logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2025
48m 5s

21. Death on the Thames: The Poisoned Um...

Goalhanger
About this episode

Was an umbrella too obvious a murder weapon for an assassination in the heart of London? Why were the KGB hesitant to do the Bulgarian government's dirty work? And how do scientists work with spy agencies to identify lethal poisons?


Georgi Markov, the Bulgarian dissident writer, is dead. But, who murdered him? Was it the Bulgarians or the KGB? What about the British? In the aftermath of Markov's poisoning, the Metropolitan Police are struggling to discover the perpetrator behind the umbrella.


Listen as David and Gordon continue the story of the mysterious murder of a Bulgarian BBC broadcaster on Waterloo Bridge, and ask: will the assassin ever be caught?


-------------------


Order a signed edition of David's latest book, The Seventh Floor, via this link.


-------------------


Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.nordvpn.com/restisclassified


It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee!


Email: classified@goalhanger.com


Twitter: @triclassified


Assistant Producer: Becki Hills


Producer: Callum Hill


Senior Producer: Dom Johnson


Exec Producer: Tony Pastor

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Up next
Yesterday
63. Terror Strikes London: What did MI5 know? (Ep 2)
Fifteen months before the London bombings, MI5 had seen them. They had names, photographs, and addresses. Two of the men who would carry out the 7/7 attacks had already appeared in surveillance. And then… they vanished back into the noise. In this second episode of our 7/7 series ... Show More
36m 4s
Jul 6
62. Terror Strikes London: 7/7 (Ep 1)
London woke up to joy and celebration on 7 July 2005. The city had just won the 2012 Olympics. It was a glorious summer. There were parties in the streets. But, by 9am, everything had changed. Three explosions tore through the London Underground. Minutes later, a double-decker bu ... Show More
41m 6s
Jul 1
61. The Truth About UFOs: Whistleblowers, Warplanes, and Worlds Unknown (Ep 4)
For years, the term UFO conjured images of tin foil hats and elaborate cover-ups. But with recent official reports from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence detailing hundreds of UAP sightings, including objects that remain stationary in high winds or manoeuvre in ... Show More
42m 12s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2022
Episode 251 - Andrei Chikatilo: Doomed from the Womb - Part 2
With nothing but a vague suspect profile to go on, and with mutilated bodies piling up around the USSR, Soviet police were battling to bring the Rostov Ripper's reign of terror to an end.  All the while Andre Chikatilo tore through his victims, constantly changing who he went aft ... Show More
52m 23s
Nov 2024
18. The Bottle and the Blind Spot
When the agents suspected of poisoning Sergei and Yulia Skripal with Novichok left Salisbury, what did they do with the nerve agent and how did the deadly chemical weapon end up in the hands of Charlie Rowley four months later? In this episode, we hear the most likely theories fr ... Show More
17m 10s
May 7
563. Peter the Great: Bloodbath in the Kremlin (Part 2)
What abominable mischief and hedonism did the seventeen year old Peter the Great revel in during his strange and remarkable travels through Europe, before truly stepping into the role of Tsar of all the Russias? Did it serve a secret political purpose? What was the outcome of the ... Show More
1h 4m
Jan 2025
Russian Spies, Pigeons, and The Rest Is Classified…
How did a Russian spy manage to infiltrate the upper echelons of London and New York society? Was Anna Chapman really an old fashioned Russian honeytrap or was she underestimated by the world's press? What was life like for wealthy Russians in "Londongrad" in the early 21st centu ... Show More
14m 31s
Dec 2024
FROM THE VAULT - Episode 275 - The Assassination of Olof Palme
In February 1986, the prime minister of Sweden was walking home from the cinema, when a man stepped out of a shop doorway and shot him in the neck with a .357 Magnum. The killer ran down a side street – and disappeared without a trace.The mystery surrounding Olof Palme’s death is ... Show More
59m 24s
Apr 2024
Episode 537: The life and crimes of Gerard ‘Hucker’ Moyna
He was a rogue Republican who was thrown out of the IRA, had a brief dalliance with the INLA and someone who lurched around other dissident groupings as an enforcer and a feared hitman known for a love of violence but who couldn’t be managed or controlled. This week as killer and ... Show More
42m 22s
Dec 2024
The murders at Rillington Place: postwar London's grisliest crimes
On 24 March 1953, a tenant of 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill made a gruesome discovery. Inside the walls of the downstairs flat, he uncovered the bodies of three women. More were to follow. A nationwide manhunt was launched for the prime suspect, Reg Christie, and the murders ... Show More
36m 40s
Jul 4
Episode 1081: Hundreds attend funeral of Scottish mobsters shot dead in Fuengirola
The funerals of murdered gangland heavies Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jnr took place in Scotland yesterday as police doubled down on their insistence that their killing had nothing to do with local feuds.While Spanish police say they have identified and wish to extradite a hitm ... Show More
18m 17s
Jan 2025
The Murder of Malcolm Caldwell
Two Americans and one Brit were invited to Communist Cambodia in 1978 to meet the brutal dictator Pol Pot. The Brit is called Malcolm Caldwell, a professor from Scotland, and a big Pol Pot fan.   Just hours after he meets his hero, Malcolm is shot dead. So, who killed Malcolm Cal ... Show More
29m 49s
Oct 2023
Killers of the Flower Moon: The real history
Killers of the Flower Moon, the new historical epic from Martin Scorsese, dramatises a series of murders that was described by press at the time as the “bloodiest chapter in American crime history”. The crimes caught the attention of J Edgar Hoover, and became the focus of one of ... Show More
30m 26s