Could Someone other than Jeremy or Sheila have comitted the murders at WHF?

[Kaldin]

apart from jermy who else would have benefited from the bamber family being dead

There are several who could have benefitted financially, but only if Jeremy was dead too (or convicted of murder and therefore disinherited).

I believe that is the most relevant alternative here.  It is difficult (although I accept not impossible)  to visualise the scenario of a family member comitting or arranging five murders for financial gain, but less difficult to envisage the "improving" of a case against Jeremy after the killings, in order to provide a better chance of ensuring his conviction for murder.  It would be similar to what the police used to call "noble cause corruption", i.e. falsifying evidence to enhance the chance of convicting someone they "knew" to be guilty.

 

It would also be difficult for anyone to guarantee that they would get the inheritance as well, so it's all a bit of a long shot.

[ngb1066]

apart from jermy who else would have benefited from the bamber family being dead

There are several who could have benefitted financially, but only if Jeremy was dead too (or convicted of murder and therefore disinherited).

I believe that is the most relevant alternative here.  It is difficult (although I accept not impossible)  to visualise the scenario of a family member comitting or arranging five murders for financial gain, but less difficult to envisage the "improving" of a case against Jeremy after the killings, in order to provide a better chance of ensuring his conviction for murder.  It would be similar to what the police used to call "noble cause corruption", i.e. falsifying evidence to enhance the chance of convicting someone they "knew" to be guilty.

 

It would also be difficult for anyone to guarantee that they would get the inheritance as well, so it's all a bit of a long shot.

That is a very fair point.  However, even leaving aside the inheritance motive, it is possible to see how a relative convinced of JB's guilt but unable to persuade the police to share that view might be tempted to influence their view by "finding" some critical and very damaging evidence.  I am not saying that I believe that is what happened, but it is a plausible scenario in my view.

[mike tesko]

apart from jermy who else would have benefited from the bamber family being dead

There are several who could have benefitted financially, but only if Jeremy was dead too (or convicted of murder and therefore disinherited).

I believe that is the most relevant alternative here.  It is difficult (although I accept not impossible)  to visualise the scenario of a family member comitting or arranging five murders for financial gain, but less difficult to envisage the "improving" of a case against Jeremy after the killings, in order to provide a better chance of ensuring his conviction for murder.  It would be similar to what the police used to call "noble cause corruption", i.e. falsifying evidence to enhance the chance of convicting someone they "knew" to be guilty.

 

---------- I prefer to rely upon the suggestion, of "who" they suspected of being guilty, rather than who they knew to be guilty...

[ngb1066]

apart from jermy who else would have benefited from the bamber family being dead

Thkneere are several who could have benefitted financially, but only if Jeremy was dead too (or convicted of murder and therefore disinherited).

I believe that is the most relevant alternative here.  It is difficult (although I accept not impossible)  to visualise the scenario of a family member comitting or arranging five murders for financial gain, but less difficult to envisage the "improving" of a case against Jeremy after the killings, in order to provide a better chance of ensuring his conviction for murder.  It would be similar to what the police used to call "noble cause corruption", i.e. falsifying evidence to enhance the chance of convicting someone they "knew" to be guilty.

 

---------- I prefer to rely upon the suggestion, of "who" they suspected of being guilty, rather than who they knew to be guilty...

Mike - I am sorry if I did not make myself clear.  By putting "knew" in parentheses I intended to convey that the person believed in Jeremy's guilt and therefore convinced himself that he knew that Jeremy was guilty.  In that way the person "finding" the evidence would not feel any guilt about his actions, even though those actions amounted to perverting the course of justice.  "Noble cause corruption" was rife in the police in the 1970s and 1980s and because those concerned believed in what they were doing their colleagues took a much more relaxed view than they would have in the case of a blatant "fit up" of an innocent person.  The problem is that the police often got it wrong, which is why there were attempts, partly successful, by Metropolitan Police Commissioners to change the culture of tolerance towards "noble cause corruption" within the police.

[shonapugs]

Mike, you have totally lost me here. I really do try hard to keep up, with varying degrees of success, but now you seem to be throwing someone else into the mix. You are being too subtle for me. For my sake, as a bit of a thicky, could you please be clearer? Who do you mean? And why?

