Yeardley Smith and Tom Wood talk to PodcastingToday about Ruxton podcast

A new podcast about the Ruxton murders from the people behind Small Town Dicks, reveals the importance of the case and marks a new approach to production for the company.

The Ruxton murders in 1935 became a groundbreaking case in criminal investigation with its impact having a major influence on how crime is investigated today.

The podcast mini-series, Beyond Recognition: The Ruxton Murders, is a first for Audio 99, a division of Yeardley Smith’s Paperclip Ltd, the company behind Small Town Dicks, having never produced a series like this before.

Yeardley, who narrates it and Tom Wood, whose book was the inspiration behind the podcast, talked to PodcastingToday about how it came about and why it’s a new direction for the company.

Former detective Tom, who has worked with Small Town Dicks on previous featured cases, had just finished recording for an episode of a new one.

“When I was sending the recording kit back to the States, I put three or four copies of the book in and said, “You should read this, it’s a great story” and fortunately for me, they didn’t use them to prop up the table, they read it and saw the story coming through it.”

Yeardley explains they decided to make a podcast about the case after reading Tom’s book but initially planned to make a single regular Small Town Dicks episode about it, but because it’s so involved and groundbreaking that it warranted to be much more than that.

“We came up with the idea to do a limited series, which we had never done before, she says. “I’m really proud of it.

“Everything about it is so well done. Not because I narrate it, all that aside, the music is beautiful, the way they went around the world to get interviews from people who were connected to, or well versed in the case, and Tom of course, the expert, being involved as well.”

Yeardley adds that she’s fascinated by the story because murder happens for three reasons – love, money or pride and people are all the same, so it doesn’t matter that this murder happened almost 90 years ago.

The challenge, she says, is because it’s not current, how do you get listeners to care about something that was a long time ago?

“The story is as old as time,” she says. “A jealous husband kills his wife and the witness, his maid. I think people want to know, if people are going to do horrible things to each other because they can’t get their own s**t together, they also want to know that there’s another group of people who are willing to hold people accountable and right the wrong as best they can – that the justice system actually works.

“I think people who love true crime never tire of that premise,” she adds.

With a true crime story such as this one, Tom says: “Stories like this are actually stranger than fiction and some of the characters in this one, you couldn’t make up and I think people have latched onto that.”

He continues: “When you are a writer, you’re always a little bit nervous about someone taking your story and developing it because you’ve got voices in your head. You know these characters because you’ve lived with these characters during your time of research and writing.

“Done well, podcasting can take this story on – and this has been done very well. I have to admit I was… not worried but concerned whether the voices would be right – whether they would live up to my preconceptions, and they really have. Podcasting can do that where television often doesn’t.”

Having spent his whole working career as a detective, Tom was involved in many major cases which led to him being involved in a lot of dramas and documentaries. He says you can’t fit a story like this one into 30 minutes because it wouldn’t give the context of it.

“This podcast, and I’ll say this very quietly,” he jokes, “has actually improved and developed the book and I’m delighted about that. It shows the way ahead, what podcasts can do.”

He explains that since the release of the podcast, he’s been contacted by people who have listened to it and now want to read the book because they have additional information about the case which has been passed down to them from their grandparents.

“The penetration of the podcast, the way it reaches people who haven’t read the book, is interesting,” says Tom. “It enhances the book; it takes the story on and adds something to it.”

Yeardley says she had just a little bit of apprehension about being able to do justice to Tom’s book and to bring it to life without making it sound corny and staged, so people would think it was rubbish.

“It’s just a very hard thing to do, to take something again that happened almost a hundred years ago and make it feel relevant and current today and not like you’re reading an awful children’s book to a bunch of grownups. I was really thrilled and impressed with what the team was able to pull off,” she says.

Tom agrees: “I got to know the writer, Peter Gilstrap quite well, though we’ve never met. At that time, he was living out in the Arizona desert, so while I was speaking to him from rainy Edinburgh, he was sweltering in the heat.

“I said to him, “Peter for goodness sake get these accents right”, I didn’t want any pastiche Scottish accents and he said, “Tom, I’m a professional leave it to me, leave it to me,” and anyway, on the day when it was all downloaded and I heard it, I emailed him, probably in the middle of the night, telling him, that I take it all back!”

Yeardley adds: “You’re not wrong Tom, because that kind of detail is so essential – maybe someone in the States wouldn’t be able to tell the difference if the accent was inauthentic but enough people would be able to tell, and you can’t pull the wool over the audiences’ eyes.”

The importance of this case shouldn’t be overlooked, as Tom explains: “Ruxton is the first time that forensic science became fully mainstream in a criminal investigation.

“Before this time, forensic science had been very much the icing on the cake, this case made it part of the cake. This case set the standard for every criminal investigation that would follow.”

Tom started as a detective in the 70s and was involved in criminal investigations up to the 90s, but until he began researching for this book, he says he hadn’t realised that all the things he’d been doing, the systems and procedures, started with Ruxton.

“Before Ruxton, it’s ancient history, and after Ruxton it’s modern, investigative procedures,” he says. “It was a step change in the way that criminal investigation has been carried out across the world.”

As far as the podcast goes, Tom once again, reiterates his “absolute delight” at the way his written material has been translated in it and adds: “Every writer has a concern about what’s going to happen to their work, whether it’s going to be mangled – this has enhanced the book.”

Ruxton The First Modern Murder written by Tom Wood was shortlisted for The National Book Awards. It’s published by Ringwood and is available in most book shops.

The book is also an audiobook and is available on most platforms.

The podcast, Beyond Recognition: The Ruxton Murders can be found on the Small Town Dicks website, the Small Town Dicks podcast feed, and wherever you get your podcasts. 

Tom’s latest book The World’s End Murders – The Inside Story, which has just been published by Ringwood, follows the story of a 37 year investigation into the murders of two teenage girls from Edinburgh in 1977.