How the murders were carried out.

[John]

Much has been written about the murders and the manner in which they were carried out.   Some academics and think-tanks have suggestion that the operation went too smoothly for only one person to have been involved.  This in itself is a misrepresentation of the facts in this case.  Far from going smoothly, Jeremy Bamber was lucky to have carried it off.  As we all now know, his luck ran out!

Jeremy got into the farmhouse by his tried and trusted method, his downstairs dodgy window.  He retrieved his rifle and ammunition and made his way upstairs.  It is accepted that he shot the sleeping twins first and probably did so using the rifle fitted with the sound moderator so as to make least noise.  Then on to the master bedroom where he knew his parents slept.

We know from the distribution and quantity of the empty bullet casings retrieved by police that he fired a total of 12 bullets at his mother and father from the moment the door was opened.  Did Nevill, hearing the noise outside confront him at the bedroom door, the bullet casing distribution would certainly suggest this. June was shot as she lay in bed hitting her but not fatally, three bullets missed their target. This was Jeremy's first shock, the fact that a couple of bullets from his tried and trusted rifle would not kill an adult human being!





The scene in the master bedroom showing blood on the side of the bed where June had been lying when she was shot.  Nevill appears to have been out of bed and was probably on his way to confront the intruder when he was shot as he opened the bedroom door.




Distribution of the bullets and empty casings in the master bedroom. DRH 5, 9 and 2x35 are bullets.

[John]

Contd..

Nevill Bamber got past Jeremy even after sustaining four/five bullet wounds to his left arm, neck, jaw and head and still managed to struggle downstairs leaving a trail of blood on the stair/hall carpet and on wallpaper as he attempted to get to the telephone in the kitchen to summon help.  One must remember that the bedroom telephone had been conveniently removed some time earlier in order to prevent June and Nevill summoning help from their bedroom.

From the position of the bedroom door, Jeremy shot the now standing June again fatally killing her where she then stood between the bed and the bedroom door. He would have needed to reload his weapon by this point, something he hadn't planned on, he didn't realise that he would need more than 10 rounds to do the job which up until this point had taken a total of 20 bullets.  He was left with no alternative but to quickly follow Nevill downstairs and assault him with the rifle butt in what turned out to be a savage and brutal attack. Things were going wrong now, how could he possibly pass this carnage off on petite Sheila?  Having floored Nevill he would have to have gone for more ammunition and reloaded the rifle before pumping three more shots into Nevill killing him.

Jeremy was then left with the task of murdering the sedated Sheila as she slept through it all on her bed upstairs. Sheila was carried through to the master bedroom and shot through the neck.  The bullet fragmented and Bamber was left with no alternative but to shoot her again as she lay on the floor.  The second bullet killed her instantly.

[Claudia]

I find that fascinating.  Can we be sure though whether the twins were shot at the beginning or the end of the main assault?  The twins could have been sedated just like Sheila but I suppose that would have been a give away.  I always wondered why Sheila had a peaceful look on her face after everything that had happened. 

[Weety]

Sedated with what? The blood screening showed nothing unusual in any of them.

Other than that, a plausible theory, but why carry Sheila into the main bedroom? He could have staged her where she was.

[John]

Sedated with Valium.  He already had a supply of them and it would have been quite easy to drug her when he was there at the farm earlier.  Didn't Pamela say Sheila was very quiet and withdrawn at that stage.  She probably went up to her bed and fell asleep on top of it.  Her appearance after being shot twice certainly gives it away I think.

The carrying her into the main bedroom has me stumped so far, anyone got any ideas on why he would do that?   8-)(--)

[Angelo222]

Sedated with Valium.  He already had a supply of them and it would have been quite easy to drug her when he was there at the farm earlier.  Didn't Pamela say Sheila was very quiet and withdrawn at that stage.  She probably went up to her bed and fell asleep on top of it.  Her appearance after being shot twice certainly gives it away I think.

The carrying her into the main bedroom has me stumped so far, anyone got any ideas on why he would do that?   8-)(--)

Do you think he did that so as to make it look like she had shot June last before committing suicide herself?

I have some sympathy with the suggestion that June and Sheila were originally found on the bed side by side.

[puglove]

I don't think she was carried, she was pulled, petrified, from her bedroom. By this stage she was so terrified, and everyone else was dead, she had no fight in her. The poor girl was lost, and did as she was told. But, as JB stated, she moved slightly just before the first shot, and it missed. It didn't kill her, but it rendered her unconscious. She never moved again. No expirated blood, and just that small, trianguler stain on her nightdress.

[Weety]

Sheila and the twins' blood was screened for benzodiazepine drugs (which is what valium is) and came up negative.

[John]

Sheila and the twins' blood was screened for benzodiazepine drugs (which is what valium is) and came up negative.

Thanks Weety, was that in the pathologists report?

[Weety]

It's in the blood screening report, here:

http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=207.0

[John]

It's in the blood screening report, here:

http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=207.0

Thanks Weety.  There must be some reason why Sheila was so noticeably unconcerned when she was shot. I am still of the opinion that she was unconscious. Could she have been asphyxiated as she slept leaving no traces of such and then shot to cover this up?

[Weety]

I think one of the signs of asphyxiation is burst blood vessels in the eyes, I don't know if that always occurs but anyway, if she was dead before she was shot she wouldn't have bled the way she did. I'm sure a pathologist would have been able to tell, even in 1985.

As to noticeably unconcerned, what do you base that on? If it's facial expression, I've seen a couple of pretty unconcerned looking drowned people. If it's lack of tears, I don't know, absolute shock and terror may produce a reaction which temporarily blocks the normal emotions I suppose.

I can't reconcile the idea of staging a suicide with carrying her from her room into June and Neville's. It would have looked better if she'd been on her own bed or in the boys' room. I think either he didn't intend her to be there but she was, or she turned up there, or he had to bring her there for some reason. Maybe he came back up to find her wandering around on the landing and was not sure whether or not he had managed to kill June.

[goatboy]

Good precis of how it could have been done. However, it has been suggested that the upstairs phone may not have been moved until after the murders. All Jeremy had to do was take the kitchen phone off the hook then Neville wouldn't have been able to use the bedroom phone (only one phone line into the house), hence his haste to get to the phone downstairs to hang it up. How Sheila was sedated (and she would have had to have been for the plan to work) I'm not sure. Does chloroform leave any trace in the bloodstream which would have shown up on the post mortem?

[Tim Invictus]

I think the true story lies somewhere in those posts .... I like to think that after Bamber had shot the poor twins and the initial shots into Nevill and June he ran out of bullets. Nevill then chased Jeremy downstairs who was going after more bullets; Nevill got to him before he could reload and the massive struggle took place. Unfortunately Jeremy won as Nevill was already badly injured from the initial shots.


Nevill fought to his death to save his family and he must have know it was his own son he had to fight. How anyone could believe that Sheila overcame Nevill in such a struggle is quite beyond any commonsense in my opinion. 

[Weety]

Occam's razor...