All language subtitles for Britains Countryside Killers S02E05 720p HDTV H264-JFF[EZTVx.to]

Causton, Surrey, 2009.

A 54 -year -old woman disappears without
warning.

She was reported missing two days after
she was last seen by other members of

the family.

It would be pretty rare to get a very
serious violent offence in Causton.

A peaceful community rocked by a
gruesome murder.

So fairly quickly it transpired that she
had been having an affair with an

individual.

The offender had put a call in to Surrey
Police.

During that call he gave a rough area
where he'd left her.

Her body is discovered in Banford Woods.

Linda's skull has been so shattered that
she has to be identified.

by her fingerprints, her face is not
that anymore.

Located in the heart of the Surrey
countryside, Causden is a town defined

quiet streets and peaceful atmosphere.

Causden is a large town.

It's mainly made up of housing that
really sprung up in the 50s and 60s as

main areas outside of Croydon spilled
out. So lots of large detached houses,

it's a commute about area.

It's got a nice sort of village -y vibe,
right on the edge of the North Downs.

Rural enough, but you can be in the
centre of London in about 20 -25

for a lot of people it's about to work
well.

Causton is not considered a dangerous
area.

I mean, obviously there's a certain
amount of crime, as there is in most

of London and south -east England.

But it would be the sort of burglary and
calf theft, that kind of thing. It

would be pretty rare to get a very
serious violent offence.

A resident of Wellington, 54 -year -old
Linda Casey, teaches horticulture at the

local college.

In 2009, Linda would have been 54 years
old, and she was a really outgoing, very

confident woman.

She was the centre of the family unit.

She'd been married twice, had three
daughters and seven grandchildren.

She was present at the birth of every
single one of her grandchildren.

She was really the focal point of the
family, very much loved, lively,

energetic, confident woman.

In a quite unusual arrangement, she
lived with her second husband, Anthony

Wisby, in the same house, even though
they were separated.

Linda was a really keen horticultural
enthusiast to the point where she taught

at adult education.

She had an allotment where she grew
vegetables and she spent quite a lot of

at that allotment as you would expect
for someone who was a horticultural

lecturer.

In London specifically a lot of people
don't have gardens at all so if you want

to plant something you can't so we have
essentially community gardens.

Each year, many students pass through
Linda's course.

One such student, 46 -year -old Peter
Ling, makes quite an impression.

In October 2005, Linda was teaching at a
local city and guilds course in

horticulture, and she met a man called
Peter Ling.

Peter Ling had enrolled in her adult
education course into horticulture

he had decided that he wanted to learn
more. He was quite a keen gardener

anyway, but he wanted to expand his
knowledge about horticulture.

He also wanted to have a bit more social
contact, so he'd been married for

20 years.

Peter Ling and his wife didn't have any
children.

They lived in Wallington, and Peter Ling
described his marriage as like eating

the same food for 20 years. It had gone
stale.

He'd become deeply unhappy in that
relationship, so he was seeking new

connections outside of the marital home.

People would describe him as quite
gentle, never raised his voice, etc.

But he was desperately insecure, had
very low self -esteem, and was

worried about his prowess in the
bedroom.

He was desperately unhappy in his
marriage, and he described his marriage

eating the same meal every day for 20
years.

But he decided to satisfy his sexual
desires and also his pursuit of

extramaritally.

Despite never being unfaithful in the
past, Peter finds himself drawn to

So over the course of a year, they'd
started to form a very close friendship.

And about a year after Peter had
enrolled in that course, they actually

relationship with each other.

So after about a year of Linda teaching
Peter, they went on their first date at

a pub in Chipstead. And then after that,
they quite quickly started seeing each

other twice a week.

What they would do is almost always have
sex outside or in her potting shed or

sometimes in a car.

Peter just couldn't get enough of it. It
was incredibly exciting for him and

kind of exactly what he thought had been
missing in his marriage.

Peter and Linda were seeing each other
at least twice a week and that became a

regular fixture in terms of the days of
the week that they stuck to and then

plussing each other during the classes.
But they were also messaging each other.

When they weren't seeing each other,
Peter and Linda would email and text

other regularly, and they would use
nicknames for each other with sexual

connotations that were sort of based on
their mutual love of gardening.

