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Leading criminal barristers Sasha Wass QC and Jeremy Dein QC explore a notorious case of a house servant accused of murdering his upper-class employer.

Devon, 1884. In the early hours of a cold November morning, in picturesque Babbacombe Bay, servants at the Glen manor house awoke to the smell of smoke. They found their villa engulfed by flames and realised that their upper-class employer Emma Keyse was missing.

They desperately searched the house and discovered the mutilated body of Miss Keyse in the dining room. She had been viciously beaten, had her throat cut and her body set on fire in what looked like a crude attempt to conceal the cause of death.

The police quickly arrested 20-year-old servant John Lee. He was the only man in the house and, despite Emma Keyse being Lee’s benefactor, witnesses spoke of him having a grievance against his employer. Within days he was charged with murder.

The shocking murder of a wealthy upper-class lady by one of her employees outraged the local community and made headline news around the world. At trial, John Lee vehemently protested his innocence, but it took the jury just 40 minutes to find him guilty, and he was sentenced to death. However, when led to the gallows on 23 February 1885, John Lee would make history as ‘The Man They Could Not Hang’.

Now, over a century later, John Lee’s relative Wendy has enlisted the help of the barristers to re-examine this infamous murder. The case against John Lee relied on circumstantial evidence, and Sasha and Jeremy analyse motive, means and opportunity to establish whether Lee’s conviction might have been unsafe.

Will the barristers be able to uncover new evidence to provide yet another twist in this infamous tale?