Pod Insights True Crime All The Time The White House Farm Murders About this episode On August 7th, 1985, an entire family was murdered at their farmhouse in Essex, England. Authorities initially believed it was a murder-suicide, but suspicion soon turned to Jeremy Bamber, the surviving family member who called police to the house that night.
Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the White House Farm Murders. Initially, police suspected that the daughter, Sheila, killed her parents and her two boys before turning the gun on herself. But as the investigation heated up they discovered some clues that began pointing in another direction.
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1:48 Speaker 00 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 420 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?
1:58 Speaker 01 Hey, I'm good. How about you?
2:00 Speaker 00 I'm doing great. I'm super excited.
2:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:04 Speaker 00 You know, I know we're about ready to start True Crime All the Time, but I want to jump right into talking about True Crime All the Time on Salt. Because we're hitting episode 400 and you and I went back and forth. What do we do for 400? And we settled on the Zodiac.
2:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, we did.
2:23 Speaker 00 So, you know, it's a case I've always been very interested in. I know a lot of people are and I'm, I'm excited to do it.
2:32 Speaker 01 Me too.
2:32 Speaker 00 So that should be out at the same time this one is.
2:36 Speaker 01 I wasn't sure where you were going at first. I thought maybe you were going to talk about how that hair cream that you've been using, that you bought offline is finally starting to sprout a couple of little.
2:46 Speaker 00 The chia seeds cream that is not working. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Patterson Jane.
2:53 Speaker 01 What's going on Patterson?
2:54 Speaker 00 Allison.
2:54 Speaker 01 Hey Allison.
2:55 Speaker 00 Travis Cunningham.
2:56 Speaker 01 Well, thanks Travis.
2:57 Speaker 00 Donna.
2:58 Speaker 01 Good old Donna.
2:59 Speaker 00 Jackie Stewart.
3:00 Speaker 01 Hey Jackie.
3:00 Speaker 00 Tranelle Evans.
3:01 Speaker 01 I like that Tranelle.
3:02 Speaker 00 Marky Mark D.
3:04 Speaker 01 What up Marky Mark?
3:05 Speaker 00 Mrs. G.
3:06 Speaker 01 Hey, Mrs. G from Mr. G.
3:08 Speaker 00 Colleen Mills.
3:10 Speaker 01 Hey, Colleen.
3:10 Speaker 00 Karen Smith.
3:11 Speaker 01 Hey, I used to have a crush on a Karen Smith in high school.
3:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, okay. Well, now she knows. And last but not least, Andrea Gent.
3:19 Speaker 01 Hey Andrea.
3:21 Speaker 00 So we appreciate the new support. And then if we go back into the vault. This week, we selected Erica Lilly.
3:29 Speaker 01 Hey, thanks Erica.
3:30 Speaker 00 Yeah, appreciate the new support, the continued support. So I just got done talking about, you know, how excited I am for Zodiac on Unsolved, but I'm also very excited about this case.
3:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
3:41 Speaker 00 On TCAT, so are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All The Time?
3:46 Speaker 01 I am ready.
3:47 Speaker 00 It was on August 7th, 1985, that an entire family was murdered at their farmhouse in Essex, England. Authorities initially believed it was a murder-suicide, but suspicion soon turned to Jeremy Bamber, the surviving family member who called police to the house that night. So I mentioned it, I was excited about doing this episode. We're heading, you know, across the pond. But you know, you often do hear that suspicion initially at least, turns to the last surviving member of a family or to the person who actually calls the murder in.
4:31 Speaker 01 And it kind of makes sense, right? I mean, you're the last one to, because you're the last one of the family still alive. Is there a benefit to you because of that?
4:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, or you can ask, why didn't, why weren't you killed? Or, you know, there's all kinds of questions. The Bamber family were the local gentry of Tolls Hunt, Darcy, a rural community in Essex. Family patriarch Neville Bamber was a former fighter pilot and a local magistrate. His wife June arranged flowers for her church and was known for bringing food to those in need. Neville and June adopted two children, but this wasn't public knowledge until after the murders.
5:14 Speaker 01 I'm already feeling like these are really good people.
5:17 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, so far from what we know of them. But then you also have, you know, this notion that they adopt two children, but it's not public knowledge. Okay, maybe we're going to have to dive into that.
5:32 Speaker 01 Sure.
5:33 Speaker 00 A little bit. Their daughter Sheila was born in 1957. Sheila's biological mother was the teen daughter of a chaplain who participated in the Queen's coronation, per The New Yorker.
5:46 Speaker 01 Pretty fancy.
5:47 Speaker 00 Yeah, fancy, but could it also be a little scandalous? Possibly, you know, I don't know all the particulars of it. Their son Jeremy was born in January, 1961. He was adopted at six months old. His biological father was a Buckingham Palace official who was having an affair.
6:09 Speaker 01 Now, it does sound kind of scandalous.
6:11 Speaker 00 Well, you know, maybe both of these children were born under, you know, what you would have to describe as situations that were maybe less than ideal for their, for the parents or the people involved. The family lived at White House, a Georgian manor on a farm property. The house had a dark history. According to The New Yorker, the person who lived there before the Bambers drowned himself in a water tank. That man's father also died of suicide.
6:46 Speaker 01 Okay, I'm not getting a great vibe there.
6:48 Speaker 00 No, I'm not either. I don't know if you, you know, have to disclose that, you know? Is that in the listing? Does the agent tell you that? And does it affect your decision if you know that?
7:00 Speaker 01 You know, some people actually like that. They like to know that some weird things happened in this house and maybe it could be haunted and.
7:09 Speaker 00 Okay, I find that very strange. Now, what I wouldn't find strange is if someone was willing to overlook certain things because maybe they're getting a better deal.
7:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:21 Speaker 00 They wouldn't be able to afford this property. Otherwise, I could see that happening. The Bamber family dealt with conflict and mental health issues. June struggled with mental illness that was worsened by her grief over her inability to have a child. She was hospitalized for depression, psychosis, and paranoia, and underwent electroshock therapy. And I get that from many women. To find out that you're unable to have a child, that could be just an absolutely tough thing to deal with.
7:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, if that's always been one of your dreams, one day, you know, to be a mom, it would be tough.
8:02 Speaker 00 As reported by The New Yorker, June's psychiatrist told the police her mental illness caused a distortion of her already strong religious beliefs. June saw everything in terms of good and evil, and her beliefs were harmful to Sheila. Sheila always felt June was cold towards her. June called her the devil's child and believed that her normal acts of teenage rebellion were caused by satanic impulse.
8:33 Speaker 01 Well, that would be tough raising up in that house, then. If that's how your mom felt, you know there had to be some drama.
8:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, I don't think anyone would like to be called the devil's child on a repeated basis.
8:47 Speaker 01 No, they would not.
8:48 Speaker 00 At age 17, Sheila moved to London to start her modeling career. She became a successful model and worked under the name Bambi. She fell in love with an artist named Colin Caffel. They moved in together, but had a pretty turbulent relationship. He later wrote, "Violence was just below the surface." There were even times we could have killed each other.
9:16 Speaker 01 Wow, that's a strong honesty.
9:19 Speaker 00 Yeah, that's, that's pretty honest, about as honest as you can be. Now, if somebody actually had died during the relationship, maybe you don't disclose that fact.
9:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, you leave that out.
9:31 Speaker 00 You leave that out, but June insisted they get married after Sheila became pregnant. But sadly, the baby was stillborn. Sheila then suffered a miscarriage. She believed this was a punishment from God and that she had an evil aura. Okay, I wonder where some of that came from.
9:53 Speaker 01 When you're told you're the devil's child, eventually you might even believe it.
