The baffled blood is baffling me. It’s not just any blood, it’s blood that defies gravity.
For the purposes of this piece, I am not going to question the science of backspatter and will assume that there was blowback of blood into the murder weapon. We will here confine ourselves to a discussion about 'blood behaviour'.
If Jeremy is guilty, then there are four mysteries.
The lack of blood:
(i). at the muzzle end of the silencer;
(ii). in the rifle;
(iii). in the gun cupboard; and,
(iv). in the box from which the silencer was recovered.
The absence of blood in these locations suggests that this particular ballistic artefact is isolated from the rest of the evidence – it’s almost as if the silencer doesn’t belong or the blood in it was put there.
Only the silencer itself revealed blood evidence, nothing around where it was found had blood. Our concern is with blood on the inside of the silencer, but for completeness I will mention that we also have blood on the outside of it, alas too little to test and group.
John Hayward and Glynis Howard were able to test a sample of this blood recovered from inside the silencer (this is usually referred to as a 'flake', but in reality all such blood would have dried by that stage). It is not clear why the rest of the blood inside the silencer was not also subject to testing. It is also claimed that there is no more of this blood left to test, which seems paradoxical. In any event, there may be potential for further blood retrieval. It’s not clear if the silencer housing itself was checked for blood on the inside. This could have been done using a 12-gauge brush, but I haven't seen a record of this test carried out by Hayward or Howard.
Hayward and Howard were forensic scientists at the FSS. Hayward described himself in cross-examination as “a specialist in the distribution of blood stains” and that is the subject we turn to now.
If the silencer was used, then Jeremy is guilty - for now, we will assume that.
Furthermore, if the silencer was used, then Jeremy must have realised that the silenced rifle did not fit Sheila, so he then unscrewed the silencer from the rifle.
Jeremy may have done this after the first shot or following the second shot.
As I understand, it is the Crown’s case that there was only a brief period between the first and second shots.
This blood that got into the silencer as a result was not from a contiguous source, it was isolated on the silencer.
To quote the 2002 appeal judges, Hayward reported that blood found was “inside the moderator deposited in the spaces to the sides of the baffles around the edge of the silencer” (see paragraph 453 of the 2002 appeal judgment). In other words, the blood was deposited in the gaps between the baffles and the inner body of the silencer. This sounds counter-intuitive. How can there be such a gap? Baffles are rodded into the silencer through the open end with the corresponding open end of each baffle in the forward position and the baffle contact facing towards the muzzle end, meaning that one baffle acts as a seal against the baffle behind it. This is a snug fit, however there needs to be a very slight gap between the baffles and the steel housing to allow for the silencers to be rodded in the first place. What keeps the baffles in place is the smaller aperture at the threaded muzzle end.
The appeal judges also tell us that Hayward reports “a considerable amount of blood” (ibid). If it was a considerable amount of blood, this suggests that the silencer was unscrewed after the second shot, but we don't know that for sure.
Hayward’s evidence is crucial but also, I think, quite flawed and he comes across as unsure during his examination-in-chief (and it's noteworthy that Arlidge had to examine him twice and Rivlin's cross-examinations were quite short). Hayward did not identify where in the silencer the blood had been found, other than vaguely stating that he found blood up to maybe the 8th. baffle (he couldn’t remember exactly). He also did not state that the blood had been found inside the baffles, or that it touched each baffle; in fact he tells us the blood was on the outside the baffles (in the gap I mention above), which for reasons I will explain, is quite interesting in its own right.
Let's consider the Crown's case theory in relation to the blood evidence from the silencer.
The Evil One unscrews the silencer. Now, where does he put it? If he still has to shoot Sheila again, then he would leave the silencer somewhere in the immediacy of that location, which means the silencer would get more blood on its outside.
Or does he go straight to the gun cupboard with it?
Regardless of what he does and when, another question is how does he avoid leaving blood traces from the silencer and from any blood on himself in the gun cupboard itself and its vicinity, or even in the cardboard box from which the silencer was recovered? The law of gravity applies. The Harper-Noakes COLP memo reports some blood found in the gun cupboard, but that was years after the trial.
So there's our first puzzle.
For a similar reason, there is also the puzzle of why no blood has been found in the barrel. Pro-guilt fanatics make the simple assumption that if Jeremy used the silencer during the shootings, then there would be no blood or other biological matter in the barrel of the rifle. Indeed, they go further and assert that the absence of such, supposedly proven during forensic testing, bolsters the case that the silencer was utilised. But is this a valid assumption?
The assumption intuitively seems foolish for at least two obvious fundamental reasons that challenge the very premise: first, the pull-through test to establish that the rifle was 'clean' doesn't seem very scientific or reliable and it is worrying to have to note the absence of a control test in Fletcher's rifle examination; second, the rifle was in regular use for shooting vermin, and cleaning (even if the rifle was cleaned) wouldn't necessarily dislodge matter, therefore the absence of blood and biological matter within the barrel seems strange in itself, never mind whether the silencer was used. There again, rabbits and rats are quick and maybe Jeremy and Nevill never got up close to a rabbit or rat to effect blowback from a shot?