Peter's nickname was Purple Morning
Glory, and Linda's nickname was Passion

Flower, with sexual connotations both of
those nicknames.

Their relationship progresses, but Peter
is left wanting more.

Peter became a bit frustrated by the
lack of time that he could spend with

Linda, so they decided to go on a trip
together to Devon in 2007.

But in order to sort of present a story
to his wife, Peter said that he was

going on a business trip.

And that was just the first of quite a
few secret getaways that Linda and Peter

had.

They went to the West Country, they went
to the North of England, dotted around

hiding from Deborah.

And when they were away, they would
visit gardens, go to the theatre, just

a nice time.

So Peter was really quite good at
covering his steps.

He was very accomplished at deceiving
his wife as to where he was going to be

certain times.

He even went so far, such was his need
to see Linda, that he went so far as to

create business letters suggesting that
he needed to go away for business. He'd

create fake headers on his laptop and
leave letters lying around suggesting

he had to be away for business trips.

Linda doesn't quite reciprocate the
level of Peter's investment.

It was really clear that there was
imbalance in Peter and Linda's

Linda clearly enjoying his company, but
wanted to keep things relatively

relaxed. Whereas Peter, over time,
started to become more and more obsessed

about how much time he spent with Linda.

It takes Peter a couple of years, but he
does get to a point where he thinks

it's just a matter of time before they
run off together into the sunset.

However, he did always have a bit of a
feeling that Linda wasn't being

completely open and honest with him.

And he was right.

Linda, on the 22nd of July, goes to
Peter's home address and she has to use

laptop because they've been designing a
garden for the Chelsea Flower Show.

And she wanted to print off some
pictures and didn't have access to a

so she arranged to go and see Peter at
his home address and use his computer.

When she left, she had forgotten to
close her email account.

That account was sitting open on Peter's
laptop.

He'd possibly started to suspect that
there was an imbalance in the

and maybe that he was slightly more keen
on taking things to the next level than

Linda was.

Seeing Linda's email open, Peter can't
help himself but look.

What he discovers leaves him in a state
of complete shock.

Coulston, Surrey.

July 2009 54 -year -old Linda Casey
visits the house of

Peter Ling.

A 46 -year -old married man she's been
having an affair with after he enrolled

in her horticulture course four years
previously in 2005.

When Linda accidentally leaves her email
open on Peter's laptop, what he

discovers completely shatters his
perception of their relationship.

Peter discovered that Linda had been
lying to him. She had said that she'd

cheated on her second husband before,
but that wasn't true. She had cheated on

him. And what's more, Peter discovered
that Linda had been seeing another man

during the course of their entire
relationship.

It became clear in her inbox that she
had actually been having an affair with

someone since 2002.

So not only was... that while she was
married. It had continued up until the

present day.

It was clear that Linda not only was
having a relationship with another male

that he had no idea about, but also that
that relationship was quite a solid one

and that she was clearly very keen on
the other relationship that she was

having.

He was also a student at the Adult
Education Centre.

And they'd met in 2002, so this was
several years before Peter and Linda

their affair.

Linda used to meet him twice a week at
her allotment, and they would have sex

the potting shed.

It was usually on a Wednesday and a
Friday.

The discovery sent Peter into a
dangerous and obsessive spiral.

Over a four -day period in late July,
Peter Ling is going through Linda's

emails, about 1 ,200 emails, and
discovering more and more about the

that she had, and he's becoming more
upset and more angry the further he

into this communication.

I think the really important aspect of
this case is the fact that he had quite

few days to sit and go through the
emails.

And for Peter Ling, that is that
obsessive build of the fact that he's

seen something that he doesn't like. And
the more he digs, the more he finds

information out that he is really
adverse to.

In the email is Linda talking about a
relationship.

which is Peter's biggest fear.

His anxiety and his belief about his
ability to satisfy women is so deep

in him that it is kind of the point of
no return.

He can't talk to anyone about this
discovery.

He doesn't have any external input from
anybody at all, so he can only bang

about in his own head.

So there was a period of about four days
that he had the opportunity to go

through those accounts in quite forensic
detail to see exactly when the

relationship had started, how it had
built, how Linda felt about it.

Because Linda was away on holiday at
that time, so he wasn't seeing her on

regular days that he normally would.

