Was Sheila Seen In The Kichen By EP?

[John]

That's Tesko territory... LOL!  What are we looking at... the blue and white coat hung on the wall to the right of the AGA?

A photo of the kitchen after clean-up showing light bulb without lampshade. If any broken pieces of glass were left attached to the threaded fastener of the light bulb socket, then it looks like they've been removed...

You're right of course Myster, it was a blue coat which had probably been washed and hung up to dry for the next days outing. That's the danger with discussing old threads without reading through them properly.  What a shame June never got to enjoy the boys being at the farm but then that was the whole point, Jeremy resented them so much as they were about to be involved with the farm and inherit part of June's estate and quite possibly some of Nevill's.

[Passer-by]

Was the escape exit near the body? It may have been to prevent blood pooling in the area that the murderer would need access to, or have to walk past to make an escape or go for a wash/shower?

If the murderer was Bamber it looks a bit odd to set up a suicidal-rampage scene and then dick about with the nearest-to-hand items to stop the blood spreading.  I have to admit, I'm a similar height and size to Sheila and I'd have difficulty lifting an unco-operative inert man that size, even if it was just the head end. I'd say it's most likely the police, because they had about 50 policemen traipsing through the house (is that actually true BTW?) who would have walked blood everywhere because that was a significant access point for them - which rather suggests the police cleaned aside what was on the floor!

[Anna]

If the murderer was Bamber it looks a bit odd to set up a suicidal-rampage scene and then dick about with the nearest-to-hand items to stop the blood spreading.  I have to admit, I'm a similar height and size to Sheila and I'd have difficulty lifting an unco-operative inert man that size, even if it was just the head end. I'd say it's most likely the police, because they had about 50 policemen traipsing through the house (is that actually true BTW?) who would have walked blood everywhere because that was a significant access point for them - which rather suggests the police cleaned aside what was on the floor!

Could the clothing and cushion have been knocked from a chair and the pulley?
 Sounds likely to me, since the lamp was broken and it would be higher than the pulley. The police aren't allowed to move anything at the scene of a crime. They would have to bridge the blood, use another entry, or break a window.

I don’t think Sheila was ever laying in the kitchen.

Rather a lot of people were traipsing about.

Holly could probably tell you the exact amount without searching about for the actual numbers.

[Myster]

But surely if the police had moved Nevill from off the floor they would have sat him upright in a chair, and not in such a precariously balanced and undignified position with pyjamas down straddling a chair back and his head jammed in the coal scuttle?  I believe PC Collins who reported seeing a woman's body through the kitchen window would only have taken a cursory glance, wary of having his head blown off by a crazy gun-toting Sheila. Nevill was facing downwards and oriented away from the window towards the Welsh Dresser, with long unkempt hair covering his face part-hidden in the scuttle, hence easily mistaken for a female.

And definitely not moved by Sheila. Her friend Tara Tomkinson who saw her only a week before the murders reported that she needed help just getting up from a seated position as she was so weak and worn out.

The lowered position of Nevill's exhausted body with head in the scuttle would have been ideal for delivering those four final bullets, two to the top and two just above the right ear, which is why I think there was so much blood running down the nearside of the scuttle and pooling on the floor there. In other words, Nevill wasn't moved from elsewhere by anyone (the killer or the police) after those shots. Any blood flowing from his earlier jaw and mouth wounds on the left-hand side and from other facial wounds would have drained more into the scuttle itself, imo.

I also think that the kitchen would have been a restricted area, with police, doctor and mortuary staff who arrived later entering through the front door rather than the back so as not to further disturb all the debris on the floor.

[Myster]

You're right of course Myster, it was a blue coat which had probably been washed and hung up to dry for the next days outing. That's the danger with discussing old threads without reading through them properly.  What a shame June never got to enjoy the boys being at the farm but then that was the whole point, Jeremy resented them so much as they were about to be involved with the farm and inherit part of June's estate and quite possibly some of Nevill's.

Somehow I don't think the twins would have enjoyed their stay with June from my understanding of the way Colin and Sheila felt about the way she tried to control and "convert" them.  Daniel's disturbing drawings of 'Granny' and WHF say it more than any words can describe.

[Myster]

Could the clothing and cushion have been knocked from a chair and the pulley?
 Sounds likely to me, since the lamp was broken and it would be higher than the pulley. The police aren't allowed to move anything at the scene of a crime. They would have to bridge the blood, use another entry, or break a window.

I don’t think Sheila was ever laying in the kitchen.

Rather a lot of people were traipsing about.

Holly could probably tell you the exact amount without searching about for the actual numbers.

Crikey, she'd be giving us the inside leg measurement and helmet size of every single one! 

Nice and peaceful for a change!     Let's hope it lasts. 

[Anna]

Crikey, she'd be giving us the inside leg measurement and helmet size of every single one! 

Nice and peaceful for a change!     Let's hope it lasts. 

