June Bamber, did not attend bible class evening before she was killed...

[Jane]

  I didn't expect that you would agree that the point had been well made and I came to this conclusion by following your reasoning so far.
     If Jeremy decided to invent a call from his father he would not use a scenario that would be, as far as Jeremy would know, impossible. After messing up the suicide in such a way that he would not believe suicide to be feasible, he then according to your reasoning, invents a call which requires everyone to believe that Sheila had committed suicide. He could have invented any scenario he chose. Those options may not have been perfect but anything would have been better than messing up a suicide, seemingly making suicide impossible, but then going along with the original suicide plan despite this obvious flaw.
      Your final sentence is just illogical. Are you suggesting that he didn't mess up the suicide, or is your point that he would have the foresight to know that the police wouldn't bat an eyelid at a two shot suicide and therefore his plan would "almost" work.
     

I find VERY odd your suggestion that ANYONE might suggest that Jeremy DIDN'T mess up the suicide. It's my firm opinion that everything which followed came about because he DID mess up. He COULD have taken the chance that she'd have bled to death following the first shot -she undoubtedly would have, the shot wasn't NON fatal, it just wasn't immediately fatal- but Jeremy didn't have the benefit of the knowledge we now have.

You say that imperfect options would have been better than messing up a suicide. That the messed up suicide came BEFORE he needed to make any options seems to have escaped your notice. It occurs to me that you may be suggesting that he threw in Sheila's "suicide" as an afterthought. I think the whole point of the murders was to make it look as if Sheila had done it and then taken her own life. He COULD have tried to turn it into a burglary gone wrong but how many burglars slaughter an entire family and leave empty handed? Until he took that second shot, I believe that everything was going as well for him as he could have hoped. Didn't he, allegedly, tell Julie "Everything is going well" Perhaps saying it out loud convinced him that it was.

[Caroline]

It is your claims that are illogical.

1) He planned to stage things as a murder suicide and once he had finished things he had no choice but to go with that option because it was too late to try to stage it as a breaking at that point. Someone who broke in would not go room to room killing everyone in their beds upon being discovered at most you shoot the person who discovers you then get the hell out of there.

2) He had no idea he botched things up, he was convinced he had carried out things perfectly. The only things he was worried about was whether his prints got on the gun when his glove came off but that was a minor issue and he mad eup the story about taking the gun out in part to deal with that possibility.

3) Though it is uncommon for those committing suicide by firearm to fire more than 1 shot it does sometimes happen and didn't lead the ME to say it wasn't suicide so the claim he should have known the two shots meant he could not still run with his suicide claim is nonsense.  He had no choice and certainly was better off shooting her a second time killing her then to risk her living and telling police what he had done.

Jeremy supporters always spend their time on illogical wasted arguments because they are unable to refute the evidence in chief, it is a distracting measure.  What needs to be done to establish his innocence is to refute the evidence in chief but that can't be done so it is simply dismissed/ignored and game played.

Exactly! How on earth he was supposed to change his plan at such a late stage is beyond me - the argument has no legs or foundation in ANY kind of logic!!

Welcome back by the way!!  :D

[Jane]

He could not have thought that a two shot suicide coupled with a phone call from himself would have made for a "quick end to it". As for implicating Sheila and distancing himself, it would have been more likely to implicate himself and distance Sheila. It makes no sense to suggest that Bamber shot Sheila twice,then attempted to stage it as suicide, before making a call to police which could only incriminate himself or Sheila, all the time knowing that when the bodies were discovered it would be found that Sheila couldn't have killed herself.
   

At least I have the humility to say Jeremy MAY have...................whilst you seem to know with total certainty and conviction the workings of his mind and what he definitely WOULD/WOULDN'T have done. Please share your secret.

[Alias]

I find VERY odd your suggestion that ANYONE might suggest that Jeremy DIDN'T mess up the suicide. It's my firm opinion that everything which followed came about because he DID mess up. He COULD have taken the chance that she'd have bled to death following the first shot -she undoubtedly would have, the shot wasn't NON fatal, it just wasn't immediately fatal- but Jeremy didn't have the benefit of the knowledge we now have.

You say that imperfect options would have been better than messing up a suicide. That the messed up suicide came BEFORE he needed to make any options seems to have escaped your notice. It occurs to me that you may be suggesting that he threw in Sheila's "suicide" as an afterthought. I think the whole point of the murders was to make it look as if Sheila had done it and then taken her own life. He COULD have tried to turn it into a burglary gone wrong but how many burglars slaughter an entire family and leave empty handed? Until he took that second shot, I believe that everything was going as well for him as he could have hoped. Didn't he, allegedly, tell Julie "Everything is going well" Perhaps saying it out loud convinced him that it was.

