To think Jeremy Bamber might be innocent

[KimberleyClark]

Or that at the very least his conviction wasn’t safe and there needs to be a retrial? Ihe was convicted in 1985 of murdering his adoptive parents, sister and her twin sons at his parents’ farmhouse. It was at first deemed to be murder-suicide by the sister, Sheila Caffell, who was a diagnosed schizophrenic. Bamber had been on full life tarriff ever since and still protesting his innocence. I always assumed he was guilty until I listened to a podcast called Blood Family. There was a lot of evidence the jury didn’t hear, it seems the police mucked up the crime scene, his cousins had a financial motive for framing him and a police officer in the control room apparently took a 999 nonspeaking call from the farmhouse while Bamber was outside with the police, which would indicate someone was still alive at that point.

Re the point that the boys would have woken up had the gun not been used with a silencer, the New Yorker podcast touched on this. Some guns are quieter than others, and make more of a loud thud than a bang which the boys could have slept through.

Something else that occurred to me was the Amityville murders. Ronnie Defeo shot his family in their beds. All victims were found face down in their beds with no signs of a struggle. No neighbours reported hearing any gunshots. It is categorically known that Defeo did not use a silencer.

Ive read three books on the case and watched quite a few podcasts. Of course that didn't mean anything really as there are glaring anomalies in the facts as we have them.

I finally watched the podcast you were discussing at the beginning and wasnt impressed at all. Lots of reaching there.

Carol Ann Lees book is very good. There were times I thought there was a lot of doubt, but it took you through him "shooting rabbits" the night before and leaving the loaded gun sitting out...staging the scene really.

The police officer on site who originally said there was movement in the house, it was for a split second and he now says it could have been light reflection on a window.

The times her flatmates testified to were minutes apart and were still within a half hour and when he said his father phoned him. Its not like now when you hit a button on your mobile. He phoned a large house with apartments to a landline which was on a different floor. It took minutes to get her to answer. Strange when his sister was running amok with a gun. He knew he didnt have to rush as hed done what he intended, IMO.

Carol also goes into detail about how he got there without being seen. How he knew he could hammer a kitchen window to get it to open, meaning he could get away leaving the house locked as if noone had been there.

If the police hadn't fooked up and took the scene immediately as a murder suicide he might have been caught sooner, but carpets were burnt, Sheila was cremated, and Julie kept quiet until he decided to chuck her for another woman.

Colin caffells book is also very good, he believed Jeremy totally at the beginning, but in the few days after and particularly at the funeral things jumped out to him. His book is very poignant as its mostly about Sheila and thd boys and how it played out for him personally, but it certainly brought it home to me that this wasn't just a story on a podcast about the handsome hero in prison for something he hadnt done, but a cold hearted murderer who shot two little boys in the head, one five times, one three times, killed his mother and father brutally, and was happy for his sister to take the blame.

This is the lovely guy so broken hearted that he tried to flog naked pictures of Sheila days after she died

Well yes of course, and they had to create scenes with actors, but the first opening credit says the main source material is the book by CAL. Not just ‘inspired by’

I'm glad it wasn't just me who picked up on the DeFeo parallel. I was hesitant to mention it, but I read the NY article with the mentions of previous sadness attached to the Farm and wondered if it was an oblique but intentional reference.

Anything like that is a dangerous path to go down in terms of credibility within a legal framework. The main difference here of course is that the offenders have taken completely different stances, JB has never admitted guilt, nor insinuated "the voices told me to do it" - that has been projected onto Sheila, and the absolute truth unfortunately died with her in terms of the true state of the family dynamics.

Human psychology is incredibly complex. As I mentioned before, cold blooded murder of one's entire family including children purely for money is beyond the scope of most people's comprehension. It is for me, because alongside the natural revulsion, it implies very bleak things about human nature. When psychopathy appears to be ruled out, that makes it even worse. And we're back to creating answers for every anomaly in terms of JBs actions. He thought he was so clever, yet made damning mistakes. If it was some sort of long con it defies logic. And round we go.

