After surviving a frenzied knife attack that nearly killed her and her unborn child, Natalie Queiroz is forced to confront an even more devastating reality: the man who tried to murder her was her fiancé, a partner she had trusted for decades, and the father of her baby.

In this second episode, Natalie takes listeners inside the aftermath of the attack, the physical pain, the psychological trauma, and the slow unravelling of the truth about the man she thought she knew. As she pieces her life back together with a newborn baby and catastrophic injuries, Natalie reveals the hidden coercive control, lies and manipulation that only became clear once his carefully constructed façade collapsed.

Natalie also recounts the criminal justice process in harrowing detail: the court hearings, the defence arguments, the judge’s damning assessment of a cold, premeditated plot, and the shock of what she believes was a lenient sentence. For the first time, she describes coming face to face with her attacker in prison, confronting him eye-to-eye in a tense restorative justice meeting that leaves her with few answers, but a renewed sense of power.

Presented by journalists Helen Fospero and Martin Brunt, True Criminals continues its forensic examination of a case that raises urgent questions about coercive control, honour-based abuse, sentencing, and how victims survive — and live — after unimaginable violence.

This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence, trauma and psychological distress. Listener discretion is advised.

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Follow True Criminals

Follow us on Instagram at ⁠@true.criminals⁠ and subscribe to our YouTube channel at ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@True-Criminals⁠.

Connect with Martin Brunt

Follow Martin on Twitter at ⁠@skymartinbrunt⁠. Discover more about his career and the cases he’s covered by reading his book, No One Got Cracked Over the Head for No Reason: Dispatches from a Crime Reporter, available here: ⁠https://amzn.eu/d/g1WisSY⁠.

Connect with Helen Fospero

Follow Helen on Instagram at ⁠@helenfospero⁠ and check out her podcast, The Convex Conversation, here: ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-convex-conversation/id1510209575⁠.

Credits

True Criminals is produced by Audio Bleach Global.

Visit ⁠www.audiobleachglobal.com/truecriminals⁠ for more information.

Executive Producer: Lee Mann.

Producer: Russell Barnes.

Audio Production: Andrew Chappell.

Music Composition: Chap Mannequin.

Artwork: Bleached

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