Why Weren't There More Fingerprints On The Rifle?

[Erik Narramore]

Until now, the fingerprint evidence from the rifle had been one of my 10 points against Jeremy.  I had based this on a summary understanding of this aspect of the evidence: i.e. two clear prints found, one Jeremy's, the other Sheila's, and some smudged prints.  I had never really understood the actual fingerprint examination records taken, but that didn't seem to matter as the evidence is summarised well enough by Ronald Cook in the relevant statement.

My view was that:

(i). if Sheila fired the rifle as many times as the defence imply, then there would almost-certainly be more of her prints on the rifle;

(ii). even if we extend to Jeremy the fullest benefit of doubt and say that Sheila wiped the rifle of blood as part of a pre-suicide washing ritual, thus removing prints, she would still then have to leave prints on the rifle if she shot herself twice at different angles.  If you consider her slight frame, she would have to grip the rifle tightly; and,

(iii). Jeremy would want to remove gloved blood prints from the rifle, so would wipe it.

I now believe I may have been mistaken about all this.  Having given the matter some more thought, I think I may now have to cross this evidence off my 'Why Jeremy Is Guilty' list and put it in the Reasonable Doubt column.  Here I will explain why.

First, it is clear to me from the fingerprint evidence that the rifle has probably been wiped by somebody, though I can't be certain of that.  There are five possibilities:

1. The rifle was wiped by Jeremy.
2. The rifle was wiped by Sheila.
3. The rifle was wiped by both Jeremy and Sheila.
4. The rifle was wiped by Ron Cook (or another police officer or FSS staff member, or some other individual).
5. The rifle was not wiped.

Let's consider each:

1. The rifle was wiped by Jeremy.

I am assuming that if Jeremy is the killer, he wore gloves.  However, it is common ground that this is Jeremy's rifle (albeit, legally Nevill's) and everybody accepts that Jeremy's prints must be on the rifle.  If anything, it would be more suspicious if they weren't, and indeed the lack of more of Jeremy's prints is itself a ground for suspicion because it suggests somebody has intentionally wiped the rifle.  Yet, I am assuming Jeremy would have other reasons to wear gloves and he would want to remove gloved blood prints from the rifle.  This seems to make sense, but there is a problem.

If Jeremy removes his gloved blood prints from the rifle, he must do this prior to killing Sheila, or if he killed Sheila first, then he removes the prints prior to placing the rifle on Sheila's body.  This means the rifle is wiped at that point, however the mistake I think the police/prosecutors/guilters - and myself! - make is in thinking that he wipes the rifle just to remove prints.

There is another reason he wipes the rifle, which is that he needs Sheila's prints to be on the rifle and the only way to ensure that is to remove any obvious contamination on the action, stock and barrel.  Let us assume Jeremy does just that.  Why, then, are we left with only one clear print of Sheila's on the stock?  Remember that in this scenario, Jeremy is fabricating evidence by planting Sheila's prints on the rifle.

There are two possible explanations:

1.1. The smudged prints on the barrel and action are Jeremy's attempt to plant Sheila's prints on the gun.

1.2. Sheila was clean and this explains Jeremy's lack of success in planting more of Sheila's prints.  Fingerprints rely on grease, dirt, moisture, blood, sweat, etc.

Either or both are possible, but they seem unlikely.

The problem with 1.1 is that, if Jeremy is a premeditated killer, it does seem unlikely that he would leave such a limited number of prints of Sheila's on the rifle, though in fairness, it could be that Jeremy panicked or it may be that Jeremy was nervous about leaving too many prints in the belief that it may look too 'obvious'.  But would Jeremy panic, having planned it?  And would Jeremy really think deeply about what he is doing to the extent of trying to second-guess the police?

We should also consider that the print smudging on the barrel may be due to somebody wiping it, and if so, we are left with the mystery of why Jeremy has only put one of Sheila's print on the rifle, and on the stock of the rifle.  That makes no sense.  It also makes no sense that Jeremy would forget, since again, we have Sheila's print on the stock.  Maybe the stock print was from Sheila's handling of the rifle prior to the incident? But guilters want us to believe that Sheila never handled the rifle.