Hardly ever if at all.

How many killers have staged burglaries? A LOT! They mostly do a lousy job of it, but it is very common.
How many killers have staged multiple shot murders as suicides? Jeremy Bamber, and that´s it, as far as I know.

[Jane]

Hardly ever if at all.

How many killers have staged burglaries? A LOT! They mostly do a lousy job of it, but it is very common.
How many killers have staged multiple shot murders as suicides? Jeremy Bamber, ahd that´s it, as far as I know.

It wasn't a multiple shot murder, it was a TWO shot which only occurred because the first shot wasn't immediately fatal.

[Alias]

It wasn't a multiple shot murder, it was a TWO shot which only occurred because the first shot wasn't immediately fatal.

I was talking in general, so I think it was OK to say multiple.

[scipio_usmc]

Exactly! How on earth he was supposed to change his plan at such a late stage is beyond me - the argument has no legs or foundation in ANY kind of logic!!

Welcome back by the way!!  :D

He could have taken the boys from their bed and stuck their bodies elsewhere to try to make it look like they got out of bed and discovered a burglar but police would have figured out that they had been killed in bed and moved so it would have made matters even worse.

Trying to Kill a large number of people and to effectively make it look like a break in gone wrong instead of an assassination necessarily requires the risky thing of getting people out of their beds and shooting them in a hall or the like to make it seem like they came out of their room and discovered the burglar.   Controlling a number of people is not that easy hence why it is risky. Killing them in bed is easier but it pigeonholes you into what you can claim.  He was convinced the fact Sheila had documented mental problems was enough for people to believe she did it.  But for a handful of mistakes police would have believed it. His main mistakes were ; 1) telling someone about his plans 2) staging too many bullets 3) moving the bible around in her blood and 4) using the moderator to shoot her. The 4th was the most significant quite obviously because even staging too many bullets was not enough to get police to decide he did it.  The moderator evidence and Julie's testimony were the reasons for his trial. There would not have been a trial otherwise and both were so strong not only was there a trial but he was convicted.   

The scary thing is that he would have gotten away with it had his mouth not been so big and he had enough brains to remove the moderator before shooting Sheila. 

[Caroline]

Hardly ever if at all.

How many killers have staged burglaries? A LOT! They mostly do a lousy job of it, but it is very common.
How many killers have staged multiple shot murders as suicides? Jeremy Bamber, ahd that´s it, as far as I know.

It wasn't his intention to stage a multiple shot murder as suicide - that was down to fate. If Jeremy had staged a burglary, he'd have been the first suspect! He'd have had to remove property and hide it or sell it and risk being caught. That makes far less sense than staging Sheila's suicide because if the police believed Sheila responsible, that was an end to it and initially they DID believe it!

[gringo]

And yet the phone call was one of the things that convicted him for the VERY reasons you're saying it wouldn't happen! It did happen! 

That is the point. The phone call did lead to him so why would he invent it. He made the call because it was true. Inventing the call under the circumstances would incriminate him which you re-iterate above.
    I said the phone call wouldn't happen had he messed up the suicide because it would incriminate him and you agree that it did incriminate him so how am I wrong. You believe that he invented the contents of a call incriminating himself in order to deflect attention from himself, but you agree that it didn't deflect attention from him. I don't understand your reasoning, it is self contradictory.

[Alias]

It wasn't his intention to stage a multiple shot murder as suicide - that was down to fate. If Jeremy had staged a burglary, he'd have been the first suspect! He'd have had to remove property and hide it or sell it and risk being caught. That makes far less sense than staging Sheila's suicide because if the police believed Sheila responsible, that was an end to it and initially they DID believe it!

No doubt about that. My problem with this is: how could Jeremy expect them to?

He was no master criminal, they didn´t have all those true crime shows back then, no internet - harder to "educate" yourself to become a criminal than it is now.   

[scipio_usmc]

Hardly ever if at all.

How many killers have staged burglaries? A LOT! They mostly do a lousy job of it, but it is very common.
How many killers have staged multiple shot murders as suicides? Jeremy Bamber, ahd that´s it, as far as I know.

