before in her life.

Oh yeah.

Point number one to the prosecution.

A bit of background for the trial is that Lee and Tracie met in May 1994. Within six months of meeting they became engaged. They both had daughters of a similar age and would often argue about the fact that Lee still had a good relationship with his daughter's mother. So Tracie and Lee moved in together, but would often break up, which meant that Lee frequently moved back in with his parents, only to return to Tracie and the flat after a couple of weeks. Lee's family did not approve of the relationship, they found Tracie to be controlling and arrogant, and one of Lee's friends reportedly remembers that Tracie bit him once following an argument. In 1996, so the same year that the murder happened, Tracie told Lee that she was pregnant. But in August of the same year she called him crying, saying that she had fallen down some stairs and lost the baby. In October she confessed that she had not taken a fall, but rather had an abortion. After that the constant arguing seems to have escalated to become physical. And this is reported by the police as well, they had a couple calls for domestic at their flat. So a lot of horrible arguments seem to have become physical abuse, and this is also differing reports, but some people say that Tracie was aggressive, and some people say that both Lee and Tracie used to hit each other, so I'm not sure. But we'll get to it. Yeah so, well we'll get to it now, I guess.

We'll get to it, I'm just going to talk about it.

Her ex-partner, the father of her daughter, said that they had broken up because she was abusive to him, so I'm not sure if they were both aggressive. Which, maybe, or if Tracie was the abusive partner.

From what I've read Tracie was the abusive partner, and all of the claims of counter-aggression against Lee were part of her defense tactic of defamation of character.

Oh okay. It does seem like she had been aggressive, abusive, in relationships before. So I'm more prone to believe that she was the abusive one. But also people are saying that "well he wouldn't, he would never just lay down and take it" which I feel like, might be a bad thing to say. Because if he was aggressive against her then fine. But also, if he was not, and people just want him to seem masculine, then that's very not good for her trial.

There was a couple of character witnesses against Tracie or generally, they were cross-examined as well, who would say that... I think some of them were the police as well, who said that there were no call outs for domestic violence where she was the injured party. And their neighbors, when they lived together, would say that he would often give as good as he got verbally, but they never saw her with any kind of bruising or wounds to indicate that he'd been physical towards her.

Okay.

Which isn't to say that he didn't do anything that could be concealed by clothing or makeup, but I would be more inclined to say that she was the aggressor.

Yeah, especially because of the testimony from her ex-partner, the father, because he had broken up with her because of that abuse, I would be more inclined to believe that. But also, I feel like it's a bit weird that people are being like "yeah, no, he was a manly man. He could, he would definitely not be like a victim". I'm just saying that if he was a victim, which it kind of seems like it, what's the point of people saying like "oh but he was a manly man". They're just furthering him being an aggressor. Like it's not a good thing to say. But I guess people are like stuck in like gender roles, and people want him to be less of a victim. But I feel bad for his legacy, or like, for him, that people are like "oh but he fought her". It's not good for the trial against Tracie Andrews as his murderer. If you get what I mean.

Well, I didn't read any of the comments of that ilk so...

Okay yeah, but there was some comments of that ilk, and I just felt like "this is not helping in any way" like this is just making her less of a perpetrator, when she clearly is a perpetrator.

I mean given the physical evidence that was presented at the trial, it makes no difference whether he did hit her or not, she was so obviously guilty.

Yeah. So the trial started on the 14th of July 1997 and Tracie pled not guilty. The police had theorized that she had stabbed him in the back two times with a swiss army knife, and then had proceeded to stab him 40 more times, in his chest and neck area as I said before. After this she had put the knife in her boot and flushed it down the toilet at the hospital when she was supposedly having to pee, or whatever. They also claimed that the blood spatter was consistent with her being very close to Lee when he was attacked, and therefore must have been very near him when he was attacked, or the one that attacked him. And this is also a question mark for me, because I thought that blood spatter wasn't like forensic evidence?

It definitely is.

I thought that a lot of blood spatter evidence is being refuted nowadays?

As far as I'm aware blood spatter evidence is one of the key stones of forensic science.

