Murder or Suicide? Part 1

In the early hours of the morning in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire, a 999 call is made by Mohamed Samak reporting that he has found his wife, Jo, on the floor of their home with a knife in her stomach. Despite attempts to resuscitate her, Jo is declared dead at the scene. With something not quite adding up, officers arrest Samak on suspicion of murder.

A team of 20 detectives and specialists, led by DCI Leighton Harding, launches Operation Nimbus to investigate whether Jo's death is suicide or murder. The forensic team examines the family home but finds limited blood and no signs of a struggle.

A post-mortem concludes the cause of death is a stab wound to the chest, and while one wound is described as unusual for a self-inflicted injury, the pathologist considers the overall picture is more suggestive of suicide than homicide. When the knife is tested for fingerprints, however, no prints are found, raising further questions about what happened that night.

Meanwhile, detectives investigate Jo's state of mind in the days before her death. Friends and family describe a woman in a positive place, planning her 50th birthday party, starting a new job, and taking her grandmother's ring to a jeweller for repair. CCTV captures Jo, two days before she died. There is nothing in her phone data, web history or messages to suggest she had any intention of ending her life.

Samak is interviewed under caution and gives detectives a new account: he claims that he was woken by screaming, saw Jo in the bathroom stabbing herself, and tried to stop her. But detectives are troubled by inconsistencies. His 999 call makes no mention of trying to intervene. The blood patterns at the scene don't match a struggle. And there is no blood on Samak at all.

And then comes a crucial breakthrough that leads to a shift in DCI Harding's assessment. What began as an unexplained death is now looking increasingly like murder.