So he had that time for all those
emotions to build up.

He decided that when she came back from
holiday that he was going to confront

her with it.

Peter prints out the emails, determined
to confront Linda about her secret

partner.

Peter arranged to meet Linda at the
Wisley Horticultural Society because he

wanted to discuss what he'd discovered.

He printed out some of the emails and he
confronted her and asked her about her

relationship.

Whether he was going to give her an
ultimatum of saying it's either him or

unclear, but they definitely had a
confrontation about that.

He was clearly very angry about the fact
that Linda had deceived him because she

had said to him that she hadn't ever
cheated on her husband before, when

the relationship had been going on for
about four years before Peter.

Linda, by all accounts, is a very strong
individual.

She wasn't necessarily going to take any
rubbish from Peter and whether it was

okay for the visa, you'd fit up with it
and we'd stay together.

But they did arrange to see each other
the following week.

Linda hoped that perhaps a few days away
would allow Peter to calm down.

But Peter continued to spiral out of
control.

consumed by Linda's other relationships.

Peter's frustration hadn't dissipated.

He went through more of the emails,
trying to find more details.

This was clearly becoming something of
an obsession, and he couldn't really

of get his frustration out. He was
becoming more and more angry about the

thing.

Fearing his outburst will scare Linda
away, Peter makes a drastic move.

He decides he's going all in, and he is
going to reignite Linda's love for him

by showing a big commitment.

So what he does is he tells his wife,
Deborah, that it's over. He tells her

being married to her is like having the
same dinner every day for 20 years, and

he says that he wants something
different.

For someone to be quite obsessed in a
relationship probably happens more often

than the general public think it would.

You're already having a relationship
outside of your marriage and I think

was really desperate for this to work.

Linda and Peter met up again on the 8th
of August 2009.

They met at the Rambler's Rest pub and
Peter wanted to ask Linda once more

her relationship but she simply refused
to answer questions.

So they went for a walk in Banffwood
Wood.

Afterwards, Peter returns home to his
wife, having had a dramatic change of

heart.

Peter goes home, and then he takes
Deborah out for dinner, and he tells her

he's changed his mind, and he does want
to stay with her, and he thinks that

they should give it another shot.

I think Deborah was initially shocked,
but ultimately overjoyed. 20 years is a

long time. It's a long time to have
built a life with someone.

I think she was overjoyed that he was
willing to try again.

But Linda hasn't been seen since.

So two days later on the 10th of August,
Linda's estranged husband becomes

concerned because she hasn't come home.
And so he raises the alarm, he calls the

police and a missing persons inquiry is
launched by police.

Linda was reported missing by her
estranged husband.

We initially thought that not reporting
her missing for two days was slightly

odd.

They did still live together, but it was
really clear very quickly that they led

very separate lives.

For them to go two or three days without
seeing each other wasn't unusual.

Initially it came into, sorry, police is
a missing person.

We would have stood the team up to start
to do everything you normally do in a

missing person inquiry.

We would have pinged her mobile phone to
see if we could get a location on that,

talk to friends and family, a missing
person report would be created.

When we started to look at the digital
footprints, we had access to mobile

data and messages, we had access to the
email accounts, so we could see that

Linda was communicating with Peter Ling.

But then you also had the potential that
either of her ex -partners could have

found out about the fact that she was
maybe seeing other people, despite the

fact that she'd left those marriages
behind her.

Due to the levels of communication that
Linda had with various people.

All of that had to be scanned as quickly
as we could just to see that Linda

hadn't met someone else recently or that
there wasn't any animosity between her

ex -partners.

And that was very quickly ruled out and
it was very clear the person that she'd

been having the most problems with in
her relationship was Peter Ling.

And the subsequent missing persons
inquiry leads straight to Peter Ling and

says he hasn't seen her.

Then Peter Ling makes a shocking
confession to his wife, Deborah.

Peter arrived unexpectedly at a friend's
house where Deborah happened to be.

And he makes an extraordinary
confession.

He says, I might have done something
awful.

Peter actually admits that he's been
having an affair for two years.

He reveals that he went to Bansard
Woods.

In an attempt to end his affair with
Linda.

It was to tell her that it was over and
he wanted to get back together with his

wife. Their relationship was done.

And that had made Linda so angry that
she had attacked him.

