*Warning: This episode includes mentions of murder by stabbing and swearing*

What happens when a childhood language game is used to obscure the details of a crime? Well, you call in Dr Nicci MacLeod.

In this episode, Nicci recounts a time when the police approached her to analyse the language of a group of suspects covertly recorded on the way to and from court. At first, it didn’t seem as though the suspects were speaking English, but as Nicci realised, ‘egg’ was being worked in to words in attempt to obscure the true meaning for anyone who may be eavesdropping.

We would like to give special thanks to Andrea Jones for her support of this episode, and dedicate it to the memory of her brother Dolton Powell.

For a list of our sources and more information about this case, please visit: https://www.aston.ac.uk/writing-wrongs

Have a question for Nicci or Tim? Email us at writingwrongs@aston.ac.uk and we may answer it during an upcoming episode!

Check out the official AIFL blog for more forensic linguistic goodies here:

https://medium.com/@AIFLblog

If you have been affected by any of the themes in this week’s episode, please contact one of these free sources:

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/

https://www.helpguide.org/find-help

Production Team: Sam Cook, Jordan Robertson, Neus Alberich Buera

Sound: Sam Cook

Visual design: George Grant

Additional Voices: Sam Cook

Resources

Links above and:

• Dr Nicci MacLeod’s home page https://research.aston.ac.uk/en/persons/nicci-macleod

• BBC Expert Witness episode about the case:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0024gj1

• Gloucestershire Live ‘s coverage of the case

https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/timeline-how-brutal-murder-gloucestershires-29677