They Bragged About The Video They Had Filmed About It To All Their Friends
April 2005, a forest in Scotland, a naked body. The ligature found around Emma Caldwell’s neck marked the beginning of a 19-year descent into hell. The ultimate absurdity of this story, the police knew the killer’s name from day one. One by one, women walked into police stations. They were screaming for help.
They pointed their fingers directly at him. He takes us to that same forest. He rapes us. He threatens to kill us. The police would nod and then let him walk free. While detectives chased ghosts and hunted for suspects where there were none, a serial predator was essentially handed a license to claim new victims. More than 20 broken lives. The same forest.
The same monster left at large. It wasn’t until 2024 that Emma’s mother finally heard the verdict. she had been waiting nearly two decades for. But the burning questions remain. Who gave the order to ignore the obvious? And why, after 19 years of a killer’s stolen freedom, hasn’t a single officer in uniform been held accountable? Before we dive into the details, please consider subscribing to the channel and hitting the like button.
Your support is what allows us to keep investigating these complex cases. Make sure to stay with us until the very end. We’ll break down how this tragedy ultimately reshaped the law and why it matters for every single one of us. Thank you for joining us. Let’s begin. If you are the one who took Emma’s life, then I ask you to come forward.
Living with the guilt of taking her life must be dreadful. But if you have no conscience, then be aware. My family and I will never give up fighting for justice on Emma’s behalf. We can do no less for we love and miss her every day, not just today. Sunday, May 8th, 2005. South Larkshere.
The landscape looks like a set from a gritty noir thriller. towering trees, deep ditches, and isolated trails that lead to nowhere. A local resident, whose name would forever be etched in official records only as witness number one, was out for a routine walk with his dog in the Limefield Woods. It’s a remote stretch southwest of Glasgow, a place where strangers rarely venture.
Suddenly, the dog’s behavior shifted. Usually obedient, the animal bolted away from the main path. The man called out, whistled, but the dog seemed frozen, fixated on one specific spot deep in the thicket. As he drew closer, he saw his dog frantically sniffing at something beneath the undergrowth, stooping down to grab the dog’s collar, the man froze.
What he initially took for a discarded mannequin or a pile of old clothes was in fact a human body. The woman lay face down in a shallow ditch, partially unclothed. Around her neck was a garat, a makeshift liature fashioned from everyday materials. Massive bruising and hematomas on her torso told a story of a desperate struggle for life.
The body was in an advanced state of decomposition, suggesting the murder had occurred weeks prior. When police and forensics arrived, Limefield Woods swarmed with activity. However, in those very first hours, the foundation of a future catastrophe was laid. Instead of establishing a sterile perimeter, the lead forensic investigator allowed officers to [ __ ] through the only accessible path.
vital evidence, fibers, soil, microparticles, tire tracks, or the killer’s DNA was irrevocably trampled into the mud by the boots of dozens of officers. Identification took time. Due to the condition of the remains, investigators had to rely on dental records and complex DNA profiling. The results confirmed the worst.
It was Emma Caldwell, who had been missing for over a month. Emma Caldwell was born on January 31st, 1978. She grew up in Cardros, surrounded by love and stability. It was the definition of a happy childhood. Drama lessons, stage performances, and hiking in the mountains. But Emma’s true passion was horses.
She planned to build her life around them, working at local stables. She had an older sister, Karen, who was her best friend and protector. Everything shattered when Karen shared devastating news. Non-hodkkins lymphoma. For 2 years, Emma watched her sister fade away. When Karen died, Emma was only 20.
The loss left a void in her soul that no amount of therapy could fill. In this moment of profound vulnerability, a boyfriend appeared. He saw her pain and offered a quick fix. Heroin. He told her it would help her forget the grief, if only for a few hours. But those few hours turned into a life sentence of addiction. Emma’s parents went through hell trying to save their daughter.
They took her to the best doctors, but the health care system at the time was powerless. We can’t do anything until she wants it herself, a phrase they heard hundreds of times. Emma eventually moved to a women’s hostel in Glasgow. It was a bleak place. Three floors where dozens of women fought just to survive. The conditions were grim.
Only two bathrooms for everyone, constant noise, and the heavy scent of despair. Yet, Emma remained remarkably disciplined when it came to her parents. They created a ritual. Every Wednesday, her father, William, would visit to bring food and top up her phone credit. Every Sunday, her mother, Margaret, would pick up her laundry and return it clean, smelling of home. They would talk for hours.