9:57 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, I, it's going to shape you. There's no doubt about that. But Sheila did eventually have twin boys. Daniel and Nicholas Caffo were born on June 22nd, 1979. Colin left Sheila after the twins were born and her mental health declined. She suffered from hallucinations and paranoia. Sheila called social services and said she feared she might harm her children. Okay, so it's real nice of this guy to just up and leave after the twins are born.
10:33 Speaker 01 Right.
10:33 Speaker 00 Now, we don't know everything that was going on, but it's still kind of rough.
10:38 Speaker 01 I mean, it's tough to raise one child by yourself, but two?
10:42 Speaker 00 Twins?
10:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, would be so difficult.
10:45 Speaker 00 I had enough time changing, you know, one diaper, getting, feeding one child.
10:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:52 Speaker 00 To try to do two at the same time, that would be tough. When the twins turned four, the family arranged for Sheila to get treatment at St. Andrew's Hospital, an exclusive facility where June had been treated before. And the first thing that came to my mind was, okay, you know, obviously, this is not hereditary because Sheila is not June's biological daughter.
11:20 Speaker 01 True.
11:21 Speaker 00 So you, you have to take that out of the equation. But could there be some of the nurture part involved?
11:32 Speaker 00 Again, you're being told you're the devil's child. There's all this stuff going on as you're growing up. How does that play in?
11:42 Speaker 01 You hear something enough, you start believing it.
11:45 Speaker 00 June's Dr. Hugh Ferguson, no relation, saw signs of paranoid schizophrenia in Sheila. Dr. Ferguson later told the police Sheila had bizarre delusions. She thought her sons would seduce her and saw evil in both of them. She worried Nicholas was a woman hater and a potential murderer. Her biggest fear was that she was capable of killing her sons. The psychiatrist considered this unlikely. He prescribed Sheila an antipsychotic and discharged her from the hospital.
12:24 Speaker 01 Well, that's some bizarre behavior.
12:26 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think we have to break some of this down. She thought her sons would seduce her. Okay, I don't know exactly what that means, but in my mind, it's not good.
12:37 Speaker 01 No, it's not a healthy thought.
12:39 Speaker 00 She's thinking that they're evil and then she's saying that she might be capable of killing them. But then you have the psychiatrist who says, ah, that's pretty unlikely. Here's an antipsychotic and you know, you just go on home. But Sheila skipped her medication and instead of taking that, she used marijuana and cocaine. She said she heard voices and was being chased by the devil. So can we just say that medication is prescribed normally for a reason?
13:12 Speaker 01 And you should take it.
13:13 Speaker 00 And you should take it. If you decide not to take it, probably what you shouldn't do is then self-medicate and replace it with marijuana and cocaine.
13:25 Speaker 01 Especially that cocaine. I don't think that's the right drug for her condition.
13:29 Speaker 00 Boy, that seems to be coming from a real place of knowledge there. In March 1985, Sheila was home with her twins in London and began beating the walls.
13:40 Speaker 00 And accusing anyone who approached of trying to kill her. Sheila's friend was afraid for everyone's safety. And I don't know how you could not be afraid when this type of stuff is going on. You know, couple that with what she had told some mental health professionals. She's obviously not in a good place. She's got a lot of paranoia. And it does seem as though she could be very dangerous. Neville Bamber arranged for Sheila to be readmitted to St. Andrews. Dr. Ferguson noted that Sheila had relapsed into an acute psychotic state.
14:19 Speaker 00 She believed the people around her were conspiring in an attempt by the devil to take away her godliness. Sheila was discharged a few weeks later with a prescription for an intravenous antipsychotic so that she could not skip a dose. How sad would that be to feel that way, though? That people are out there trying to get you. Oh, I cannot imagine how scary that would be to have those type of thoughts. Right? People are out to get me. I think my sons are evil. I'm thinking about killing them.
14:59 Speaker 00 These are just thoughts that, you know, let's face it, most people don't have. But if you're a person who is having them, that's gotta be pretty scary. Yeah. Sheila's modeling career had come to an end. By this point, she got a job as a cleaner, but her supervisors complained that she showed up to work disheveled and just stared off into space. And she seemed to do worse when visiting her family at White House. During one visit, she offered her 13-year-old cousin drugs. And discuss suicide with the girl.
15:36 Speaker 01 Not appropriate?
15:37 Speaker 00 No, neither one. Sheila told her father's secretary, all people are bad and some deserve to be killed. I mean, the only thing running through my mind is if you're hearing these things, you, you have to be worried about her.
15:53 Speaker 01 You do.
15:54 Speaker 00 First and foremost, but let's face it, you have to be worried about yourself and those around you who are by extension around her. A month before the murders, Sheila persuaded her doctor to inject her with half a dose of her anti-psychotic medication. So, you know, we talked a little bit about Sheila. Jeremy Bamber also experienced trouble growing up. He attended one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the country, but it was said that he was a poor student. The New Yorker reported that he brewed beer at school and snuck out to go see punk bands.
16:34 Speaker 01 See, you have something with, common with him doing that beer at school.
16:38 Speaker 00 I did drink a lot of beer at college. I did not brew my own beer because a whole case of like Milwaukee Light, I think was like five bucks at the time I was in college.
16:51 Speaker 01 So cheap.
16:51 Speaker 00 But still, it was tough for me to come up with $5.
16:55 Speaker 01 Which got you started on making the fake IDs. We, I see where you're going with this.
17:00 Speaker 00 Mm hmm. And also giving plasma. Me and my buddies would routinely give plasma to get beer money.
17:06 Speaker 01 And didn't you bring down like the cable TV market with your scam of some type of code?
17:15 Speaker 00 Oh, that was much later. Oh, that was after college. I don't know what the statute of limitations is on this stuff. So let's be careful. Jeremy struggled to make friends after other students learned he was adopted and he eventually left school. And I didn't understand that at all. Okay. You're adopted. How does that change others' views of you? Now, this is, you know, a prestigious place.
17:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:47 Speaker 00 And maybe that has something to do with it. You're not like me. You don't come from this great family. We don't even know where you come from.
17:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, we come from this great bloodline and you're a bastard.
17:59 Speaker 00 Maybe, maybe there was something to it that. Was along those lines. At home, he grew cannabis on the farm and had an affair with a married mother. He worked on the farm with his father, but there were times he left to try out different careers such as scuba diving. Now, I always thought scuba diving was more recreational. I get it. Some people make money from doing it. Not sure exactly what all the different types of careers are that involve scuba diving.
18:33 Speaker 01 I know Steve was very successful at it.
18:35 Speaker 00 Steve, Scuba Steve?
18:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:37 Speaker 00 Oh, yeah. He was one of the most successful scuba divers. But here again, I think you have a lot in common with Jeremy at this point in time. You still grow a lot of cannabis on the farm. I think you also had multiple affairs with married mothers.
18:59 Speaker 01 Or not.
19:00 Speaker 00 I can't provide any facts to support that, but it's my hypothesis.
19:06 Speaker 01 And I scuba dive.
19:07 Speaker 00 And you scuba dive. By 1985, Jeremy was living in a cottage in Goldhanger that was owned by his father. Neville wanted Jeremy to take over the farm. And that seems completely reasonable. You know, we've talked a lot about farming. It's not always the easiest work. And at certain point, as a person grows older, that work becomes tougher and tougher. You know, are you looking to, you know, one of your sons or daughters to kind of take over the reins? Yeah, at some point, I would think most people are.
19:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
19:46 Speaker 00 Now, in my farming simulator 25 on Xbox, it's not that hard. I don't need anybody to take over the reins. But real life farming is very difficult.
19:59 Speaker 01 I think you would have some struggles if you had to do it for real.
20:01 Speaker 00 Oh, I would just wouldn't do it.