He says she took it really badly and hit
him and he struck her afterwards.

He says he hits her with a piece of
chalk.

He said, I think she might be hurt. What
if she's dead? What if I've killed her?

He was very concerned that he had killed
her, but he wasn't sure.

He asked Deborah to run away with him.

It was a horrible accident, and we
shouldn't let it ruin our lives, and I

to be with you now, so let's go.

Peter hatched an escape plan. He said to
Deborah, let's run away together.

She refused, so Peter made off in his
work van.

He packed a holdle and also took some of
the belongings from Linda, including

some of the emails that he'd printed
out.

Not only has he cheated on her, but he's
then burdening her with this horrendous

thing that there could be somebody dead
or dying in the woods.

She calls in to Surrey Police and says,
my husband's done this, he's left in his

car, I don't know where he's gone.

We very, very quickly put two and two
together because we know that Linda's

missing and we've been looking for her
for the last five days and it quickly

becomes apparent that Peter Ling is
going to be our main suspect.

With the possibility that Linda's still
alive and her family desperate for

answers, Surrey Police launch a search
operation to find her.

On the 10th of August, 2009,

54 -year -old Linda Casey is reported
missing.

She hasn't been seen since her walk in
Banstead Woods with 46 -year -old Peter

Ling, a married man she's been having an
affair with for four years.

In a panic, Peter confesses to his wife,
Deborah, that he hit Linda with a rock

after she allegedly attacked him.

Peter left the home property and was
trying to make off.

He'd put a call in to the police and
during that call he declared that he had

murdered Linda Casey.

He gave a rough area where he'd met
Linda and he'd left her

at that particular location.

If somebody can give an indication that
they've murdered somebody, your first

thought is, are they going to go and
murder somebody else? Because we hold

risk as the police, so the most
important thing is to go and find him

him.

And clearly he holds a big piece of the
puzzle, because he's saying he's killed

somebody. But we don't know where she is
or why it happened.

We'll start doing what we can on
intelligence.

Open source, searching on the internet
to try and find out as much as we can

about Peter Ling and who he is and
whether he does present a danger to the

public.

He would do phone work to try and find
out what mobile mask the phone is using,

now that gives you an area of where they
are, and that indicated that he was

down in the West Country.

We contacted the local police force that
covered Minehead and told them what was

going on and that his phone was showing
as him being down there.

He doesn't get very far.

We track his phone and we can clearly
see that he is on the A39 and he gets

stopped at Minehead.

When Peter was stopped at Minehead and
arrested under suspicion of murder, he

made a very significant statement to the
arresting officers.

He said, if you'd have asked me three
weeks ago if I'd have been capable of

murder, I would have laughed.

Arrested in Minehead.

Peter was now 180 miles from Banstead
Woods, halfway across the country.

On the way back to Surrey, police speak
to Peter with the goal of learning

Linda's exact location.

It's quite good to try and build rapport
up with people, so you can't talk about

the offence for which you've been
arrested, and you make that quite clear

them, but obviously you don't want to do
a car journey in complete silence.

You're going to interview this person,
and you want them to talk to you.

He don't want us to say nothing or go no
comment.

So we'd have been brought back to
custody in Surrey and then he would have

interviewed. We'll understand how long
we've got on the custody clock because

you can only keep somebody in for 24
hours.

So we would have asked for more time
from the superintendent.

He had a lawyer, but he spoke and the
most important thing at the time was

trying to find out where she was.

Just because he says he's killed her,
there is a chance that she may be alive.

The thing you want to do is try and find
them as quick as possible.

We would have pretty much asked him
straight away, where is she?

Because there's a chance we can try and
save her.

When questioned, Peter assists the
police with the exact whereabouts of

He told us she was in Banstead Woods and
he drew a diagram and gave us sort of a

rough clue of where to find her and we
then deployed teams to go out and try

find her on the night.

The problem was on the night it was
terrible weather.

It was raining really heavily. It was
dark.

We deployed a police dog to see if we
could narrow that search down because it

was quite a heavy wooded area and quite
a large acreage.

We did the best we could that night, but
it was really hard and we didn't find

her that evening.

As time passes, the chances of finding
Linda alive are growing slim.

The following morning, the core cadre
went out to that site to start looking

what we were facing in terms of that
search.