Oh okay, did you have like a look at it? Or do you know more about that?

I didn't see either the pictures or research into it, but i can talk about it from what I know of blood spatter analysis.

I think that what they said... From what I understand it, is that when she cut his artery in the neck, that was the like deadly trauma that he... They said that he would have bled out very quickly from that. So they said that the blood spatter on her was consistent with him bleeding for like 60 seconds from an artery. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah.

Yeah. You can talk about it if you want.

I didn't know if it was a question. So the the main piece of evidence that they used was her jumper that she was wearing at the time. And two of the cuts, or stabs, that she administered, one of them severed his carotid artery and the other one severed his jugular vein. So like, she did a proper good job of making sure he was going to bleed out.

Okay, it was definitely a deadly...

One of them was, they don't... It was impossible to tell which blow was the fatal blow, but the combination of the damage to him was definitely the cause of death. So they don't know whether severing the carotid was what killed him, or severing the jugular was what killed him. Or like, he had one in his back that I think went through a spinal column, so whether that killed him, like they don't know which one killed him. But it was definitely being attacked by a knife that killed him. The thing about those two arteries and veins, is that they have blood under incredibly high pressure. If you sever any artery in your body you're at risk of bleeding out. And the jugular and the carotid are under super high pressure, so any kind of nick in there is going to cause high velocity blood to come gushing forth. Which is why in horror movies...

So that's like a spray?

Yeah. But when in horror movies someone slits someone's throat, and you see it all gets spattered up against the wall, that blood spatter on the wall will tell you the exact angle of the body when that blood was spattered. So even if you move the body afterwards to a different area of the room to try and make it look less suspicious, that blood spatter will tell you exactly, through the use of trigonometry, where that body was. So the reason the police knew that she was in close proximity to Lee when he was stabbed, was because of the distinct pattern on the front of her jumper. So when you're close to high pressure blood spatter the droplets will be small, and they will be almost perfectly circular. The further away you get, the more that drop of blood is expected to elongate and stretch out.

So like a line instead of a circle?

Yeah. And then when it hits, you would expect like little offshoots. It's like a drop of water. If you drop a water, a drop of water down onto a hard surface you don't just get a perfect blob, but you get like little spatter patterns coming out from it. And in combination of the little blob and the spatter that comes out, you can tell the velocity of the blood, and the direction, and the distance from the source. And that's... All three of those in combination showed that she was very, very close when either his carotid or jugular was severed.

Okay. Maybe I'm suspicious of blood spatter evidence because I've seen a lot of american documentaries about crime. And a lot of the time they just make stuff up. And I'm like... but I guess...

Yeah, we do things by the rules over here.

But I guess like, because it was an artery, and because it was so close by, that would lead it to be more accurate?

No, it would make no difference. The point being, if she wasn't the one to have stabbed him, there's no way that that blood spatter could make that pattern on her jumper.

Okay.

Because she'd have had to be close enough to him, like we're talking less than a meter distance, and if she's that close but it wasn't her, then the person who did it would have been standing in the way of her. And therefore she would have no blood spatter on her at all, because it all would have been blocked by the person stabbing him. So there's no way that she could have that distinct pattern of blood spatter on her clothing without her having committed it.

I have another question because I'm a little bit... As a lay person, I'm a little bit...

I thought what you were gonna say "as a lady, one doesn't talk about blood".

Oh no, we talk about it at least once a month.

So what I'm thinking, is that they said that he would have bled out very quickly. So I'm thinking, not that I believed that, but if she had been not the attacker but then rushed to his side being like "oh no", and the blood spatter had come onto her from him at that like one minute window...

No.

Okay.

The blood pressure in the carotid and jugular is so high, that it takes seconds to bleed out from those being cut. From the point of opening those arteries and veins, you would only get a few pumps of high pressure blood. But those few pumps are strong enough to pump out the majority of the blood in his system.

Okay yeah.

And then the pressure goes, and so it just becomes a normal oozy goosey cut. So if she's not there when the impact is made, she's not getting covered in his blood.