Emma hid the truth of how she was making the 100b a day needed to feed her addiction. She didn’t want them to know about London Road, the place where she was forced to sell her body. That final Sunday was sunny. Margaret and Emma went shopping. They picked out yellow daffodils and a birthday card for Emma’s grandmother.
They went to McDonald’s, but Margaret felt a shift. Emma was twitchy, constantly looking over her shoulder. Usually, they would sit in the car for hours just chatting. But this time, Emma begged to be dropped off at the hostel immediately. Before stepping out of the car, Emma turned to her mother. “Bye, Mom.
I’ll call you Monday or Tuesday.” Those were the last words Margaret would ever hear from her child. On Monday, Emma went to work for the last time. She was wearing a brown jacket with a fur collar and heeled boots. At 10:45 p.m., CCTV captured her silhouette fading into the darkness. The last sighting of her on London Road was between 12:30 a.m.
and 1:30 a.m. Then came the silence, a long, deafening silence. This is difficult to comprehend. Oh, Emma, I love you. How could anyone How could [laughter] anyone do that? Following the discovery of Emma’s body, police Scotland found themselves under immense pressure. The story of a young woman missing for a month only to be found tortured and killed instantly became a front page sensation.
But from the very beginning, the professionalism of the detectives was called into question. In addition to the crime scene being literally trampled by the investigation team, evidence collection was a disaster. Police searched Emma’s hostel room twice. First when she was missing and again after her body was found.
They seized several personal items, but due to appalling storage conditions, this evidence was either damaged by moisture or cross-contaminated. It was the first link in a long chain of negligence. Detectives began tracing Emma’s phone activity. It was a painstaking process. Her contact list contained over 50 names.
Every single one of these men had to be found, interrogated, and have their alibis verified. Their ages ranged from 19 to 76. Many were aggressive or refused to cooperate, terrified that their families would discover they were frequenting sex workers. Investigators eventually zeroed in on a call ma
de at 11:20 p.m. on the night Emma vanished. It lasted exactly 76 seconds. The number belonged to Abu Baker Ansu, a 28-year-old Turkish national. When police learned he had left the country the very next day, they believed they had found their smoking gun. They stopped looking for anyone else. When Ansu returned from Turkey and voluntarily appeared for questioning, he was remarkably calm.
He admitted to knowing Emma, but denied meeting her that night. Detectives noticed a fresh scratch on his neck. Instead of rigorously vetting his alibi, the police convinced themselves he was part of a larger criminal network. The investigation shifted its focus to a Turkish cafe on Bridge Street. Detectives suspected the establishment was a hub for human trafficking and organized violence.
Specially trained forensics officers examine a Turkish community center on Glasgow’s Bridge Street, raided by police this morning. They obtained authorization for covert surveillance, planting hidden cameras and microphones. The operation was so secretive and so expensive that the leadership of Strathclyde police simply could not afford to let it fail.
Detectives spent countless hours listening to recordings from the cafe. Since no one on the force spoke Turkish, they hired translators. This led to one of the most surreal blenders in British legal history. The translators, who possessed only a superficial grasp of the language, began hearing exactly what the police wanted to hear.
On tapes where men were actually discussing football, grocery prices, or family matters, the translators transcribed chilling confessions. He strangled her. We dumped her jacket near the casino. She screamed like an animal. When police raided the cafe, they seized an old blanket stained with blood. When DNA testing confirmed the blood belonged to Emma, detectives felt their case was bulletproof.
Dramatic developments in the hunt for the killer of Emma Caldwell. Tonight, police have arrested four men in connection with her death. Late this afternoon, the men thought to be of Turkish origin were charged with Emma Caldwell’s murder. On August 31st, 2007, four Turkish men, Abu Baker Ansu, Hussein Kobanoglu, Halil Kandall, and Mustafa Soyame were arrested.
But there was one glaring issue. The blood on the blanket was old. Emma, like many other women, often visited the cafe to warm up or look for clients. Living with an active addiction, she could have easily left a drop of blood accidentally during an injection. But the police ignored this simple logical explanation. Earlier today, I spoke to the defense lawyer for one of the accused.
He maintains his innocence. Um the difficulty is that proceedings are still live. Inquiries are still continuing. So it would be inappropriate to comment any further. The case collapsed in court within days. Defense attorneys hired professional certified linguists, and when they listened to the tapes, they were horrified.
