Emma Caldwell Documentary: Emma Caldwell, who was she? Caldwell was a 27-year-old lady in Glasgow 14 years ago in 2005. She was a sex worker with heroin addiction when she was discovered naked and strangled in a remote wood in May of the same year. A stranger had Picked her up and driven her 38 miles away from her normal spot on the street.
Six other women, all addicts working the city’s streets and alleyways, had been murdered previously. Because of the parallels in at least three of the deaths, there have been rumors of a serial murderer roaming Glasgow’s “the drag” – the red light area – for more than a decade, but the police have not agreed. They claimed that sex workers were simply statistically more likely to be assaulted. Emma Caldwell believes she was attacked by a lady in the same woods. A lady has come forward to say she was assaulted twice by a man who was later identified as the main suspect in Emma Caldwell’s death.
One of the attacks, she believes, took place in the same secluded woods where Ms. Caldwell’s body was discovered in 2005. Iain Packer, a street prostitute, was the man who attacked her, according to the woman. She also put his name in a “Beware Book” that street workers use to warn others about violent and abusive clients. When Emma Caldwell vanished on April 4, 2005, she was a sex worker in Glasgow’s red-light area. The 27-year-body old’s was discovered five weeks later in the woods at Roberton in South Lanarkshire, 40 miles distant. She had been strangled and was naked. Four Turkish males were detained and accused of her murder, but the case was later dropped, and all four were released.
Emma’s murder unsolved for sixteen years
According to a BBC investigation, at least four sex workers said to police they were taken to the same secluded woodland by a customer in the months leading up to Emma’s death. Two of the women claimed that he compelled them to strip and that he intimidated them. They all named the same individual as their alleged assailant. Iain Packer, 48, is the man they all recognized from police photobooks. During the inquiry into Emma’s murder, Mr. Packer was questioned six times by police and admitted to taking her and at least five other women to the distant woods for sex.
He appeared in a BBC Disclosure program in 2019, in which he told interviewer Sam Poling that he had never been abusive towards any women and denied killing Emma Caldwell. He was arrested and eventually imprisoned for choking his former lover just days after the interview. One woman told the BBC for a new audio series on the murder that she identified her assailant to police in 2005 and that the man was also named in a logbook kept by a drop-in support agency for women involved in street prostitution.
The ‘Beware Book,’ as it was known, was a collection of prostitutes’ cautions to other women about dangerous clients. The woman, who did not want to be identified, told the BBC that a customer – whom she later recognized as Packer – took her down to the Roberton woods and sexually assaulted her. She claimed she mentioned him in the logbook in the months leading up to Ms. Caldwell’s disappearance and to police in the weeks following her death. He also picked her up from Glasgow’s red-light area and drove her to Pollok Park in the city’s south, where he raped and battered her, according to her.
Live Investigation
I’ve been looking into Emma Caldwell’s murder for the past four years. I’ve looked into the police’s failed investigation into who killed her, and I’ve found a man who I feel was a prime candidate. I wanted to speak with as many women as possible who had lived and worked in the same world as Emma when I started working on a podcast about her case. Emma had turned to prostitution to support her drug habit and was living in a Glasgow women’s hostel. She had a small circle of friends, but I was able to track down a handful of them.
I had not anticipated hearing what I had. I didn’t meet a single woman who hadn’t been raped while selling sex on Glasgow’s streets. There wasn’t a single lady who hadn’t been beaten, assaulted, or humiliated at some point. The stories they told me depicted a world in which women had only a chance of survival, not a promise. When she got into a client’s car, one woman would pluck a strand of her hair out. She’d lean back and massage it into the carpet behind the passenger seat in a quiet manner.
She hoped that it would provide a forensic trail of her last moves to the authorities. She knew it wouldn’t save her life, but it might lead to the discovery of those who had taken it. Another woman would make certain that she kept the used condoms after each client’s sex. She’d drop them where they’d had sex in private, knowing both of their DNA was on it. I found it impossible to believe they had to live like this. Worse yet, hearing how the women were handled by the very people who were supposed to protect them – the cops. The ladies stated they had reported rapes and assaults to the police but were rarely believed. They expressed their dissatisfaction with being hushed as if their voices were useless.
Several women knew Crucial details regarding Emma’s Case
Several people said they were taken to the same woods where Emma’s body was discovered by a violent customer. One woman said she was frequently driven along a highway by a client she was afraid of. Four ladies chose the same man from a photobook, alleging that he had assaulted them. All of this was probed, and the evidence pointed to one man as a primary suspect: Iain Packer. He was the individual who had been named or identified in police photobooks by all of these women.
I realized that he was a sexually violent man who had raped women from all I learned. I even found evidence that he had raped Emma in the months leading up to her disappearance. Packer revealed to authorities that he had taken numerous ladies down to the woods where Emma’s body was discovered. Despite the women continually notifying authorities about Packer’s violent behavior, four Turkish males were detained and charged. Within months, the case against them had crumbled. Emma has been gone for 16 years, and no one has been found guilty of her murder. Women I’ve spoken to have expressed feelings of rage and betrayal. They want to know why their stories and experiences were dismissed.
What topics will be covered in the program?
Poling will look into Caldwell’s high-profile unsolved murder. Her study reveals severe police errors in the case and highlights the dangers that many sex workers confront on a daily basis. Margaret Caldwell, Caldwell’s mother, is also interviewed about her daughter’s death and wonders if the real killer will ever be found.