To come up with a tighter plan around
how we were going to work through the

wooded area to start looking for
evidence, because sometimes people leave

evidence on the way in, sometimes they
leave it on the way out. But more

importantly and more critically was
finding her.

At that point, we started to narrow down
the forensic strategy.

Part of that is around making sure that
we clear a common approach path.

That means that as you go into a scene,
you have taken any evidence out of a

sort of meterage pathway so that you can
happily walk back and forth without

constantly thinking, is that important,
is that important?

And very, very quickly...

We located Linda, sadly deceased, by a
very large tree.

She was lying in the woods off the
beaten track, covered. She tried to

leave. She was naked.

The clothing had been folded and was
laid in a pile.

It was quite an unusual sort of visual.

She clearly had severe injuries to her
head.

There was some obvious blood on a
particular large stone.

She'd had a number of what looked like
deep impact

injuries in a number of areas.

Unfortunately, because she had been
missing for some time, there was some

decomposition that was quite
troublesome.

But what was clear was... There was a
severe head injury.

The most important thing for me at that
point was we need to get her out of

here. She's in an open environment. The
quicker we get her into a safe space,

the more likely we are to maintain some
of that evidence.

That was my key aspect, was how we're
going to get her out of here, how we're

going to get her safely and, obviously,
respectfully into that space.

Linda's body is removed from the scene.

and taken in for an autopsy.

Once we've recovered the body,
forensically, it's taken back to the

the time it was at the Royal Surrey
County Hospital in Guildford.

Soledge has obviously there been out to
the scene, so what we want to do is

establish as much as we can when she
died and what killed her and whether

was any other contributing factors.

He then conducts a forensic post
-mortem.

While that's going on, you're obviously
interviewing the suspect.

But you also might find something in the
post -mortem that you want to ask the

suspect later on as well. So they're
going to stay in custody all the while

you have doing your post -mortem.

The whole point of the British justice
system is that people are confident that

there is no reasonable doubt.

Importantly, we already have a number of
other players in this case because we

have other sexual partners.

We have an ex -partner that she's
currently living with, and irrespective

somebody making a confession, the point
is to make sure that from that

hypothesis that we then start to prove
that confession without reasonable

So we would be looking at fibre
transfers between any clothes. When he

arrested, he was asked what he was
wearing, where that clothing was, had he

rid of it.

Shoes, one of the things that's quite
important and often forgotten is shoe

wear. It's easy to throw a jumper out
but we get quite fond of our footwear

very tiny aspects of blood are quite
often found on the footwear.

We would have in the mortuary undertaken
a number of different examinations,

scraping fingernails and making sure
that we did some sexual swabs to see if

there was any corroborating evidence.

Again, the clothing would have gone into
the forensic laboratory for searching

for blood, fibres, hairs, body material
from him. Then we would have, with the

stone, looked at whether we could
possibly have any DNA, DNA matching

there any DNA for him? And is it a
surface that we could potentially

fingerprint?

It was quite apparent that there was a
significant head injury and...

That blunt force trauma had caused her
to die.

With the post -mortem results in, police
look to charge Peter for the brutal

killing. We will be looking at a charge
of murder, and what we do is go to the

CPS with the evidence that we've got,
and they will say whether we have enough

to charge and what for. In this case, it
was for murder, and you wouldn't give

bail with murder.

So he's then remanded into custody to
appear at court the next day, where

be further remanded to Crown Court and a
trial.

So once they've been charged, then you
have an officer in the case who would

start putting together a full file ready
for the CPS, and then you'd have an

exhibits and disclosure officer who does
that side of it, and they would work

together to bring everything together to
present the full -filed CPS. CPS will

then read it, get committed to Crown
Court.

And then there may be inquiries because
you wait for the defence statement

effectively. So what happens is he will
have a defence team and he will have

some sort of mitigation or defence
statement which we then get a copy of.

then have to look at that and see
whether we need various other lines of

to negate or confirm whatever he's
saying in his defence statement.

His mitigation was that he knew she was
going to end it and she was taunting

him. They had sexual intercourse and
then after they'd had that...

they started having some sort of
argument where she taunted him.

He then said he lost it and that's why
he killed her. So rather than go for

murder, he was trying to go for
manslaughter based on diminished

So he was provoked into doing it because
she was being mean to him effectively.

