When I heard that Jeremy had representation from David Napley in his original trial, it strengthened my belief that Jeremy is indeed guilty.
David Napley was about as good as you could get at the time of the trial and went onto play a large role in miscarriages, so Jeremy could not have picked a better solicitor and I think if he couldn't have proved Jeremy's innocence then I don't think anyone else is going to either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Napley
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/sir-david-napley-1.483443
He did the best he could with the facts of the case. A lawyer can try to shape the facts for the benefit of a client but there are limits to that. When you try to bend too far it is a crapshoot. It hinges entirely on whether the jury will be stupid enough to buy the claims.
The facts of this case were:
1) The killer shot everyone in the house with the same rifle. The killer fired 25 shots without missing a single time.
2) The killer made sure that the master bedroom phone was removed prior to the murders started so that the couple could not identify the killer to third persons
3) The killer started upstairs. June and Nevill were shot in the master bedroom. June was immobilized by her wounds. Nevill was shot 4 times. 2 gunshot wounds were minor- to his elbow and shoulder. The third tore part of his lip off and the 4th shattered his jaw, teeth and voicebox thus rendering him unable to speak in an understandable fashion. He was able to run out of the room and down the stairs. The evidence does not provide any indication of whether the others were shot before or after June and Nevill.
4) The killer pursued Nevill into the kitchen where a struggle over the gun ensued. As they wrestled over the gun he silencer scratched the underneath of the fireplace mantle and the paint that was scraped off became stuck on the silencer.
5) The killer punched Nevill in the face repeatedly breaking his nose and giving him black eyes and the killer eventually got full control over the rifle and bludgeoned Nevill with the stock. He had defensive wounds on his arms indicating he blocked the rifle blows with his arms. Eventually the killer was able to strike him in the head with the rifle stock and to knock him out. The blows were so hard that the rifle stock broke. Nevill passed out over a chair that had been knocked upside down during the struggle. The killer then fired some fatal shots into his head.
6) The Kitchen table had been set for breakfast otherwise it had not been cleared after the last meal because the crockery that was on the table was knocked on the floor during the struggle. The floor had broken glass, blood and sugar on it. The normal kitchen phone was unplugged and hidden. The phone that belonged in the master bedroom was plugged in the kitchen phone jack and the receiver was off the hook. There was no blood on or near the phone.
7) Despite the fact his father would not have been able to speak and would have gotten blood on the phone had he picked it up and tried to call anyone, Jeremy maintains that after his father arrived in the kitchen he picked up the phone and phoned Jeremy telling him to come over because Sheila was having a crazy episode,, was running around with a gun and he feared she would use it then the phone was knocked from his hands and he did not speak anymore.
8) Initially Jeremy insisted he immediately hung up and phoned police. But in fact he phoned his girlfriend around 3AM, they spoke for several minutes and then some more time passed before he finally called police. At least 20 minutes elapsed from the time his father allegedly called him and the time he got around to calling police. He asked police to pick him up but police told him to meet them there. He was only 3 minutes away but refused to go snoop around the outside without police being on the scene first. He stopped his car on the road waiting for police to come and pass him then slowly followed them so that he arrive a couple of minutes after them.
9) The police were unarmed. Jeremy detailed all the guns in the house and lied telling the police that Sheila had fired them all and was proficient with them. Police were scared to go inside becauseo fhtis and called for armed police. The armed police were also scared to go in immediately. Instead they decide to spend a few hours doing recon work and to go in when it was very bright out. Jeremy was not impatient with police taking so long. He waited more than 3.5 hours chatting with the police abot cars and guy things in addition to telling them more about his family. He did not try to press police to go in and find out what happened to his family he was very patient and calm to the point officers found it remarkable.
10) Upon being told his family was dead he puked and acted extremely grief stricken. It was almost as if he was putting on an act because earlier he showed virtually no pressing concern.
11) Sheila was found in the master bedroom with the gun lying on her body. This in connection with Jeremy's statements lead to the initial suspicion she murdered everyone and then committed suicide.
12) Sheila's doctors did not consider her at risk for suicide and she never gave any indication of thinking about committing murder. In her recent visits doctor's believe her mental state and happiness were better than in the past
13) She was not violent and never before tried to pick up a gun or any other weapon to threaten anyone with. At most she threw dishes around when angry but not directly at someone. More of the female smashing of a vase or so in anger.
14) She was on medication which has a calming effect. That treatment was injected by doctors so she had no ability to forget to take it and indeed had it in her system according to the autopsy results. It therefore is unlikely she would have experienced any episodes. A few hours before the killing her aunt spoke to her over the phone and testified Sheila was calm, docile and quiet.
