The scuffle in the kitchen- why did it happen?

[scipio_usmc]

As scipio pointed out, the rifle butt must have sustained a tremendous blow to break a piece off it.  I've used an air-rifle of similar build, length, weight and age to the Anschutz and the stock on that was of strong hardwood, very difficult to break imo as I think most rifles of that vintage were.
 
What I have difficulty with is why a piece would break off as a result of strong impact with a pliable giving human body. On being hit wouldn't a person's head or body be forced backwards absorbing the blow, thus reducing its severity ?  NB's right forearm bore defence bruises sustained from a rifle barrel and/or butt, and it appears his radial/ulna bones weren't broken which I think would have been had the stock shattered on them.
Peter Vanezis noted that the facial as opposed to the top of head fractures were in his opinion not the result of bullet wounds, i.e. they were possibly sustained from the rifle in some way - metal barrel or wooden stock.   But again I feel the victim's head would need to be held against something fixed and solid itself (such as the floor) for any piece of the stock to break off, otherwise the head would simply be knocked backwards soaking up the impact.

Perhaps it was more likely that the assailant missed his target when trying to beat his opponent (say e.g. if Nevill was quick enough to move out of the way) and the stock hit a hard rigid object such as the edge of the kitchen worktop or the table, a spindle chair back or arm (one of the arms on a chair was broken off) or even the metal guard/towel rail of the AGA.

Alternatively could NB have attempted to hold up a chair or position one between himself and attacker with his functioning arm to shield himself from the raining rifle blows and the butt was broken on it that way ?

Whatever caused the break-off I think the resulting force could have made the assailant lose control of and possibly drop the rifle with the shock of the impact, perhaps also temporarily hurting or even spraining his wrist(s) before he picked it up from the floor again.

And this would be even more damaging to a delicately-built finely-boned woman like Sheila Caffell imo.

A skull is quite hard and if hit sufficiently hard it could break.  It could have skidded off his head and into a stationary object as well though.  How did it break?  Consider if only a portion of the stock had struck the head or something else that was very strong. That could cause it to split. He was probably being struck at an angle and not the entire rifle butt was hitting his head. It still has to be a lot of force though to break it.  The definsive wounds prove Nevill was fighting back and no passed out as he was being struck.

The killer had to have one hand right after the trigger around the narrowest portion of the stock where it overlapped with the gun and another hand towards the front of the rifle past where the scope was attached. When the stock broke it broke where the killers hands were and unless the killer had good gloves on this would have done something to the hands. The scope also could have done something to the hands which might be why the scope was removed afterwards. It might have left a tell tale mark on the killer. The killer didn't breka the stock and receive no marks at all in the process unless the killer had gloves and surely can't have wielded a rifle in the manner with long nails and nothing happening to them.       

[Myster]

@scipio.

In different posts over the past few days I got the impression that you believe the telescopic sight was already attached during the assault, then removed afterwards, perhaps because of the following in blue from the 2002 Court of Appeal Document...

13. The rifle was a .22 Anschutz automatic rifle. Together with a Parker Hale sound moderator (silencer) and telescopic sights, it had been bought by Nevill Bamber on 30 November 1984. 500 rounds of ammunition had also been purchased. There was evidence that the gun was used to shoot rabbits and would only ever be used with the sound moderator and the telescopic sights attached. A screwdriver was required to remove the telescopic sights but there was evidence that this was not normally done because of the time it took to realign them.

and...

20. cont... Relevant events before 7 August 1985 21. Anthony Pargeter, Nevill Bamber's nephew and a competition standard shot, stayed at White House Farm between 26-28 July 1985. He saw the .22 rifle in the gun cupboard in the ground floor office. The telescopic sights and sound moderator were attached and the gun appeared in a "new" condition. There were no scratches or marks upon it. Later the appellant, himself a good shot, took the rifle out for some target practice.

and...

35. Upstairs the bodies of June Bamber and Sheila Caffell were found on the floor of the main bedroom. That of Mrs Bamber was very heavily bloodstained and lay by the doorway. Sheila Caffell's body was by her parents bed. The .22 rifle (with the sound moderator and telescopic sights removed) was on her body with her right hand resting lightly upon it and with the muzzle of the weapon just below wounds to her neck. Immediately to her right, resting on the upper right arm and the floor, was a Bible that belonged to June Bamber.