20:05 Speaker 01 Think you try it for a little bit and be like, yeah, no.
20:08 Speaker 00 Oh, I bailed. Hey, I've done some stuff that already makes me know that it's not something I would want to get into, especially in my 50s.
20:17 Speaker 01 Exactly, exactly.
20:19 Speaker 00 Neville's brother-in-law, Robert Boutflower, disliked Jeremy because he scorned the Young Farmers Club, to which most farmer's sons belong. Robert considered Jeremy a degenerate with a constant craving for money.
20:35 Speaker 01 Well, he's being honest, right? You're making fun of our farmers group and you always need money.
20:41 Speaker 00 Yeah, but you know, what young person doesn't? But apparently he even suggested Neville kicked Jeremy out of the house. The two families had interconnected businesses. One of their shared assets was a vacation park on the River Blackwater. There was a break-in at the park office in the spring of 1985. Almost 1,000 pounds were stolen and Jeremy was the prime suspect. The other side of the family thought Jeremy had a dark side. For example, his ex-brother-in-law, Colin Caffill, told the BBC, "He was incredibly charismatic and I'm sure he is just as charming today as he was then."
21:22 Speaker 00 Psychopaths, and while I'm not an expert, I think he is one, are naturally charismatic.
21:28 Speaker 01 I think there's some truth there.
21:30 Speaker 00 Well, there's definitely truth in the charisma of many psychopaths. Now, whether Jeremy was or wasn't a psychopath, I don't know. When was the last time you woke up actually feeling rested? Or got through a day without feeling totally stressed out? Yeah, over 50% of adults say they'd feel better if they got more sleep and stress is often the biggest barrier. That's why CBD from CB Distillery makes so much sense. CB Distillery has natural solutions for sleep and stress that can help break that vicious stress sleep cycle. And everything from CB Distillery is premium quality, third-party tested and free from artificial dyes or fillers.
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24:08 Speaker 00 Around 4:00 AM on August 7th, 1985, Jeremy Bamber called the police station to report receiving a panicked call from his father. Neville called Jeremy and said, "Your sister's gone crazy and she's got a gun." Jeremy thought he heard a gunshot before the line went dead. All right, that's a pretty scary situation. You get a call from your dad, who says, "Your sister's gone crazy and she's got a gun," and you hear a gunshot, and then all of a sudden, the line goes dead. Yeah. Now, you're wondering what happened. Jeremy also noted that Sheila's six-year-old boys were also in the house. So Jeremy followed
24:51 Speaker 00 three police officers to White House. Two officers approached the house, but they retreated and called for backup when they saw a shadow at the window. Jeremy then confessed that the night before, he came home from work and got out his father's 22 rifle to shoot rabbits. He left the gun in the kitchen with the magazine loaded. He said, "Oh, God, I hope she hasn't done anything silly." So, there's two things here. First of all, silly seems like a very strange word to use. Yeah. Because silly is me putting a whoopee cushion on your chair
25:31 Speaker 00 before you sit down. Right. That's silly. Yeah. Anything involving a 22, shooting people, your kids, that silly is off the table. But the other thing is, I get it, you know, people hunt, he wants to go hunting, but you also have a sister who's there with a documented history of mental illness. I mean, does it not go through your mind that, you know, I just can't leave this gun lying around? Right. You have a responsibility here. She has also said that she believes she's capable of killing her kids. Backup didn't arrive until almost 5 a.m. Officers then remained in the staging area for two and a half hours,
26:16 Speaker 00 despite the fact that Jeremy urged the officers to help his family. And this is something that you see quite often. You know, officers arrive. They don't know what's going on. They don't always just kind of rush into a house or rush into a situation. They're trying to figure out what's going on. They have to keep their own safety in mind. But then you have the family who understandably is like, just go in there and save everyone.
26:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, get in there. Come on, what are you waiting on?
26:47 Speaker 00 Officers called out for Sheila to surrender, but the house was silent except for a barking dog. The raid team finally entered the house around 7:30 a.m. Neville Bamber was slumped over an upturned chair by the kitchen hearth. His pajama pants were around his knees and his face was resting inside a coal scuttle. He'd been shot in the head, shoulder and arm. There were shards of crockery and a light fixture around his body. One officer thought he saw a woman on the kitchen floor before entering the house, but she was no longer there. So the raid team moved through the house looking for her.
27:30 Speaker 00 They thought they heard movement upstairs. So they used an extending mirror to survey the upstairs landing. From there, they could see the primary bedroom. A woman was lying in the doorway. She was identified as June Bamber. She had been shot in the head, neck, chest and limb.
27:50 Speaker 01 Wow, brutal.
27:52 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, so far, this is an absolutely brutal crime scene. And we don't even know the full extent of it yet. What we do know is that mom and dad are dead. Across the room, Sheila was lying on her back with her father's rifle on top of her body. Her fingers were by the trigger and the barrel was pointed towards her chin where there was a fatal gunshot.
28:23 Speaker 00 Beside her was a Bible, open to Psalms 51 through 55. The words, "Save me from blood guiltiness," were underlined and read. So again, you know, as we're talking about the scene, and we have more to come. I can only imagine what the authorities are feeling as they're encountering the scene. Right? Neville's dead, June's dead. It looks as though, most likely shot by Sheila, because they then find her with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She's dead. They found the family dog cowering under the bed.
29:07 Speaker 00 And then Daniel and Nicholas's bodies were found in their beds. Daniel was on his side with his thumb in his mouth. Nicholas was on his back with the covers pulled up to his chin. Daniel had been shot five times in the back of the head. Nicholas was shot three times in the face. How do you do that? I don't know how you do any of it, but I think it's even tougher to understand when you're talking about young children, your young children, and they're so young that they're basically defenseless. Right. And the description of them is heartbreaking.
29:50 Speaker 00 I mean, Daniel's kind of on his side curled up with his thumb in his mouth. You're going to shoot one of your sons in the back of the head five times? You're going to shoot the other one three times in the face? And, you know, again, at this point in the episode, we're assuming that it was Sheila, because she seemed to have control of the gun. Right. Jeremy cried when he was told his family was dead. He said, as quoted by the New York. Sheila ought to be in the nut house for what she's done. And I definitely understand Jeremy's position, but Gibbs, doesn't he have to have some guilt?
30:33 Speaker 00 As we mentioned, you know, leaving this gun out? He didn't pull the trigger that we know of up to this point in the story, but even so, I would feel like there he would have to, you know, live with some guilt. No doubt about it. Detective Chief Inspector Taft Jones led the investigation. He determined the house was locked from the inside. The police surgeon and coroner's office confirmed it was a murder suicide. On August 8th, detectives met at White House to discuss their findings. Everyone agreed the evidence suggested Sheila had a mental breakdown and killed her family.
31:16 Speaker 00 And I understand how they kind of came to that conclusion. That's what it looks like.
31:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:22 Speaker 00 Officers were told to clean the scene. So they threw out bloody mattresses, bedding and carpets. And the bodies were released for cremation.
31:33 Speaker 01 All that evidence.
31:35 Speaker 00 Gone.
31:35 Speaker 01 Gone.
31:36 Speaker 00 But in their minds, the case is closed.
31:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. So why would you keep it in their minds?
31:44 Speaker 00 Jeremy spoke to the police at his home that morning. His cousin, Ann Eaton, the daughter of Robert Boutflower, came to see him after hearing the news and witnessed his interview. She became suspicious when she heard Jeremy describe how he left the murder weapon in the kitchen. So she started taking notes on everything he said. Jeremy's girlfriend, Julie Mugford, also showed up during his interviews. She reported that Jeremy called her on the night of the murders and said, there's something wrong at home. Okay. Maybe the, some of the suspicion starts shifting to Jeremy.
