A Dark City

Kenny Reilly

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261482/fan_mail/new] A red light in Maryhill. A silver BMW waiting in traffic. A masked man steps out of a black Ford S-Max and fires six shots before disappearing into side streets. That’s the opening moment we can’t shake, because it shows how quickly everyday life in Glasgow can collide with a feud that has been building for years. We walk through who Kenny Riley was, why a £100,000 drug debt is never just about money, and how postcode loyalty in Possilpark and Maryhill turns into something lethal. From the rumoured personal slight that inflamed tensions to the brutal assault on Ryan McAteer that made payback feel “necessary”, the motive keeps tightening like a knot. Along the way we map the crew police say built the operation, the logistics behind the untraceable car, and the role encrypted messaging plays when planning moves from the street to WhatsApp and EncroChat. Then we follow the investigation: CCTV, phone data, prison intercepts, and the forensic detail that cuts through the attempted cover-up, including DNA recovered from a vehicle meant to vanish in flames. The High Court trial in Edinburgh delivers long minimum sentences, but we end with the harder question of what remains when a legal chapter closes and the conditions that feed violence still exist. If A Dark City helps you see Glasgow’s gangland crime more clearly, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review. What part of this case best explains why these feuds keep escalating?

The Gorbals: Unsolved

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261482/fan_mail/new] Eight murders in one square mile. No convictions. And a trail of families left with nothing but rumours, court transcripts, and the sickening sense that everyone knows more than they will ever say. We take you into Glasgow’s “Murder Mile” in the Gorbals and Loriston, where violence repeats across decades and the justice system keeps coming up empty.  We start with John Lynch in 1964, a father who steps off a bus after taking his children to see Santa and vanishes into the dusk, only to be found dying from a stab wound. From there, the pattern hardens: quick arrests followed by cases that collapse, witnesses who refuse to identify suspects, and juries left with evidence that never quite holds. You’ll hear how Chris Cawley is stabbed to death at the doorway of his own pub while more than 30 people insist they saw nothing, and how the Scottish “not proven” verdict can leave a case feeling unresolved even after a trial.  As we move through Gilbert Patton, Tracy Main, David Brown, Joanna Colbeck, Stephen Byrne, and officer Lewis Fulton, we connect each tragedy to the wider story of the Gorbals itself: overcrowding, poverty, demolition, high-rise decline, fear of retaliation, and a deep mistrust of police. We also look at what changed after 2002, what scars remain in the landscape, and why place and power can decide who gets justice. If you care about Glasgow true crime, unsolved murders, Scottish criminal justice, and the real human cost behind cold cases, listen now then subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review to help more people find the story.

Gary Moore

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261482/fan_mail/new] Nine shots tear through a quiet street in Airdrie, and a man known as a gentle giant is left dead on his own doorstep. We walk through the murder of Gary Moore, a devoted dad and gym owner who built a reputation helping troubled young people through fitness, then ask the question that won’t leave you alone: how does someone like that end up the target of an execution-style hit? From the first hours of the Police Scotland investigation, the case is defined by two things: planning and silence. A white Skoda Fabia appears, a masked gunman steps out, and the car is later found burned out to wipe away evidence. We dig into the rumours of organised crime, narcotics and debt, and the frustration detectives face when frightened witnesses hold back. Gary’s family speak with heartbreaking clarity about what they’ve lost, and why they plead for information even when the community is scared. Then the story widens. Four months later, Raphael Lyko, a 36-year-old Polish national who has been in Scotland for just days, is discovered dead inside a burned Mercedes GLE in Blantyre. The parallels are chilling, and the pattern points towards a coordinated gangland hit squad. We follow how investigators connect the dots across Lanarkshire and Glasgow, including attempted killings, stolen vehicles, destroyed evidence, and the meticulous work that finally brings Barry Harvey, Darren Owen and Thomas Guthrie to trial at the High Court in Glasgow. If you care about Glasgow true crime, organised crime in Scotland, and how justice is built case by case, press play. Subscribe, share the episode, and leave us a review, what do you think keeps communities silent when violence is this public?

Hector Smith

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261482/fan_mail/new] A gang turns up at a Glasgow tenement and demands £10 a week for “UDA protection”. Hours later, Hector Smith is dead on his living room floor, shot at point-blank range after refusing to be threatened. We follow the chain of events that begins with Brian Hosey, a violent National Front activist desperate to look like a loyalist hard man, and ends with a family shattered on Arlington Street in Woodlands.  What makes this story linger is not a whodunnit. Police move fast, the case is open and shut, and yet the meaning of what happened gets blurred by the noise around it. We talk through the fake paramilitary fundraising pitch, the way intimidation feeds on symbols and rumours, and the racist contempt that surfaces plainly when the gun goes off. We also step into a startling moment of 1970s Glasgow history: a late-licensed gay disco at Woodside Halls, the raid that follows, and officers lining men up to check their arms for a King William tattoo while a murderer slips away.  From there we zoom out to the courtroom and the headlines. The press fixates on Hosey’s appearance and supposed paramilitary aura, while Hector Smith, a Jamaican-born father of three and one of a small Caribbean community in Scotland at the time, is granted far less space as a full person. We wrestle with what it means when racism is present but treated as marginal, and why some murders become enduring folklore while others barely survive an online search.  If you care about Glasgow true crime, Scottish history, the National Front, loyalist paramilitaries, or how cities choose what to remember, listen now. Subscribe, share the episode with someone who cares about Glasgow’s past, and leave us a review. What should Hector Smith’s place in the city’s story be?

A Glasgow Execution

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2261482/fan_mail/new] Three shots at a red light can change a city’s criminal map. We walk through the night Ewan E J Johnston is executed in Glasgow’s Kinning Park while sitting in his Audi RS-4, then follow the investigation as it builds from street-level chaos into a meticulous, evidence-led case. If you’re drawn to Glasgow true crime, forensic detail, and the uncomfortable logic of gangland power, this story stays with you.  We track how CCTV captures the movements of a dark Audi Q5 and how a burned-out vehicle, meant to wipe the slate clean, instead becomes a turning point. A spent casing, ballistic links, and a torn fragment of a Nike windrunner jacket lead to DNA evidence that places David Scott at the centre of the case. From there, the focus widens: Police Scotland are not just chasing one gunman, they’re staring into organised crime networks that stretch beyond Glasgow and into the long-running drug trafficking routes tied to Spain.  To make sense of the motive, we reach back to the mid-1990s Paisley gang feud, tracing the legacy of Stuart Boyd’s crew and the Rennie family and how old alliances can shape new violence. The courtroom brings the story to a verdict and a life sentence, but it also exposes how much remains unresolved, especially with another accused cleared and further searches launched years later. If you value smart true crime storytelling that connects murders to history, money, and power, subscribe, share the episode, and leave us a review. What part of the evidence trail do you find hardest to dismiss?