How Did Jeremy Move To And From The Farmhouse? Some Thoughts & Problems...

[guest29835]

I've touched on this topic already, but this is a bit more detailed. 

One technique I have when looking at this case is to think about difficulties and problems in reverse.  An example is Sheila being found forensically 'clean', which is said to be incriminating for Jeremy; but when you really think about it, actually it potentially points more to Sheila. 

Here we will discuss the phone calls.  They are said to be a problem for Jeremy, but are they?  The essential problem here for the prosecution is that just as the phone calls tie down Jeremy, they also tie down the prosecution.  This is because if, as a hypothetical exercise, we assume that Jeremy is guilty, then the phone calls are related to Jeremy's movements that night.

Even if Jeremy planned all this, he didn't plan for Nevill to end up in the kitchen.  This is probably why he made the telephone calls, but even if he intended to make the calls anyway, it's still very risky and looks suspicious because he has to carry out the massacre under time-sensitive conditions.

What do I mean by 'time-sensitive' conditions?

I mean:

(i). Let's remember that Jeremy needs to fake the call from White House Farm to Goldhanger.

(i). He then needs to make his own call to the police from Goldhanger.

(iii). He doesn't know if the authorities and the phone company can log calls in some way.  If they can, then it looks suspicious. 

(iv). This means he has maybe a 30 minute window, at most - at the very most - between completing the deed and making a call to the police, and even then it looks suspicious.  Anybody with a half-a-brain will ask: Why the 30 minute gap?  This problem becomes all the more acute if, as I suspect, the phone calls were the result of the incident going wrong, because he is then thinking on the hoof - quite literally, if my belief is right that he had to go on foot.

As it turned out, there really was a 'suspicious' gap between Nevill's call and Jeremy alerting the authorities, which is what you would expect if Jeremy is guilty, because he has to move from one location to another.  The gap reported by Jeremy was something like 20/25 minutes, I believe. 

It also turned out that the authorities/phone company couldn't log calls, but Jeremy wasn't to know this. He's not a telecoms engineer and it would be risky for him to research the point, as he is then creating a paper trail and/or witness evidence.  For instance, if he asks at the local library or rings up the phone company, could somebody remember that enquiry months later and link it to him? 

In fact, Jeremy's presumed lack of knowledge about civilian call logging is, in itself, a glaring flaw in the prosecution.  Quite simply, how does Jeremy know that the police can't find out when and where calls are made?  How does anybody know this in 1985?  Just because billing wasn't itemised then, it doesn't mean the authorities and/or the phone company don't have the capability to track calls made.

The main point of all this is that guilters need Jeremy to be able to move to and from the farmhouse in quick order.  They know he needs to be seen returning to Goldhanger, so that places him in Goldhanger.  Whether he really is seen there is beside the point.  It's dark anyway, but Jeremy won't risk not being there.  They also know that Jeremy can't do this by car or motorcycle/moped/scooter.  That's why they're keen on June's bike.  Otherwise, the only way he can do this is on foot. 

And I think on foot is the only reasonable possibility.  It's simple and much, much less risky than by push bike.  If on the way back he is caught, on foot, in the environs of Bourtree Cottage, he could - at a pinch - make some excuse about being out of the house because he heard an intruder or something like that.  If he is caught with a push bike, he is done for.

The question is: If we give the prosecution the benefit of the doubt and say the gap is 30 minutes, could Jeremy have moved on foot within a time window of 30 minutes, so that he could get back to Goldhanger to place the second call?  Take into account that he would probably need to change and shower and dispose of clothes, etc., before he makes the call, in order to remove forensic traces, so he would have less than 30 minutes to actually cover the distance.

As the crow flies, it's 2 miles.  Allow more than that for having to perambulate over fields, streams and ditches, and circumvent populated locations and various obstacles, natural and man-made. He's a fit young 24 year old man, and he knows the land, so he can walk over fields and climb over fences, etc., without needing a torch.  In theory, he could do it, but it would be hard. 

[Caroline]

I've touched on this topic already, but this is a bit more detailed. 

One technique I have when looking at this case is to think about difficulties and problems in reverse.  An example is Sheila being found forensically 'clean', which is said to be incriminating for Jeremy; but when you really think about it, actually it potentially points more to Sheila. 

Here we will discuss the phone calls.  They are said to be a problem for Jeremy, but are they?  The essential problem here for the prosecution is that just as the phone calls tie down Jeremy, they also tie down the prosecution.  This is because if, as a hypothetical exercise, we assume that Jeremy is guilty, then the phone calls are related to Jeremy's movements that night.

Even if Jeremy planned all this, he didn't plan for Nevill to end up in the kitchen.  This is probably why he made the telephone calls, but even if he intended to make the calls anyway, it's still very risky and looks suspicious because he has to carry out the massacre under time-sensitive conditions.

