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A Dark City

A Dark City

By: A Dark City
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Delve into the dark heart of Glasgow, a city with history steeped in mystery and violence. A Dark City takes you behind the headlines to explore the city's most notorious murders - stories that shocked the nation, shattered communities and left scars that still linger. From cold blooded killers to infamous gangland slayings, we uncover the chilling details, the victims stories and the impact on Glasgow's streets.

© 2026 A Dark City
Social Sciences True Crime World
Episodes
  • Jimmy Boyle
    Apr 6 2026

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    A seven pound debt ends with a man cut down on a Glasgow tenement floor and a 23-year-old sent away for life. That young enforcer is Jimmy Boyle, raised in the Gorbals where poverty, razor gangs and loan shark terror shaped a version of survival built on intimidation. We follow the path from petty theft to safe breaking to tally man violence, then into the Rooney murder, the flight to London, the High Court reckoning and the fear that still clung to the case through witness intimidation and reprisals.

    Prison is where the story becomes harder to file away. Boyle’s early years behind bars are brutal and explosive: assaults on officers, riots and the degrading isolation of solitary confinement. Then Scotland tries something few systems dare to attempt, the Barlinnie Special Unit, an experiment in responsibility, humane contact and creative work. Through books, clay and relentless self-confrontation, Boyle shifts from destroying to making, producing major sculpture and writing a memoir that refuses to soften what he did, while forcing readers to consider what rehabilitation can look like for people branded irredeemable.

    Freedom does not grant a clean ending. We talk through his charity work and prison reform campaigning, the ache of lost family time, and the devastating irony of his son’s later death on the streets. By the end, one question hangs in the air: do prisons breed monsters or mend men, and what kind of society do we become depending on the answer? Subscribe, share the episode with someone who cares about justice, and leave us a review with where you stand on redemption versus accountability.

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    26 mins
  • George Redmond
    Apr 1 2026

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    Nine shots crack through Glasgow city centre on a Monday night, and within seconds George Redmond is dying on the pavement outside the Waldorf Bar. The gunman is gone, the stolen Porsche Cayenne disappears towards the M8, and by the time police catch up it’s burning in Gartkosh with every trace of evidence going up in smoke. That single detail tells you what kind of killing this is: not a drunken fight, but a planned execution designed to leave nothing behind.

    We walk you through Redmond’s rise from the East End streets of Brigton into a feared reputation built on intimidation, assaults and public violence. We revisit the moments that shaped how people saw him: the 1991 murder trial where he is acquitted while his brother takes a life sentence, the “Pulp Fiction funeral” where a minor slight nearly ends in a shotgun attack, and the 2006 stabbing of David “Mincy” McKenzie that some believe plants the seed for revenge. We also dig into the confrontation with Michael Norton, a former police officer turned drug dealer, and how brazen humiliation can create enemies who don’t forget.

    Then we get into what makes this one of Scotland’s most professional unsolved executions: the convoy theory, the rumoured Belfast hitman, the burned-out vehicle, and the Glasgow code of silence that leaves detectives chasing whispers instead of statements. The suspect list isn’t short, it’s endless and that might be the point.

    If you’re into Glasgow true crime, Scottish cold cases and organised crime investigations, subscribe for more, share this with a mate, and leave us a review. Who do you think ordered the hit on George Redmond?

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    22 mins
  • Glasgow’s Square Mile Of Murder
    Mar 2 2026

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    A city’s pride can hide a thousand secrets, and Glasgow’s Square Mile of Murder shows how easily elegance can coexist with danger. We step through Blythswood Square, Sandyford Place, Sauchiehall Street and West Princes Street to trace four cases that tested the limits of Victorian and Edwardian justice: the scandal of Madeline Smith, the brutal Sandyford killing, Dr Edward Pritchard’s poisonings and the wrongful conviction of Oscar Slater.

    We unpack how class and gender shaped suspicion, why a cache of love letters could tilt a courtroom, and how Scots law’s not proven verdict both acquits and brands. The Sandyford case spotlights the precarity of domestic servants and introduces a milestone in Scottish policing: forensic photography of a bloody footprint used to challenge testimony. With Pritchard, we confront the spectre of professional respectability masking lethal intent, and we witness Glasgow’s final public execution, a stark relic of a fading penal theatre set against the rise of toxicology and press sensationalism.

    Then the narrative turns: Slater’s ordeal reveals how prejudice and character evidence can drown out facts. We follow the decades-long campaign, amplified by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, that dismantled a conviction built on fear of the outsider and poor judicial guidance. Across these stories, the themes converge—home as a stage for control and harm, science pushing past superstition, and communities learning to challenge the stories they want to be true. Walk these streets today and you see calm facades; listen closely and you hear a city wrestling with truth.

    If this journey through Glasgow’s hidden history moved you, follow the show, share it with a friend and leave a review telling us which case reshaped your view of justice.

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    21 mins
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