Was Jeremy Bamber innocent?

[Yappy12]

Have been interested in this case for years and am uneasy about his 10-2 majority conviction of murdering his parents, sister and 2 nephews. ITV 6 part drama-doc starting 6th Jan. Lots of stuff doesn't add up. He and a cop supposedly saw someone moving about inside hours after everyone was supposedly dead. Was that the sister and did she go crazy and kill them all? Not saying he's innocent but just saying I don't think he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. There's said to be proof now of the second phone call, from his home at 3.37am. First had been allegedly by his father to him at 3.26 saying the sister had a gun and was going mad. He couldn't have got home, 3.5 miles away, after killing them all in 11 minutes.

The only people who have any doubts about him are the people he’s charmed.

What a stupid thing to say. I have doubts about his conviction but he certainly hasn’t charmed me. In fact I don’t think he comes across as hugely likeable but that doesn’t make him a murderer.

@AlexaAmbidextra I'll agree to differ with you the. Carol Ann Lee! the programme is a drama documentary though so I fear you are going to be disappointed.

GrimDamnFanjo. Not sure what you mean tbh. I certainly won’t be disappointed as I have no expectations of the programme.

Whether Sheila Caffell might or might not have snapped is largely irrelevant, because it would have been physically impossible for her to do this murder for all the reasons set out in this thread.

And Bamber was such a ray of sunshine that he tried to sell kinky photos of his own dead sister to the newspapers, who were so disgusted they called in the police.

Yes this has always struck me as dodgy, that and the crocodile tears. I think he did it and tried to frame his sister.

How could Sheila have overpowered and beaten her father?
She didn’t need to. Nevill Bamber was shot 8 times. He was shot 4 times in the bedroom, once on the stairs and another 3 times in the kitchen. He could have tried to get to the killer who was backing away from him, until he became incapacitated on the kitchen floor and was beaten around the head to make sure he was dead. A trial of strength doesn’t need to be involved.

Jeremy repeatedly told people around him that he hated his family and wished they were dead.
Sheila believed that she had powers given to her by the devil. She called her twins the "devil's children," and said she believed she was capable of murdering them or of getting them to kill others. She also spoke to her psychiatrist about suicide (although he did not deem her an immediate risk.)

How did Sheila kill several people with a shotgun she wasn't experienced with.
It wasn’t a shotgun. She had experience of using the gun.

How did Sheila not get any blood or broken glass on her?
Some people do clean themselves before committing suicide. Sheila had been raised very strictly Christian, and much of her psychosis and paranoia revolved around religious ideas. Cleaning oneself to meet god is not unheard of.

Sheila’s blood was found in the silencer.
Not exactly. It was found to be the same blood group as Sheila’s, but it could also have been a combination of Nevill & June’s blood, who were also shot with the gun. Presumably that means it could match one of, or a combination of, biological family memebers, such as the cousins who found the silencer.

I’m completely torn on this case, but some of the points made on this thread do have plausible counters.

Not exactly. It was found to be the same blood group as Sheila’s, but it could also have been a combination of Nevill & June’s blood, who were also shot with the gun. Presumably that means it could match one of, or a combination of, biological family memebers, such as the cousins who found the silencer Wasn't Sheila adopted?

Silences are not that effective, you can still hear some sound, despite the way they are portrayed in tv and film. If Sheila had used the silencer while the police were in the house, it would have been heard.

Wasn't Sheila adopted?

Yes, she was. So was Jeremy. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't related to the Bambers. My mother was adopted, as a 7 year old, by her biological mother and stepfather, for example, and my great-grandfather was adopted by his biological mother's older sister and raised as brother to another aunt's child whom his adoptive mother had also taken in. It does happen - and more frequently, I would imagine, back then, when records were less diligently kept.

Is Jeremy Bamber innocent? I don't know. I'm just about old enough to remember this happening, and everyone at the time was just keen to get things wrapped up and neatly squared away. Blaming Sheila and then Jeremy, rather than thinking there might be a killer somewhere, out there, might have been the squaring away. Could Sheila have "flipped". Yes. My daughter has severe MH problems, as does DB2 - when they're off their meds, they can be physically much stronger than they are when they're taking them/mentally stable. Could Sheila have murdered her children? Yes. If she was frightened they were going to be taken away from her (I believe there was talk of fostering the 6 year old boys out again... which leads to the question of precisely where their father was in all of this; might he not have taken them in?) then I suppose anything's possible. Did June and Neville deserve the deaths they got? No. Absolutely not.

Blaming Sheila and then Jeremy, rather than thinking there might be a killer somewhere, out there, might have been the squaring away.

It has to have been one of them, though, because Jeremy's story is that his father phoned him to say his sister had gone crazy with the shotgun and he needed Jeremy's help.

I have listened to two very good podcasts on this, the best one is Red Handed - it's very detailed. In it, they discuss the failings of Essex Police - destroying evidence, failure to secure the crime scene etc. Also, the cousins stood to inherit the Bambers' fortune if Jeremy was convicted and I think they were the ones who found the silencer hidden in cupboard after the police missed it. But, on the other hand - Sheila's feet were completely clean - not consistent with running through a farmhouse with a gun. Jeremy was cruel to his mother and generally a manipulative person.