The problem with 1.2 is very obvious: Sheila's print is on the rifle.  Furthermore, we have the problem that, even if we put the best interpretation on things and say Sheila had slept throughout the massacre, we can't assume that Sheila had dry skin after several hours spent in bed.  The scenario becomes more implausible still as soon as we accept that is it likely Sheila must have woken at some stage (again, assuming Jeremy has not shot her before the others).

2. The rifle was wiped by Sheila.

If Sheila is the killer, she may have wiped the rifle because it had blood on it and/or because in her mind it was appropriate for her to 'clean' it before committing suicide.

In this scenario, we are left having to explain why there is only one of Sheila's prints on the stock, despite having shot herself twice.  The answer to this, again, is in the washing ritual.  As mentioned above, fingerprints are the result of dirt, oil and sweat from the skin.  The room was cool and if she had just washed and dried herself, it is unlikely she would have left further prints on the rifle, even if gripping it tightly.

To be clear - In this scenario, Sheila is not wiping the rifle to remove prints, rather she is wiping the rifle to clean it, with the consequence that it removes most or all prints, if you see the distinction.

3. The rifle was wiped by both Jeremy and Sheila.

In this scenario, Sheila is the killer and an innocent Jeremy wipes the rifle before leaving it leaning against the wall in the back hallway on the evening of the 6th.  Jeremy may simply have forgot he had done this.  If he is innocent, there will be small things like this that he did automatically or out of habit that he may not have recalled.

4. The rifle was wiped by Ron Cook (or somebody else).

Ron Cook handled the rifle without gloves.  I won't here get drawn into a police procedural debate about whether he should have done this.  Suffice it to say that, even with the best police methods, contamination is inevitable and unavoidable anyway, but by not using gloves, D.I. Cook obviously greatly increased the risk of compromising the evidence.

Again that background, it is possible that Ron Cook wiped the rifle in order to remove his own prints and only later admitted that he had not used gloves. Equally, it is possible that an officer of the raid group who handled the rifle at the outset wiped it for perfectly proper and innocent reasons but then forgot to record this somewhere.

There are other possibilities, such as loss of prints during handling and examination of the rifle by SOC officers and/or FSS staff or the rifle becoming contaminated by being stored in its case (there is a photograph somewhere, taken pre-trial, of Stan Jones posing with the rifle in its case).  I won't go further into all that here.

5. The rifle was not wiped.

As stated above, prints are the result of dirt, oil and sweat from the skin, and the house was cool.  These factors could mean that few fingerprints were impressed on the rifle.  Also, we should factor in that whether prints (gloved or bare-finger) are left on a rifle depends on how the rifle is handled.  We should also consider the fact that fingerprints can be missed and police forensic methods used at that time were not as advanced as today.

Conclusions

For the reasons given above, my (very tentative) conclusion is that the fingerprint evidence fits a Sheila scenario better than a Jeremy scenario.  It doesn't make sense to me that Jeremy would wipe the rifle of his own blood prints and then just put one of Sheila's prints on the stock.

[Erik Narramore]

I've already looked at the following:

(i). Ronald Cook's witness statements, in which he explains that Jeremy's print was found on the barrel of the rifle and Sheila's on the stock.

(ii). Ronald Cook's examination-in-chief at the 1986 trial [note: the cross-examination is not uploaded to the Forum, as far as I can see].

(iii). Ronald Cook's fingerprint examination records and notes, and a diagram of where the fingerprints were found on the rifle.

As far as I can tell, D.I. Cook makes no mention of smudged prints anywhere.  I'm not sure where I will find reference to these smudged prints and the location of them on the rifle.

[Erik Narramore]

Another thing I have found mention of is Julie Mugford saying that Matthew Macdonald's glove came off in a struggle with Nevill, but unless I am mistaken, I can't see any reference to it in Julie's statements or her diary.  Where does that come from?

[Erik Narramore]

Two questions:

1. Where exactly on the rifle were the smudged prints?  I can't see anything in the documents about it.

2. Where is Julie Mugford's claim that a glove came off during the struggle between Nevill and Matthew Macdonald (as she claims Jeremy told her)?  Again, I can't see mention of it in Julie's statements or her diary, but may have missed it.

