Jeremy Bamber - The three burn marks on Nevill's back

[Outlook]

In relation to the burn marks, could they have been made as a means of ascertaining if Nevill was still alive?

It would have involved less hassle if he'd simply felt for a wrist pulse, but he probably realised he'd get his fingers covered in blood, leaving tell-tale fingerprints, or more likely he would have no idea where to feel for it anyway.

Death is actually very difficult to diagnose.  Checking for pulse, heart beat, breath on mirrors and pupil dilation are commonly shown but they are not reliable.  There is one very reliable method but it is never shown on TV for obvious reasons and it is what gives the lie to the idea that Sheila was alive after the first shot, let alone running around the house, hiding silencers, having a wash and barking like a dog.

[John]

I could be wrong but doesn't it appear that the skin is broken as well as being burned?

[Outlook]

The burn marks on Mr Bambers's back were circular so surely this would mean that the bullet end would only have come into contact with the skin for a picot second until it bounced off/fell to the ground?  Would such limited contact have been sufficient to cause burning?  Surely the example Myster gives is different in that the shirt was able to keep the bullet in contact with the skin for a period of time?

What would the statistical chances be of this happening three times will all three marks in such close proximity?

If this is a possibility surely it would be a known phenomeon with ballistic experts?

Perhaps I have picked up incorrectly?  It certainly sounds more logical though than cigars, heating up various instruments and torture.

I agree.  My view is that one (?) bullet "may" have caught in Mr Bamber's shirt and that caused the wounds.

The thought of the killer having "A Hamlet moment" afterwards or stokeing up the AGA is just too repellent for me.

[John]

If you look at the image below is the upper mark the worst with the second one being lesser and the third the least?



Would it be possible that all three were made one after the other and as the offending weapon cooled it left lesser marks?

[Outlook]

If you look at the image below can you notice that the top mark would appear to be worst with the second one being lesser and the third the least?



Would it be possible that all three were made one after the other and as the offending weapon cooled it left lesser marks?

Oh I see what you mean.  The pictures are confusing they get reversed and are not helped by the idiots that did the heated barrel test reversing one of the arrow labels to screw everyone up.  Do you think they do this deliberately?  and they are supposedly called experts!!!

Certainly the lower wound is less significant that the top one but the process appears different in nature.  Difficult to say from B/W photos.

What is significant is that you can see the clear difference between pig and human skin.  No wonder this "evidence" was rejected.

[Outlook]

Something else too.  The "centimeters" on the left hand side are different to the "centimeters" on the right hand side.  The pictures of Mr Bamber's wounds suffer from perspective distortion such that the top wound is accurate in size but the lower wounds are 10% to 20% enlarged because of the distortion.

The left hand side are accurate and do not suffer from perspective distortion.

How do people get away with this.  "Evidence" presented as "similar" but on different materials, labels stuck on the wrong way around and perspective distortion all over the place.  It is just amateur night in a Karaoke bar.

[puglove]

I could be wrong but doesn't it appear that the skin is broken as well as being burned?

 

The skin is also puckered and blistered, which suggests that Ralph was alive. Those wounds still look old, to me.

I wonder if they could be some sort of lesion (ecthyma?)

[scipio_usmc]

First let me get the obvious out of the way, the burns on Nevill do not look exactly like the test burns that were created by the firearms expert.  The test burns are more round, smaller in diameter, have more than one ring visible because the threads created additional rings and do not have the dark imprint that is present in the middle of Nevill’s burns.  Thus if simply going by looks the claim they matched is false.

Also, while they tested what it would do at 200C they didn’t explain how to get the rifle barrel that hot.  10 bullets fired in succession sure would not manage that.  While reloading the mag it would cool down some.   Firing another 10 still would not get it to 200C.  But anyway even at that temp the middle did not burn anyway.

