Do you believe the relatives handed in one silencer with blood inside, in August. Then handed in another silencer with paint inside in September ?
That is risky of the relatives.
Yes, they did, it's well documented that on 12th August 1985, that Peter Eaton handed over to Stan Jones the first silencer, which Essex police subsequently sent to the Lab' on the 30th August 1985, under an exhibit reference of 'DB/1' - it was whilst this silencer was at the Lab' that on 12th September 1985 that the ballistic expert, Malcolm Fletcher dismantled the silencer and he found the critical flek of dried blood inside it, which he transferred to the blood expert that very same date, who analysed it on 12th, 13th, 18th and 19th September 1985, producing the blood group activity, A, EAP BA, AK1 and HP2-1 which turned out to be the same blood groups belonging to Sheila Caffell!
Whilst all of this had been going on, Ann Eaton and the other relatives still had access to, and control of the second silencer ('DRB/1') until the 11th September 1985, when Ann Eaton handed 'it' over to DC Oakey (HQ SOCO), on the very same day that her brother contacted Essex police by telephone to tell them that he had found the silencer to the gun! Well, if you think about it, and there had only been one silencer, not two, why would David Boutflour be telling them that he had found the silencer to the gun, on the 11th September 1985, when the police had already had possession of the first silencer from as long ago as the evening of the 12th August 1985? Surely, the cops would have known who had found the first silencer by the 11th September 1985, and so too would David Boutflour know that he wouldn't need to remind Essex police about it!
Anyway...
Once Ann Eaton handed over the second silencer to DC Oakey on the 11th September 1985, Essex police retained possession of 'it until the 20th September 1985, at which point they sent it to the Lab' to be checked amongst other things for 'blood'..
It should also be pointed out, that on the 13th September 1985, that the second silencer ('DRB/1') was fingerprinted by DS Eastwood and a DS Davison (I had previously made an error in reporting that the second officer involved in fingerprinting the second silencer was DS Davidson)! No doubt documents will exist created by Eastwood and Davison concerning their involvement with, and the fingerprinting of, the second silencer prior to it being submitted to the Lab' on the 20th September 1985!
What is now known is that the blood evidence was found inside the first silencer (DB/1) on the 12th September 1985 at the Lab', whilst the second silencer (DRB/1) was still back in Essex police possession! It remains impossible, therefore for Sheila Caffell's blood to have been found inside the silencer (DRB/1) that was exhibited during the trial with a court exhibit no.9 associated with it, and to it!
What we now know about the second silencer (DRB/1) is that although it was submitted to the Lab' by Essex police on the 20th September 1985, it did not get examined until the 25th September 1985, at which stage red paint was noted as having been crushed into the knurled pattern around the circumference of the silencers end cap! This paint was subsequently matched with a paint sample bearing the exhibit reference 'RWC/1' on the 2nd October 1985.
Two different silencers, one sent to the Lab' on the 30th August 1985, the other not sent to the Lab' until the 20th September 1985! The former handed to Stan Jones by Peter Eaton on the 12th August 1985, the latter one not handed over to DC Oakey by Ann Eaton until the 11th September 1985! The first silencer containing Sheila Caffell's blood, the second silencer containing the crushed red paint from the kitchen aga surround!
And then, by the time the trial came around in October 1986, the unique blood evidence belonging to Sheila, and the red paint from the kitchen aga, were merged as having been found inside and on the outside of the second silencer 'DRB/1', (rather than the first 'DB/1'). It may go unnoticed as to why the second silencer and not the first silencer was chosen to convey the blood and the paint evidence in court? Well, the simple truth is that the first silencer (DB/1) belonged to Anthony Pargeters rifle, and the second silencer (DRB/1) belonged to the Bamber rifle!
