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Professor David Wilson, the UK’s leading criminologist, presents the second series of the crime talk show Crime Files. In this episode, he discusses how the popular view of women who kill as being either mad or bad is both incorrect and outdated. He examines two cases of murder by women that do not fit either category and looks at how society struggles to deal with these women.

Investigative journalist Fiona Walker is in Aberdeen to examine a crime from 1934 which shocked the country. When housewife Jeannie Donald was arrested for the murder of eight-year-old Helen Priestly, the streets were filled with shocked onlookers desperate for a glimpse of the ‘murderess’. In the studio, Fiona shows David newspaper reports of the day and reveals original photos taken at the crime scene, building a picture of the woman who failed to fit the stereotype.

David and Fiona are then joined by journalist and producer Isla Traquair to learn about another Aberdeen murder. When 22-year-old Melanie Sturton’s body was found brutally murdered in a bloody and violent attack, the first assumption was that the killer was male. However, it was eventually discovered that the perpetrator was 20-year-old woman Pamela Gourlay. Having reported on the murder at the time, and now a close friend of Melanie’s family, Isla describes a killer who defies our preconceptions on gender and crime, and David reveals a new theory of why Pamela may have committed the crime.

David’s last guest is Dr Susan Batchelor, who channelled her experience of teenage violence into a career spent trying to understand the relationship between crime and gender. Susan lays out for David the importance of recognising that sometimes women, like men, enjoy violence. And that for society to benefit, we need to move away from the stereotypes surrounding women who kill.