Murder detective of 12 years recalls heartbreaking case that will 'stay with him forever'

A former murder detective has reflected on his 30-year career in the police force and one particular case that will 'stay with him forever'.

As a murder detective for 12 years, Steve Keogh worked on some heartbreaking cases. And of course, a large part of his position as a murder detective was seeing dead bodies.

But Steve wasn't immediately thrown in at the deep end with the gruesome aspect of his job as an officer in the Metropolitan Police; he explained that it was something that he slowly built up a resilience to.

Speaking to LADbible ahead of the release of his new true crime series Secrets of a Murder Detective - which airs on TRUE CRIME on Wednesday, 20 March - Steve explained that for the first few weeks of his initial police training, he was 'puppy walked' round the streets with a tutor and was slowly introduced into witnessing dead bodies in 'really controlled circumstances'.

This might have included seeing an elderly person who died of natural causes where police have been called to confirm the death.

He was then sent to view a post-mortem 'so you get more used to it'.

Steve continued: "It's about building up resilience - it's like little building blocks. You see a crime scene and then you might see a traffic accident."

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While he did build up a resilience to seeing dead bodies over the course of his three decades in the force, there was one part he never got used to - which was seeing the bodies of dead children.

"I couldn't even put a number on how many dead bodies I've seen over over my career. But the ones I remember are the children," he said.

With this in mind, there was one case that he worked on that Steve says will 'stay with [him] forever'.

The harrowing case is looked at on the first episode his new series, where it details the death of Sian Blake, a mother-of-two who was killed alongside her two young sons.

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Sian and her boys, Zachary, eight, and four-year-old Amon, were stabbed to death by Arthur Simpson-Kent - the boys' father.

Sian, who had brief stint on EastEnders, was found buried in her back garden alongside Zachary and Amon three weeks after she was reported missing in December 2015.

Steve told LADbible: "Originally, we weren't going to do any of my cases [on the show]. Since leaving the police, I've kind of shied away from talking too much publicly about my cases; I've touched on them, but not in any kind of detail."

Noting that he is the 'constant' throughout Secrets of a Murder Detective, Steve came to realise that it would be good to show viewers more about who he is and what he'd done as a detective.

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Going on to discuss the harrowing case of Sian Blake and her sons, Steve continued: "When I look back at my career, that that is the case that will always that that sort of... I don't know how to best put it, but it's the one that stands out."

"It's the one that will stay with me forever," he added.

Secrets of a Murder Detective airs exclusively on TRUE CRIME (formerly CBS Reality) in the UK from Wednesday, 20 March at 10.00pm through July with new episodes weekly.

Topics: Crime, True Crime, TV and Film

Niamh Shackleton

Niamh Shackleton is an experienced journalist for UNILAD, specialising in topics including mental health and showbiz, as well as anything Henry Cavill and cat related. She has previously worked for OK! Magazine, Caters and Kennedy.

@NiamhShackleton