32:24 Speaker 01 Think you kind of have to look at him.
32:26 Speaker 00 Well, his cousin is suspicious. His girlfriend is saying that he told her there's something wrong at home. How could he have known that?
32:37 Speaker 01 Well, he gets that call from his dad, what, at 4:00 AM? But he's telling his girlfriend the night before there's a problem at home?
32:45 Speaker 00 It seems very suspicious, right? There's no other way to look at it. Back at Ann's house, the family theorized that Jeremy killed his family and was trying to pin everything on Sheila. Robert Boutflower didn't think Sheila could fire a rifle accurately. Ann agreed because, as she put it, Sheila was a clumsy person. She wouldn't have been able to overpower her father. Neville was 61, but it was said that he was still pretty strong and fit.
33:18 Speaker 01 But he's a farm guy.
33:19 Speaker 00 And we've talked about farm strength before, right? There's lifting weights, there's bodybuilders, and then there's just guys who are farm strong. And I'm telling you right now, I grew up in a farming community. You do not want to mess with dudes who are farm strong.
33:35 Speaker 01 That's right.
33:36 Speaker 00 Because they will throw you across the room like a rag doll. They also have seemingly the grip of like an 800 pound gorilla.
33:45 Speaker 01 I was gonna say that.
33:46 Speaker 00 Their hands are just like vices. But what all of these people started to believe was that Jeremy was after his 436,000 pound inheritance.
34:01 Speaker 01 Half million.
34:02 Speaker 00 That's quite a bit of money.
34:04 Speaker 01 It is.
34:05 Speaker 00 Their suspicions were seemingly confirmed when Jeremy went to an accountant and told the family he was going to sell off assets because of inheritance taxes. Additionally, the family thought it was strange that the silencer wasn't on the rifle. They concluded Jeremy removed it after committing the murder. Jeremy's cousins went to the police and asked to speak to lead detective Taft Jones. They insisted Sheila couldn't have done it, but Jones considered the case closed. According to Ann, he shouted at them, "I can't put up with all this nonsense."
34:44 Speaker 01 Oh, wow. There's a bunch of nonsense going on here.
34:48 Speaker 00 And I talked about it on Patreon, but I've been watching a lot of Lieutenant Joe Kenda, basically everything that he's ever done. I do not think he would be happy with this line of police work and investigation.
35:00 Speaker 01 No, not at all.
35:01 Speaker 00 Ann and her family returned to Jeremy's cottage and found him crying. He said he couldn't bear to go back to the house. So Ann volunteered to be his keyhole. On August 10th, Ann, her brother David, and Robert Boutflower entered White House to look around. She studied the window by the kitchen sink, wondering if Jeremy could have escaped and locked it from the outside. The family searched the house for evidence and valuables and found the missing silencer in a cupboard under the stairs. And it was said that the silencer had blood on it.
35:38 Speaker 01 It's a pretty good find.
35:40 Speaker 00 And this comes up in a number of cases, Gibbs, where you have multiple people killed in the same house, right? Firing a gun is a loud event. So loud that most of the time you think people are going to wake up. I get it, this is a 22, it's not as loud as other types of guns, but if you think about having a silencer on it, well, that changes the dynamics. You could shoot someone in one room and a person in another room, most likely wouldn't hear it.
36:19 Speaker 01 No.
36:20 Speaker 00 And people don't like the word silencer. They prefer suppressor. It's not silent, but with something like a 22, I think most of the time you do not hear the gunshot. What you hear is like the bolt mechanism going back and forth.
36:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:40 Speaker 00 So it is. Much more quiet than shooting it without it. Detective Sergeant Stan Jones believed the family when they told him Jeremy should be considered a suspect. He examined the silencer and noted the blood on its end as well as the spot of red pigment, believed to be paint from the kitchen hearth, which was most likely scraped off during a struggle. So they sent this silencer off for testing. But this is a huge swing in the case.
37:13 Speaker 01 It is huge.
37:14 Speaker 00 And we've gone from everybody believing that Sheila killed her parents, killed her two boys, and then ended her own life, to now people thinking, maybe Jeremy had something to do with all of this. Four days before the funeral, Ann brought Jeremy to the house to get his reaction. She found it odd that he asked no questions about how his family died. He did notice that valuable items were missing and told Ann not to take anything else. Later that week, Jeremy brought an appraiser to the house to assess the remaining valuables.
37:58 Speaker 00 And again, I don't think that makes you look good either.
38:00 Speaker 01 No, no, it looks like you're money hungry.
38:02 Speaker 00 Well, and first of all, you don't ask any questions about what happened. Why is that? Because you already know?
38:09 Speaker 01 Well, that's what people are going, that's what you would think, right?
38:11 Speaker 00 Yeah, but you already know, you don't need the answers. And then it's like, okay, all he cares about is the valuables left in the home and making sure that nobody takes anything, not the fact that his entire family has been murdered. Then after the funeral, Jeremy and his girlfriend went on a vacation. They returned for the twins burial in London and then set off for Amsterdam. While Jeremy was gone, Ann and her father went to the house and determined it was possible to climb out the kitchen window and pull it closed from the outside.
38:51 Speaker 01 So you have that.
38:52 Speaker 00 Yeah, and obviously they're very suspicious of him at this point. Ann learned that June purchased a bike shortly before the murder. She suspected Jeremy used it as a getaway vehicle. Sure enough, she found it propped up against his cottage wall. Robert Balfour appealed to the chief constable of the Essex Police and a high ranking officer was assigned to review the evidence. However, the results confirmed Sheila was responsible. So that was the initial thought, right? By what they saw at the scene. They reexamined everything and pretty much came up with the same conclusion.
39:36 Speaker 01 Yep, it was her. We got the right person.
39:39 Speaker 00 Exactly one month after the murders, Julie Mugford came forward with a shocking admission. Julie met Jeremy when he was bartending at a local pizza parlor. They had what was described as a tempestuous relationship.
39:56 Speaker 01 Ooh, tempestuous.
39:57 Speaker 00 Close. And she also knew that Jeremy hated his family. Tempestuous. Okay.
40:05 Speaker 01 Don't hear that often.
40:06 Speaker 00 No, but I, I think, you know, there are people who can describe their relationships that way. Not always great. Doesn't have to be super bad. Not nearly as bad as incestuous would be.
40:20 Speaker 01 That would be bad.
40:21 Speaker 00 Jeremy had been planning to commit the murders for over a year. According to Julie, he said he would like to commit the perfect murder. She also said that all Jeremy wanted was money. So again, it kind of is starting to line up, right? This is a guy who's money hungry. He's trying to figure out a way to get his hands on his inheritance, sell the family home, sell all the valuables, and he's just going to rake in the money.
40:55 Speaker 01 Well, we know he wants that inheritance.
40:57 Speaker 00 According to Julie, Jeremy planned to stage the scene to frame Sheila, then escape out the kitchen window and ride away on a bike. And this is so interesting because it's pretty much exactly what Ann has kind of theorized.
41:17 Speaker 00 Julie said that after Jeremy told her his plan, she got very upset and cried and insisted that he did not mention it again. She claimed he called before the murders and said, "The crime will have to be denied or never." She told him not to be stupid. So, I mean, if Julie is telling the truth, she doesn't want any part of this. She doesn't want him to do anything. She's not happy. My other thought was that Jeremy was very trusting with Julie. Yes. Because he's essentially laying out his dastardly,
41:59 Speaker 00 evil, murderous plan and assuming that it's not going to come back to bite him in the ass. That she's never going to tell anyone. He's assuming loyalty. Which is tough to do. Jeremy called again after 3 a.m. and said something was wrong at the farm. Julie had been smoking marijuana and said she was feeling dozy. So she didn't quite understand what he meant. Until she went back to bed, she realized Jeremy had killed his family. And apparently, he revealed more details to her in the following days. Jeremy said he had tried to toughen himself by strangling rats with his bare hands. But he couldn't do it.
