Why is someone leaving dead animals as a mafia-style warning in a village in Hampshire? From the team behind Buried and Buried: The Last Witness, comes a new investigative documentary series, Dead Rabbit.Husband and wife journalists Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor team up with Chris Packham to investigate why 20 dead animals were left at a village school – uncovering a criminal underworld in the British countryside. Listen to the whole series on BBC Sounds from 18 July, 2026.

Dead Rabbit: 1. Dead Rabbit

Why is someone leaving dozens of dead animals as a mafia-style warning in the British countryside? 
 
Buried is the multi award-winning investigative series digging into some of the most disturbing environmental stories in history. In this thrilling new investigation, Buried: Dead Rabbit, reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor team up with the wildlife presenter Chris Packham to investigate. First, villagers find twenty mangled animals outside a primary school, then fifty by a farm shop, blood smeared over the doors. Are they a Godfather-like threat? A taunt? A strange Satanic sacrifice? Or - just like a classic horror movie - the first flash of a monster, lurking in the shadows? The answer leads the team to uncover a terrifying criminal underworld operating in the heart of the countryside. Masked men in 4x4s, violent rage, and tens of thousands of pounds at stake. Chris Packham tells us his own dead-animal threats escalated into a car bomb outside his house. Farmers and villagers say they feel abandoned, and the problem is darker - and far more widespread - than anyone thought. Dead Rabbit begins like a folk horror movie but turns into a gripping, fast-paced thriller about the takeover of illegal hare coursing in the countryside. This is the third series of Buried, bringing bingeable, fast-paced mysteries exposing urgent environmental true stories you've almost certainly never heard of. Husband-and-wife investigative duo Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor dive into secret worlds of organised crime unfolding in our waste (Series 1) or trails of toxic chemicals that go right to our plates (Series 2, Buried: The Last Witness). Each series is a separate story bringing to light never-before-heard recordings and boxes of explosive legal documents, inviting the audience to unpick crimes or scandals with them.The team's previous exploration into 'forever chemicals' (Buried: The Last Witness) continues on TV in Buried with Michael Sheen. Watch the documentary on iPlayer:
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002zkql/buried-with-michael-sheen