Not a single one of the bloody confessions actually existed. The police translators had simply fabricated the evidence, twisting words to fit the investigator’s theory. All charges were dropped. The men were set free and the government was forced to pay out massive settlements. Strathclyde police found themselves at the center of a humiliating public scandal.
And all the while, Emma Caldwell’s killer continued to walk the streets completely unbothered. While the police were busy chasing the Turkish mafia, the name Ian Packer kept resurfacing in their files. Packer was a van driver and a regular in the red light district. He had been interrogated as early as 2005. Back then, he claimed he had never even heard of Emma Caldwell.
But with each subsequent interrogation, his story shifted. It was a textbook criminal tactic, admitting only what could no longer be denied. Packer lived a double life. At home, he was a family man with a newborn baby. At night, he transformed into a violent satist. He had a specific mo modus operandi.
He wasn’t just paying for sex. He was buying power. He would drive women far beyond the city limits into the desolate woods of Larchshire where they were entirely at his mercy. The world of Glasgow’s sex workers was brutal. Yet they stood in solidarity. They kept a ugly mug’s book, a notebook where they logged license plates and descriptions of dangerous men.
The name Ian and the description of his van appeared more frequently than any other. One woman, Magdalena, told journalist Sam Pauling that at the age of 15, she barely escaped Packer during an attempted rape. Yet, the police didn’t believe her. Another woman, Natalie, recalled how he had driven her to Limefield Woods.
When she saw the news about Emma’s murder, she instantly recognized the location in the photos as the very spot where Packer had taken her months before the tragedy. Packer had a pathological need to witness fear. He forced women to undress in the freezing cold. He would strangle them until they lost consciousness, only to revive them and start again.
One victim described how he looped a vacuum cleaner cord around her neck, tightening it while staring into her eyes with a cold, hollow smile. Packer was a familiar face here in the red light district over the decades, prowling the streets, a habitual user of sex workers. He was interviewed several times by police over the years and even admitted taking Emma from these streets down to the woods 40 mi away for sex.
But it took them 17 years before he was eventually arrested, during which time he continued to abuse. But now, Sky News can reveal that former sex workers had told police he was sexually violent years before Emma was even murdered. And it appears nothing was done about it. They tried to force me to my knees.
I was terrified. I met two police officers that I knew. I told them about the attack and I got jailed for a section 46, which is prostitution. They never took a statement. But 2003, the police were getting warned about him. So back then, if the police had just listened to the girls who came forward and told him, a lot of the other sexual crimes would never have happened.
And to be honest, Emma might still be Emma could still be alive. He just looked down and I’ve been raped. I’ve been held hostage. Nothing would ever happen to the men. They’ve got blood in their hands. Yes, they’ve got blood in hand. They have got blood in my hands for this. The police had all of these testimonies by 2007.
Why did they do nothing? The answer was cynical. The women struggling with addiction and working the streets were deemed unreliable witnesses. In the eyes of the police leadership, their lives carried less weight than the reputations of the officers who had botched the Turkish case. While one group of detectives was preparing to arrest the Turkish suspects, another was still interrogating Ian Packer.
Fueled by a sense of absolute invincibility, Packer himself offered to show the police the spots where he used to take girls. He led the detectives straight to Limefield Woods to the exact clearing where Emma Caldwell’s body had been discovered. It wouldn’t be the only time this detective was told to bring Packer in for another statement.
And I’m told at that point, but David, when you get Ian Packer and bring him in, it doesn’t matter what he tells you. Doesn’t matter what he tells you. He won’t be an accused ever in this case. Who tells you this? The SIO. Willie Johnson. It’s during that statement that Packer finally admits to having taken women to remote woods for sex.
They were the same remote woods where Emma’s body would later be found naked and strangled. Packer then admits to having taken Emma there, too. I phone uh Willie Johnson, the boss, at home and give him the information that Ian Packer has had Emma Caldwell at the deposition site. He just relays what he told me previously.
David, I told you at the start of the week he would never been accused. Detective David McLaren immediately requested an arrest warrant recognizing that Packer possessed guilty knowledge. Secret details of the crime scene that only the killer could know. However, senior officer Willie Johnston ordered him to let Packer go.
He didn’t want to jeopardize the official Turkish theory which had already cost the taxpayers over4 million. There was identification there of more than one not just him the van his behavior. Several girls had um picked him out of the photographs. He’s admitting to more and more. So I phoned Wally Johnson who was the senior investigating officer and I said to him, “I want to detain Ian Packer for the murder of Emma Caldwell.