This is probably why you said the sight caused some of the damage to Nevill's face and arms, and could also have injured Jeremy Bamber's hands.


But according to Roger Wilkes (Blood Relations) who interviewed members of the family...

At Bourtree Cottage on the morning after the murders when questioned by David Boutflour, Jeremy Bamber said he had taken the telescopic sight (and silencer) off before he went out to rabbit hunting the previous night, so that it would fit in the gun cupboard afterwards. This struck David as strange, because even with the sight fixed but without silencer, there was enough room for the rifle to fit.  So why did he take the sight off at all, when it had been fully functional beforehand, especially if he was soon about to shoot rabbits from a distance!

The only true reason for its removal as far as I can see was to make it easier to handle without obstruction at close quarters in a planned assault within the confines of White House Farm.

From my own experience with a Nikko-Stirling that I once removed from an air-rifle, I found out how time-consuming and involved it was to zero-in again to anything like the accuracy it was before.

Lesson learned: If it works fine, don't fix it.

[scipio_usmc]

@scipio.

In different posts over the past few days I got the impression that you believe the telescopic sight was already attached during the assault, then removed afterwards, perhaps because of the following in blue from the 2002 Court of Appeal Document...

13. The rifle was a .22 Anschutz automatic rifle. Together with a Parker Hale sound moderator (silencer) and telescopic sights, it had been bought by Nevill Bamber on 30 November 1984. 500 rounds of ammunition had also been purchased. There was evidence that the gun was used to shoot rabbits and would only ever be used with the sound moderator and the telescopic sights attached. A screwdriver was required to remove the telescopic sights but there was evidence that this was not normally done because of the time it took to realign them.

and...

20. cont... Relevant events before 7 August 1985 21. Anthony Pargeter, Nevill Bamber's nephew and a competition standard shot, stayed at White House Farm between 26-28 July 1985. He saw the .22 rifle in the gun cupboard in the ground floor office. The telescopic sights and sound moderator were attached and the gun appeared in a "new" condition. There were no scratches or marks upon it. Later the appellant, himself a good shot, took the rifle out for some target practice.

and...

35. Upstairs the bodies of June Bamber and Sheila Caffell were found on the floor of the main bedroom. That of Mrs Bamber was very heavily bloodstained and lay by the doorway. Sheila Caffell's body was by her parents bed. The .22 rifle (with the sound moderator and telescopic sights removed) was on her body with her right hand resting lightly upon it and with the muzzle of the weapon just below wounds to her neck. Immediately to her right, resting on the upper right arm and the floor, was a Bible that belonged to June Bamber.


This is probably why you said the sight caused some of the damage to Nevill's face and arms, and could also have injured Jeremy Bamber's hands.


But according to Roger Wilkes (Blood Relations) who interviewed members of the family...

At Bourtree Cottage on the morning after the murders when questioned by David Boutflour, Jeremy Bamber said he had taken the telescopic sight (and silencer) off before he went out to rabbit hunting the previous night, so that it would fit in the gun cupboard afterwards. This struck David as strange, because even with the sight fixed but without silencer, there was enough room for the rifle to fit.  So why did he take the sight off at all, when it had been fully functional beforehand, especially if he was soon about to shoot rabbits from a distance!

The only true reason for its removal as far as I can see was to make it easier to handle without obstruction at close quarters in a planned assault within the confines of White House Farm.

From my own experience with a Nikko-Stirling that I once removed from an air-rifle, I found out how time-consuming and involved it was to zero-in again to anything like the accuracy it was before.

Lesson learned: If it works fine, don't fix it.

I am not convinced that the scope had been removed at the time of the murders. I am not even convinced that Jeremy actually took out the gun, loaded it, unloaded it and left it to be accessed later.  These claims come from Jeremy alone.  He has eveyr reaosn to lie and has been caught in numerous lies so I don't particularly believe him. It is quite possible that he slipped in the house when everyone was asleep, fetched the gun, loaded it at that point including the magazine and that he left the scope and silencer both attached as they were when he found the weapon.  I am not going to rule out the scope being attached just on his say so. Thus it will always be possible to me that the scope had a role we are unaware of and that to this day was not looked at. 