What do I mean by 'time-sensitive' conditions?

I mean:

(i). Let's remember that Jeremy needs to fake the call from White House Farm to Goldhanger.

(i). He then needs to make his own call to the police from Goldhanger.

(iii). He doesn't know if the authorities and the phone company can log calls in some way.  If they can, then it looks suspicious. 

(iv). This means he has maybe a 30 minute window, at most - at the very most - between completing the deed and making a call to the police, and even then it looks suspicious.  Anybody with a half-a-brain will ask: Why the 30 minute gap?  This problem becomes all the more acute if, as I suspect, the phone calls were the result of the incident going wrong, because he is then thinking on the hoof - quite literally, if my belief is right that he had to go on foot.

As it turned out, there really was a 'suspicious' gap between Nevill's call and Jeremy alerting the authorities, which is what you would expect if Jeremy is guilty, because he has to move from one location to another.  The gap reported by Jeremy was something like 20/25 minutes, I believe. 

It also turned out that the authorities/phone company couldn't log calls, but Jeremy wasn't to know this. He's not a telecoms engineer and it would be risky for him to research the point, as he is then creating a paper trail and/or witness evidence.  For instance, if he asks at the local library or rings up the phone company, could somebody remember that enquiry months later and link it to him? 

In fact, Jeremy's presumed lack of knowledge about civilian call logging is, in itself, a glaring flaw in the prosecution.  Quite simply, how does Jeremy know that the police can't find out when and where calls are made?  How does anybody know this in 1985?  Just because billing wasn't itemised then, it doesn't mean the authorities and/or the phone company don't have the capability to track calls made.

The main point of all this is that guilters need Jeremy to be able to move to and from the farmhouse in quick order.  They know he needs to be seen returning to Goldhanger, so that places him in Goldhanger.  Whether he really is seen there is beside the point.  It's dark anyway, but Jeremy won't risk not being there.  They also know that Jeremy can't do this by car or motorcycle/moped/scooter.  That's why they're keen on June's bike.  Otherwise, the only way he can do this is on foot. 

And I think on foot is the only reasonable possibility.  It's simple and much, much less risky than by push bike.  If on the way back he is caught, on foot, in the environs of Bourtree Cottage, he could - at a pinch - make some excuse about being out of the house because he heard an intruder or something like that.  If he is caught with a push bike, he is done for.

The question is: If we give the prosecution the benefit of the doubt and say the gap is 30 minutes, could Jeremy have moved on foot within a time window of 30 minutes, so that he could get back to Goldhanger to place the second call?  Take into account that he would probably need to change and shower and dispose of clothes, etc., before he makes the call, in order to remove forensic traces, so he would have less than 30 minutes to actually cover the distance.

As the crow flies, it's 2 miles.  Allow more than that for having to perambulate over fields, streams and ditches, and circumvent populated locations and various obstacles, natural and man-made. He's a fit young 24 year old man, and he knows the land, so he can walk over fields and climb over fences, etc., without needing a torch.  In theory, he could do it, but it would be hard.

I live in similar terrain only not as flat - it's not difficult. He'd be used to it

[guest29835]

I live in similar terrain only not as flat - it's not difficult. He'd be used to it

In principle, I agree, but it's dark, early hours of the morning, he'll be worried about being seen, and there are all sorts of other problems too numerable to list and probably other problems I haven't thought of yet.

What makes it an issue for me is the timings.  Do you think I am correct in my premise that he would have to work to roughly a 30 minute gap (and even then, he would know there would be suspicion falling on him)?

[Jane]

In principle, I agree, but it's dark, early hours of the morning, he'll be worried about being seen, and there are all sorts of other problems too numerable to list and probably other problems I haven't thought of yet.

What makes it an issue for me is the timings.  Do you think I am correct in my premise that he would have to work to roughly a 30 minute gap (and even then, he would know there would be suspicion falling on him)?

Whatever -and however many- scenarios any of us present, none will be 100% fail-safe. So it was with Jeremy. At some point he'd have had to leave something to chance and if praying wasn't his thing, trust to luck and keep his fingers crossed.

[guest7363]

In principle, I agree, but it's dark, early hours of the morning, he'll be worried about being seen, and there are all sorts of other problems too numerable to list and probably other problems I haven't thought of yet.

What makes it an issue for me is the timings.  Do you think I am correct in my premise that he would have to work to roughly a 30 minute gap (and even then, he would know there would be suspicion falling on him)?

Where does the 30 min gap come into it?  We don’t know the actual time of death.  Deaths could have been earlier QC, we don’t have to stick to phone call times for the deaths to have taken place?

