Episode Details

Oxford, April 1991. English student Rachel McLean vanishes from the house she shares with friends, mid-way through a weekend of exam revision. Her tutor calls 999. Her boyfriend — a British-born New Zealander named John Tanner — tells detectives he last saw her at Oxford station chatting to a mystery stranger. He gives a detailed description. He fronts a televised appeal. He plays the grieving boyfriend to perfection. But police soon discover that the ‘stranger’ is a figment of his imagination. And, by the time they arrest Tanner, Rachel’s body has been found under the floorboards of her home. Forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes traces a case that changed the way Britain looked at controlling relationships, and asks what Tanner's later New Zealand conviction — for serious violence against another partner — reveal about a man who has always insisted he simply 'snapped' as a result of provocation. Listen now to The Profiler with Kerry Daynes.

Key psychological themes

This episode explores: coercive control disguised as devotion • the psychology of the manufactured appeal • jealousy, possession and staged grief • the 'crime of passion' myth • the pattern of a serial domestic abuser

Contributors featured in this episode

•     Kerry Daynes — Forensic psychologist, presenter, and author of Dark Side of the Mind and What Lies Buried.

•     Catherine Houlihan — Then a young reporter with the Oxford Mail; covered Rachel's disappearance and the trial.

•     Colin Sutton — Retired homicide detective; expert commentator on the original investigation.

•     Rod Chaytor — Veteran crime correspondent (ex-Daily Mirror); covered the case throughout.

•     John Tanner — In archive footage of the 1991 press-conference appeal for information.

What you'll learn in this episode

•     Why Rachel's disappearance immediately struck detectives as ‘out of character’.

•     How Tanner's 'man at the train station' story unravelled.

•     The polished press-conference performance that made Colin Sutton uneasy from the very first viewing.

•     Where Rachel's body was found, and how the forensics at the house pointed straight to the person she loved.

•     Why Tanner's later New Zealand convictions aren't a coda to this case — they're confirmation of who he always was.

•     Kerry's reframing: why 'crimes of passion' are more accurately called crimes of possession.

Relevant links and further reading

•     Kerry Daynes — Dark Side of the Mind (Endeavour, 2019)

•     Kerry Daynes — What Lies Buried (Endeavour, 2021)

•     Faking It: Tears of a Crime (Warner Bros. Discovery) — some interviews first featured here. Watch on discoveryplus.com.

•     BBC News archive — contemporary coverage of the Rachel McLean investigation and 1991 trial.

•     Support — Refuge • Women's Aid • Suzy Lamplugh Trust • Victim Support

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Visit theprofiler.co.uk

For an exclusive filmed interview with Kerry Daynes on the cases behind the series — including on the McLean investigation — visit theprofiler.co.uk. Sign up to the mailing list for weekly news and updates from Kerry. 

Credits

•     Presented by Kerry Daynes

•     Produced by Shearwater Media

•     Executive producers: Jeff Anderson and Steve Anderson

•     Editing and Music by Rob Warner

•     Edit Assistant: Kay Homan

Content note

This episode contains descriptions of the murder of a young woman by her partner, references to strangula