Staging Suicide

[Adam]

Are you trying to divert this thread?

All threads get diverted. You mentioned the silencer.

Jeremy did hide the silencer. And the police did not find it.

Thank god for the relatives.

[Adam]

Wilkes's book suggests the silencer really was virtually hidden.

There is a whole long paragraph of how many  boxes, rifles & cartridges were on top and in front of it. Even a dart board was in front of it.

I am not surprised the police never bothered with it. It was found by David Boutflour inside the left hand corner of box inside a box.

[Caroline]

All threads get diverted. You mentioned the silencer.

Jeremy did hide the silencer. And the police did not find it.

Thank god for the relatives.

I mentioned the silencer for a reason that WAS related!

[maggie]

Well a few suicides have involved two shots.

A girlfriend said to me that a woman would not commit suicide by shooting themselves in the head. It's a woman thing. Apparently.

That's one woman's opinion, Adam, I cannot agree with you, if I was going to shoot myself I would go for under the chin up into the brain.  It seems to me it's the most likely to kill you instantly if you pointed it in the right direction first time.
We know Sheila would probably have regained consciousness after the first shot and although disorientated and traumatised could have had a clear enough mind to give it a second go and succeed.  It's quite possible imo.

[No-Bits]

This could have been discussed here at some point, but I haven´t seen it.
My question is this, when Jeremy had to use two shots to kill Sheila, why did he stage her death as a suicide? It could have been his plan originally, but why didn´t he abandon that plan when he had shot her twice? What killer would shoot their victim more than once, then expect that, yeah, I´ll make it look like she killed herself!
Why stage the Bible, why hide the silencer, why fake the phonecall from Nevill, thereby narrowing the possible culprits down to Sheila and himself? Why not keep it open to more than those two by NOT staging a suicide?
All this comes across as impossibly stupid!

I keep thinking that the chance to stage the suicide simply presented itself, I'm not sure how JB could be confident of being able to stage it from the outset.

The first shot wasn't enough to kill her, or maybe it was but knowing the difficulty he encountered and number of bullets required to kill the other victims, he ended up firing a second bullet to make sure.

He may have expected that the police would assume the two shots occurred because the rifle was a semi-automatic, and thus suicide would be believable (he was quite correct initially).

The phone call, etc was both his method of control and also his alibi,  or so he had hoped. He clearly thought he was being clever, he very nearly got away with it.

If no staging took place, then JB would have been a suspect from the outset, especially with the inheritance side of things.

[Caroline]

Well a few suicides have involved two shots.

A girlfriend said to me that a woman would not commit suicide by shooting themselves in the head. It's a woman thing. Apparently.

If you've just used a gun to kill 4 people, you're not going to poison yourself 

[Adam]

Jeremy's aim was to put the blame onto Sheila. That is pretty obvious.

Julie said it in her WS.

[maggie]

I keep thinking that the chance to stage the suicide simply presented itself, I'm not sure how JB could be confident of being able to stage it from the outset.

The first shot wasn't enough to kill her, or maybe it was but knowing the difficulty he encountered and number of bullets required to kill the other victims, he ended up firing a second bullet to make sure.

He may have (quite correctly) expected that the police would assume the two shots occurred because the rifle was a semi-automatic.

The phone call, etc was both his method of control and also his alibi,  or so he had hoped. He clearly thought he was being clever, he very nearly got away with it.

If no staging took place, then JB would have been a suspect from the outset, especially with the inheritance side of things.

I don't believe the first shot would have killed her, it lodged in the soft tissue, broke her vertebrae but unless the spinal chord is severed that wouldn't kill a person and she would probably be stunned for a short time before regaining conciousness. 
If he did it I would guess the first shot was to stun her and get control of her, it could also look like a botched first attempt

[Adam]

Wilkes's book always comes up with new things.

Jeremy really did put the silencer out of sight. Sneaky boy.

[Caroline]

I keep thinking that the chance to stage the suicide simply presented itself, I'm not sure how JB could be confident of being able to stage it from the outset.

The first shot wasn't enough to kill her, or maybe it was but knowing the difficulty he encountered and number of bullets required to kill the other victims, he ended up firing a second bullet to make sure.

He may have expected that the police would assume the two shots occurred because the rifle was a semi-automatic, and thus suicide would be believable (he was quite correct initially).

The phone call, etc was both his method of control and also his alibi,  or so he had hoped. He clearly thought he was being clever, he very nearly got away with it.

If no staging took place, then JB would have been a suspect from the outset, especially with the inheritance side of things.

I agree, he needed a diversion, possibly to give him time to rid himself of clothes etc. I think he thought if there was nothing physical to tie him to the murders, then he'd be pretty safe. His alibi of the phone call did ultimately tie him to it - if there was no phone call, how did Jeremy know 'something was wrong at the farm'? He sucker punched himself.

[Adam]

I agree, he needed a diversion, possibly to give him time to rid himself of clothes etc. I think he thought if there was nothing physical to tie him to the murders, then he'd be pretty safe. His alibi of the phone call did ultimately tie him to it - if there was no phone call, how did Jeremy know 'something was wrong at the farm'? He sucker punched himself.

His best option was to create the siege situation and spend several hours insinuating Sheila.  Thread already created.

It worked.

[No-Bits]

I agree, he needed a diversion, possibly to give him time to rid himself of clothes etc. I think he thought if there was nothing physical to tie him to the murders, then he'd be pretty safe. His alibi of the phone call did ultimately tie him to it - if there was no phone call, how did Jeremy know 'something was wrong at the farm'? He sucker punched himself.

Yes, what he thought was his master stroke, was ultimately his undoing.

[nugnug]

if Jeremy is the killer and hes a crack shot as some have claimed how come he couldn't kill at close range with one shot.

[Adam]

I agree, he needed a diversion, possibly to give him time to rid himself of clothes etc. I think he thought if there was nothing physical to tie him to the murders, then he'd be pretty safe. His alibi of the phone call did ultimately tie him to it - if there was no phone call, how did Jeremy know 'something was wrong at the farm'? He sucker punched himself.

He did not need time to get rid of clothes. He would have had hours if he did not ring the police.

[Caroline]

if Jeremy is the killer and hes a crack shot as some have claimed how come he couldn't kill at close range with one shot.

Because that would lead the police to look for someone who was a crack shot, if Jeremy (as you say) IS a crack shot - opps!