This whole section of the book details the background to Sheila's psychology (from the author's POV at least).
"Essex police had spoken with Sheila’s ex-boyfriend, 41 year old Farhad (Freddie) Emami, who admitted there were times with Sheila when he’d been terrified for his own safety. It was acknowledged that Sheila felt a lot of suppressed anger towards June. One of Sheila’s girlfriends said Sheila had confided that her adoptive mother had said she was unfit to look after the twins. Freddie reported that Sheila disliked June deeply for routinely preaching to her about her immoral life. Sheila should always remember God, June told her.
Various witnesses would comment upon the fact that in the autumn of 1984, Sheila changed. ‘She became extremely depressed,’ one witness reported, ‘and withdrew into herself.’ To others Sheila expressed ‘morbid thoughts about killing herself or the boys.’ There was the occasion when one of the twins fell out of a London taxi on the way home from a visit to White House Farm. The boy wasn’t seriously hurt but Sheila was devastated. She told friends that rather than looking after her children she’d been preoccupied with her mother’s religious ravings. Sheila was constantly slipping back into that twilight world of nervous tension and paranoia. Her temper was erratic and she had violent outbursts, often screaming so loudly that other residents were woken up by the noise. These terror attacks struck Sheila again and again, usually in the early hours of the morning. It was three weeks after the taxi accident that Sheila suffered her first mental breakdown.
An example of Sheila’s behaviour in the early summer of 1985, only months before the murders, illustrates her state of mind. Freddie later explained in a lengthy statement to Essex police that he had called at Sheila’s flat and found her inexplicably ‘uptight and panicky’. In Freddie’s presence Sheila telephoned a friend - Tara - and was forced to apologize about a religious book that June had recently left at Tara’s house. While on the phone the call was disconnected. Sheila went nuts, telling Freddie that her phone was bugged. ‘She became like someone possessed,’ Freddie told police, ‘ranting and raving. She was striking herself and beating the wall with her fists. I tried to calm her but she didn’t seem to hear me.’
Sheila rambled obsessively about God and the Devil, insisting that God was on her side, whatever her mother claimed. God loved her, said Sheila.
The servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows.
Sheila picked up the telephone and called Colin Caffell’s mother, Mrs Brencher, but asked to speak to Dr Ferguson. She then started striking herself and yelling obscenities. Mrs Brencher rushed to the flat. Sheila told the horrified onlookers that she was hearing voices, sometimes from God. She added that it was her destiny to put the world to rights. As Sheila’s own GP, Dr Angeloglou, was on holiday another doctor was called. Sheila confessed to hearing voices. The doctor said he would give her an injection but Sheila refused. He prescribed some pills instead, and Freddie went to the nearest chemist while Mrs Brencher arranged for Colin to collect the twins. Tara’s husband also arrived at the flat to pick up his daughter who was staying with Sheila. Freddie was concerned that Sheila ‘may use violence towards someone.’ Returning from the chemist Freddie met Mrs Brencher at the front door; Sheila had kicked her out.
Sheila began raving again, trance-like, beating herself with her fists, and screaming out loud while tears ran down her face. Freddie called for another doctor and this time one of Dr Angeloglou’s partners arrived. Sheila refused to let him examine her, shouting that she was being poisoned. ‘By this time,’ Freddie Emami recalled in his police statement, ‘she had become completely irrational. The doctor eventually left without being able to do anything.’ A third doctor was summoned, but also failed to help. In desperation, Freddie phoned Nevill to tell him that his daughter was going crazy. Nevill said that he would drive to London first thing in the morning to collect her, but insisted he couldn’t come any sooner.
‘Sheila was behaving like a person possessed, rambling about the Devil and God.’ Desperate, Freddie fetched Sheila’s next-door neighbour to help him calm her down. Nothing worked until the next morning, when the doorbell rang and Nevill appeared on the scene. ‘When her father walked into the flat,’ Freddie said, ‘Sheila became a different person. She spoke to him in a calm and collected manner. I couldn’t believe the change in the girl.’ When told about the incident months later, Sheila was unable to remember anything about it.
The deterioration in Sheila’s mental state was so marked she was immediately readmitted to St Andrew’s hospital. When she was discharged three weeks later her friend Tara said that Sheila was better but ‘not the same person.’
I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wished it were already kindled!
Fourteen year-old Helen Grimster, a cousin to Sheila, found her not only strange but frightening. One day at White House Farm, Helen Grimster had to endure an hour-long sermon about religion, witchcraft and suicide. Sheila smoked marijuana and asked Helen if she had ever tried taking drugs. Then Sheila’s mind turned to suicide.
‘She asked me if I’d ever thought of killing myself,’ Helen recalled, ‘and she said that she contemplated suicide on more than one occasion.’ Sheila told the uneasy teenager that she thought she was a white witch and it was her job to get rid of the evil in the world. June had told her that she had lost her soul, and had urged Sheila to be more religious.
But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
A student neighbour in Maida Vale said of Sheila: ‘She had those wild staring eyes. I thought she was either the sickest woman in the world, or she was ‘on’ something.’
One of Sheila’s friends, Sandra Elston, who accepted Sheila as a borderline paranoid schizophrenic, recalled the night (ten weeks before the murders) when Sheila was convinced that Freddie was the Devil and that the CIA was following her. Only two weeks before the murders, Colin Caffell told Sandra that he was worried about Sheila’s mental health.
Seven days before the White House Farm tragedy, Sheila took herself and the twins to a friend’s house in London. Also present at the social gathering was a nurse, Caroline Heath, who noticed Sheila was ‘fidgety and on edge’. Caroline’s training led to her to believe Sheila was schizophrenic. ‘The impression I got of her that afternoon was that she appeared very frightened and paranoid.’ When Caroline heard about the murders a week later, she said: ‘I can’t say it was completely unexpected.’
In court, Dr Ferguson said: ‘Sheila had a very strong belief that she had evil in her mind and her adopted mother also had evil in her mind and they both needed the evil to be cleansed… She was… caught up with the idea that the Devil had taken her over and given her the power to direct the Devil’s evil not only on to other people but particularly her twin sons… She had complex ideas about having sex with her twin sons. She thought her sons would seduce her and saw the devil in both of them. In particular, she thought Nicholas was a woman-[ censored word ] and a potential murderer.’ Merely a matter of days before the shootings, a psychiatric report noted that her illness was centred on her children whom she referred to ‘the Devil’s children.’ Dr Ferguson also wrote in his report that Sheila had expressed suicidal ideation.
A number of Essex detectives reflected on all this. They were unaware of the hideous case in America where Richard Nelson shot dead his two children, his wife and then himself because he believed they were all evil and he needed to make a sacrifice to God, but few doubted Sheila was capable of the atrocities of August 7. None of these complex motives applied to Jeremy; if the son did it, he did it for the money.
According to Jeremy, a discussion had taken place on the eve of the deaths, some time before 10 p.m. during which it was suggested that Sheila's two sons should be fostered on a part time basis due to her illness, or that another alternative for their care should be considered. There’s no doubt that such a discussion could have sparked a schizophrenic episode. Or was that conversation a clever concoction on Jeremy’s behalf, as Stan Jones insisted?"
http://youknowwhokilledyoudontyou.blogspot.com/2011/02/innocent-man-part-10.html
