Podcast: Countdown to Capture – Peter Chadwick: Murderer and Fugitive

Countdown to Capture – Peter Chadwick: Murderer and Fugitive is another of the police-produced podcasts (I recommended one, Break in the Case, from the New York Police Department last week) that examine and a crime and the subsequent investigation purely from the police point of view.

But this one is different.

It was produced by a police department not just to describe a case but to help solve it.

In October 2012, Peter Chadwick failed to pick up his two younger sons when their school in Newport Beach, California, let out one afternoon. They were left standing at the bus stop. A neighbor saw them and took them in for the evening. Neither Chadwick nor his wife, Quee Choo and known as Q.C., were anywhere to be found.

Chadwick eventually turned up with a story about how his wife had been murdered and he had been kidnapped. You can imagine that the police suspected that was not the real story. What happens next is sad and frustrating. I won’t go further so as not to spoil it if you are interested.

This podcast is seven fairly short (about 15 minutes) episodes. It is not slickly produced like Break in the Case, but it is a fascinating story. If you listen to the first couple of episodes, you’re likely to have a binge.