The testimony tends to establish the gun always had the scope and silencer attached.  Jeremy though claims they were not usually attached and had not been attached when he retrieved it.  There were other guns in the same closet though that had scopes and even a silencer attached. Jeremy's claim he sought out a gun with no scope to go shhot bunnies makes no sense. I would use open sights for a large target maybe but not a bunny.  I would want to use a scope and I would even want a scope for a larger animal. I first learned to shoot with open sights.  We didn't get to use scopes until later on in our training and in the field.  Scopes are considerably better than open sights. It was relatively late out so why would he want to skip the suppressor as well and disturb neighbors even if the neighbors were not overly close?  In fact the main reaosn for the supporessor is not even to reduce recoil it is so that the noise doesn't hurt your ears.  A suppressor is not silent as they show on television, not most of them anyway because there are other factors at play.  But a suppressor like this reduces the noise enough so that it doesn't hurt your ears so you don't need to use earplugs. So it makes no sense to choose the weapon he claimed he did.  But worse he didn't just find the gun lacking the suppressor and scope as he claims. If the gun was indeed left by him on the kitchen table without these accessories it means he removed them.  Removing them makes no sense though for going to shoot bunnies there had to be a different motive as you suggest.

We know for a fact the suppressor was used in the murders.  The defense even conceded this point at trial the defense maintained it was Nevill and June's blood in the supporessor and that Sheila removed it before killing herself.

Here is the entire field of possibilities related to the suppressor:

1) it was a lie Jeremy left the gun out at all and in fact the gun was in the closet with the suppressor and scope attached and Jeremy used it in such fashion then removed both accessories after the murders and put them away

2) it was a lie Jeremy left the gun out at all and in fact the gun was in the closet with the suppressor and scope attached but Jeremy removed the scope before committing the murders

3) Jeremy removed the scope but not the suppressor and left it on the table

4) Jeremy left the gun on the table as he claims and the killer later fetched the suppressor and installed it before committing the murders

The defense maintains number 4 is what happened. Number 4 is not consistent with someone being in a crazy rage simply grabbing the gun though form the table. It demonstrates rational thinking. So if that is what happened it doesn't fit with how Sheila was supposed to be acting.

Even if Jeremy had left the gun on the table I don't think Nevill and June would have left the gun and bullets and set the table around them.  Jeremy would have to expect his parents to put the gun somewhere else and tha the would have to go search for it.  He had no need to leave it on the table. If he did prep the gun in advance he could leave it and the bullets hidden in a place where he could find it but no one else was likely to tamper with or even just in the closet and retrive it when he was ready to commit the murders. 

The tale of leaving it on the kitchen table was a contrived one. He invented that tale so people would believe Sheila was having a psychotic episode, the gun and bullets were right there in front of her face and all she had to do was slap a magazine in not load the clip so Nevill could not disarm her safely.  He was scared to try to disarm her and instead called Jeremy to do it. I don't believe tha the took out the gun and left it on the table with the bullets. I believe Jeremy made up this tale to get police to believe that Sheila did it.  The same way he made up the claim she had fired all guns in the house and was proficient with them to get police to believe she did it. He said the suppressor was not attached at this point though it was. Why did he says it wasn't attached? Well first of all he didn't want anyone to know it was used during the crimes.  But also with the suppressor attached the gun would be hanging off the table. The gun would be too long to fit anywhere natural in the room.  That is even more reason why it would have been put away by Nevill or June aside from just the twins being tempted by it.

His claim the suppressor was not on the gun was worthless and clearly a lie.  I don't believe he removed it then put it back on later. He lied about the suppressor so why not the scope?  I therefore am not conviced that the scope was not attached at the time of the murders.  He could have removed it but he might not have. I won't write it off just on his say so. Because no one thought about this possibility no one looked for marks to match to it.  They didn't inspect Jeremy at all which was a giant loss of potential evidence.     