Are they in fact burns or bruises?  From both a legal and scientific standpoint it is impossible to simply look at a photo and say ok this burn and it was definitely caused by XYZ.  We are not talking about a gunshot wound. Thus the injuries in question could potentially predate the murders and have been caused by something on the farm.  Unfortunately the best people to ask if there was some burning incident or the like that occurred prior to the murders are dead.  The farm workers may or may not have had a reason to learn about burns but surely after this much time would not likely remember something minor like that.  You have to rule out other causes before you can say it definitely happened during the murders.  You would have to try to figure out how old it was and by looking at photos simply nothing more that can’t be accomplished. 

For the sake of argument let’s assume the burns were incurred during the murders.  Were any comparisons done with marks a sound suppressor would have made?  Nope.  Based on my own experience with sound suppressors they get pretty damn hot which is why I have used a cover to protect my hands.  If a rifle barrel can get hot enough to cause a burn like the test burns then so can a sound suppressor.  The shape of the burn would depend on the shape of the sound suppressor and what exact portion were touched.  Remember these are not gunshot wounds so were not necessarily caused by being flush against where a bullet would shoot out of something.

Sound suppressors capture a lot of powder and thus get pretty dirty inside.  If I press the  tip of a dirty suppressor into my skin I can get 2 round impressions plus some soot in the middle.  The widest circle quickly dissipates but he dirt needs to be cleaned off my skin and if the silencer were hot near the hole then potentially could cause some kind of damage that would last longer than the outer ring.  I have no interest in heating a dirty the suppressor to see if it will make a burn impression with soot inside that looks like the burns on Nevell.  It certainly is a possibility though and the study did not attempt to recreate it and rule it out. 

If I were going to try to prove that the burn marks were made by a gun without its silencer then I would test the impression caused by the gun with silencer and without trying to recreate the conditions on the night of the crime to the best extent possible. 

As a practical matter, even if the rifle barrel without the silencer attached were a perfect match in the burn pattern that still doesn’t prove that a silencer wasn’t used to commit the murders.  These were not gunshot wounds thus could have been made after the shots were fired.  Jeremy could have removed the silencer and then poked him in the back a few times to make sure he wasn’t still conscious.  He could have done the same with the silencer still on.  We don’t know since no test was done as to what kind of burn marks would be produced by the silencer. 

We don’t even know for sure they are really burns they could have been something else though.

Thus as the appeal court ruled the test conclusions were purely speculative and do not in fact establish anything conclusively. 

From a forensic standpoint the gunshot wounds are the ones most important in trying to assess the characteristics of the gun that cause the wounds. Some of the best evidence about whether a silencer was used is biological evidence found on the silencer.  There was definitely human blood on and in the silencer.  How would it have gotten there if not used in the commission of murders?  Unfortunately, some of the blood samples were expended during testing early on before advanced DNA testing was available.  June’s DNA was most certainly present though.  How would her blood get in it unless it had been used?  The rifle didn’t have any blood evidence inside despite numerous very close range or contact wounds.  That suggests he silencer was indeed used. 

At what point the silencer was removed is not all that important.  The only reason for Sheila to remove it would have been because she could not kill herself with it attached.  In which case she would have left it out not put it away so police would not discover it.   

At the end of the day limited tests like this do not prove that the silencer was not used.  You need to prove something that is to the exclusion of all other possibilities to result in such evidence and Jeremy’s lawyers can’t come up with anything like that. The killer could have removed the silencer then hit him with the gun and even could have fired a few shots without it to try to throw off investigators.  The silencer itself must be examined to see if there is evidence it was used for a least some of the shots and the blood evidence says yes it was.     

[Holly Goodhead]

It is not clear from the pathologist's report that the burn marks were fresh wounds.  He notes the wounds:

http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=199.0;attach=680

When referring to other injuries ie non gun shot he does not make reference to the burns which to my mind tells me that they were not caused on 7th/8th Aug '85:

http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=206.0;attach=742;image

Perhaps this is the reason NB wore his hair slightly longer ie to conceal the marks?