Peter Ling is due to stand trial for the
murder of Linda Casey in February 2010.

Will the jury accept his case of
manslaughter by provocation, or will

through what prosecutors call a
desperate bid to avoid a life sentence?

February, 2010.

46 -year -old Peter Ling is on trial.

for the murder of 54 -year -old Linda
Casey, whose body was found hidden in

Banstead Wood, Surrey.

Denying murder, he claims he lost
control after being provoked, a defence

prosecutors will challenge as they
reconstruct the events surrounding her

The case went to trial at the Old Bailey
in February 2010.

Peter Ling pleaded not guilty to murder,
but he admitted manslaughter on the

grounds of provocation.

His defence was that Linda had insulted
him and claimed that his penis was too

small and that this was what had
provoked him into attacking her, but he

couldn't remember how many times he had
hit her.

Peter tried to make out that he was the
victim in this.

in that he had been betrayed by Linda.
He was so upset that she had been seeing

another man while they had had a
relationship.

And he kind of poured his heart out
during the course of the trial. He

uncontrollably on a number of occasions.

Peter Ling pleaded not guilty to murder.
He said it was manslaughter by

provocation. What that means... it's an
umbrella of what's called voluntary

manslaughter. So you intended to kill
the person, but you have a partial

defence, and that partial defence is
usually one of two things, provocation,

which is what he claims, or some sort of
mental impairment, which means you

don't understand what you did.

In order to qualify as provocation,
there has to be proof of the

which here there isn't, because we just
have his words. We don't know that Linda

actually said that.

Secondly, the defendant needs to prove
that they had a temporary loss of

control. And thirdly, there has to be,
whatever the defendant did, has to be

deemed by the jury to be what a
reasonable person would have done in the

circumstance.

It doesn't qualify for manslaughter via
provocation because for manslaughter you

can't cover your tracks.

Peter is banking on the plea of
manslaughter due to provocation for a

sentence.

But the timeline of his actions tells a
much more deliberate story.

It will be up to the jury to decide on
the truth of this gruesome killing.

So about a week after the first meeting,
Linda and Peter go to the Ramblers Rest

Pub in Colston, have a meal together.

And Peter, once again, brings up the
emails.

Linda just refuses to engage.

And then they leave the pub, they go for
a walk.

They walk through the woods, and to the
best of the investigation's knowledge, a

sexual encounter took place in the
woods, and then clearly a huge argument

place.

They discussed once more this
relationship, but it seemed that

answers... that Linda supplied to Peter
Ling didn't satisfy him and he became

angrier and angrier. And on his account,
she taunted him about his lack of

sexual prowess.

Peter Ling then napped.

Peter lost control of himself.

He picked up a large flint rock and beat
Linda around the face and head

with that rock.

He then took Linda's naked body and
deposited it very close to where they'd

a sexual encounter.

He had tried his best to cover it with
leaves and debris from the woods.

Then he disposed of her watch and
glasses and then went back to the pub

they'd met, got in her car and drove it
about a mile away to a quiet spot.

So he'd removed the car keys from her
possession and taken her mobile phone

him. He'd also made sure that Linda's
phone was open so he had access to all

the messages on Linda's phone.

And he did find some very explicit
photos on her phone which undoubtedly

into his rage.

He claimed later on that up until that
point he was going to call an ambulance.

He didn't think that he had killed her.

but he admits himself that when he saw
those photos on her phone, he changed

mind. She'd ruined it, is what he said,
so he left her.

I think everything he does from the
second after Linda falls to the ground

very calculated.

He's trying to cover his tracks, he's
trying to get away with it, and Deborah

falls into that plan.

Him taking Deborah out for dinner was
very calculated.

He thinks he can get Deborah in on it.

And then they can figure it out
together.

Because if he gets her back on side,
then he's not on his own anymore.

He tells his wife he's hit with chalk
and he says, I think she might be hurt.

This is vastly different.

So he's already minimizing the actions
that he's taken here because chalk is a

relatively soft material.

If you do hit someone on the head with
it, is it necessarily likely to cause

their death? Potentially not.

He knew full well that he'd hit her with
a very hard rock indeed.