Aww, Myster. You know that you don't mean that.

Holly has an immense amount of knowledge of this case and I certainly miss her.

[Angelo222]

Anna is right, the police don't go about moving things.  Nev was found where he collapsed with his head in the coal scuttle after falling forward out of the chair.

[Passer-by]

I don't think he can have fallen forward out if the chair - it's certainly what his body-position suggests, but he appears to be straddling the over-turned chair's back so that he is effectively sitting on the side of it.  If he had slid off the chair I'd expect it to be tipped over on top of him.

Anna the trousers are laid along the floor perfectly straight and flat and it's two cushions one on top of the other plus a towel.

The police admitted to and clearly have moved Sheila's body and the gun during the photos, so I don't think it's impossible they could have moved this:  don't forget they'd been in the house for 2-3hrs before the photographer came and no pathologists or ballistics experts visited the scene at all, but about 40-50 police apparently did.  There's evidence Holly could find that a policeman was put on the entrance to write down everyone who went in and out from the scene but in the end was told to stop by a senior officer because so many people had gone in and out of all the other doors without being recorded that his work was worthless.  They certainly made a pig's ear of it.

One of the issues raised by the dammed off blood flow though is that there isn't blood all over the floor.

Myster:  good point about the position for the headshots.  I'm going to counter your weedy Sheila theory though by pointing out she'd taken the boys out for a walk round the countryside that day. As she was mixing and matching prescription drugs with strong recreational ones perhaps that explains the torpor her friend found her in on that day.

[John]

I don't think he can have fallen forward out if the chair - it's certainly what his body-position suggests, but he appears to be straddling the over-turned chair's back so that he is effectively sitting on the side of it.  If he had slid off the chair I'd expect it to be tipped over on top of him.

[Passer-by]

Thank you John:  those are the photos I was thinking of! 

Is that a head-wound quite far forward to the top of his head in the second picture?  If so, it looks like an awkward shot if he was there when it was fired:  more like an execution shot when he was already on his knees.  Otherwise I can't see much damage to the poor man's head for the theory that he was shot in that position.

The first photo is where I think it's striking how neatly laid-out the trousers and cushions are.  I thought his head might have been on the floor with presumably a large pool of blood forming which was caught by the trousers and cushions, but when it breached the trousers someone lifted his head and placed the coal scuttle beneath it which caught the rest of the blood, but perhaps that much did just come down the side of the coal scuttle.  There was a heck of a lot of blood came out later at the morgue and for so many injuries to his head, with his torso elevated I'd have thought there'd be much more blood than that on the kitchen floor several hours later?

Also if there was a fight by the Aga it looks surprisingly tidy, with neatly folded towels over the rail and the kettle not disturbed.  I assume by the time he was there he was unable to see to pick up something like the kettle to throw at his attacker:  it must have been very quick.

I think it's possible EP mistook the hair to be June's.  But I also think it's possible they saw Sheila - but not wandering around with a gunshot wound (that strikes me as ridiculous).  Do any of you super-sleuths recall evidence that the light was on in the kitchen when police arrived? 

("HOLLLYYYYY!!?")

[Anna]

The cushions could have been on the other upturned chair before it toppled. The cushions match the one on the granny chair. Maybe two cushions ready to raise the twins up to the table for breakfast?

The raid team recorded which lights were on when they forced entry:-

 kitchen light, downstairs hall light, the light in the upstairs corridor at the rear (which shone through the curtains of the twins  room and the bathroom next door), the landing light, and oddly the light in the box room above the front door. The switch was inside that room and the half glazed door was closed.

[Passer-by]

The cushions could have been on the other upturned chair before it toppled. The cushions match the one on the granny chair. Maybe two cushions ready to raise the twins up to the table for breakfast?

The raid team recorded which lights were on when they forced entry:-

 kitchen light, downstairs hall light, the light in the upstairs corridor at the rear (which shone through the curtains of the twins  room and the bathroom next door), the landing light, and oddly the light in the box room above the front door. The switch was inside that room and the half glazed door was closed.

Brilliant Anna:  thanks, that was what I was looking for!

The box room is very weird  &%+((£

So it if Sheila was alive it is highly likely they would see her walking around, or possibly sitting on the floor in a daze, in the kitchen.

And how could the kitchen light be on if it was broken in a struggle?

[Anna]

Brilliant Anna:  thanks, that was what I was looking for!

The box room is very weird  &%+((£

So it if Sheila was alive it is highly likely they would see her walking around, or possibly sitting on the floor in a daze, in the kitchen.

And how could the kitchen light be on if it was broken in a struggle?

It was only the shade that was broken. The lightbulb can be seen in one of the photos

[Passer-by]

It was only the shade that was broken. The lightbulb can be seen in one of the photos

Do you think if the glass shade was broken by a flying gun-but it would have broken everything, so perhaps the shade was hit by a bullet casing?