[mike tesko]

Mike, you have totally lost me here. I really do try hard to keep up, with varying degrees of success, but now you seem to be throwing someone else into the mix. You are being too subtle for me. For my sake, as a bit of a thicky, could you please be clearer? Who do you mean? And why?

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All I am saying is that all the features in this case, which have been directed at trying to portray JB as being the guilty party, could be applied to any of the others who stood to benefit from the inheritance, all the features except the phone call that JB received from his father, and of course the evidence as alluded to by Julie Mugford. I mean, the silencer evidence with the blood and paint found upon or inside it, if it was genuinely found at the scene, as described, could have been used by anybody on the gun at the time of the shootings, and anybody could have unscrewed it and hid it in the gun cupboard at the scene, and left the scene thereafter at some stage?

One thing seems rather odd to me, and that is that when Ralph called JB and summoned him to come to the scene, at what stage did Ralph's body end up sat on that chair behind the internal kitchen door? Because within 45 minutes or so, between Ralph making the call to JB, the police had arrived at the scene, and entry to the kitchen would not have been possible to anyone going into whf through the back external kitchen side door, because the kitchen would have been effectively blocked off, as the firearms team found out later when they forced their way into the farmhouse and they were delayed for several minutes before they could get into the kitchen - because they had to topple Ralph from the chair his body was sat upon behind the internal door?

How did JB know that the police would not go directly to the house upon arriving there and find Ralph blocking off entry into the kitchen?

If it was dark when the police and JB arrived at the scene, and the kitchen light was switched on, why didn't the police look into the kitchen at that stage under the cover of darkness?

I can't believe that no-one bothered to look into the kitchen window with its light switched on, and why no-one saw a body there, or two bodies there, before about 7:30am...

[clifford]

I sugested yonks ago about a third party. As I recall Mick was saying alive, alive o. Can,t have it both ways.
Now we have another calbre of bullet. so does Mike still think it was Shiela, or a third party.
Was it one of the family, no. They were a conspiring bunch who were convinced that JB had done the deed, and went about to prove it
If any right minded person had found found a silencer with blood and hair on it they would have handled it very carefully. They would not have used a razor to remove evidence, why would they.
Boutflours made a great ammount from JBs imprisonment.
If you are there again Kaldin, I surrender again.

[mike tesko]

I sugested yonks ago about a third party. As I recall Mick was saying alive, alive o. Can,t have it both ways.
Now we have another calbre of bullet. so does Mike still think it was Shiela, or a third party.
Was it one of the family, no. They were a conspiring bunch who were convinced that JB had done the deed, and went about to prove it
If any right minded person had found found a silencer with blood and hair on it they would have handled it very carefully. They would not have used a razor to remove evidence, why would they.
Boutflours made a great ammount from JBs imprisonment.
If you are there again Kaldin, I surrender again.

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We have looked into the possibility that there was some third party involvement in these killings, and it seems to me that most of the evidence that can be associated with the ballistics and the blood / paint found upon / inside the silencer could be applied to another party. But the phone call which Ralph Made to JB cannot be, and neither can the evidence of Julie Mugford, although she did at one stage try to implicate a local hit man in the murders...

[Kaldin]

What was Matthew McDonald's alibi? Does anyone know?

[shonapugs]

Blimey O'Reilly, Mike. Here's a straw. Have a good clutch. I'm guessing that the rest of the family, possibly even the dog, had alibis for that night. This isn't Cluedo. And haven't you always said that at least one copper DID look through the kitchen window? You've always gone into great detail about the angle that couldn't have been looked around. You're confusing me, Mike. Too much.

[clifford]

Is everyone sure that it was Ralph who made the phone call. Could have been anyone.

[Kaldin]

Is everyone sure that it was Ralph who made the phone call. Could have been anyone.

Jeremy seemed sure it was Nevill.

[clifford]

Is he still so sure. A voice on the phone can sound different.

[shonapugs]

What phone call from Ralph? The one he would have made while he was following a deranged, armed Sheila around the farmhouse while she was killing his wife and grandchildren, or the one he made with a smashed jaw? I'm sorry to be so brutal, but how could Ralph have ever made this call? Especially to the seemingly feckless Jeremy, when he should have been calling 999 for police and an ambulance?

[chelmsey]

What was Matthew McDonald's alibi? Does anyone know?

He had spent the night with a girlfriend allegedly.