Why an accomplice? He knew the house; he knew the guns; he was evil enough - why couldnt he have managed it alone? I still think that having an accomplice would have made it much riskier proposition for him .
For me it is mainly about overpowering three adults; the boys were, as it seems, "easy" enough, and SORRY to use that phrase, but they were asleep (thank God), and posed no "danger" to the killer. Still, it would all have taken some time - and made some noise.
I am thinking about the different overall feel and look about Sheila in death - her parents were in a bad shape, bruised and bloody. I don´t understand the peacefulness about Sheila, I don´t understand that she was so very clean and unbruised (except for a gauged wound on her stomach), I don´t get where Sheila was while her sons and parents were being killed.
I feel it would have been difficult for one man to control Sheila while killing the rest of the family. I don´t see any traces of her having cried - that is strange (in any case).
And before anyone points it out, it is odd too, if you think that Sheila was the killer that she was unbruised and so clean.
Something is missing. It would have been managable for two persons, but one? I cannot see it.
abs..... this incident took place in the middle of the night when the occupants were most likely asleep or dozing, and least of all expecting anybody entering into their bedroom to kill them.
As a victim of crime myself not long ago, I know what it's like to be suddenly awoken at 2 o'clock in the morning from a drowsy state.... you don't realise what is happening until its too late!!
The killing has all the hallmarks of an assassination... a pre-planned unexpected assault taking place within minutes.
I agree with you that the sleeping twins could have been the first in line, the assailant then reloading immediately in their bedroom (possibly with a pre-loaded magazine), before bursting into the parents' bedroom in a surprise attack, June being shot first whilst lying in bed, Nevill then getting up to stop the onslaught but by being shot & severely injured in the process, attempted to get out of the way by rushing downstairs to raise the alarm, or to find a weapon to retaliate with, or simply to survive..., closely followed by the killer.
If Sheila was in a Haloperidol-induced sedated state then it's possible that she was unaware of what was happening at all. In such a compliant condition, it would have been easier for the killer to coax or manipulate her.
What is more difficult to figure out is how & why she ended up at her parents' bedside.
Perhaps if she was awake & alert, she may have been the last to become aware of the commotion outside her bedroom on the stairs or in the kitchen, got up, saw her mother lying in the doorway, then went to check on the twins, heard her brother return upstairs and tried to hide in the box-room between the twins' and parents' bedrooms, or after passing through that room, attempted to conceal herself by crouching/kneeling at Nevill's side of the bed, where she was then discovered and shot. It's also possible that she fainted when she was confronted there, and thus put up no resistance at all. Everything was happening so fast and unexpectedly that she was in shock and didn't get the chance to cry!
As such there doesn't have to be an accomplice..., unless he played a minor role such as a co-driver from Goldhanger/Bourtree cottage to WHF and back, as disposer of evidence, eg. clothes, gloves, etc. or less likely, as tutor in combat/killing techniques.
If you are right in your belief that there was another active participant... then I'm afraid Jeremy Bamber has only himself to blame for spending nearly three decades behind bars without coming clean and admitting to it, and letting his partner-in-crime get away with it.
But in my opinion it's more acceptable in his own mind (and safer in terms of prisoner retaliation) for him to blame Sheila, when he alone was the culprit.
For me a paragraph in Blood Relations stands out, in which about a week before the trial the defence team were discussing the case along with a psychiatrist, who expressed his opinion that Jeremy Bamber displayed classic psychopathic traits, in that the awfulness of what he had done had been pushed to the back of his mind, dropped off and forgotten as if it didn't exist at all.
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[I don't think Sheila had a gauged (gouged?) wound on her stomach, did she?]