[guest29835]

Whatever -and however many- scenarios any of us present, none will be 100% fail-safe. So it was with Jeremy. At some point he'd have had to leave something to chance and if praying wasn't his thing, trust to luck and keep his fingers crossed.

This is of course true, but this particular enterprise was high risk for all sorts of reasons.  I keep being told he planned it, so it seems to me he must have take measures to minimise the risk. 

Maybe weeks before, he could have used a push bike to case out the countryside (as well as walking around and observing from his tractor/combine when he was out in the fields).

I think if he thought it through properly, he eventually must have decided he would go on foot on the night itself.  Maybe he also got hold of June's bike as a back-up and left it at the farm in case he needed to make haste, then he later returned it to Bourtree Cottage after the incident, or Julie did.

Having planned everything, he knew that by going on foot he could avoid being seen or identified for most of the route, but had to be careful around Goldhanger, especially in the environs of Bourtree Cottage.  I have to say I find it incredibly difficult to imagine him taking the risk of leaving and then returning to an overlooked house surreptitiously.  Even at those times, there was a reasonable risk of being seen.

But the issue for me here is timings.  If we accept he had a 30-minute window to make it back to Bourtree Cottage, does this mean I'm wrong and he did use the bike after all?  I really doubt that, yet there's a problem because he didn't plan for Nevill to be downstairs, did he.  So this means he must have reasoned everything out very quickly, in the early hours of the morning.  Or did he plan the phone calls all along and the peripatetic Nevill was a minor hitch on the night that fitted with his plans, placing Nevill in proximity to a phone?  But if that's the case, why doesn't the phone have blood on it?

The red flag I am raising here, for anybody who is interested, is that the case against Jeremy doesn't quite fit together.  There is that underlying, lurking sense of doubt that arises due to various bits and pieces of improbability and implausibility.

Is 30 minutes enough time for Jeremy to make it back and shower and change, and do whatever else, including make a phone call to Julie?  Maybe it's enough in theory, if we assume he ran most of the way and really knew where he was going, but the reality of the situation was quite another matter.  Personally, I am far from convinced.  I think this is another flaw in the prosecution cause.  It's something that hasn't been thought about in a joined-up way that would relate it to the other aspects of the case.  The jury should have been taken on a tour of the area and walked the land and the vicinity of Bourtree Cottage to see and recognise the problem.

[guest7363]

I live in similar terrain only not as flat - it's not difficult. He'd be used to it

It is surprising how your eyes adjust, we’ve come home from parks or woods late at night without any torch or street light.  He might have had the benefit of moonlight glaring off the sea if he used the sea wall route.

[Caroline]

In principle, I agree, but it's dark, early hours of the morning, he'll be worried about being seen, and there are all sorts of other problems too numerable to list and probably other problems I haven't thought of yet.

What makes it an issue for me is the timings.  Do you think I am correct in my premise that he would have to work to roughly a 30 minute gap (and even then, he would know there would be suspicion falling on him)?

Like I said, I live in similar terrain and yes, it is dark but if you know the place well, the darkness isn't really an issue and I am sure I could make a similar walk/run in pretty good time without being seen.

I don't think the timings are that crucial, it would take a body a while to cool down enough for a police officer to realise they had been dead for some time. Time of death isn't an exact science, the body loses about 1.5 degrees F of body heat per hour so unless it took him hours - not much to worry about.

[guest7363]

Whatever -and however many- scenarios any of us present, none will be 100% fail-safe. So it was with Jeremy. At some point he'd have had to leave something to chance and if praying wasn't his thing, trust to luck and keep his fingers crossed.

I would say any murder is a risk if your trying to get away with it? 

[guest29835]

Where does the 30 min gap come into it? We don’t know the actual time of death.  Deaths could have been earlier QC, we don’t have to stick to phone call times for the deaths to have taken place?

A fair question and one of the reasons I started the thread was to consider this.

You are correct that my argument here is based on a premise that he had a 30-minute, or so, gap.  30 minutes is suspicious enough as it is.  Much more than that, and it starts to become a serious problem for him.

And you will note that indeed there was a suspicious time gap in reality - I think of about 20/25 minutes, which he was able to explain away.

What underpins the 30-minute theory is two main things:

First, Jeremy doesn't know if the calls will somehow be logged somewhere by the phone company, for disclosure to the authorities.  It turns out they weren't, but Jeremy is not to know this, and I believe even the police made enquiries about this after the incident. Jeremy may have raised suspicion if he had tried to confirm the point before the incident, or he may not have been able to establish the position one way or the other.

Additionally, consider that if Jeremy is faking a call from White House Farm, that means the phone could potentially be heard ringing by his neighbours at Goldhanger and it is possible they may then pin the ringing to a rough time bracket, even a specific time.  I assume Jeremy would have made use of his answerphone so that the call was 'answered' at Goldhanger, and he then picked it up at the other end on his return, but he needed to make sure that the call to the police was placed within 30 minutes at the outside, and it needed to be done from Goldhanger.