42:44 Speaker 00 So he hired a local plumber as a hitman. Jeremy paid him 2,000 pounds and told him to call from the house once the crime was complete. Now, I get it, this is the 1980s, but 2,000 pounds? To kill three adults and two children? It seemed like it's enough. Well, what amount is, but just to do that for such little money? Jeremy was arrested the following morning at Sheila's old apartment in London. He insisted that Julie was lying because he broke up with her saying, "If she could put me behind bars, then nobody else could have me." Ooh, so you're that much of a catch?
43:29 Speaker 00 Yeah, Casanova. That she doesn't want anybody else to have you. Jeremy insisted he loved his parents. He acknowledged he had a rough and smooth relationship with his mother. They had conflict over religion, but recently found much more common ground. He was asked if he disliked Sheila and said, I loved my sister, but couldn't understand in the last few years, her mental illness. DCI Taft Jones still had doubts about Jeremy's guilt. DS Stan Jones was brought in to continue the questioning. Jeremy still denied any involvement, but he did make some incriminating statements.
44:11 Speaker 00 He said he had known how to jimmy the windows since childhood and admitted to carrying out the theft at the vacation park earlier that year. But Julie Mugford was also an imperfect witness because she admitted to helping Jeremy carry out the burglary and to committing check fraud.
44:32 Speaker 01 So she's got some guilt there.
44:35 Speaker 00 Well, I think she's going to be a much more easier witness to impeach. If you're the defense, because you're going to be able to point all this out and then, you know, maybe plant that seed that she has a reason to lie. But additionally, the plumber she accused of being a hitman had a verified alibi. Okay. So maybe this plumber did not kill three adults and two children for 2,000 pounds.
45:07 Speaker 01 Since maybe he was never there.
45:09 Speaker 00 Jeremy was held for five days, but there wasn't enough evidence linking him to the murders. He was charged with burglary and released on bail. And I'm sure that was tough for police, you know, if some of them truly believed he was responsible, you know, to not have the evidence to link him and then have to let him go. All right, that's gonna be tough. Four days later, the sun reported that Jeremy was trying to profit by selling nude images of his sister. And apparently, he left the country the next day.
45:47 Speaker 01 What is wrong with people?
45:48 Speaker 00 So if you're not a killer, you're still a POS. You are trying to sell nude images of your sister to a publication.
46:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:01 Speaker 00 First of all, I have to ask the question. How did you get nude images of your sister?
46:07 Speaker 01 Well, that's true, right?
46:08 Speaker 00 This is the 1980s.
46:10 Speaker 01 Not an easy feat.
46:11 Speaker 00 There's no iPhones, there's no digital cameras. You're not hacking her digital footprint. And, you know, this is something that she sent to another man.
46:23 Speaker 01 That's true.
46:24 Speaker 00 Most likely, this is something you took.
46:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:27 Speaker 00 So now I have additional questions about, you know, the relationships within the family. Also, not surprising that he left the country.
46:39 Speaker 00 At this point, there was a new lead detective who requested Robert Boutflower's notes in the case. Officers who responded to the scene on August 7th suggested Jeremy's behavior was strange. Instead of calling the emergency line, he called the local police station directly. When officers passed his car on the way to the house, they noticed he was driving slowly and his displays of emotion seemed fake.
47:10 Speaker 01 You know, you can tell that when it's fake, can't you? I can.
47:14 Speaker 00 I think more often than not, people can tell. Now, sometimes we get it wrong. But, you know, I talked about Patreon on, you know, watching this documentary, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace. There was a guy on there who was her adopted father. And he displayed all kinds of emotions. And it was really hard to tell what was real, what wasn't. You know, most of the time, there wasn't tears, although he acted like he was crying profusely. And I don't know how you do that. How do you cry so much, but not shed an actual tear?
47:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, that'd be hard to do.
47:57 Speaker 00 Well, it makes it seem fake. I'm not saying it was, but I'm saying that's what it looked like. Forensic testing also seemed to implicate Jeremy. Swabs from Sheila's hands showed a small amount of lead for someone who was accused of repeatedly loading and firing a rifle. Because, let's think about this. She killed four people, but she fired many shots. And then she ultimately shot herself. I think, you know, just when it came to her kids. We said she fired, I think, seven or eight shots, killing them.
48:39 Speaker 00 So when you think about gunpowder, and obviously they're looking for lead.
48:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:45 Speaker 00 My assumption is they expected to find a lot more. What it makes it seem is that maybe somebody put the gun in her hand at the very end of all of this. And so she would have a little bit of gunpowder residue or lead on her hands, just from touching the gun. But not enough to show that she fired that many shots. The paint sample from the hearth matched the red pigment on the silencer. DNA testing was in its infancy at the time, but scientists retrieved a flake of dried blood from the silencer and found that the blood type matched Sheila's.
49:27 Speaker 01 Amazing.
49:28 Speaker 00 Well, and to me, this is absolutely huge. You cannot shoot yourself with a gun that has a silencer on it, with one shot that kills you, and then take the silencer off and put it somewhere else. It's not possible.
49:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:47 Speaker 00 She did not survive that one shot. So there's no way for her to get up, take the silencer off, go hide it in a cupboard, and then come back and lay down and position herself as though she had just shot herself.
50:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, it doesn't make sense, does it?
50:04 Speaker 00 No, not at all. Investigators determined that Sheila wouldn't have been able to reach the trigger, to shoot herself with the silencer attached to the gun. And obviously, it would have been impossible for her to hide it, just like, you know, we just talked about, if she shot herself. And that's one thing that, you know, investigators always do. When someone shoots themselves with a rifle or a longer gun, you've got to measure that. Can they physically reach down to actually pull the trigger? Now, when you add a silencer to the gun, it obviously makes it even longer. So it's going to make the distance to reach the trigger longer.
50:49 Speaker 01 That's true. I wonder how hard it is to get a silencer today?
50:54 Speaker 00 It's not that hard.
50:54 Speaker 01 No.
50:55 Speaker 00 No. It's pretty much a very similar background check to buying a gun. There's an additional fee stamp, they call it, and it takes a while.
51:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:07 Speaker 00 So you can't, you can't get it same day. It takes months and months and months for it to come in to the dealer.
51:14 Speaker 01 Can you just hire Vinnie, the silencer, to do the silencing for you?
51:18 Speaker 00 Yes, you could.
51:19 Speaker 01 Okay.
51:20 Speaker 00 But that was not your initial question.
51:22 Speaker 01 It was not.
51:23 Speaker 00 The police sent a report to prosecutors describing Jeremy as a calculated killer who murdered his family for their vast wealth. Jeremy returned from France on September 29th, 1985. He was arrested and charged with five murders. So I have to ask the obvious question. If you believe that the police are on to you, why do you return home? Why not try to make it to a country with, you know, no extradition or something along those lines?
51:56 Speaker 01 Maybe he got bad advice. Maybe he didn't get any advice.
52:01 Speaker 00 Or maybe he just thought he could beat it.
52:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, or I can beat this.
52:05 Speaker 00 Jeremy told his defense attorney, Jeffrey Rivlin, that the blood on the silencer was planted by his relatives. But Rivlin dismissed this argument as far fetched. It's never good when your defense attorney dismisses your, your own argument.
52:22 Speaker 01 That's true.