” To which he replied, “Do not detain him. He is not our man. Release him.” Unwilling to admit a catastrophic mistake, the police leadership buried this encounter, delaying justice for another 17 years. They couldn’t lose face. If they were to turn around and say, “We’ve made a mistake here. We’ve spent all this public money.
” Their careers would have been finished. And they knew that. So, they bluffed it out. While the justice system was busy protecting itself, Emma’s family was slowly fading away. William Caldwell, Emma’s father, could not survive the weight of the injustice. After the Turkish case collapsed in 2007, he realized that the police were no longer looking for his daughter’s killer.
His health began to deteriorate rapidly. He spent countless hours in Emma’s room staring at her photographs. He was haunted by guilt, constantly asking himself, “Could I have done more? Could I have saved her from that final trip to the woods?” In 2011, William died of cancer, a disease that Margaret said ate him from the inside out out of pure grief.
I feel sad for my husband. He was brokenhearted about Emma and then he passed away and the last thing he said to me was, “Go on. You have to go on. Don’t let this go. Margaret was left to face the system alone. She continued to write letters, demand meetings with the Lord Advocate, and appear on national television.
She became the inconvenient mother, the one the police tried to ignore, but the one they could never break. In 2015, after a decade of silence, the case finally exploded. Investigative journalist Sam Pauling gained access to classified files. She was staggered by just how obvious the trail leading to Packer actually was.
She decided to take a gamble. She tracked Packer down and requested an interview. Packer, who by then felt entirely untouchable, agreed. He wanted to play the role of a victim of police harassment. During their first encounter, he was oozing self-confidence. He smirked at the camera, spinning a tail about his difficult life.
But then Sam began asking the inconvenient questions. Did you kill Emma? No, I never. For Ian Packa, this was the beginning of the end. I need to get your consent for this interview on tape. An interview he’d agreed to, which he would live to regret. I don’t believe you’ve been telling me the truth. The truth was that Ian Packer was one of the country’s most prolific sexual predators, a violent rapist, and a killer, Emma Caldwell’s killer.
Emma’s murder remained unsolved for 14 years. It wasn’t until Ian Packer agreed to being interviewed by the BBC, interviews which would later be used against him in court as evidence of his lies, that he was finally confronted. All the evidence that I’ve seen and everything that I have learned um makes it clear that you are a sexually violent man.
Not a sexually violent man. Women. I’ve never raped in my life. You told me you’d never been to the place where Emma’s body was found. Absolutely. You’ve been there many times. According to all the evidence I’ve seen, the first woman you took to those woods was Emma. No, it wasn’t. Packer’s expression began to shift.
The mask of a respectable citizen started to slip. Rage bubbled to the surface. His breathing became heavy and labored. It was a rare and chilling sight. A serial predator realizing that the noose he had tightened around so many necks was finally starting to tighten around his own.
Following the BBC investigation, the Scottish government appointed a fresh team of detectives. They utilized cuttingedge forensic techniques, palinology, and spectral soil analysis. Investigators tracked down Packer’s old van, and beneath the seat upholstery, they discovered traces of dirt from 20 years ago. Expert analysis proved that the unique blend of minerals and pollen found in the vehicle was an identical match to samples taken from the drainage ditch in Limefield Woods.
This scientific evidence with an accuracy of over 99% placed Packer at the scene of the murder, leaving him with zero hope for a quiddle. I’m Detective Superintendent Dave McLaren from Police Scotland. Uh, and I’m the senior investigating officer in the reinvestigation into the murder of Emma Caldwell.
Today marks 12 years to the day since Emma was last seen. And as part of our reinvestigation, we are carrying out fresh searches at an area, a wooded area in Lannarcher near Robertton where Emma’s body was found. As part of our press appeal today, I am um appealing to any women who were involved in prostitution or may still be involved in prostitution who in the last 15 years may have been taken to that area.
I would appeal to those women to get in touch with us um as soon as possible. I’m certain that they will hold information that will be crucial to us um identifying the person that killed Emma. I understand that uh women may be reluctant to come forward to the police. Um but I just like to take this opportunity to reassure you that we are not interested in um what activities you may have been involved in over the years or um casting any sort of opinions on um your background and how you came to be involved in prostitution.