Yeah. So it said, that also similarly to the blood spatter that they found on the jumper and stuff, they also found a bloodstain on the inside of her boot. Which is why they theorized that she might have hidden the knife in her boot, gone to the hospital and flushed it down the toilet. I guess, but also, I know that she's guilty, I'm not second guessing that, but how much can you tell from like... If she was there with a body, bloody body, she could have just accidentally got blood inside of her boot? No?

So this was actually one of the questions that was posed by her defense attorney. But it's important to note that the blood that was found in her boot was a mixture of her blood and his blood.

Okay.

Which is why the police were suspicious, because why would her blood be mixed with his in only that one location. And the reason they came up with, is she nicked herself when she was putting the knife in the boot.

Okay.

So the knife was covered with his blood, she accidentally cuts herself while she's putting it in the boot, and then the blood mix.

They didn't find her blood anywhere else?

No. Not anywhere else significant.

Okay.

She did cut herself elsewhere, but I'll bring that up later.

I didn't know that, that's interesting.

Also, the pattern of the blood in the boot was shown to be a match for both genuine and imitation swiss army blades, so the pattern in the boot was the same shape as the blade.

Okay, that is also, I would say: what.

How accurate of an impression does that have to be? I saw the picture of the blood in the boot, I'm like, it's vaguely rectangular. I'm not sure...

Yeah, so her defense attorney asked whether it was possible to have made this impression with a thumb, and the pros... Not the prosecutor. The police, the forensic officer that did the analysis said: theoretically yes, it would be. But you would have to lay it in such an awkward fashion, and do it deliberately and imitate the wrinkles of the boot while it was being worn. It just becomes a list of too many things that make it an implausibility. So the boot, and I don't know whether it was visually seeable, or whether it was microscopically seeable, but it wasn't just a clear fine press of the knife blade down onto the side of the boot. Like the boot was wrinkled, and there were rolls in the fabric, so it wasn't a full impression, but it was the impression that a swiss army blade would give if the boot were being worn. Because it gave like a specific wear pattern, which wouldn't have been able to have been replicated by just sticking your thumb down the side of a boot, which is what the defense attorney was trying to claim happened.

But could they prove that? Like the swiss army knife impression of a worn boot, is that provable?

No they had the boot. So all they needed to do was put the knife against it, and say look this is a similar... So this isn't like the crown piece of evidence, this is just corroborating evidence. So the jury don't need to believe this one piece of evidence as 100 to convict, but add it all up into everything else and it creates the picture that this is what happened, and that's what they need to convince the jury on. So the forensic officer said, like, you can see the crease pattern on the boot from where it's worn. When you fold those creases and place the blade against it, it matches the blood pattern.

Okay. So the only thing that I had left about the trial, that I wrote down, was that during cross-examination her story started to fall apart. That was it. So do you have more...

So everything that we've talked about so far is picking apart her story, in that the blood that they found from Lee was behind his vehicle, not in front of it, that she said. The blood spatter on the jumper was indicative of her being very close when it was happening, rather than her saying that she was hiding down the side of the vehicle while he was attacked.

Well she said that she was knocked out.

Yeah okay. So again doesn't match. They also found a clump of Tracie's hair on Lee's jacket and near his hand, which indicates that he was struggling with her and they had a physical fight, and he was trying to restrain her. Which I don't think she made any comment about that, I think she said no comment at all. The police did an investigation where they did a road traffic stop on the road that this happened on. Yeah, and they stopped 600 drivers I think. 120 people said that they had driven the same route at roughly the same time of the weekend in question, and not a single person said that they saw two people in a road race, or like any kind of road rage incident, or anything like that so that debunks her story a little bit. They had a forensic road traffic officer who said that at the spot where Tracie claimed Lee overtakes this mystery vehicle was actually impossible, because the width of the two cars in question Lee's car and the mystery Sierra, are actually five inches wider than the lane itself.

To add for the international listeners, english countryside roads are very, very narrow.

Confirmed.