15) Her medication causes tremors and muscle control problems like experienced in Parkison's disease. Therefore another drug is prescribed to counter these tremors but she ran out of such drug. Thus she was probably experiencing tremors of some sort which would have made it harder for her to shoot accurately.
16) The killer had to be quite strong to inflict the beating that Nevill suffered and would have had abrasions and cuts of some sort on the hands from punching Nevill so hard and from the broken stock which had jagged edges. Unless wearing shoes the killer's feet would have been covered in Nevill's blood, sugar and most likely would be cut up from the broken crockery. The killer's clothes would have had gunshot residue and blood spatter. Blood spatter while inflicting the beating as well as the shootings.
17) Sheila was found barefoot in a nightgown. She had no wounds on her hands and feet or anywhere else. She was menstruating but other than that she had no signs of any problems. Her hands were swabbed and tested for gunshot residue and lead. She tested negative for gunshot residue and her hands had normal levels of lead. If sh eloaded the weapo as many times as suggested she should have had elevated lead levels on her hands and should have had GSR from firing 25 shots.
18) Sheila's clothing was tested and was negative for GSR or foreign blood.
19) Her slight size means she would have be unlikely to have been able to inflict the kind of beating Nevill suffered. Pseudo Parkinson's disease would have made that even harder to accomplish.
20) There was testimony that Nevill did not trust his son, he did not even trust him with keys to the house. He told at least one person he feared his son was plotting to kill him.
21) Police discovered one window was not latched shut and prior to trial Jeremy revealed he knew how to get in the house through the windows by using a knife to unlock the latch and could relatch it from the outside. He would do this instead of getting the key from the caretaker. Thus he had the means to get inside and leave again while leaving the doors locked from the inside. (Apparently Jeremy was so convinced that police pegged the murder on his sister that he had no problem with police learning he could get in)
22) Police had not inspected Jeremy for injuries or for blood evidence.
23) Testimony established that the gun was usually stored and used with the silencer and scope attached. Human blood of the same type as the adult victims was found in the silencer. It was thus used to shoot someone with those blood types. The gun was not known to have been used to shoot anyone prior. The silencer also was present when the struggle over the weapon took place because of the paint that was on it from the mantle. Sheila could not have killed herself with the silencer attached. The silencer made it too long for her to reach the trigger. Thus the killer shot her and then removed the silencer and scope and placed them in the gun clost afterwards.
24) Finally his girlfriend Julie Mugford testified that she had talked about killing him for a long time and that he called her to say this is the night. The call he made prior to police she claimed was to tell her that it was done and they were dead.
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Jeremy really boxed his lawyer in. Had he not said he received a phone call and got the whole ball rolling then things would have been quite different.
If someone else found the bodies then Jeremy's lawyer could have argued it was either a murder suicide or someone else other than Jeremy murdered them and made it look like a murder suicide. Based on the unlocked window it could be claimed anyone left by that exit and that the motive was robbery or something like that.
Moreover, since Sheila was on her medicaion he could have argued she was cold and calculated not in a crazy rage. Thus he could argue the planning such as the phone being moved beforehand was taken care of by her.
Jeremy's claim she was in a crazy rage really foreclosed such an argument though.
He had to go with Jeremy's claim that she had a crazy rage and killed everyone including herself even though there was so much evidence that contradicted that. Evidence that contradicted she was agitated that night, contradicted she was suicidal or desired to kill her sons, contradicted the notion she could physically beat her father up, contradicted the notion she had actually beat him up since she had none of the tell tale injuries, contradicted the notion she had walked through the kitchen or had fired a weapon. At trial even Jeremy he was forced to concend she never fired the weapon in question before and thus might not even know how to use it. He coudl not identify any time she fired a gun as an adult he claimed they target shot together as young children which if true means she didn't like it if she never did it again. Other witnesses said she never fired a gun ever.
His lawyer did his best to try to suggest that Sheila was in fact mentally unstable enough to commit suicide but all he could point to was statements she made years earlier which doctors said they did not consider her to be at risk of actually doing it and that she improved since that time.
He had to hope that jurors would completely overlook the lack of evidence that she struggled with her father and shot anyone. There was not really any way he could do anything about such lack of evidence or the fact that she had in fact taken her medication and would have been unlikely to have an episode.
He was boxed in he had to blame Sheila because if Sheila didn't do it then it had to be Jeremy. If Sheila didn't do it then Jeremy made up the phone call and had to be the one who killed everyone and framed her.
He did what he could to suggest Sheila was guilty but the evidence was simply not on his side. The best he could hope for was a stupid jury that would overlook the lack of physical evidence, overlook the fact Nevill could not have called and if he had he would have said we are shot send an ambulance, and to simply believe crazy people are capable of anything. He only managed to get 2 such jury members.
Looking back I bet Jeremy wishes he staged a break in instead.
