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A Dark City

A Dark City

By: A Dark City
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Summary

Delve into the dark heart of Glasgow, a city with history steeped in mystery and violence. A Dark City takes you behind the headlines to explore the city's most notorious murders - stories that shocked the nation, shattered communities and left scars that still linger. From cold blooded killers to infamous gangland slayings, we uncover the chilling details, the victims stories and the impact on Glasgow's streets.

© 2026 A Dark City
Social Sciences True Crime World
Episodes
  • Gary Moore
    May 4 2026

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    Nine shots tear through a quiet street in Airdrie, and a man known as a gentle giant is left dead on his own doorstep. We walk through the murder of Gary Moore, a devoted dad and gym owner who built a reputation helping troubled young people through fitness, then ask the question that won’t leave you alone: how does someone like that end up the target of an execution-style hit?

    From the first hours of the Police Scotland investigation, the case is defined by two things: planning and silence. A white Skoda Fabia appears, a masked gunman steps out, and the car is later found burned out to wipe away evidence. We dig into the rumours of organised crime, narcotics and debt, and the frustration detectives face when frightened witnesses hold back. Gary’s family speak with heartbreaking clarity about what they’ve lost, and why they plead for information even when the community is scared.

    Then the story widens. Four months later, Raphael Lyko, a 36-year-old Polish national who has been in Scotland for just days, is discovered dead inside a burned Mercedes GLE in Blantyre. The parallels are chilling, and the pattern points towards a coordinated gangland hit squad. We follow how investigators connect the dots across Lanarkshire and Glasgow, including attempted killings, stolen vehicles, destroyed evidence, and the meticulous work that finally brings Barry Harvey, Darren Owen and Thomas Guthrie to trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

    If you care about Glasgow true crime, organised crime in Scotland, and how justice is built case by case, press play. Subscribe, share the episode, and leave us a review, what do you think keeps communities silent when violence is this public?

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    37 mins
  • Hector Smith
    Apr 27 2026

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    A gang turns up at a Glasgow tenement and demands £10 a week for “UDA protection”. Hours later, Hector Smith is dead on his living room floor, shot at point-blank range after refusing to be threatened. We follow the chain of events that begins with Brian Hosey, a violent National Front activist desperate to look like a loyalist hard man, and ends with a family shattered on Arlington Street in Woodlands.

    What makes this story linger is not a whodunnit. Police move fast, the case is open and shut, and yet the meaning of what happened gets blurred by the noise around it. We talk through the fake paramilitary fundraising pitch, the way intimidation feeds on symbols and rumours, and the racist contempt that surfaces plainly when the gun goes off. We also step into a startling moment of 1970s Glasgow history: a late-licensed gay disco at Woodside Halls, the raid that follows, and officers lining men up to check their arms for a King William tattoo while a murderer slips away.

    From there we zoom out to the courtroom and the headlines. The press fixates on Hosey’s appearance and supposed paramilitary aura, while Hector Smith, a Jamaican-born father of three and one of a small Caribbean community in Scotland at the time, is granted far less space as a full person. We wrestle with what it means when racism is present but treated as marginal, and why some murders become enduring folklore while others barely survive an online search.

    If you care about Glasgow true crime, Scottish history, the National Front, loyalist paramilitaries, or how cities choose what to remember, listen now. Subscribe, share the episode with someone who cares about Glasgow’s past, and leave us a review. What should Hector Smith’s place in the city’s story be?

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    19 mins
  • A Glasgow Execution
    Apr 20 2026

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    Three shots at a red light can change a city’s criminal map. We walk through the night Ewan E J Johnston is executed in Glasgow’s Kinning Park while sitting in his Audi RS-4, then follow the investigation as it builds from street-level chaos into a meticulous, evidence-led case. If you’re drawn to Glasgow true crime, forensic detail, and the uncomfortable logic of gangland power, this story stays with you.

    We track how CCTV captures the movements of a dark Audi Q5 and how a burned-out vehicle, meant to wipe the slate clean, instead becomes a turning point. A spent casing, ballistic links, and a torn fragment of a Nike windrunner jacket lead to DNA evidence that places David Scott at the centre of the case. From there, the focus widens: Police Scotland are not just chasing one gunman, they’re staring into organised crime networks that stretch beyond Glasgow and into the long-running drug trafficking routes tied to Spain.

    To make sense of the motive, we reach back to the mid-1990s Paisley gang feud, tracing the legacy of Stuart Boyd’s crew and the Rennie family and how old alliances can shape new violence. The courtroom brings the story to a verdict and a life sentence, but it also exposes how much remains unresolved, especially with another accused cleared and further searches launched years later. If you value smart true crime storytelling that connects murders to history, money, and power, subscribe, share the episode, and leave us a review. What part of the evidence trail do you find hardest to dismiss?

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    24 mins
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