What is the episode about?
Arlene Fraser disappeared without a trace from her home in Elgin, Scotland, on April 28, 1998, shortly after she had sent her children to school. In this second episode of the podcast series Vanished: The Arlene Fraser Murder Case host Dale Hallam focuses on the critical 50-minute time window that defined the entire investigation. This timeframe stretches from 09:50, when Arlene made a phone call to her children's school, to 10:40, when her friend Michelle Scott arrived at an empty house with the door unlocked, and Arlene's personal belongings were still out.
The case behind the episode
The case of Arlene Fraser is one of the most complex and long-standing criminal cases in Scottish legal history. At the time of her disappearance, she was living separately from her husband, Nat Fraser , who was on bail and had a restraining order preventing him from contacting her after a previous violent incident in which he had attempted to strangle her with the cord of a bathrobe. When Arlene disappeared, police quickly turned their suspicion towards her husband, despite him having a seemingly solid alibi in the form of his business.
The investigation later revealed a web of lies and complicity from Nat Fraser's acquaintances, Hector Dick and Glenn Lucas. One of the most striking pieces of technical evidence in the case involved surveillance footage that was analyzed by a lip reader. The analysis indicated that the men involved were discussing the disposal of a body. Although Arlene Fraser's body has never been found, Nat Fraser, Hector Dick, and Glenn Lucas were found guilty of murder in 2003, marking a historic verdict in a case without a body.