The Last Hours of Laura K: The BBC immersive murder mystery gripping the internet

BEFORE Laura Kitchens was murdered last month she was a normal 23-year-old Londoner. Now she’s the subject of crime mystery with a stunning twist.

IN the last 24 hours of London woman Laura Kitchens’ life she went to work as normal, went out dancing, argued, joked, and made plans over friends over text and WhatsApp messages.

She didn’t seem to be in any danger, but just over a month ago, on March 7, 2015, the 23-year-old was murdered and police haven’t yet identified the killer — but you just might be able to.

As with most action of the ‘big brother’ age we’re living in, there are easily accessible records of Laura’s movements, relationships and interactions on social media, and all the CCTV footage and other surveillance captured in her final days is freely available online.

CCTV footage shows Laura’s last 24 hours in London.

It seems creepy, but it’s not unusual. What’s different about this case is that Laura didn’t actually exist.

The Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and dormant MySpace page of the young woman have all been created over the past two years for the BBC’s groundbreaking immersive murder mystery project, The Last Hours of Laura K.

Twenty-four hours of vision has also been staged and can be accessed and reviewed by amateur sleuths wanting to have a go at cracking the case, or just perving on someone’s personal life, in a looping video available online.

The series was inspired by a quote from Edward Snowden, and the reality of a hyper-connected world.

“I don’t want to live in a world where everything that I saw, everything that I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity, love or friendship, is recorded,” the online surveillance whistleblower said.

The extent to which our lives are recorded is examined and exposed in the project, which gives participants access not just to Laura’s social media profiles, but those of her friends and anyone who she interacts with.

Viewers can track Laura’s movements and interactions during her final hours.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Spotify, Tumblr, and even Gumtree advertisements all offer clues about Laura’s life, and there are social media accounts for 40 other characters she comes across in her final day.

Once viewers have scoured through the substantial trail of clues, they are invited to email through who they believe killed Laura, and why.

When creating the pioneering web-based project, BBC writers tasked themselves with coming up with a unique experience that hasn’t been available before — they thought “what can we do online”.

Rachel De-lahay is one of the team of four co-creators.

“We wanted to explore what we could do online,” she told The Independent.

“We looked at how we all operate online. We all like to investigate on social media even if it’s not about crime.

“We look at who is dating whom, who has unfriended each other, and why people have been untagged from photographs.”

CCTV, text messages, social media interactions have all been captured.

She says the attention that has been paid to creating the social media accounts and message and phone call transcripts, together with the looping footage, has created “a detailed portrayal of a real Londoner’s life”.

The project has already found fans in online sleuths on Reddit and other online groups dedicating to scrutinising real crime, and is likely to be popular with fans of US true-crime podcast Serial.

The immersive series has been touted as creating a template for a new way to experience entertainment.

“For me, it’s just the standard now, I always have one eye on the TV and one eye on my phone,” De-lahay says.

“Yet we wondered what if we could take that short attention span and drive the story.

“It’s all about getting lost in the internet, something we all do. It’s about replicating that experience.”

Creators and fans are promising you will got lost and most likely lose track of time once you get into the mystery, so if you’re game, visit The Last Hours of Laura K here.

Search the clues, solve the crime, send an email.