Murder Case: the Hunt for Arlene Fraser’s Killer, BBC Scotland, BBC2, iPlayer
In April it will be 28 years since Arlene Fraser’s two children returned from school to an empty house in Elgin. It was the beginning of what would become a landmark case in Scottish legal history, one that has generated twists to rival the imaginings of any novelist.
Its pull endures, with at least three major documentaries already made on the subject. Murder Case: The Hunt for Arlene Fraser’s Killer is the latest.
Made by Firecrest Films, the first of two hour-long parts opens with footage from the house at the time: the vacuum cleaner still plugged in, the washing on the line. There’s a close-up of the note her son Jamie left for his mum: “Where are U!” - the exclamation mark hinting at how thrown he was by this most unusual occurrence.
Nothing is presented in a sensationalist way. There is no need to over-dramatise; as the filmmakers are well aware, the plain facts are disturbing enough.
At this point, we meet Carol Gillies, Arlene’s big sister, whose tireless pursuit of justice would consume her and her family from that day on. Besides telling us about Arlene the person, Gillies lights the way through what would otherwise have been a near impenetrable blizzard of trials, appeals and procedural zig-zags. She is the viewers’ guide to what was going on and why it mattered.
(In this, she is joined by Andrew Tickell, law lecturer and columnist for The Herald on Sunday, whose lecture clips suggest he could carry a series of his own.)
Other contributors include detectives who worked on the case, journalists, as well as academics and specialists. Together, they build a portrait of Nat Fraser, Arlene’s husband and the man who would be convicted twice of murdering her.
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The footage of Fraser is almost as familiar as that of Arlene, yet some moments still have the power to shock. In one chilling moment, the BBC’s Shelley Jofre revisits her interview with Fraser, at the end of which she asked him directly if he had anything to do with Arlene’s disappearance. “Nothing at all,” he says. Jofre’s conclusion is the same now as then.
There is some repetition across the two parts. Clips from a previous BBC Scotland documentary appear, as does footage from Channel 4’s The Murder Trial. This latest documentary has new interviews with Carol Gillies and former detective superintendent Alan Smith, among others.
What stands out, though, is the filmmakers’ determination to make this a story about people more than process. The film starts with Arlene, and it ends with her. But as most viewers will know, this is a story without an ending - Arlene’s body has never been found.
Carol Gillies, with other bereaved families, has been working on that too, helping to push through legislation that presses killers to disclose the whereabouts of their victims, or face the consequences at parole. “If the parole board can’t do anything to help us, then he’ll get out, and the truth will be gone forever,” she says.
Fraser is eligible for parole in October 2028.
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