I would just ask you to get in touch with us. You have no doubt that you hold information that was crucial to us finding the person who killed Emma. 19 years after Emma walked out of her hostel for the last time, the doors of justice finally swung open. Ian Packer, now a man in his 50s, sat behind a glass partition.
His face was a mask of cold indifference. He pleaded not guilty to all 46 charges. You have been arrested on suspicion of murder, attempt to defeat the NC justice. Rape um common law* 9 rape section 1 sexual offenses Scotland Act 2009 * 2 attempted rape um common law abduction* 3 indecent and/or sexual assault common law * 12 sexual assault section 3 sexual offenses Scotland act 2009* 3 and assault* 6 this is in in relation to can and charges 1837 and 38. Mr.
Baitman’s also been uh provided with a a list of those charges. Okay. Um and this is in relation to Emma Caldwell. Tell me your involvement relating to the rape and murder of Emma Caldwell. Nope. His defense relied on a cynical, predictable strategy. It was too long ago.
The evidence is unreliable and the witnesses are women of questionable character. But the prosecution had something they lacked before. Living voices. One by one, women entered the courtroom. Each of them stared directly at Packer, and in their eyes was no longer fear, but a fury that had been smoldering for two decades. The testimony of Packer’s former partner became the final nail in the coffin of his alibi.
She presented the court with her diary from 2005. I recorded every detail because I had a newborn baby. On the night Emma disappeared, he wasn’t home until dawn. When he returned, he was covered in dirt and completely silent. The most devastating moment, however, was the screening of Sam Pauling’s interview. On the giant screen in the courtroom, Packer effectively dismantled his own defense.
When he claimed he had never been to those woods, only for the very next clip to show him leading police straight to the site, the jury gasped in unison. Legal experts described it as suicide on camera. After 4 days of deliberation, the jury reached their verdict. In the same courthouse where 19 years earlier, Margaret Caldwell had watched the trial of the innocent Turkish men.
She sat once again in the front row, feeling in her heart that justice was finally within reach. As the jury foreman began reading the long list of charges, every guilty stood as a validation of the decades of suffering endured by dozens of victims. Ian Packer was found guilty not only of the brutal murder of Emma Caldwell, but also of committing 33 other crimes against women.
Lord Beckett was unflinching in his sentencing remarks. Over more than 25 years, you pursued a campaign of violence and appalling sexual mistreatment of a very large number of women. You have caused great harm to so many people as you indulged your pathologically selfish and brutal sexual desires. The women involved resisted and protested, but you would not listen.
The trauma you caused has led to suffering which has endured for decades. For years, you lied time and again before you were undone by your arrogance in thinking that you were in the clear and entitled to compensation from the police who had investigated you. Life imprisonment, a minimum of 36 years before any possibility of parole.
It was the harshest sentence in modern Scottish history. If Ian Packer ever tastes freedom again, he will be 86 years old. them all. But this court finally got to the truth. A predator guilty of one of the worst campaigns of sex crimes this country has ever seen. I feel as if I can breathe again. This man is gone. And I hope it gets long enough that it can’t harm anyone else.
It’ll always be the same. He’s not going to change. It’s my daughter and I’m going to stand up for her. It didn’t make any difference to me what she did. They made a mistake when they thought Emma wasn’t worth anything because Emma was worth an awful lot. Today, in May 2026, the justice system itself stands trial.
A public inquiry ongoing since late 2025 has unsealed thousands of classified documents confirming a devastating truth. The police knew about Packer as early as 2005. Despite warnings of his escalating violence, leadership chose to protect their multi-million pound Turkish theory, trading the safety of women for the sake of their own reputation.
Cordwell, her family, and many other victims were let down by policing in 2005. For that, we are sorry. The lack of investigation until 2015 caused unnecessary distress to her family and all of those women who came forward to report sexual violence. At 76, Margaret Caldwell continues her crusade to reshape the law and dismantle the institutional misogyny embedded within law enforcement.
The 2026 inquiry serves as a landmark mandate, ensuring that a victim’s lifestyle can never again be used as an excuse to ignore a crime. Limefield Woods has now been transformed into a place of remembrance. In the clearing where Packer tried to bury the truth, yellow daffodils are in bloom.
The very same flowers Emma bought with her mother on their final Sunday together. The tragedy of Emma Caldwell has forever altered the fabric of Scotland, forcing a nation to confront its failures and ensuring that every woman’s voice is heard. Where darkness once reigned, there is now the memory of a girl who has finally found her peace.