When NB was a RAF pilot he suffered a plane crash resulting in a serious back injury.  At this time a surgical procedure existed where rods were inserted into the back down the spinal column and I am wondering whether these burn marks were in any way connected to this? 

Alternatively as a farmer and working outside were the burn marks removal of abnormal growths, skin cancer or the like? 

I think testing has shown that no matter how many times the rifle was fired it does not get hot enough to cause skin burning.  One theory is that the rifle end was heated up in or on the Aga but as I said it is not clear to me from the pathologist's report that the burn marks were caused on 7th/8th Aug '85.  Surely NB's medi records would confirm either way?

[scipio_usmc]

It is not clear from the pathologist's report that the burn marks were fresh wounds.  He notes the wounds:

http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=199.0;attach=680

When referring to other injuries ie non gun shot he does not make reference to the burns which to my mind tells me that they were not caused on 7th/8th Aug '85:

http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=206.0;attach=742;image

Perhaps this is the reason NB wore his hair slightly longer ie to conceal the marks?

When NB was a RAF pilot he suffered a plane crash resulting in a serious back injury.  At this time a surgical procedure existed where rods were inserted into the back down the spinal column and I am wondering whether these burn marks were in any way connected to this? 

Alternatively as a farmer and working outside were the burn marks removal of abnormal growths, skin cancer or the like? 

I think testing has shown that no matter how many times the rifle was fired it does not get hot enough to cause skin burning.  One theory is that the rifle end was heated up in or on the Aga but as I said it is not clear to me from the pathologist's report that the burn marks were caused on 7th/8th Aug '85.  Surely NB's medi records would confirm either way?

Honestly they look like bruises more than burns but only someone analyzing the flesh could say for sure.  We don't have enough evidence as to whether he had any wounds like this before the murders or not.

A hot gun isn't going to cause a severe burn unless someone decided to heat the end like a branding iron.

At the end of the day they are a waste of time to even consider since there is no way to prove they didn't predate the murders and could very well be cuts caused by the broken stock, the scope or something else that struck him.  They can't help determine anything dispositive.  Something dispositive is something that proves something the exclusion of all other possibilities and a key point hinges upon what it proves.  At this stage of the game the defense needs to come up with something that challenges one of the main pillars of the case.  It has to be strong enough to say that something that convicted him should not have reached the jury or something extremely exculpatory that could have changed the jury's mind should have reached the jury but was improperly withheld.       



   

[Holly Goodhead]

At trial nothing was made of the burn marks.  The CoA doc makes reference to them only ie the fact they were there:

42. The examination of Nevill Bamber's body also revealed black eyes and a broken nose, linear bruising to the cheeks, lacerations to the head, linear type bruising to the right forearm, bruising to the left wrist and forearm and three circular burn type marks to the back. The linear marks were consistent with Mr Bamber having been struck with a long blunt object, possibly a gun.

The pathologist's report headed up "Statements - report of PM Then second statement following questions of counsel" states the following:

"Injuries to Mr Bamber (other than gunshot)

Head wounds (from butt of gun?)
Arm wounds (from barrel of gun)"

http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=206.0;attach=742

In the ITV docu shown circa Apr '12 Mark Williams Thomas states at circa 16.30 in that the wounds  were inflicted the night of the tragedies.  He then goes on to explain about tests being carried out  8-)(--)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i2CjYDJGTo

Did the pathologist make a mistake and omit the burns in his statement above?  Seems unlikely to me given the high profile nature of the case and the fact he was being asked specific questions by counsel.  8-)(--)

[Holly Goodhead]

I am keen to know what others think ie were the burn marks pre tragedy or during?

I note the pathologist details all marks to the victim's body whether they happened during the tragedy or not eg SC's scars from breast implants.  However in relation to say the burn marks and scars from implants he simply states they were there he does not go into detail.  Whereas with the gunshot wounds he describes the exact location and provides measurements and other detailed information.