52:23 Speaker 00 Jeremy was calm as he prepared for trial, writing to a friend, why should they convict an innocent man of such a terrible charge? Well, and they should convict an innocent man of such a terrible charge. I just think, you know, he's trying hard to convince those around him that he's an innocent man, when it seems as though all of the science and logic and, and everything else is pointing against that fact.
52:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, what he's trying to, uh, make people believe is just not landing.
52:57 Speaker 00 Jeremy's murder trial started on October 2nd, 1986. The prosecution argued that Jeremy killed his family so that he would be the sole beneficiary of the estate. He staged the massacre in a way that would frame his sister. Witnesses testified that Jeremy hated his parents and those who knew Sheila said she had no experience with guns. The prosecution noted that given Sheila's fatal injuries, it would not have been possible for her to hide the silencer before she died. And this is, this is a big one for me. I know we've already talked about it, but it seems like such a miscalculation on his part, right?
53:42 Speaker 00 If he faked this, if he shot everyone with a silencer and then removed it, put the gun in her hands, why would you then go hide it in a cupboard to be found so easily?
53:58 Speaker 01 It doesn't make any sense.
53:59 Speaker 00 No, it just seems dumb. On October 6th, the jury heard that scientists found traces of Sheila's blood inside the lining of the silencer. It was sent for examination. Six days after the shootings, a detective admitted that a hair found on the silencer disappeared by the time the evidence got to the lab. He also admitted to handling the murder weapon without gloves.
54:26 Speaker 01 Why?
54:27 Speaker 00 I don't know. It's the 1980s, it's not 1920.
54:33 Speaker 00 Even in the 1980s, there were very well established protocol.
54:38 Speaker 01 Exactly.
54:39 Speaker 00 Everybody knew, you know, wear gloves. Now, was it because they thought this was an open and shut murder-suicide? Possibly. But as we've learned through so many different cases, why would you not handle it with care? Follow every protocol just in case what appears to be the most common explanation is incorrect.
55:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:09 Speaker 00 Jeremy's uncle, Robert Balfour, testified that Jeremy once said, "I could easily kill my parents." Again, why is Jeremy telling everyone all these things?
55:21 Speaker 01 Yeah. Why would you even bring that up?
55:23 Speaker 00 Why would he tell his girlfriends?
55:24 Speaker 01 Right.
55:25 Speaker 00 Pretty much the entire plan. Dr. Ferguson, Sheila's former psychiatrist, acknowledged her history of mental health issues, but said he couldn't envision her harming her family. Julie Mugford was a key witness at trial. She was asked why she concealed the crime for a month and said, "I was scared, just scared what Jeremy might do."
55:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, we've even heard that in the past, right? Why are they quiet about it? Because they're scared.
55:54 Speaker 00 Well, and can you blame her for being scared? This is a man who killed his parents, his sister, and two very young children. Do you think that he's going to have any qualms about killing you?
56:11 Speaker 01 No.
56:12 Speaker 00 If he thinks it's going to endanger him? Julie testified that Jeremy talked about sedating his family and setting the house on fire, but he changed his mind and planned to hire a hitman. He told her he paid a friend 2,000 pounds to commit the murders. Julie testified per The Guardian, "I didn't want to believe it. I was scared to believe it." Jeremy had also said that if anything happened to him, the same would happen to me because I knew about it. He said I could be implicated in the crime. So again, maybe that goes a little bit more into, you know, why she was so fearful, hesitant to come forward.
56:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:56 Speaker 00 Julie acknowledged that she spent the month after the murders, traveling with Jeremy, and said, "He used to ask me if he was behaving okay, particularly in public. I said in respect of what had happened, he was looking far too happy." She did admit she still loved Jeremy after the murders, but their relationship deteriorated. Julie waited so long to report him because the police considered it an open and shut case. She didn't think anyone would believe her.
57:29 Speaker 01 That's tough, right? I mean, you have this information, you want to pass it on, but you're like, "I don't know if they're even going to consider it."
57:36 Speaker 00 Well, and what happens if they don't? You know, that means you've opened yourself up. Jeremy's going to find out, and they're not going to do anything to him because they're not even going to investigate it. Now, the defense suggested Julie went to the police because Jeremy made it clear he wasn't going to marry her. She responded by saying, "The reason I went to the police is because I couldn't cope with the guilt I felt for Jeremy, not because he was slipping away from me, but because I couldn't cope with such a hideous thing." Jeremy began his testimony on October 16th. He insisted he loved his parents and had never
58:17 Speaker 00 spoken about harming them. He suggested that witnesses' statements were, quote, "skewed by the allegations against him." He was asked if he had ever seen Sheila use violence against her children, and claimed he once saw her punch one of the boys in the face. Okay. Maybe that happened, maybe it didn't, but you would have to say it's in his benefit, right? To paint Sheila out as being a violent person, especially towards her children. Absolutely. You want to drive that home? When he left his family on the night of the murders, his parents were talking to Sheila about finding a foster home for the boys. This is what he said. Under cross-examination,
59:02 Speaker 00 Jeremy said Sheila once talked to him about suicide. And again, it doesn't shock me, right? That his testimony is very self-serving. That's kind of the goal. Yeah. For any defendant, if you are going to testify. He also admitted to the theft of his family's vacation park. Jeremy lost his composure when asked why he left a gun lying around in the house, saying, per the New Yorker, "I was being lackadaisical. I didn't know what was going to happen." Is that laxadig?
59:38 Speaker 00 Easy for you to say.
59:42 Speaker 00 But, you know, I made a big deal out of it early on. It did seem very strange because we were talking so much about Sheila's issues with her mental health. And so he's going to leave a loaded gun just lying around the house? Now, you can say, "I was being lackadaisical." It's a tough one for me to believe. In his summing up, Judge Maury Drake told the jury that Sheila was quite clearly a disturbed woman, but there was certainly no evidence she was experiencing psychosis on the night of the murders. It was unlikely
1:00:24 Speaker 00 she could overpower her father and her hands and feet were so clean. It was inconceivable she committed the murders. Additionally, her blood was found on the silence.
1:00:37 Speaker 00 And this is one fact that we haven't talked about yet. You know, if you're walking around through a house, you shoot your father, you shoot your mother, and then you walk in and you fire six to eight shots, whatever it was, into your own two children. There is going to be quite a bit of blood.
1:01:01 Speaker 01 There will be.
1:01:02 Speaker 00 And she has no blood on her feet. She's not tracking blood, I assume, back to the room where she's found. So the judge is pointing that out. That's, that's pretty hard to believe.
1:01:16 Speaker 01 It is.
1:01:17 Speaker 00 And, you know, how does her blood get on the silencer? When the silencer is not found on the gun she's holding? On October 28th, 1986, Jeremy Bamber was found guilty of five counts of murder and was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison. The judge told him, I find it difficult to foresee whether it will ever be safe to release someone who can shoot two little boys as they lie asleep in their bed.
1:01:47 Speaker 01 That's a huge issue for me.
1:01:49 Speaker 00 Oh, my gosh. And a minimum of 25 years. That's no joke, but we're also talking about the murder of five people, two of which were, you know, two little boys. I agree. 25 years passes. A person comes up for parole. You would think the parole board is going to look at that and say, you were able to shoot these two young boys. One in the back of the head, the other directly in his face. We don't want you walking around.
1:02:25 Speaker 01 No.
1:02:25 Speaker 00 Among us.
1:02:26 Speaker 01 I see that as being a big deny every time it comes up.
1:02:30 Speaker 00 The judge found the way he planned out the murders. Evil almost beyond belief. He said, it shows that you, young man, though you are, have a warped, callous and evil mind, concealed behind an outwardly presentable civilized manner. I kind of like this judge. You know, he's choosing his words very carefully. He's being very civilized about all of it, but he's also bringing the hammer down.