It appears there was a confrontation between the relatives at the time of Jeremy's first arrest in September 1985, that the silencer (DB/1) police had got, which they had sent to the Lab' on 30th August 1985, belonged to Anthony Pargeters gun! By this time Essex police had already been to see Anthony Pargeter and looked at his gun in his presence as if they were looking to see if there was any damage upon it? However, although his rifle had been returned to him at an earlier stage, his silencer was missing and it was the fact that Peter Eaton had handed his silencer over to Stan Jones on the 12th August 1985, which became a bone of contention between Anthony Pargeter and the other relatives, which threatened to spill over into who might be entitled to become a beneficiary of the Bamber parents estate(s)! In the end, it got resolved by the relatives agreeing to contact the police to say that there had been a mix up with the silencers, the one which Peter Eaton had given to Stan Jones on the 12th August 1985, was the one belonging to Anthony Pargeter, and that the silencer belonging to the Bamber rifle they still had possession of! The relatives arranged to do this by the 11th September 1985, whilst Jeremy was in custody being interviewed!
There is no doubt in my mind at all, that before Ann Eaton handed over the second silencer to the police on the 11th September 1985, and before her brother contacted the police by telephone on the same day to tell them that he had found the silencer (DRB/1), that between them they had seen the red paint ingrained into the circumference of the second silencers metal end cap - this may have got there on the morning of the tragedy when with it fitted to the barrel of Anthony Pargeters .22 bolt action rifle it had been used during a struggle between Sheila and a firearms officer, which ended up with her being shot across the neck downstairs in the kitchen...
It seems somewhat likely the reason why the police radio message log contents reports two dead bodies in the kitchen, the body of one dead male, and the body of one dead female, from as early as 7.35am, and with only a further three bodies upstairs by 8.10am! Also, why although a rifle was captured in one of the crime scene photographs (no.4, I think) there was specific instructions that no officer should make mention of its existence there, either in their notes, their reports, or their witness statements - seems somewhat obvious to me that that rifle was the gun which must have inflicted the first shot across Sheila Caffell's neck during a struggle in the kitchen at just before 7.35am..
However..
What the relatives didn't know was that the first silencer (DB/1) had already been at the Lab' since the 30th August 1985, and they were not informed in time about the blood grouping results from the blood found inside the first silencer, prior to them handing in the second silencer (DRB/1), not surprisingly, since the ballistic expert hadn't dismantled that first silencer at the Lab' until the 12th September 1985, the day after Ann Eaton handed in the second silencer! Additionally, further problems started to mount up for the police, the experts, and the relatives once the blood group results were obtained at the Lab' on the 12th, 13th, 18th and the 19th September 1985! This was because although the blood group results were obtained on those key dates, no-one contacted Essex police to tell them the good news! And, the Lab' didn't anticipate the submission of the second silencer (DRB/1) to the Lab' on the 20th September 1985..
Matters took a turn for the worst, when on the 25th September 1985, red paint from the kitchen aga surround was found to be crushed into the knurl around the circumference of the second silencers metal end cap!
Two silencers then, and of course, two rifles...
The rifle in the kitchen photograph, that no-one was supposed to make any mention of, and the anshuzt rifle which at 7.15am, or there abouts was resting against the inside of a first floor box room window, as spotted by WPC Jeapes' and PC Brown...
Two guns, two silencers - the biggest problem the cops had, once the anshuzt rifle was brought to Sheila's body after it had been moved onto the bedroom floor, from a top her parents bed, was the fact that when the second shot went off as a result of recoil when police were moving the rifle around on Sheila's body trying to get the muzzle of the guns barrel to align with the solitary bullet entry wound on Sheila's neck whilst at the same time trying to see whether or not her fingers could activate the trigger mechanism, was that once the second shot had been fired, the cops found themselves trapped between a rock and hard ground because two different guns had been used to shoot her dead!
The cops shot Sheila Caffell, that is what all this jiggery pokey is all about, they shot her twice, once with a rifle that had a silencer attached to its barrel! This gun was almost certainly Anthony Pargeters .22 bolt action rifle with his silencer fitted to it, his gun was used to shoot Sheila in the neck and polax her as if dead, sending her tumbling onto the kitchen floor, believed to have died!
Later on, upstairs blunder upon blunder came into play...
The police surgeon pronouncing Sheila dead at 8.44am, her body on the far side of the bed! He made a fatal mistake, because as it turned out she was not dead, and did not die until he had left the scene!
An even bigger blunder when the anshuzt rifle was brought to Sheila's body which by that stage had been placed on the bedroom floor, without it being checked to see if it was still loaded, placed on her body in a live state...