The alternative way of looking at it, which would say I am wrong, is that Jeremy perhaps doesn't bother with a call back to Bourtree Cottage, he just returns home whenever and calls the police.  It could be that he somehow knew that calls are not logged and he was confident in relying on this information, and he also didn't care whether neighbours heard the phone ringing.  Or maybe he didn't want to risk waking them so didn't place the fake call to his own house, or he was sure they would not hear it anyway - it was the early hours of the morning.

[Jane]

This is of course true, but this particular enterprise was high risk for all sorts of reasons.  I keep being told he planned it, so it seems to me he must have take measures to minimise the risk. 

Maybe weeks before, he could have used a push bike to case out the countryside (as well as walking around and observing from his tractor/combine when he was out in the fields).

I think if he thought it through properly, he eventually must have decided he would go on foot on the night itself.  Maybe he also got hold of June's bike as a back-up and left it at the farm in case he needed to make haste, then he later returned it to Bourtree Cottage after the incident, or Julie did.

Having planned everything, he knew that by going on foot he could avoid being seen or identified for most of the route, but had to be careful around Goldhanger, especially in the environs of Bourtree Cottage.  I have to say I find it incredibly difficult to imagine him taking the risk of leaving and then returning to an overlooked house surreptitiously.  Even at those times, there was a reasonable risk of being seen.

But the issue for me here is timings.  If we accept he had a 30-minute window to make it back to Bourtree Cottage, does this mean I'm wrong and he did use the bike after all?  I really doubt that, yet there's a problem because he didn't plan for Nevill to be downstairs, did he.  So this means he must have reasoned everything out very quickly, in the early hours of the morning.  Or did he plan the phone calls all along and the peripatetic Nevill was a minor hitch on the night that fitted with his plans, placing Nevill in proximity to a phone?  But if that's the case, why doesn't the phone have blood on it?

The red flag I am raising here, for anybody who is interested, is that the case against Jeremy doesn't quite fit together.  There is that underlying, lurking sense of doubt that arises due to various bits and pieces of improbability and implausibility.

Is 30 minutes enough time for Jeremy to make it back and shower and change, and do whatever else, including make a phone call to Julie?  Maybe it's enough in theory, if we assume he ran most of the way and really knew where he was going, but the reality of the situation was quite another matter.  Personally, I am far from convinced.  I think this is another flaw in the prosecution cause.  It's something that hasn't been thought about in a joined-up way that would relate it to the other aspects of the case.  The jury should have been taken on a tour of the area and walked the land and the vicinity of Bourtree Cottage to see and recognise the problem.

He could have got out via the back of the cottage, running parallel with Fish St until he hit the footpath which joins it where it runs out of road where the opposite footpath goes down to the seawall. As established, however concrete he may have believed it to be, he couldn't legislate for the unexpected.

[Jane]

I would say any murder is a risk if your trying to get away with it?

Phew! Ain't that the truth!!!

[guest7363]

Like I said, I live in similar terrain and yes, it is dark but if you know the place well, the darkness isn't really an issue and I am sure I could make a similar walk/run in pretty good time without being seen.

I don't think the timings are that crucial, it would take a body a while to cool down enough for a police officer to realise they had been dead for some time. Time of death isn't an exact science, the body loses about 1.5 degrees F of body heat per hour so unless it took him hours - not much to worry about.

Hence the stalling for time, phoning the furthest police station and not 999, laying it on thick outside with Bewes about his sisters use of guns and loaded guns ect.

[guest29835]

Like I said, I live in similar terrain and yes, it is dark but if you know the place well, the darkness isn't really an issue and I am sure I could make a similar walk/run in pretty good time without being seen.

I don't think the timings are that crucial, it would take a body a while to cool down enough for a police officer to realise they had been dead for some time. Time of death isn't an exact science, the body loses about 1.5 degrees F of body heat per hour so unless it took him hours - not much to worry about.

It's not just that.  I know the area well - perhaps as well as Jeremy did.  It's not just him knowing the terrain, it's also what is there and whether he would have had the time and could have done it.  I accept that in theory he could have done it, but it would have been extremely risky, especially around Goldhanger; and it becomes difficult if he was under a strict time constraint, either due to Nevill ending up in the kitchen or because he planned out the phone calls in advance and created an additional rod for his own back in that sense.

[Jane]

Hence the stalling for time, phoning the furthest police station and not 999, laying it on thick outside with Bewes about his sisters use of guns and loaded guns ect.

Plus getting himself together after blowing it with Sheila and Nevill proving more difficult than he expected.