Interview with a Murderer

Dir: David Howard

2016

****

On the 19th September 1976, 13 year old Carl Bridgewater was shot dead while delivering newspapers to a farm near the town of Stourbridge, Staffordshire. His murder sparked a huge man hunt and shocked the nation to its core. After intensive police investigations, convicted armed robbers Patrick Molloy, James Robinson and cousins Michael and Vincent Hickey were arrested with Michael Hickey directly accused of the murder. They became known as the Bridgewater Four. However, the four admitted their crimes but always denied the murder, in 1997 they won an appeal when it became clear that Molloy had been bullied by police into signing a confession and the surviving men were freed. Once again, attention turned to the man the police had originally suspected. Bert Spencer was initially the main suspect after he fit the description of a man seen fleeing the murder scene minutes after the murder. Spencer was known at the farm, had a gun licence and would shoot around the farm's grounds and lived five doors down from victim Carl Bridgewater. If this weren't enough, shortly after the Bridgewater Four were imprisoned, Spencer shot dead his friend Hubert Wilkes in a very similar way to how Carl was killed. He served a life sentence for his crime and was released in 1995. While writing his in-depth book on the subject (Scapegoat for Murder: The truth about the killing of Carl Bridgewater), crime-writer Simon W. Golding approached criminologist Professor David Wilson to interview Spencer to see if he could find an answer that would match his theories. Spencer agreed. Professor David Wilson remained impartial and led his own investigations into the crime and interviewed Spencer, his alibi and his ex-wife to draw his own conclusions. What follows is an eerily disturbing and intriguing journey into a damaged mind. Bert Spencer is a murderer but whether he killed Carl Bridgewater remains a frustrating unanswered question but after time, David Wilson discovers an alternative theory that might just have some weight to it. The documentary goes from run-of-the-mill to edge-of-your-seat very quickly with unpredictable twists coming fast and furious. Nothing is staged and everything is as it happens which makes for almost painfully compelling viewing. A one of a kind crime documentary that deserves a follow up in time.