 

[Myster]

The fact that the table was already set for breakfast, with what appear to be clean cereal bowls on place mats, spoons, marmalade pot, butter dish as in the CS photo is proof enough for me that the rifle was never on it to begin with, even though stated otherwise in the CoA document. That's a non-starter - it's inconceivable to me that it wouldn't have been removed, if it was ever on there in the first place.

Perhaps he thought that by leaving the suppressor on it would reduce the noise enough not to disturb and wake the twins or Sheila, if the first targets were his parents.

As for the telescopic sight, I'm still of the opinion that it was deliberately removed by JB to make the rifle more easy to use at close quarters. If he had been planning this for months in advance, why would he overlook this - the sight would obstruct his view whilst shooting somebody at arms length, and if your plan is to kill everyone while they were asleep in bed, he wouldn't have needed any kind of sight, fixed or telescopic... just point at the head and fire, as in the botched first attempt at June, and the successful ones at Sheila and the twins. What he hadn't considered was receiving any resistance from Nevill which almost scuppered his plan.

[scipio_usmc]

The fact that the table was already set for breakfast, with what appear to be clean cereal bowls on place mats, spoons, marmalade pot, butter dish as in the CS photo is proof enough for me that the rifle was never on it to begin with, even though stated otherwise in the CoA document. That's a non-starter - it's inconceivable to me that it wouldn't have been removed, if it was ever on there in the first place.

Perhaps he thought that by leaving the suppressor on it would reduce the noise enough not to disturb and wake the twins or Sheila, if the first targets were his parents.

As for the telescopic sight, I'm still of the opinion that it was deliberately removed by JB to make the rifle more easy to use at close quarters. If he had been planning this for months in advance, why would he overlook this - the sight would obstruct his view whilst shooting somebody at arms length, and if your plan is to kill everyone while they were asleep in bed, he wouldn't have needed any kind of sight, fixed or telescopic... just point at the head and fire, as in the botched first attempt at June, and the successful ones at Sheila and the twins. What he hadn't considered was receiving any resistance from Nevill which almost scuppered his plan.

He didn't need the sight but at close range it would not necessarily obstruct his shot. He could indeed have decided it might obstruct his shot and to remove it which simply suggest even more tha the is guilty if that did occur.  Either he removed it before the murders to make the murders easier or after for a different reason.  Either way it hurts him.

There are 2 different reasons to leave the suppressor:

1) less recoil, 2) less noise and the less noise would mean it would not hurt his ears as much and to have less of a chance to wake up people in other rooms.

He lied about the silencer not being attached when he "left the gun out" and put it away after the murders so no one would know it was attached because after he shot her he realized it was too long for her to commit suicide with it attached. If he had not been overthinking and had just placed the suppressor near her it might not have been as bad, putting it away ended up being a major mistake. That is how criminals get caught though.   

[ISpyWithMyEye]

What happened is easy to piece together based on the evidence.  Precisely why it happened cannot be said for sure, there are several variables.

What happened:

Nevill grabbed the rifle, tried to take it away from the killer and they wrestled over it. The weapon swayed all around as they each tried to wrest it from the other.  It crashed into things and knocked them over, probably knocking little knickknacks around in the process.  The silencer scraped against the bottom of the mantelshelf in a random pattern indicating each was fighting for control and it just randomly was swaying.   Their bodies knocked into things like the table and chairs. Eventually the killer punched Neville in the face repeatedly breaking his nose and giving him black eyes.  This enabled the killer to seize sole control of the rifle.  The killer then began striking Nevill with the butt of the rifle.  Defensive wounds indicate Neville tried to block the blows with his arms but eventually the killer was able to hit Nevill in the head repeatedly. The blows were so hard that the stock broke and Nevill was knocked unconscious.  The killer then shot Nevill 3-4 more times in his head and he died. (3 times if the killer had shot him from the stairs, 4 times if the shot from the stairs never occurred and the bullet casing was transported to the stairs by someone accidentally)           

Why did this struggle happen?  Why was Nevill able to grab the rifle?  Why didn’t his killer shoot him before he could grab it?  The main variables are whether the gun was loaded or not at the time the Killer entered the kitchen and whether Neville was chasing his killer or his killer was chasing Nevill.

