Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Deadly memory
AM I A MURDERER?
ITV, 9pm
IN a tale so strange you can barely believe it, this documentary tells the story of a women who has spent years desperately trying to prove she is a murderer.
Janet Holt claims that 42 years ago she killed her business partner, farmer Fred Handford, shooting him and then burying him in a field.
But his body has never been found, so despite her extraordinary admission of guilt, police insist she is innocent and may have ulterior motives for her claim.
Fred mysteriously vanished in 1976 in Derbyshire and a missing persons investigation was launched.
Detectives concluded that Fred had committed suicide.
But Janet was plagued by such terrible nightmares that eventually she had therapy which caused her to remember what happened on the day Fred disappeared.
She confessed to the police in 2011 and remains convinced that she committed a brutal murder. But police excavated the field and found nothing.
She insists: “Why would my memory have invented this story? What possible purpose? What could it be based on? And what purpose does it have?” This fascinating film hears from Janet, Fred’s daughter Lynette, psychologists and police officers to explore whether her recollection of committing the murder could possibly be true. Janet also agrees to speak to a memory expert to see if her memories can be proven beyond doubt.
Former detective Paul Callum says: “This is still an open case. I don’t think we’ll ever find Fred’s remains.”
While Janet insists: “Remains do have a habit of coming to the surface sometimes. “So there’s always that possibility of a knock on the door in the future.”