1:02:59 Speaker 01 Well, see, he's not being shy.
1:03:01 Speaker 00 No, but he's, he's not saying, you know, you're a POS or even though technically that's what he is saying.
1:03:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, he's very calculated.
1:03:09 Speaker 00 He just doesn't have to say those words and you don't expect a judge to really. Jeremy has appealed his whole life tariff and has never admitted to the murders. He has many supporters who do not think he got a fair trial. In July 2001, a team of police officers were given four months to conduct a new inquiry. The Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case back to the Court of Appeal. Jeremy's appeal was denied in December 2002. That year, Jeremy offered a one million pound reward for information that could have his sentence quashed.
1:03:49 Speaker 00 In 2004, Jeremy lost a court action to recover 1.27 million pounds. He claimed he should have received from his grandmother's will. So I guess that explains where the one million pound reward was set to come from.
1:04:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, I was wondering where that was coming from.
1:04:10 Speaker 00 In 2011, Jeremy's team discovered that a week before trial, the head of biology at Huntington Forensic Science Laboratories wrote to Essex Police, saying, "The blood on the silencer could have come from Sheila Caffel or Robert Balfour."
1:04:30 Speaker 01 Could have.
1:04:30 Speaker 00 Could have, but this letter was not disclosed to the jury. A forensic scientist who examined the results for the lab told the jury, "Only Sheila's blood was found in the silencer." The jury asked the judge for clarification on the silencer and blood evidence before reaching a verdict. The judge said it contained only Sheila's blood. And it does seem like a pretty strange statement to me. Could have come from Sheila or Robert. In 2018, Jeremy commissioned firearms expert Philip Boyce to examine case records,
1:05:09 Speaker 00 including examination notes indicating two silencers were inspected in different lab departments. According to The Guardian, this belief was supported by discrepancies in how the devices were described and the fact that there was no record of any item being transferred from one section to another.
1:05:31 Speaker 01 Makes you wonder how they messed up like this.
1:05:33 Speaker 00 Well, and then it was said that both silencers are believed to contain blood that could belong to Caffel or Balfour. Bambi's lawyer received a letter from Frank Ferguson, head of Special Crimes at the Crown Prosecution Service. Ferguson wrote, "There is no documentary evidence, either provided or referred to, which supports the existence of a second silencer." He added, "Any evidence that suggests there was or may have been another silencer for the rifle would raise the possibility that the other silencer was used during the shooting and not the one alleged by the prosecution.
1:06:14 Speaker 00 Such a possibility would significantly undermine the case against Jeremy, and any material supporting such a possibility would plainly be material, which casts doubt on the safety of the conviction." And there's no arguing with that.
1:06:31 Speaker 01 You can't.
1:06:32 Speaker 00 If there truly was a second silencer, each of which was tested at a lab, it would bring a lot of things into question. Jeremy wrote to The Guardian in 2018, "The report in the hands of the CPS proves with absolute certainty that this case featured two silencers, and now the CPS must act. There are moments in life when the truth can no longer be suppressed, and this is one of those times." Boy sent his peer reviewed report to the Crown Prosecution Service in 2019. He concluded that based on differing groove patterns, sizes, and exhibit numbers, at
1:07:16 Speaker 00 least two moderators had been examined in this case. He noted that access to the original case documents could provide more details. As reported by The Guardian, Jeremy's attorney argued that the existence of a second silencer could have undermined the conclusion reached by the jury and put a wholly different complexion on the prosecution case. The CPS responded, "It doesn't matter if 40 sound moderators were found at the property. The only significance of the sound moderator is that it had blood type matching to Sheila deep within the baffles."
1:07:56 Speaker 00 In June 2020, a judge upheld the CPS's refusal to grant Jeremy access to case documents related to the possible existence of a second silencer. The judge did rule that new evidence could be used to make fresh submissions to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The judge wrote, as reported by The Guardian, "This does not leave the claimant. Without a remedy, much work has already been done." And he has the makings of a fresh submission to the CCRC, including an unqualified report from Mr. Boyce in support of his case that there was a second moderator recovered from the farm.
1:08:39 Speaker 00 That provides him with the necessary basis for arguing that his convictions are unsafe. That doesn't mean he's gonna win.
1:08:47 Speaker 01 No.
1:08:48 Speaker 00 But he can make that argument. The judge added in his ruling, "If ever there was a case where the CCRC should be approached to make a decision on what is said to be new evidence, it's this one. This is a massively complex case, which has been investigated and re-investigated by more than one police force over some 35 years." The body of material is vast. After so many years and so much litigation, the CCRC is the body undoubtedly best placed to consider the claimant's arguments. In 2021, Jeremy's team filed an application with the CCRC for a referral to the Court of Appeal.
1:09:32 Speaker 00 His lawyer submitted new evidence not previously considered by the court. They sent additional evidence in 2022. In May 2023, the Independent Office for Police Conduct ruled that the Essex Police breached duty by not referring 29 serious complaints to the IOPC about how senior officers handled the case. And we did talk about some of this, right? Not using gloves. It does not sound like this was a well-run crime scene. But my assumption is they thought it was an open and shut case,
1:10:14 Speaker 00 but that shouldn't have mattered, right? There were still protocols that they should have followed. It just doesn't sound like they did. The IOPC wrote to Jeremy, having considered the nature of your complaints, there are matters raised in relation to allegations that officers lied about evidence, altered witness statements, passed evidence to a third party, withheld and concealed evidence, and tampered with a crime scene. That's a very damning list of accusations.
1:10:45 Speaker 01 It really is.
1:10:47 Speaker 00 The New Yorker reported that in March 2024, the CCRC informed Jeremy it had no intention of seeking disclosure from the lab that examined the silencer or of allowing his team to examine hidden material. Months later, in November 2024, it was reported that Jeremy's conviction was among 1,200 being reviewed by the CCRC after the Andrew Malkinson scandal. Malkinson was wrongfully convicted of rape and served 17 years in prison. The New Yorker published an extensive piece on the case in the summer of 2024. Writer Heidi Blake had been corresponding with Jeremy.
1:11:32 Speaker 00 He agreed to share documents with her and professed his innocence. Blake questioned Jeremy about why he didn't call 999 after his father's call. He responded, "People don't understand that Dad, Mom, and I had been looking after Sheila since she was about 18, managing her schizophrenic episodes. So when Dad rang, it didn't shock me that Sheila had flipped. She had never grabbed a gun before, but he wasn't sure how serious the situation was."
1:12:07 Speaker 01 And that makes sense to me, too.
1:12:09 Speaker 00 It does, but is it true?
1:12:13 Speaker 00 That's the thing. It does make sense, but is Jeremy telling the truth?
1:12:18 Speaker 01 And he's had a lot of time to think about it.
1:12:20 Speaker 00 He's had a ton of time to think about it. There are situations where people say, "I can't believe you didn't call 911," or in this case, 999. And people would argue that, "Well, I just didn't think it was that serious." I don't know. If my dad calls me and says, "Your sister's flipping out. She's grabbed a gun. She's going to kill everyone." How much more serious is it, does it get?
1:12:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's true.
1:12:48 Speaker 00 Jeremy said it hurt him. When people questioned his grief, he said, "Everyone thinks I'm a psychopath and don't have any emotion, but it's just not true." He acknowledged that he took significant quantities of Valium after the murders, but he considered this a cop-out to explain his behavior. He said, "I'm sure I'm to blame for some of the strange stuff that went on, trying to feel a bit more loved, trying to figure out that life was worth living." He also admitted he was drinking and taking Valium when he discussed selling nude images of his sister. He said, "You can see the outrage, of course. It was just stupid."
1:13:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was definitely stupid. Probably a little bit more than just stupid, though.
