When the police arrived at Arlene Fraser’s house in Elgin, Moray in April 1998, they found a place where time had stopped suddenly, like a needle lifted hastily from a record. Sights that would have been ordinary had she been there were disturbing in her absence: a bicycle on its side in the yard, a vacuum cleaner plugged into a socket in the hall, washing on the line. Having stood in her dressing gown to wave her two children off as they left for school that Tuesday morning, Arlene had since vanished.
Across two episodes that sensitively manage to juggle a sobering reflection on violence against women and a gripping whodunnit where a full answer keeps maddeningly eluding the authorities, Murder Case lays out what is thought to have happened to Arlene, and replays the twists and surprises of the trial – or rather, the trials – where concrete details refused to emerge. It is sad, enraging, frustrating, compelling.