Essex police know more than they are letting on but I believe he is guilty. Thinking Sideways is the other podcast on this, they both refer to it as The White Farm Murders, not Jeremy Bamber.

The twins father had custody of them so despite Jeremy talking about a convo re fostering for the twins there was no need. It was bollocks like everything he said.

Wasn't Sheila adopted?
Yes she was. But the blood could have matched one of the cousin's blood, who were biologically related to the parents, and some suspect of planting the silencer. It wasn't tested against anyone who wasn't a suspect, so we'll never know.

Whether JB is guilty or not I always thought at the time the reporting on the case was very much as contrary13 said of getting things wrapped up and settled.

Jeremy was painted as a bit of a playboy and his actions with regard to selling photos of his sister was reprehensible and I think his lifestyle swayed the police and general public into thinking that he was so morally corrupt he could murder

Whilst Sheila’s looks were swaying people to think how could someone so pretty and so slight be responsible of killing her own family.

What ever the rights or wrongs of the case I think there was too much emphasis on things that didn’t matter and not enough thorough investigating. The police I always thought were too quick to make the evidence fit the suspect.

I do know having lived with a 7.5 stone woman with severe mh issues we can dismiss any ideas that Sheila wouldn’t be capable of over powering her father and when you get rid of that bit of theory then you have to look at the evidence which I think was too compromised in the policies rush to arrest JB.

If they had thoroughly investigated without deciding JB was the murderer and not looking at alternative theories then they might still have convicted JB but the question will always remain open.

The twins father had custody of them so despite Jeremy talking about a convo re fostering for the twins there was no need. It was bollocks like everything he said.

June Bamber’s sister Pamela Boutfleur corroborated the story that Sheila had become unstable and there was talk of foster care for the boys as a result.

Sheila believed that she had powers given to her by the devil. She called her twins the "devil's children," and said she believed she was capable of murdering them or of getting them to kill others.

Clearly at the relevant time no-one thought she constituted a threat to the children, otherwise they wouldn't have been with her.

Clearly at the relevant time no-one thought she constituted a threat to the children, otherwise they wouldn't have been with her

I was in and out of care as a child. My mother was mentally unstable and tried to kill me and her view was that I couldn’t cope without her so when she decided to kill herself I would have to die too.

SS handed me back to her every time.

I don’t think that there was any thought given to if my mother was a threat of not handing her back. So I wouldn’t hold too much store in the fact the boys were handed back because they thought that Sheila was perfectly ok.

There was some talk about foster care but there was t any need to be, the twins father had custody of them and they were only at the farm to spend time with June and Neville with Sheila.

Jeremy told Julie Mugford his girlfriend at the time of his plans...she thought it was all talk until the family were all murdered.

Personally I think Bamber is a psychopath who has talked himself into being innocent. I think he actually believes it.

All the blog posts about “Mum and Dad” when it’s well known he hated them make me want to vomit frankly.

And he murdered two six year old boys in their bed.

Throw away the key.

The police have got it wrong in the past on many occasions. People have been sent to the gallows for crimes they didn't commit. So let's see all the new evidence before you all pass sentence. Don't be too quick to get the rope. It might be your relative one day.

I think the police were inefficient in many areas of the investigation. What I do think they got eight was that Sheila was not the murderer.

That then begs the question as to who would have a motive to kill them all and that leads straight to Jeremy.

The possibility of him being innocent is newsworthy. It's like with JFK assassination, lots of docos talking about conspiracy theories multiple shooters etc because it's newsworthy. The reality isn't "exciting" and doesn't sell books and tv show. Oswald was the only shooter and JB was guilty. And any article that suggests he is innocent, is not going to be written with any sense of objectivity. He was found guilty 3 times for a reason.

There was something in the paper yesterday about how the bodies had possibly being moved by the police, not entirely sure why this is significant but the article suggested it migh5 show how Bamber is innocent. Something about the burns on his dad’s back being caused by the Aga and not the shotgun muzzle.

i know he’s tried to appeal before and not been successful. So could just be another useless try. It’s interesting though how steadfast he’s been in proclaiming his innocence. But is that just a sign of being a narcissist sociopath of some type?

I think he is guilty, but there is clearly a strong element of reasonable doubt, otherwise we wouldn't still be talking about it.

One thing that does bother me, if Jeremy planned this to the nth degree, even staging phone calls and creeping out the window, why did he leave a silencer covered in his sisters blood sitting in the kitchen cupboard? Surely he would have taken it with him?

But in your case they were right, weren't they? So it doesn't really prove anything.

The so-called "new evidence" has been carefully scrutinised by people who know what they are looking at and it clearly doesn't amount to anything. It's not a matter of us passing sentence, so much time has been spent on this already without anyone finding anything that really casts doubt on Bamber's guilt.

The fact that we are talking about it doesn't indicate reasonable doubt, it indicates that Bamber and his supporters are good at obfuscating the facts and at publicising his version.

Great points here. I have never understood why the unpleasant, grasping Boutflours were not properly investigated, given the enormous amount of money and property they gained after 'finding' the silencer which the police had apparently missed ... strong and high-level connections often account for omissions of this nature by the police.