Staging a breaking competently when there is only 1-2 victims is actually not that difficult and no doubt has been successfully done.  Doing it to kill more than 2 victims is a much more difficult proposition to achieve. To do it successfully you need to get a weapon that is not from the house (killing someone with a weapon from the house or worse a weapon people know you to have owned is stupid), actually break a window from the outside don't stage it by breaking it from the inside, shoot the victims out of bed unless there are 2 in the same room in which case it is ok if one is killed in bed, and ransack the place a little.  The key is to make it look like you were a crook with a weapon, the home owners discovered you so you had to kill them because they could ID you and then flee.  Some crooks will kill then stay an extended time stealing things others flee with little to nothing.

Going room to room to kill non-witnesses in bed before fleeing is not something crooks do so that is one problem with if you want to stage mass killings as a burglary gone wrong.  Jeremy was too cheap to even buy an extra rifle magazine (which would have helped immensely) let alone to get a different weapon to support a burglary gone wrong scenario.  The scenario he came up with was superior to a burglary gone wrong he simply failed to stage it as good as he could have/needed to. 

I have the knowledge to cover all bases in staging a crime but there are 2 variables that can't be accounted for:

1) will I actually be able to remember everything I need to and be able to do it without messing up.

2) the other variable is others. Victims can end up doing things that mess things up and even third parties who end up by chance being a witness in some way or even stopping by the wrong time by dumb luck. A crime at night minimizes third party interference and likelihood of being seen hence why it is a choice time but plenty like daytime burglaries when they expect people to be at work and no one home.

Even the best plans though can be tripped up by something simple like a guy you buy an illegal gun from ratting you out at some point. There is rarely no strings dangling that can end up screwing you and now with DNA and other analysis of evidence available it is harder than ever to avoid liability. Even dog hair and plant evidence have ended up catching criminals.

Rational people realize they are likely to get caught and not going to do it people who are convinced they are smarter than everyone else usually resort to crimes and fortunately they virtually always are wrong about being smarter. Someone truly smart avoids crime. 

[Jane]

That is the point. The phone call did lead to him so why would he invent it. He made the call because it was true. Inventing the call under the circumstances would incriminate him which you re-iterate above.
    I said the phone call wouldn't happen had he messed up the suicide because it would incriminate him and you agree that it did incriminate him so how am I wrong. You believe that he invented the contents of a call incriminating himself in order to deflect attention from himself, but you agree that it didn't deflect attention from him. I don't understand your reasoning, it is self contradictory.

SIMPLES. YOU know that, Caroline knows that, I know that. WE have the benefit of hindsight. We KN OW what happened next. 30 years ago Jeremy didn't. He took a chance. A leap in the dark.

[Jan]

personally - as this all only opinion anyway
If he had planned the whole thing  personally I think the fact that that he had to kill Sheila with two shots would have completely thrown him and I agree there is no way that  could have known that it would have been accepted so readily . So although he would have stuck to his plan I think he would have abandoned the call from his father to give himself time to pull himself together and I can not see
anyway he would have stood next to the officers not knowing that at any minute they could have gone in ( after all they did not know ANY shots had been fired) and found the very strange two shot obviously staged suicide . ( Well everyone says it looks obviously staged( 
t
He would have been extremely stressed in that his perfect plan had gone wrong and not standing calmly as reported  . He also seemed to think the police were joking when they said they said two shots had been used so he obviously had still not thought out his plan ( and don't mention the dog he was obviously being sarcastic as I think he thought EP were telling porky pies)

[Caroline]

That is the point. The phone call did lead to him so why would he invent it. He made the call because it was true. Inventing the call under the circumstances would incriminate him which you re-iterate above.
    I said the phone call wouldn't happen had he messed up the suicide because it would incriminate him and you agree that it did incriminate him so how am I wrong. You believe that he invented the contents of a call incriminating himself in order to deflect attention from himself, but you agree that it didn't deflect attention from him. I don't understand your reasoning, it is self contradictory.

I don't understand why you can't see that you are using the power of 'hindsight' in your argument. He obviously thought he could get away with it, he thought he was being clever. The fact that it caught him out in the end has nothing to do with what he believed would happen. You and I know it helped convict him, but he didn't know that! (jeez!). You say you believe the call happened? But you have no problem with him moving the time he called police just to fit in a call from Nevill?

[Caroline]

No doubt about that. My problem with this is: how could Jeremy expect them to?

He was no master criminal, they didn´t have all those true crime shows back then, no internet - harder to "educate" yourself to become a criminal than it is now.   

Sorry, I didn't realise that 1985 was the dark ages  . He couldn't 'expect' them to, he hoped they would and they did. Of course the alternative is Sheila shooting herself twice, at two different angles.