Hi Caroline
OK. So the last thing I said was that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, you also mentioned that “The best laid plans don't always work the way they were planned and perhaps circumstances intervened”. If Jeremy or anyone else decides that they are going to massacre their family then planning is going to come into the equation.
The first thing that worries me is the calibre of the gun or at least it’s efficiency as a killing weapon. As far as I know Neville was hit 8 times, June was hit 7, Daniel5 times and Nicholas 3 times (Wikipedia source). There were over 30 cartridges spent as I understand it. The gun was of low calibre and completely inefficient for the task. It may be effective in killing rats, bunnies and foxes but Jeremy must have known the gun was not the weapon of choice. IMO Jeremy would not take that risk or make that mistake.
If Jeremy was to kill his family he would have certainly have acquired a heavier calibre gun to dispatch the family when they are all in the same room perhaps when having lunch or having a family get-together such as a birthday or anniversary, that way there is a lot less risk. For Jeremy’s plan to work either way it would have to include one absolutely crucial outcome which was to make it appear that the murder of Sheila would look like suicide. It would have been out of the question to stage the suicide with Neville or June since they would have no motive to murder or suicide. So Jeremy would have had to predict the unpredictable and rely on his paranoid schizophrenic sister who was capable of anything on a night that absolutely anything could have happened to be absolutely compliant and to act exactly according to his plan of action.
So while Jeremy was walking towards the farmhouse that night he would have known that the only way that he was not going to be convicted for murder would be for the above staged suicide scenario to be an absolute certainty, if not there would be no way he would avoid arrest and subsequent charges. He might have considered the possibility that his climbing through the window would set the dog barking and he might have to confront Neville perhaps with a shotgun trying to find out what the problem was. Jeremy would then have to take care of him and the rest of the family with his bunny-popper gun providing he got to it first. If he did manage to get to the gun first there would have been a complete uproar with Neville would have been crashing about trying to defend himself while he took the 8 low-calibre bullets that killed him. With all the time that would take it could have resulted in the twins as well as Sheila and June in hearing the uproar trying to escape down any one of the farmhouses 3 staircases trying to get out or find places to hide resulting in a fiasco. Unfortunately JB was apparently too stupid even to contemplate that on his way to the farmhouse on that ruinous night. He was to busy thinking the unthinkable, predicting the unpredictable and planning the unplannable in order to get the exact result needed, the staged suicide of Sheila.
Nah! Life doesn’t work like that. The case against JB is a stitch-up.
Hoots
The whole rationale for the murders was that Sheila had seen him loading the "bunny-popper" and this had set machinations whirring inside her brain. The lame excuse "
Well I didn't know what would happen,did I?" is Jeremy's black humour rising to the surface and speaks volumes. He doesn't need to flap around looking for the rifle as he has concealed it somewhere on the Farm premises shortly before he leaves,with no living witnesses to contest his story. He had the occasion to witness the sleeping arrangements and Sheila's demeanour from the Sunday night, and of course viewing her on her last visit to the Farm in June of that year he knew how fragile she was. He had been in and out of the Farm via windows many times before("
secure windows,insecure windows..it makes no difference") and a dog which recognizes the smell of an intruder is unlikely to bark.
The alibi came from the purported telephone call which Jeremy made from the Farm to his answerphone at Goldhanger,which would be registered as well as on the office telephone,which had a last number redial facility. Nevill had been ill and was described as a shadow of his former self by Barbara Wilson,June and the twins were sitting ducks and Sheila would be awoken from a deep sleep,overdosed as she was on Haloperidol.
The final irony was pulling Sheila by the legs to check whether she was dead,revenge for the same treatment she had given him when she wakened her brother all those years ago on Christmas morning and they proceeded downstairs to the tree,bedecked with parcels and sweetmeats, which they gorged together,in that convivial alienation which was White House Farm.