The mishandling of the scene and evidence really did screw this case up though. While investigation techniques / protocol may have changed / improved now, I don't think taking things so much at face value in the moment back then would / should ever have been the norm.

Also if you are used to a particular sound you continue sleeping. My mum lived near a railway line as a child, the trains passing didn't wake her, but if one didn't run she would wake up.

It's difficult to read a balanced view because so much is biased one way or another.

That would make an interesting documentary, having people from both sides investigating the other side.

Maybe I need to read the Carol Ann Lees book.

Great post. You've worded wonderfully what I wanted to say about the case but couldn't do it without sounding crass so didnt go there.

In some ways i wanted to believe it was Sheila, she was ill and it was still a huge tragedy, but I could find understanding for it.

Its why I had such doubts for such a long time too, the thought that a human being had it in them to do it for money,

Its hard for us with all our technology and knowledge of forensics and DNA which we have now to look at it thinking he was clever but he was stupid and made mistakes.

He thought hed done enough, and he nearly did.

If the twins died before their mum then they aren't in the "inheritance line" I believe. As it was told by Jeremy that Sheila had gone berserk with a gun, then she must have killed them before killing herself, IYSWIM. I'm sure that the order of deaths was mentioned during the case as it was something I didn't know (survivorship clause/ simultaneous death) and I can remember reading about it and thinking oh that makes sense.

The attack on the Bamber family appeared to be frenzied, while shooting your family for money seems supremely calculating and cold. Although if he was calculating.y framing Sheila then he may have deliberately done it like that.

I do find it very interesting that no physiological assessment over the four decades he’s been incarcerated have found enough conclusive evidence of a personality disorder or psychopath tendencies. I wonder if there are any other convicted murderers of multiple people that have also not been shown to have these traits by multiple experts.

Yes, lots.

There is a cultural gap too - in perception

Apparently the police car overtook him and he arrived 5 mins later

all his actions seem stalling to me - which would makes sense after the adrenaline and moving to the period when reality sets in

I don’t think the existence of a financial motive rules out him being partly motivated by stronger emotions too.
There’s evidence (which he disputes but then he would) that he was chafing at the control Neville had over him, resentful of Sheila’s illness. It could have been pent up rage as well as money.

Yes some people are just selfish and entitled

trying to sell the pictures of “Bambi”
days after begs belief

Yes

and leaving the gun out is strange - I thought gun users had a safety process

be interesting to know if he usually put the gun away

Many people were unbelievably lax about firearms in the 80s, particularly in the countryside, and Neville Bamber was at the laxer end apparently (despite having small children around the house, a mentally ill daughter and according to some accounts a son he didn’t trust).
Secure storage only became a legal requirement in 1988 in the wake of the Hungerford Massacre.

Ah ok

im still suspicious J left it leaning against the wall loaded - it would go with his staging the scene “she grabbed the gun in a frenzy”

Yes I suppose I just find it completely perplexing that someone could plan to carry something like this out- lay the groundwork, frame a family member, and then not to mention being able to execute two sleeping children, keep up an act in the aftermath (and have the family dog put down as well!) and NOT be diagnosed as a psychopath.

Well this is it, yes folk were lax. But it's a bit of a coincidence that evening he took the loaded gun outside to shoot rabbits. Yet no rabbits were harmed in the staging process. He didn't shoot any.

He then left it in a very convenient place to tell the police a few times that it was there and she was mentally ill.

I believe he was assessed and deemed to be non-psychopathic.

Absolutely.
If he had genuinely done that it would have been inexcusably careless in a house with children, never mind Sheila.
I think one of the things I read commented that it was suspicious that he wasn’t blaming himself more for that. I think most people would!

Plenty of cases out there of men killing their wives and vice versa for the insurance money.

What do you think could have happened that night?

Gosh yeah I hadn’t thought of that - you’d be lamenting you left the gun there

was that the gun she was supposed to use then?

He was probably eaten up with jealousy and
injustice and thought they deserved it
..

I mean how can you be jealous of someone who is living with schizophrenia, yet he was like a petulant child that she got more attention!