Now don't laugh...but I wonder if I approach Peter Vanezis he might agree to a Q&A session on the 'UK Justice Forum'.  Nothing ventured: nothing gained. 

[John]

I am keen to know what others think ie were the burn marks pre tragedy or during?

I note the pathologist details all marks to the victim's body whether they happened during the tragedy or not eg SC's scars from breast implants.  However in relation to say the burn marks and scars from implants he simply states they were there he does not go into detail.  Whereas with the gunshot wounds he describes the exact location and provides measurements and other detailed information.

Now don't laugh...but I wonder if I approach Peter Vanezis he might agree to a Q&A session on the 'UK Justice Forum'.  Nothing ventured: nothing gained.

If they had been fresh wounds wouldn't there have been blood trails associated with them?

Good luck with the Q&A session.

[Holly Goodhead]

If they had been fresh wounds wouldn't there have been blood trails associated with them?

Good luck with the Q&A session.

Yes exactly!  They would be open and weeping.

Remind me whose idea it was to spend resources on investigating the burns    What did the specialists say...something along the lines of more testing required...think they saw someone coming... 

[scipio_usmc]

At trial nothing was made of the burn marks.  The CoA doc makes reference to them only ie the fact they were there:

42. The examination of Nevill Bamber's body also revealed black eyes and a broken nose, linear bruising to the cheeks, lacerations to the head, linear type bruising to the right forearm, bruising to the left wrist and forearm and three circular burn type marks to the back. The linear marks were consistent with Mr Bamber having been struck with a long blunt object, possibly a gun.

The pathologist's report headed up "Statements - report of PM Then second statement following questions of counsel" states the following:

"Injuries to Mr Bamber (other than gunshot)

Head wounds (from butt of gun?)
Arm wounds (from barrel of gun)"

http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=206.0;attach=742

In the ITV docu shown circa Apr '12 Mark Williams Thomas states at circa 16.30 in that the wounds  were inflicted the night of the tragedies.  He then goes on to explain about tests being carried out  8-)(--)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i2CjYDJGTo

Did the pathologist make a mistake and omit the burns in his statement above?  Seems unlikely to me given the high profile nature of the case and the fact he was being asked specific questions by counsel.  8-)(--)

The location and nature of the marks makes them irrelevant to the murders.  There was no way to assess when or how they got there.  Because they were on the back, even if they were made during the murders they are of no value of explaining any detail of importance.  The wounds to his arms were defensive wounds which is significant in establishing he was still conscious at the time and defending himself.  The linear wounds are consistent with being struck by the rifle as he blocked with his hands.  The blows to his head would have rendered him unconscous and are what broke the stock.  The punches to his face would have been delivered face to face and thus would have resulted in evidence being left on the killer in some fashion and relate to the strength of the killer and height etc. 

The wounds to the back do not tell us anythign significant about the murders or who could have committed them. That is why they were ignored at trial and ignored in discussions about the case.

We don't know when they were made or what made them and will never know.  Evne if we were to somehow find out it would not help provide any evidence of who committed the murders or significantly change how the killings went down.  The location, nature and sheer uncertainty as to when they were inflicted makes them a red herring.

If you want to build a case you stick with the main issues proving the main actions of the killer that resulte din death.  If you want to attack a case you attack those pillars proving guilt. When you can't then you resort to red herrings instead hoping to deflect attention from the pillars or lack thereof.

It is a waste of time for us to ponder these marks because:

1) We have no way of ever knowing whether they were pre murder or not
2) no way of knowing if they were scabs or what the nature was because the skin wasn't tested in detail to assess so no way of ever knowing what made the marks
3) the location and nature even if inflicted during the murders doesn't have any way to impact our understanding of who committed the crimes.  There are wounds that offer interpretative clues but these are not among those

Our speculation about the marks thus would be a total waste of time.