999: Murderer Calling still of interviewee Paul Monk (Image: Supplied)
The show includes incredible audiotapes which have been presented as prosecution evidence in the court trials of 16 murderers. They include a landlady who stabs her lodger to death and a conman who poisons his wealthy neighbours.
When a person dials 999 “the call handler has absolutely no idea what’s coming next, it’s literally a lottery”, explains David Davis, a call handler trainer for more than 20 years. “The good news is that mostly, it isn’t a call to tell you that someone has died. Usually, it’s to report that someone’s fallen over, broken their leg, or isn’t feeling very well.”
But a recurring theme of the calls featured in 999: Murderers Calling on Discovery+ is killers taking the earliest opportunity to give their defence in the hope it overpowers any evidence to the contrary.
Here are three of the cases from the show.
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Gangland fugitive’s trap for unarmed police officers
Dale Cregan (Image: Greater Manchester Police)
In September 2012, Greater Manchester Police received a 999 call from a man using a fake name. He falsely claimed vandals had thrown a piece of concrete through his back window. The operator assured him that officers would be at his home within the hour.
“I’ll be waiting,” said the caller.
Constables Nicola Hughes, 23, and Fiona Bone, 32, had rearranged their shifts to work together on this particular day so they could finalise the Christmas party for their station.
As the unarmed officers walked towards the house, its front door opened and out stepped Dale Cregan, left, a fugitive with a £50,000 reward on his head after committing two gangland murders.
Wielding a Glock handgun, Cregan fired 32 shots in 30 seconds at them and then tossed
a hand grenade at their bodies to make sure he killed them.
Later, when surrendering to police, Cregan said he wished the officers had been men, a claim rejected by ex-police chief Graham Bartlett, who says: “Cregan was cowardly, luring police officers into a trap. And when he said ‘I wish they were men’ – nonsense.
“Cregan knew that unarmed officers would be turning up – unarmed officers who were off their guard. This wasn’t a call that was even suggesting any threat.
“He just wanted to murder police officers but wasn’t brave enough to put a call in that would attract armed officers because he knew he would end up getting shot.”
Cregan is serving two life sentences.
Murdered lodger then blamed her victim
Dawn Lewis (Image: Avon and Somerset Police/ SWNS)
Dawn Lewis, 53, called 999 after she stabbed lodger Glenn Richards, 61, at her cottage in Glastonbury, Somerset, claiming self-defence.
Operator: “Hello, is the patient breathing?”
Lewis: “No. I don’t know. I don’t know. I haven’t touched him.”
Operator: “OK. Just tell me exactly what’s happened.”
Lewis: “Right, erm, I don’t know really what happened. I, he’s a lodger, I wanted him out.”
Operator: “Yeah.”
Lewis: “He said ‘no’. I went to the door. He stabbed me in the leg. I took the knife off him. I stabbed him. He fell down the stairs. I stabbed him again ’cause he was trying to take the knife off me’.”
Former Chief Supt Graham Bartlett, who studied the case for the series, comments: “None of this is of any use to the ambulance controller. What the controller needs to know is, how bad is he? Is he breathing? Is he conscious? How much is he bleeding?”
Lewis: “I called – called – I called you after like five minutes and it doesn’t look like he’s breathing.”
Mr Bartlett says: “Nearly a minute into that call, it’s the first time Lewis says she thinks he’s not breathing.
“Everything had been part of a well-constructed plan, so this could never be self-defence.
“She knew what she was doing.”
At Bristol Crown Court in December 2022, Lewis, left, was found guilty of murder and jailed for a minimum of 20 years.
Penniless geek who lured gamer to his death makes startling admission
Lewis Daynes (Image: Essex Police)
Another killer who claimed self-defence was Lewis Daynes, a computer geek who groomed a teenage follower to his death.
He moved in on a schoolboy online gaming group, impressing them with false claims of being a Manhattan millionaire.
He was a penniless 18-year-old from Grays, Essex. Daynes’s target was Breck Bednar, 14, one of the gamers. He was persuaded to visit Daynes’s flat, where he was tied up and killed.
Daynes’s 999 call begins with an unusual demand: “I need police and a forensics team.”
Operator: “What do you mean? What’s happened?”
Daynes: “My friend and I got into an altercation and I am the only one who came out alive.
“I have a pen-knife, he picked it up, opened it in order to harm me and lost control.” Pressed for a fuller explanation, Daynes admitted: “The fight ended with me cutting his throat. I turned around and I slashed his throat.”
Mr Davis says: “The operator won’t want to interrupt that, because that’s the type of evidence that would be really, really important.”
Daynes was ordered to serve a minimum of 25 years.
