Author Topic: Murders at White House Farm by Carol Ann Lee.  (Read 63579 times)

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Offline Steve_uk

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Re: Murders at White House Farm by Carol Ann Lee.
« Reply #1050 on: January 10, 2021, 04:46:AM »
Been watching this up until the inquest when the bodies are about to be released. Obviously it's skewed towards Jeremy being guilty. The found silencer being the most compelling.

Would the Eatons have known the silencer was always kept where it was ? Jeremy could have just disposed of it.
Also the silencer could have simply been placed next to Sheila, to make it look as though she'd removed it when being unable to reach the trigger.
To my mind Julie's evidence is the most compelling aspect of the case, but to each his own. He used a sound moderator because he felt it offered him a better chance of successfully overcoming five individuals that morning. The Defence case that Sheila attached the silencer to the murder weapon then returned it to the gun cupboard before proceeding back upstairs to shoot herself next to the woman she didn't particularly get along with is plainly a nonsense. If the silencer was not used in the killings the Defence has to explain why there was no blood in the barrel of the gun.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2021, 04:54:AM by Steve_uk »

Offline Steve_uk

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Re: Murders at White House Farm by Carol Ann Lee.
« Reply #1051 on: January 10, 2021, 04:53:AM »
I can't think of any reason why he would not have done as you suggest. 

A further point is that if we assume he is guilty and he did replace the silencer in the gun cupboard, then why was no blood found on the carpet of the den or in the gun cupboard itself, or even in the cardboard box in which the silencer was found?  Both Jeremy and the silencer would have had blood on them.

And why did Jeremy allow the family to take the keys to the house after the police had completed their search?  Surely, even if the silencer had been noticed as missing, that in itself is not concrete evidence and he could plead ignorance.  (I suppose that raises the more fundamental point of why he would put the silencer back at all).

There is also the prior question of whether a silencer was used in the first place to execute the killings.
Personally, I doubt it would have had much of a mitigating effect acoustically, but I think NG1066 takes a different view, and I also must acknowledge that Jeremy would not necessarily have known about the acoustic effect (even with all his firearms experience) and may have just assumed it would significantly muffle the weapon.  He also had no realistic way to test the point beforehand, even if he had planned the whole thing through to that extent.  The matter would have to be properly tested. We do have the finding of human blood in the silencer.  Assuming it was human blood, and if we are sceptical about the involvement of a silencer, then one must ask: How did the blood get there?  The way that the blood dispersed in the silencer (on the outer side of the baffles) would be consistent with the blood having been planted, but how would a conspirator know that the blood being planted is consistent with Sheila's blood type?  And would a family member take such a risk?  What could motivate them?  They weren't threatened with homelessness or some comparable catastrophe.  Could the blood have got in there accidentally, either from cross-contamination or something else that occurred prior to the incident?

The DNA testing that was undertaken in the 1990s does not really help because it was inconclusive and not linked to blood.
Not strictly true, though we are dealing with Low Copy Number DNA. The DNA found in the silencer was 3500 times more likely to have emanated from a full sister of Pamela Boutflour.  As far as Sheila Caffell was concerned seventeen out of twenty markers were found, higher than a random result of thirteen.

guest29835

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Re: Murders at White House Farm by Carol Ann Lee.
« Reply #1052 on: January 10, 2021, 05:02:AM »

A young free spirited 24 year old recently returned from a back packing trip around Oz & NZ, would be happy to off load the responsibility onto the more mature older members of the family.
How was he to know there was a risk of evidence being planted against him.

Of course.  I was commenting from the starting-point of assuming that Jeremy is guilty and I was asking why a guilty person would grant that concession.  It could be arrogance or a miscalculation, but it does seem odd.  Surely a rational calculation would be that the risk of suspicion arising from a missing silencer is much easier to deal with than the risk of an incriminating silencer being found? 

Furthermore, if Jeremy was supposed to have put the silencer back, then logically we must assume he cleaned it, but by the family's own admission, it wasn't clean.

The whole thing simply doesn't make sense.

Also why would Neville contact Jeremy and not simply phone 999 if the situation was serious ?
Maybe it was because Neville didn't deem it serious.

Jeremy couldn't be bothered dealing with another issue involving his sister, so just phones the local Police Station.

[In bold] I've never understood the fuss people make about that part of Jeremy's story.  The ITV drama made a lot out of it in the courtroom scene of Jeremy's cross-examination.  To me, it's a total non-point, for two reasons:

First, if Jeremy is telling the truth and Nevill did ring him, it needn't have been an emergency at that point.

Second, there are a number of sound reasons why Nevill would have been reluctant to bring official attention on a gun-related incident involving Sheila (obviously on the caveat that she wasn't harming anybody at a given point).  Anybody who has looked into the case in some depth will know what those reasons are.  If Sheila was just waving the gun around but had not yet actually harmed anybody, ringing Jeremy does not seem an unreasonable thing to do. 

A related point is that people ask why Nevill would not just take the gun off her.  I went into that question on another thread.  For reasons I won't go into, I know a thing or two about this sort of thing.
I explained that taking a loaded gun off somebody weaker and smaller than you is not necessarily as simple as it sounds.  The closest analogy I can offer you is, if you are a man, think back - assuming this applies to you - to a time you had a fight with another man who was shorter than you.  It's quite hard.  Sheila may have been running around with the gun, and Nevill may have called Jeremy as a way of distracting Sheila from the children upstairs or as a way of encouraging her to give up (not appreciating that bringing Jeremy into it could aggravate her and make things worse), etc., etc.

guest29835

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Re: Murders at White House Farm by Carol Ann Lee.
« Reply #1053 on: January 10, 2021, 05:07:AM »
Not strictly true, though we are dealing with Low Copy Number DNA. The DNA found in the silencer was 3500 times more likely to have emanated from a full sister of Pamela Boutflour.  As far as Sheila Caffell was concerned seventeen out of twenty markers were found, higher than a random result of thirteen.

You are welcome to your opinion, but the 2002 appeal judges took the same view as me about it and dismissed the findings. 

Your own post undermines the point you are trying to advance.  You admit it is Low Copy Number DNA, which cannot be considered reliable, and you ignore the second part of my comment, that the DNA was not linked to the blood. 

Even if we assume it was Sheila's DNA, so what?  Sheila lived at the house where the silencer was stored.  Her DNA could have got in there via all sorts of means.

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Re: Murders at White House Farm by Carol Ann Lee.
« Reply #1054 on: December 27, 2021, 06:27:PM »
If anybody wants a downloadable PDF copy of the full Carol Ann Lee book (2015 hardback edition), by all means PM me.  I have tried to upload it here on the Forum but can't due to format issues.

If Mike or Neil would like to PM me, I can also let either or both of you have a copy for uploading to the Forum, if that can be achieved technically from your end.

Offline JackieD

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Re: Murders at White House Farm by Carol Ann Lee.
« Reply #1055 on: December 27, 2021, 06:43:PM »
If anybody wants a downloadable PDF copy of the full Carol Ann Lee book (2015 hardback edition), by all means PM me.  I have tried to upload it here on the Forum but can't due to format issues.

If Mike or Neil would like to PM me, I can also let either or both of you have a copy for uploading to the Forum, if that can be achieved technically from your end.

Life’s too short
Julie Mugford the main prosecution witness was guilty of numerous crimes, 13 separate cheque frauds, robbery, and drug dealing and also making a deal with a national newspaper before trial that if she could convince a jury her ex boyfriend was guilty of five murders she would receive £25,000