But there is another basis on which to proceed.
If we assume that Sheila was shot roughly in the position she was found, then Jeremy could not unscrew and detach the silencer in situ because her head would obstruct this.
Therefore, Jeremy must have lifted the rifle up at some angle, both to re-shoot and to unscrew the silencer itself. During unscrewing, possibly he held the silencer at a vertical angle (holding it at 180-degrees), then duly unscrewed the silencer.
The act of unscrewing might also cause droplets of blood to go into the rifle barrel. Even if the blood had dried at this stage, it would retain viscosity if disturbed or broken.
Newton’s law of universal gravitation applies and we rely on Hayward’s report on blood between the baffles and the steel housing of the silencer.
Therefore, why isn’t there blood in the barrel?
Related to the above problems is the question of why isn’t there blood, or traces of blood, further down the silencer itself, reaching to the threaded muzzle end that would connect with the rifle?
One possible answer to all these points is that the blood had dried, but quick drying relies on blood not agglomerating in pools. Otherwise minimum drying time for blood at room temperature is around 60 minutes, which means the blood would run or drip for quite some time (known in forensic science as ‘passive dripping’).
Here, there is an accumulation of blood – recall Hayward’s evidence – therefore the blood would take some time to dry and there should be at least some blood towards the muzzle end of the silencer and in the gun barrel, if the silencer was used.
Another possibility is that the silencer wasn’t used, in which case there may or may not be blood in the barrel on account of blow-back (a different question, beyond the scope of this piece); and, further contamination in the reverse direction, from rifle to silencer, would perhaps explain the blood findings in the silencer itself, if during disassembly, examination and testing of the rifle the silencer was attached to it.
But if the silencer wasn’t used, how did so much blood get in there in the first place? Samples were taken from victims and produced a PGM isozyme, whereas the silencer samples did not. Rabbit blood can also have a PGM isozyme. There was also the grey hair, which seems likely to have been a rabbit hair. But if it’s animal blood, why didn’t Jeremy affirm in his statements to police that he had shot an injured rabbit or make some similar claim? What was done with rabbits and rats that were shot? Wouldn't Nevill inform Jeremy if he had done the same? Or maybe Jeremy has just forgotten? That is just about plausible, when we bear in mind that an innocent Jeremy wouldn't have known that a tragedy was coming. Yet still questions remain: Why did the silencer have blood on or in it at all? Didn't Jeremy claim that Nevill must have taken the silencer and scope off the rifle? If this was to clean these accessories, then why wasn't the silencer clean when recovered?
There is a third more disturbing possibility, which is that somebody put the blood there. This may explain why the blood dried in stasis. Isolated spots of blood would dry quickly and therefore would not form a passive dripping pattern under gravity. Given that the blood was located in the gap between the baffles and the inner steel housing, one can imagine somebody contaminating the outside of the baffles using the simple rodding technique to remove the baffles, then add the blood, then rod the baffles back. It's a very simple and easy thing to do, especially for somebody familiar with guns. One can also imagine that if blood was put there, the person doing this would wait for the blood to dry, in order to avoid a mess.
Moreover, we must consider the location in which the blood was found. If somebody was going to contaminate the silencer, any blood found would most likely be on the outside of the baffles rather than the inside and would involve dripping the blood on to the outside of the baffles while they are held or positioned horizontally. To contaminate the baffles from the inside would be rather more difficult, due to the simple effect of gravity. It would require somebody to either hold the baffles individually and somehow make blood droplets 'stick' or maybe hold all the baffles in the positioning rod and then drop blood down either side of the rod on to the inner surfaces of the baffles, which again meets with the problem of gravity.
We know that the senior scenes of crime officer, D.I. Cook, disassembled the silencer for examination under conditions that may have brought about contamination. A behavioural indication that could point to intentional contamination is that the blood was found at the open end of the silencer. Somebody who intentionally contaminates this artefact might well proceed in a naive way and concentrate on the baffles positioned on the nub side of the rod that go in on the 'open' side, perhaps not realising that he would have to account for passive dripping.
Then we have David Boutflour. He admits tampering with the silencer. He admits he removed a blood flake on the outside and he unconvincingly claims that he tried to unscrew the silencer itself. Why couldn’t he unscrew it? Can we believe the muzzle-end cap was factory-tight?
Mr Boutflour also states that he found the silencer in a box inside the gun cupboard (see page 1 of Mr Boutflour's first (undated) statement to the police). As I understand it, he pulled the box out of the gun cupboard before lifting the silencer out of the box. Why was there no blood noticed in the box? I go back to my original observation at the outset of this piece: the silencer seems to be an isolated piece of evidence that isn't quite congruent with the other forensic evidence available, unless one takes a leap of faith and accepts that the blood is human blood, the blood is Sheila's, and no blood was left in the location where the silencer was found, in contravention of ordinary physics and common-sense.
Should we condemn a man to prison on a leap of faith? I believe that determinations of guilt should be on the basis of science, logic, evidence and facts, not assumptions, passions and prejudices.
Here I am not making allegations. The above merely represents my thoughts about certain mysteries of this topic. I welcome constructive criticism and debate.