Everyone has always assumed Nevill was being chased by his killer.  I even assumed such because the bullet casing on the stairs suggests his killer was chasing him and still firing.  But if the theory of the medical examiner is correct and all 4 final shots were fired in the kitchen and a shell casing stuck to a shoe and deposited on the stairs this adds a different possibility.

Variables:

1) Gun was empty when the killer exited the bedroom   
a)Nevill took advantage of this and ran down stairs either to use the phone or to try to get a weapon of his own and killer gave chase.
i)Killer caught up with Nevill then tried to bludgeon him and Nevill grabbed the gun and the scuffle ensued, or
ii)Nevill jumped his killer as his killer entered the kitchen and grabbed the gun and the scuffle ensued, or
iii) Nevill's killer caught up with Nevill in the kitchen, pulled the trigger, both realized the gun was empty and Nevill moved to disarm his killer and the struggle ensued

b) Killer was running downstairs to get more ammunition and Nevill gave chase, caught up with his killer in the kitchen and tried to disarm the killer.  No one considered this possibility before.

2) Gun was empty after killer fired from the stairs. Nevill managed to run out of the room and ran down stairs either to use the phone or to try to get a weapon of his own. Killer gave chase and fired 1 shot from the stairs hitting him in the head but it was not severe enough to disable him.  killer followed Nevill into the kitchen either to get more ammo or to try to stop Nevill from reaching the phone or a weapon
a)Killer caught up with Nevill then tried to bludgeon him and Nevill grabbed the gun and the scuffle ensued, or

b)Nevill jumped his killer as his killer entered the kitchen and grabbed the gun and the scuffle ensued, or

c) Nevill's killer caught up with Nevill in the kitchen, Nevill's killer pulled the trigger, both realized the gun was empty and Nevill moved to disarm his killer and the struggle ensued

3) Gun was loaded when killer exited the bedroom and entered the kitchen. Nevill managed to run out of the room and ran down stairs either to use the phone or to try to get a weapon of his own. Killer gave chase.
a) killer fired 1 shot from the stairs hitting Nevill in the head but it was not severe enough to disable him. Killer didn’t have any other clear shots before Neville entered the kitchen so killer didn’t fire again until after Nevill was unconscious
b) killer could not get any clear shots so decided not to fire at Nevill as he was on the run.

In either event Nevill would have jumped his killer as his killer entered the kitchen and grabbed the gun and the scuffle ensued.  If Nevill didn’t jump his killer then his killer would simply have shot him and the scuffle would not have occurred. So if the gun was loaded his killer was ambushed. 

It is highly unlikely that Sheila could have won such a scuffle let alone inflict all the damage that was inflicted on Nevill without Sheila receiving a single scratch.  So it is rather academic which scenario actually occurred.  These are all the possibilities though of why the scuffle took place.  I accounted for every possibility.  I find it interesting that Nevill could have been the one pursuing his killer, that places things in a someone different light.

I wondered why he would not simply run out the front door.  Chasing his killer because he wanted to disarm him before he could reload and because he was angry and wanted revenge would account for why he didn't flee the premises. If someone has a loaded gun and is shooting at you the more space you have to run around the harder a target you will be.  So leaving the premises makes the most sense.  If a killer is close behind, running to a phone is a waste of time. You will leave yourself exposed for a clean shot as you try to dial.  That is why I assumed his goal was to get a weapon of his own.  But that too would be futile if his killer were close behind with a loaded gun.  Moreover I wondered why Nevill would have the guts to charge his attacker and try to grab the gun in the kitchen yet was not desperate/gutsy enough to do so upstairs and wondered how he got by his attacker out the bedroom door.

All these questions are answered if the killer ran out of bullets hen ran downstairs to get more ammo and Nevill gave chase.  It actually makes perfect sense that in this case Nevill would not leave the house but instead attempt to disarm the killer.       

Excellent post!

It’s so refreshing to read someone who’s intelligent.