What else have I got, let's see. Oh yeah, just in interest, this wasn't anything that was debunked in the cross-referencing, but to show the brutality of the attack. She stabbed him multiple times while his back was turned. Two of those stab wounds were far enough in to cause damage to his skull, and he was stabbed in the neck, like he had no stab wounds on the back of his head so she'd gone up through his neck into his skull. And one of the stab marks in his chest left damage on his breastbone.

Oh god. That is like...

She was really going for it. And swiss army knives are not big.

No, they're very small. I've had...

Speaking of swiss army knives. Parts of a knife, tweezers, and a spring from the scissors were all found near Lee's body.

Oh god.

So she'd attacked so viciously, that she'd broken other tools in that swiss army knife.

And that's not easy, trust me I've had several swiss army knives.

It's not. They are very much designed to be very robust.

Yeah.

That's kind of the whole point of them. And because of this damage to the knife, and the whole casing, the police investigator demonstrated in court that.. They obviously had to replicate it because they never found the original weapon. But he had both imitation and genuine swiss army knives that he tried to replicate the damage to, and said on closing of this weapon whoever was handling it would have cut their little finger in closing the blade. Like, it was almost impossible to hold the swiss army knife and clip the blade back away without accidentally cutting your little finger. And it just so happens, a certain Tracie Andrews had a very similar wound on her little finger.

Oh yeah. And blood from her own self...

In her booties.

I had some clo... or did you have more? Sorry.

And then also, no more evidence, but I found a quote that I really quite enjoyed from her defense attorney. And I think it was at this point that he was starting to realize she was going to lose the case, and I think he kind of lost heart. So the quote is that:

"No knife had been found at the scene, or on her person, proved she had not been the killer."

Lol.

What kind of shitty defense lawyer, like "have you got the weapon? No? Innocent.", "I think he's right, it couldn't have been her".

He's trying for a reasonable doubt there, I guess.

Yeah, but any juror who's not a complete moron would just hear that statement and be like: "What? Why?".

Wait. Do you have jurors in england?

Yeah. this trial went to jury.

Oh. I thought... Oh yeah, sorry, I knew that.

It's a national requirement to do jury service.

Oh sorry, I thought that was an american thing. And then I realized that I actually had read about that, in this case. So I was like: "Oh well, oops". Sorry.

Yeah she was... I think it was unanimous. But don't quote me on that.

Yeah she was. After two days I think, is what it said, she was sentenced to..

No, the trial lasted a month.

Yeah, but the jury...

Oh, they were deliberating for two days.

Yeah, so it might not have been unanimous, but it might have been, I'm not sure. Probably. She was sentenced to life imprisonment. Two years after the crime Tracie confessed to it. She stated that she had gotten out of the car following an argument, and had told Lee that she was walking home. According to her, Lee had gotten out of the car because he wanted her to get back in. She claimed that he refused to give her the keys to the flat. She then stated that she had threatened to call the police if he wouldn't give her the keys to the flat, when Lee supposedly dragged her down to the ground and threatened her with the swiss army knife. She claims that she kneed him, and got hold of the knife, and then she says that she doesn't remember anything. But also, as you said, the attack was very vicious. So I'm like uh. She's like "I don't remember it", that's a bit, you know. 14 years later, in July of 2011, she was released from prison and now lives under a new identity. She got married and stuff, she has a whole life now, and I'm like is that really fair?

She gonna do it again.

Kinda sounds like it, but maybe not. Let's hope not.

She gonna do it again.

Do you have anything else to say about the case?

Sorry, tea is ready. No, I think that's everything I wrote down.

Yeah. I felt like it was obviously her, but I also felt like it's a bit... I think that she was very much written about in the newspapers and stuff, and it's a big old, you know, drama situation and gossip situation so it's hard to tell what actually what happened. And what she said, and what she...

Well she's the only person who will know 100% what happened on that night.

Yeah I'm...

Because there were no witnesses. So if she did a good enough job of covering her tracks then nobody would have known.

Yeah, I kind of feel like... I think that she lied when she confessed about...

Oh no, she definitely lied in her confession, because she blamed him.