What's really clear from that course of
action that he took is that Tatian can't

be alone. He's killed the option that he
thought he was going to have and spend

the rest of his life with.

And when that has gone badly wrong, he's
now trying to backtrack to the wife

that has been faithful to him for 20
years and trying to regain something in

that relationship and try to recover any
damage that he's done there.

At trial, he suggested that he didn't
really know that he'd killed her and

he panicked.

Those actions that he took at the scene
and afterwards are not the actions of

somebody who panicked. He clearly knew
you killed her.

You not only killed her, but you went to
hide her body and discard

items of evidence.

The forensic evidence, obviously, it was
very clear that Linda had sustained a

really brutal attack.

When you get manslaughter pleas, it can
be a case that someone has lost their

temper and hit somebody with an object
once, and it happens that it's hit such

vulnerable part of the body that it can
cause death. This is absolutely not the

case with Linda Casey. She had been
badly beaten to death with a very hard,

sharp rock.

He's trying to communicate to the jury
that this is all a horrible mistake and

how I couldn't possibly have murdered
someone in cold blood. This has all got

out of hand.

Peter's evidence was disputed by the
prosecution, principally because what he

did after he'd attacked Linda.

He'd tried to bury her body under some
leaves.

He'd tried to get rid of her watch and
glasses. It seemed like a very

controlled, ordered approach to someone
who had claimed that he'd simply been

provoked into attacking her.

The trial draws to a close. All that's
left to hear is the jury's verdict.

The trial ended on 19 February 2010 when
Peter Ling was found guilty by a

majority of 11 to 1.

Guilty of murder.

The jury didn't believe his claim that
he'd been provoked by Linda. They didn't

believe at all that he was the victim of
this.

He was given a life sentence with a
minimum term of 18 years in prison.

So when the jury comes back and says,
actually, we don't accept manslaughter,

it's murder, the jury clearly hadn't
bought into the hormy act of, I was so

enraged by her comment and I felt so
undermined. I accidentally lost my

and this is what happened. The jury
clearly saw through that and they saw

through the tears that he cried.

The judge, Giles Forrester, actually
commented on the weeping throughout the

trial. coming from Peter Ling, and he
said that they were totally self

And he also concluded that justice had
been done and hoped that could bring

solace to Linda's family and friends.

Judge Charles Forrester said that Peter
Ling was a devious, manipulative man who

had tried to lay the blame at the door
of a dead woman.

As an investigation team... We very
strongly wanted it to be murder, not

manslaughter, in order to get justice
for Linda and her family.

And thankfully, the jury saw through the
tears, saw through the lies, saw

through the minimisation of his actions
and came back with a verdict of murder.

I think it was a very sad case. I think
it just unravelled a whole sort of

hotpot of affairs between various people
that... Nobody really knew what was

going on with Linda in the centre of it
all.

There were some odd things about it,
like the folded clothes and the trees.

No idea. We never got to the bottom of
why he did that.

That folded clothing, it was so unusual
to see that.

And it just felt really odd.

Like, was that before they'd had the
sexual encounter, which didn't feel...

Right, or was that when Mr. Ling spent
some time with her afterwards and

then felt some remorse?

That's probably where my mind was then.
I felt like he'd probably been there a

bit longer after she'd passed and that
part of his trying to make that look

he cared.

Peter Ling was a devious, manipulative
man.

who couldn't control his emotions and
reacted in the most violent and

despicable way possible, ending the life
of a woman who was much loved by her

children and grandchildren and her many
friends.

Ling's actions were just extraordinary
and so violent and so vicious.

And then he tried to cover up his
tracks.

He didn't even have the decency to admit
what he'd done. He tried to claim

that Linda had provoked him and then
tried to rebuild his relationship with

wife.

I agree with the judge. I think Peter
Ling is a cripplingly insecure and

troubled person.

We all get... We can all be upset,
especially when we've been betrayed. But

he has is pathological jealousy.

I think it's very obvious he's quite
deeply emotionally

disturbed. And whatever started that off
happened long before he ever met Linda

Casey.

For me, what really stuck about this
case was how loved Linda was.

What an integral part of the family unit
she made up.

She's now not here for her three grown
daughters and their families.

She was clearly vivacious and fun
-loving, and that was taken away in an

by a man who couldn't take
responsibility for his actions.