[Robittybob1]

As Scipio says
"I wondered why he would not simply run out the front door.  Chasing his killer because he wanted to disarm him before he could reload and because he was angry and wanted revenge would account for why he didn't flee the premises. If someone has a loaded gun and is shooting at you the more space you have to run around the harder a target you will be.  So leaving the premises makes the most sense.  If a killer is close behind, running to a phone is a waste of time. You will leave yourself exposed for a clean shot as you try to dial.  That is why I assumed his goal was to get a weapon of his own.  But that too would be futile if his killer were close behind with a loaded gun.  Moreover I wondered why Nevill would have the guts to charge his attacker and try to grab the gun in the kitchen yet was not desperate/gutsy enough to do so upstairs and wondered how he got by his attacker out the bedroom door.

All these questions are answered if the killer ran out of bullets hen ran downstairs to get more ammo and Nevill gave chase.  It actually makes perfect sense that in this case Nevill would not leave the house but instead attempt to disarm the killer."

Why didn't both June and Nevill escape via the door near the kitchen?

[Holly Goodhead]

Re the thread title, perhaps a more pertinent question is if events unfolded as the prosecution want us to believe why didn't the 'scuffle' take place upstairs? 

[Holly Goodhead]

Re the thread title, perhaps a more pertinent question is if events unfolded as the prosecution want us to believe why didn't the 'scuffle' take place upstairs?

IMO a scuffle didn't take place upstairs because events didn't unfold as the prosecution claim.

[ISpyWithMyEye]

Re the thread title, perhaps a more pertinent question is if events unfolded as the prosecution want us to believe why didn't the 'scuffle' take place upstairs?

Jeremy, the perp, had run out of bullets, dear

And Nevill managed to escape downstairs

Don’t you think the police eventually worked all that out? Or are you still stuck almost half a century ago?

You do realise Jeremy Bamber was charged and convicted for these crimes, don’t you? And that he’s lost every single appeal?

[ISpyWithMyEye]

IMO a scuffle didn't take place upstairs because events didn't unfold as the prosecution claim.

So what are you implying (all imagination, of course )?

That Jeremy frogmarched Nevill downstairs while he went to reload the rifle?

Nevill either went downstairs in panic, fear and desperation for help in a dire emergency, or he was forced downstairs

The PERP (Jeremy) clearly ran out of bullets, otherwise he’d have shot Nevill at the bottom of the stairs.

Sounds like he forced Nevill into the kitchen.

BTW, I thought opinions weren’t allowed on here

[G-Unit]

So what are you implying (all imagination, of course )?

That Jeremy frogmarched Nevill downstairs while he went to reload the rifle?

Nevill either went downstairs in panic, fear and desperation for help in a dire emergency, or he was forced downstairs

The PERP (Jeremy) clearly ran out of bullets, otherwise he’d have shot Nevill at the bottom of the stairs.

Sounds like he forced Nevill into the kitchen.

BTW, I thought opinions weren’t allowed on here

Opinions are fine so long as they're acknowledged as such and not claimed to be facts.

[Caroline]

Excellent post!

It’s so refreshing to read someone who’s intelligent.

That's kind of an insult to the rest of us! 

[ISpyWithMyEye]

That's kind of an insult to the rest of us! 

I certainly wasn’t including you in my remarks, Caroline — nor several others. So apologies if it came out wrong.

I was thinking of a handful of other posters....

[ISpyWithMyEye]

I am not convinced that the scope had been removed at the time of the murders. I am not even convinced that Jeremy actually took out the gun, loaded it, unloaded it and left it to be accessed later.  These claims come from Jeremy alone.  He has eveyr reaosn to lie and has been caught in numerous lies so I don't particularly believe him. It is quite possible that he slipped in the house when everyone was asleep, fetched the gun, loaded it at that point including the magazine and that he left the scope and silencer both attached as they were when he found the weapon.  I am not going to rule out the scope being attached just on his say so. Thus it will always be possible to me that the scope had a role we are unaware of and that to this day was not looked at. 