Yeah.

And part of the character testimony was from his parents and his friends and like everybody who gets interviewed for a character witness statement. So during her defamation attempt she said that he got in arguments in pubs because he was getting in trouble as being a drug dealer. And everybody who spoke about him said how much he hated recreational drug use. So either he was a particularly good liar, or uh...

He wasn't a drug dealer.

He wasn't. She also claimed that he was high at the time, at one stage, of the incident and no trace of any drugs were found in his system at all. Yeah, her confession said that he attacked her with the knife

Yeah, I don't believe that either.

No, everybody said that he has never carried a knife outside of the kitchen.

Well they said that...

Like he's never walked around with a knife, he's never kept one on him for protection, he doesn't keep one in his car, he used to have one when he was a boy scout apparently.

They said that the swiss army knife was his, that he used to carry it in his car.

Oh well, then poo poo that.

But I think also, that I would never attack someone with a knife. And as a child and a teenager I used to have a swiss army knife in my, maybe in my room or whatever, doesn't mean that I would ever attack someone with a knife. Like, I don't think that he would threaten her with the knife, because of...

No, it's a utility tool. Like, there are definitely better weapons to stab someone to death.

Yeah, and I would also use it for like making wood things. You know, it's, it's...

Oh yeah, wood things.

Yeah, you know, when you... Yeah, oh well, fuck it.

You do the stuff with the wood.

I had a swiss army knife around my person for a lot of my childhood and that was just a thing that was normal.

My dad carries a swiss army knife with him every day of his life.

Yeah.

Has he ever stabbed someone to death?

Only twice. I mean no. [laughs]

I mean like, I get why you would have one, because in some situation or in some families it's normal. I don't think...

I've got one.

Yeah.

Have I ever stabbed anyone?

No.

Yes. But not with a swiss army knife. [laughs]

I don't think that he threatened her with the knife, I don't think that. But I think...

He was such a manly man, he could have just done it with his balls. [laughs]

I think that she took the knife from the car, that's what I think.

More than likely.

Should we say bye to the listeners?

Get tae fuck.

Goodbye listeners, thank you so much for listening to midweek murders. See you next week! Hopefully.

We ain't gonna see no one, this ain't no video.

That's true. Thank god for that, I removed my makeup before recording.

I can see your balls.

Although my hair color is coming out quite nicely now.

Oh fantastic.

Did you feel like it was very yellow when we met?

No, it was very... Oh what's the right color? It was quite platinumy.

Yeah, thank you, that's what I'm going for.

Well then you nailed it.

Thank you. Before that it was orange, I was like noooooo.

And purple apparently.

Yeah. Whatever I do to my hair it always comes out a little bit ginger.

It's because you have no soul.

True that, true that. I suck them out from other people like dementors.

Yeah well, did you uh, did you notice the dementors never try to give Ron a kiss? Nothing to suck out.

For all of our ginger listeners, which is probably...

Go to hell. [laughs]

Which is probably none, I would say you're all very beautiful and I wish I was ginger like you. And yet I am only ginger enough to have freckles and no eyebrows.

And I've got ginger in my beard so I'm one of you.

That doesn't count.

Of course it does.

Joe Redbeard, is that your last name?

No, it's blue balls. I mean Bluebeard.

Bluetooth.

No, he was a scandi.

Yeah.

I'm not tough enough to be a scandi.

No, you're not. We carry swiss army knives everywhere we go.

Yeah, and then stab people to death and make up stories about how you didn't do it.

My mom got trapped at the airport in england because she was carrying a swiss army knife in her bag. She had forgotten about it. They were like "why you do this", she was like "ha ha ha", they were like "it's not funny", she was like "I'm laughing because I'm nervous".

"I'm laughing because i'm scared".

Okay, bye bye, see you never.

Ciao ciao.

Topics

• Tracie Andrews
• Lee Harvey
• domestic abuse
• forensic science
• blood spatter analysis
• blood spatter evidence
• true crime England
• Women who commit murder
• female murderers
• getting rid of evidence
• swiss army knife