1:13:34 Speaker 00 Now, we have seen where people have taken Valium or some other drug like it after a traumatic experience. And then they're interviewed, or they go on television or whatever it is, they don't seem themselves. Well, they're not. They're under some heavy medication. But is that what happened here? Or again, he's had so much time to think about it that he's trying to explain away all of the things that make him look bad, make him look guilty. A reporter asked him if nude photographs of Sheila existed and offered to buy them. And Jeremy briefly considered. He said, I was easily manipulated.
1:14:18 Speaker 00 But I also justify in my own head. I must have been feeling really angry at Sheila, having just killed everyone, killed herself and ruined my life. And I think as we wrap up this case, Gibbs, obviously it happened many years ago.
1:14:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:14:36 Speaker 00 But it's still going on. Jeremy Bamber's appeal process appears to be far from over.
1:14:44 Speaker 01 He's not giving up.
1:14:44 Speaker 00 No, he's not giving up. And it's likely we'll see an update in his case at some point, maybe even this year. There are people that believe in his innocence, many people. But I think there's a fair number, equal, maybe even more so, that believe he murdered his family.
1:15:03 Speaker 01 Is it because he's just not giving up that you think a lot of people believe him? Like eventually, like eventually they say, wow, he's got to be innocent because why would he keep trying? Why would he keep saying he's not and keep pushing it?
1:15:16 Speaker 00 It could be that. It could also be that people know the initial investigation was handled shoddily, which I think to a lot of people kind of automatically means they need to question his guilt. Because let's face it, we've all seen so many cases where it ultimately turns out that the person who was convicted and did a bunch of time was actually innocent.
1:15:47 Speaker 00 Now, I'm not saying I believe that's the case with Jeremy. To me, there are a few things that stand out. One of the big ones is this silencer. Was there more than one silencer? That was tested at, you know, a different lab? If so, okay, that could shine some doubt on it. If there's only one silencer and the silencer has Sheila's blood in it, I don't know how you explain that.
1:16:18 Speaker 01 I don't either.
1:16:19 Speaker 00 It is not possible for her to kill everyone in the house and then shoot herself, take the silencer off, go hide it, and then come back and lay down in the position where she shot herself.
1:16:33 Speaker 01 Either he's the killer or someone planted her blood in the silencer.
1:16:40 Speaker 00 To make him look like the killer?
1:16:42 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:16:44 Speaker 00 I mean, that, that's a tough one for me. The other tough one is, you know, what the judge told Jeremy. Now, how do you explain her feet being very clean?
1:16:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:16:56 Speaker 00 How, how are they not covered in blood? How is she not tracking blood all over the house? That one's hard to explain as well. But it's an interesting case in that it happened so very long ago. There are still some questions. People think there are still mysteries and there's still more to find out.
1:17:16 Speaker 01 There's a lot of interest in this.
1:17:18 Speaker 00 Oh, there is. There, there's still a lot online. Like I said, there are quite a few people who believe this man is innocent. But that's it for our episode on the White House farm murders. We got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Let's hear them.
1:17:33 Speaker 02 Hi, you guys. This is Eva. I'm calling in from Los Angeles, California. But right now I'm doing a 24 hour road trip to Arkansas, where I actually started listening to you guys for the first time. When I was, let's see, 18 years old. So about seven, almost eight years ago, which is crazy saying that out loud. You guys are the best. I used to listen to you to work all the time. I'm listening to you right now as I'm on my road trip and I've been wanting to leave a voicemail for a long time. So now I'm actually doing it. Um, I've tried to switch around to a lot of other podcasts,
1:18:16 Speaker 02 but it seems to just be coming back to you guys. So obviously you are doing something right. You've been doing something right for the last, you know, seven, eight, 10 years, however long it's been. Um, so keep it going. Thank you, guys. Thank you for, uh, your entertainment and making my road trips and work drives, um, a hundred percent better. I really appreciate it. Keep it up.
1:18:40 Speaker 00 You had me at hello. We appreciate you very much, but I love those types of voicemails because you have, you know, an 18 year old who starts listening, who is now 25, 26, something like that. It just puts it into perspective as to how long we've been doing this podcast. I love it. And I know it won't last forever, but we'll do it as long as we can. Yeah, we will. We love it. We love the fact that people enjoy it. They get something out of it. And I say it all the time, but we just never expected that when we started. Yeah, we're going for a thousand episodes per podcast. That would be awesome. Yeah.
1:19:24 Speaker 03 Hey, Mike and Gibby. This is Louis from Salem, Oregon. I've got a lot to say, but I will whittle it down to one tiny little segment. I would say your podcast is the best podcast and is also giving me a reason to keep my nose clean because every time I listen to your podcast, I find out a little bit more and more about the people that are here in Oregon State Penitentiary, and I don't want to be around them. So thanks, guys. Stay safe. Keep your own time taken.
1:19:59 Speaker 00 Got to keep that nose clean. A little public service. Yeah. Uh, from true crime all the time. I, you know, I, I don't want to be incarcerated in any facility because I assume I am not going to enjoy it.
1:20:17 Speaker 00 It's not the only reason that I don't do bad things, but you know, it's part of the equation. I like having my freedom. I want to sit and drink my coffee, good coffee.
1:20:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:20:32 Speaker 00 For as long as I want in the morning. I want to play my Xbox. I want to watch television.
1:20:37 Speaker 01 You'd have to hire like that character or that movie, Get Tough, whatever.
1:20:43 Speaker 00 Oh, Get Hard?
1:20:44 Speaker 01 Get Hard, yeah.
1:20:44 Speaker 00 Will Ferrell?
1:20:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, you'd have to hire like a Kevin Hart, Get You Tough.
1:20:48 Speaker 00 Get Me Tough. And I don't think that would even work.
1:20:51 Speaker 01 I would say you're not tough, but you're not, I, prison tough?
1:20:56 Speaker 00 Yeah, I don't know that I'm prison tough. I don't have my prison wallet exercise the way you do. But it's not, it, but it's not really even that. It's more about the loss of freedoms.
1:21:07 Speaker 01 Well, that's true.
1:21:08 Speaker 00 I mean, I like to do, you know how I am. I'm so stubborn, kind of set in my ways. I don't like to be told what to do.
1:21:15 Speaker 01 No.
1:21:15 Speaker 00 And I don't like my routine upset. Well, what's a bigger change to your routine? And going to prison or, you know, the pen. They're telling you when to get up, when to work, when to eat, when to shave, when to shit. I don't know what all they tell you, but it's a lot.
1:21:36 Speaker 01 And no Xbox.
1:21:37 Speaker 00 And there's definitely no Xbox. And if, you know, you might be watching TV, but you're watching it with a whole bunch of other people and there's fighting over what to watch. I don't know.
1:21:47 Speaker 01 Not fun.
1:21:48 Speaker 00 I can't do it.
1:21:49 Speaker 01 Stay out. Don't go in.
1:21:50 Speaker 00 You're certainly not going to get all your streaming services. How am I going to watch all my documentaries?
1:21:55 Speaker 01 I don't think you're going to get any streaming services.
1:21:57 Speaker 00 Oh, they might, you might get some. I don't know, but.
1:22:00 Speaker 01 So you get to sell something to get those streaming services in prison.
1:22:03 Speaker 00 I'm certainly going to miss out on a lot of my documentaries.
1:22:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, documentaries. Thank you.
1:22:08 Speaker 00 No, we appreciate the, the voicemails. All right, buddy. That is it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So for Mike.
1:22:15 Speaker 01 And Gabby.
1:22:15 Speaker 00 Stay safe and keep your own time ticking. Keep your nose clean.
1:22:50 Speaker 00 ...
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