The testimony tends to establish the gun always had the scope and silencer attached.  Jeremy though claims they were not usually attached and had not been attached when he retrieved it.  There were other guns in the same closet though that had scopes and even a silencer attached. Jeremy's claim he sought out a gun with no scope to go shhot bunnies makes no sense. I would use open sights for a large target maybe but not a bunny.  I would want to use a scope and I would even want a scope for a larger animal. I first learned to shoot with open sights.  We didn't get to use scopes until later on in our training and in the field.  Scopes are considerably better than open sights. It was relatively late out so why would he want to skip the suppressor as well and disturb neighbors even if the neighbors were not overly close?  In fact the main reaosn for the supporessor is not even to reduce recoil it is so that the noise doesn't hurt your ears.  A suppressor is not silent as they show on television, not most of them anyway because there are other factors at play.  But a suppressor like this reduces the noise enough so that it doesn't hurt your ears so you don't need to use earplugs. So it makes no sense to choose the weapon he claimed he did.  But worse he didn't just find the gun lacking the suppressor and scope as he claims. If the gun was indeed left by him on the kitchen table without these accessories it means he removed them.  Removing them makes no sense though for going to shoot bunnies there had to be a different motive as you suggest.

We know for a fact the suppressor was used in the murders.  The defense even conceded this point at trial the defense maintained it was Nevill and June's blood in the supporessor and that Sheila removed it before killing herself.

Here is the entire field of possibilities related to the suppressor:

1) it was a lie Jeremy left the gun out at all and in fact the gun was in the closet with the suppressor and scope attached and Jeremy used it in such fashion then removed both accessories after the murders and put them away

2) it was a lie Jeremy left the gun out at all and in fact the gun was in the closet with the suppressor and scope attached but Jeremy removed the scope before committing the murders

3) Jeremy removed the scope but not the suppressor and left it on the table

4) Jeremy left the gun on the table as he claims and the killer later fetched the suppressor and installed it before committing the murders

The defense maintains number 4 is what happened. Number 4 is not consistent with someone being in a crazy rage simply grabbing the gun though form the table. It demonstrates rational thinking. So if that is what happened it doesn't fit with how Sheila was supposed to be acting.

Even if Jeremy had left the gun on the table I don't think Nevill and June would have left the gun and bullets and set the table around them.  Jeremy would have to expect his parents to put the gun somewhere else and tha the would have to go search for it.  He had no need to leave it on the table. If he did prep the gun in advance he could leave it and the bullets hidden in a place where he could find it but no one else was likely to tamper with or even just in the closet and retrive it when he was ready to commit the murders. 

The tale of leaving it on the kitchen table was a contrived one. He invented that tale so people would believe Sheila was having a psychotic episode, the gun and bullets were right there in front of her face and all she had to do was slap a magazine in not load the clip so Nevill could not disarm her safely.  He was scared to try to disarm her and instead called Jeremy to do it. I don't believe tha the took out the gun and left it on the table with the bullets. I believe Jeremy made up this tale to get police to believe that Sheila did it.  The same way he made up the claim she had fired all guns in the house and was proficient with them to get police to believe she did it. He said the suppressor was not attached at this point though it was. Why did he says it wasn't attached? Well first of all he didn't want anyone to know it was used during the crimes.  But also with the suppressor attached the gun would be hanging off the table. The gun would be too long to fit anywhere natural in the room.  That is even more reason why it would have been put away by Nevill or June aside from just the twins being tempted by it.

His claim the suppressor was not on the gun was worthless and clearly a lie.  I don't believe he removed it then put it back on later. He lied about the suppressor so why not the scope?  I therefore am not conviced that the scope was not attached at the time of the murders.  He could have removed it but he might not have. I won't write it off just on his say so. Because no one thought about this possibility no one looked for marks to match to it.  They didn't inspect Jeremy at all which was a giant loss of potential evidence.     

I’ve always maintained that Jeremy never even took the gun out that night. He’s a liar, he’s proved that.

I believe he removed the scope some time during the day when no-one was around, and simply left it in the cupboard all ready for him to quickly pick it up that night.

 He’s tripped himself up yet again by saying it didn’t have the silencer and scope attached, but admitting he took it from the cupboard where it ALWAYS had the scope/silencer attached.

He’s thick.