Lest We Forget...................

[Steve_uk]

So were her actual words

I’ve been dumped by that wanker Bamber and I had all my bag packs ready to move into Whitehouse but I’m glad he dumped me because he told me he was responsible for all his family being murdered at the farm. He told me the night before the murders it was going to happen and he told me straightaway after he was responsible but hey ho he had a great big house and land and I would never have had to work again. So I just turned a blind eye

Is that how it went Steve

He offered to buy her a wine bar in a fashionable area of London, or at least she would be the manageress. It's what Nevill and June should have realized whilst Jeremy was working at Sloppy Joe's and tried to break out again at the Little Chef off the A11. Instead they broke up his relationship with Suzette and he blamed the stress on her miscarriages. Then all of a sudden come those two angelic little boys on the scene with parasite mother in tow, and his resentment reaches fever pitch. Throw in a cocktail of central nervous system stimulants to unhinge his brain for a couple of hours and you have the cataclysmic tragedy of White House Farm.

[lookout]

One might have thought she'd have gone with them -"Mummy is here with you, my darlings. We're all here together"- rather than leaving them alone.

She may have even said that as they lay asleep. There are a lot of things we don't know.

[Steve_uk]

Killing two children can never be planned Steve. It just didn't happen that way. They were killed out of love for them not hate. They died together with their mother which Sheila had wanted that way and not left to the mercy of the world, orphaned and unloved. In Sheila's mind she saw a better place.

But Sheila had never accomplished anything of worth apart from those two boys, and they were her bridge to Colin, they brought her respect and her relationship with June was slowly healing with the quarterly allowance about to be put in place. One talent Jeremy did have was reckoning money: money for the Maida Vale flat, money for hospital bills, money for food parcels and money for a private education for the boys. This was his chance with all occupants under one roof to maximize his inheritance and like Brutus in Julius Caesar take the tide at the flood.

[JackieD]

Sheila had literally reached the end of her tether, an unpredictability that even the cleverest physician couldn't predict.

Poor Sheila

[Steve_uk]

One might have thought she'd have gone with them -"Mummy is here with you, my darlings. We're all here together"- rather than leaving them alone.

Yes Jane. I think that is the real giveaway..

[lookout]

But Sheila had never accomplished anything of worth apart from those two boys, and they were her bridge to Colin, they brought her respect and her relationship with June was slowly healing with the quarterly allowance about to be put in place. One talent Jeremy did have was reckoning money: money for the Maida Vale flat, money for hospital bills, money for food parcels and money for a private education for the boys. This was his chance with all occupants under one roof to maximize his inheritance and like Brutus in Julius Caesar take the tide at the flood.

Which is why she'd felt that there was nothing to live for, while this way her boys would remain with her.

[lookout]

 The greatest reason for a mother who kills her children is a separation and/or marriage break up.
What exactly did Sheila have going for her ? Anything positive on the horizon ? I wouldn't have thought so .

[lookout]

Like many today ( too many ) Sheila had been badly let down by a mental health system which isn't much further on 35 years later.

[Steve_uk]

The greatest reason for a mother who kills her children is a separation and/or marriage break up.
What exactly did Sheila have going for her ? Anything positive on the horizon ? I wouldn't have thought so .

It's difficult to know, and of course one does recall Bamber's remark about this being "the perfect crime". Why was it the perfect crime: because Sheila had in the past expressed to a psychiatrist feelings of antipathy towards the boys and humanity in general, that she was unaware of most events going on around her due to her illness, that the farmhouse was somewhat isolated..and so it was that she was led to her death by a handsome conman like a lamb to the slaughter.

[lookout]

Famous last words from many a professional " they don't pose a risk ". How many times have we heard that or seen it written ?

[Steve_uk]

Famous last words from many a professional " they don't pose a risk ". How many times have we heard that or seen it written ?

..and how many times have we heard anecdotal evidence from neighbours that "that bloke wouldn't hurt a fly.."

[Roch]

..and how many times have we heard anecdotal evidence from neighbours that "that bloke wouldn't hurt a fly.."

Tommy Mair's neighbour said as much.. and a lot more.

[lookout]

It's difficult to know, and of course one does recall Bamber's remark about this being "the perfect crime". Why was it the perfect crime: because Sheila had in the past expressed to a psychiatrist feelings of antipathy towards the boys and humanity in general, that she was unaware of most events going on around her due to her illness, that the farmhouse was somewhat isolated..and so it was that she was led to her death by a handsome conman like a lamb to the slaughter.

I somehow can't picture Sheila having been " led like a lamb to the slaughter ", she'd have turned like a whippet with a bite just as bad. Whoever had attempted to attack her would have come off worse. Remember her pan throwing at Colin ? Amongst other things.

[Steve_uk]

I somehow can't picture Sheila having been " led like a lamb to the slaughter ", she'd have turned like a whippet with a bite just as bad. Whoever had attempted to attack her would have come off worse. Remember her pan throwing at Colin ? Amongst other things.

But that was in the early days of the marriage before she was on any medication. Was she comparing Colin to Nevill? Had she ever been in control of any situation before given that she was either at an all-girls private school or White House Farm?

[Jane]

I somehow can't picture Sheila having been " led like a lamb to the slaughter ", she'd have turned like a whippet with a bite just as bad. Whoever had attempted to attack her would have come off worse. Remember her pan throwing at Colin ? Amongst other things.

She was receiving, by injection, medication whose chief purpose is to dull the senses. It's unlikely she could have raised the energy to throw a tantrum, let alone accomplish several loadings of a gun -something she was totally unskilled at- and fire it accurately enough to kill five people. Throwing pans is a very different animal from firing a gun.