[Erik Narramore]

Wearing gloves may obscure fingerprints, but there's an easy solution to that: a dead person still has fingerprints.  When 'Matthew' - i.e. Jeremy - was carrying out this killing, at the least all he needed to do was put Sheila's prints on the rifle when placing the rifle on her body.  Why should it make any difference what happens in the struggle with Nevill?  And why would Sheila's prints be of relevance at that point, if this whole thing was staged?

For me, the real issue is the absence of more of Jeremy's prints.  I find that suspicious because Jeremy was a manual worker on a farm during all weathers, including hot weather, and used the rifle regularly.  If Jeremy is innocent, his prints should be there, along with Sheila's, with perhaps lots of smudged prints.  On the other hand, if Jeremy is guilty, then his prints would not be there, because he wiped the rifle, either intentionally before placing the rifle on Sheila's body, or inadvertently by using gloves (as, I think, Julie is describing).  The problem there, though, is that if Jeremy wipes the rifle intentionally, he must then leave Sheila's prints on the mechanism, action and barrel, yet we find only one clear print, which is on the stock.  Equally, if Jeremy simply relies on gloves and there are no blood prints, then Jeremy's thinking as described by Julie still make no sense, as explained above.  In either scenario, surely he goes to some effort to place Sheila's prints on the rifle?

Incidentally, going back to Julie, I am assuming that no glove was found?  I recall no mention of one.  If so, then 'Matthew' (Jeremy) must be assumed to have recovered it and replaced it on his hand, which means that this detail is only Julie's assertion.

[Erik Narramore]

What Julie says about the glove doesn't make any sense, and I think the absence of Jeremy's prints is highly significant.  The problem: where are Jeremy's prints?  Did Ron Cook obliterate them due to his clumsy handling of the rifle, or even deliberately wipe the rifle?  Come to mention it, where are Ron Cook's prints?  The more I consider it, the less happy I am.

[Erik Narramore]

It doesn't say at Sheet 24 that Jeremy wiped the rifle.  Maybe what the guilt camp mean is that the gloves had that effect or it says it somewhere else.  Assuming he did, why would he wipe it and then not simply leave Sheila's prints on it?  The whole thing I am not understanding is how wearing the gloves hinders him from leaving Sheila's prints on the rifle, when he would have done that last.  Why is it that there is only one of Sheila's prints on the rifle, and it's on the stock?  That just strikes me as odd.

[Erik Narramore]

I think there could (and probably would) still be some of his prints.  For me, the issue is more that, once he has wiped the rifle down, why do we not find more of Sheila's prints there?  After all, if he is the killer, he is supposed to be staging this to make it look like Sheila has handled the rifle.

In other words, imagining Jeremy as the killer:

1. He wears gloves but notices his blooded gloved prints on the rifle.
2. A glove also comes off, which means he may have touched the rifle.
3. Notwithstanding he has been using the rifle lawfully anyway, due to 1 and 2 above he decides to wipe the rifle.
4. He then attempts to put Sheila's prints on the rifle after killing her.

In these circumstances, how come he only manages to leave one print of Sheila's, on the stock?  If you follow the chronology above, it doesn't make sense to me, even allowing for possible difficulties with leaving prints.

On the other hand, if we say Sheila is the killer, then she may have wiped the rifle as part of her ritual washing, and with her hands and fingers now clean and dry, she may not leave any further discernible prints, even if handling the rifle in order to kill herself.

[Erik Narramore]

Just washing your hands and having clean hands would not necessary prevent fingerprints, but what I refer to is Sheila drying her hands, which could prevent fingerprints.

The guilt camp ridicule the washing theory, even though it is supported by psychiatry and, I would say, it is also supported by common experience.  A woman who has just killed five people, including her children, and has blood on her, might well then want to wash herself before killing herself.  The phenomenon is well-known among murder-suiciders and suiciders in general, so why do you keep ridiculing it?

It's not hard to imagine that somebody who is about to commit suicide would want to be clean and maybe well-dressed.  Why is that ridiculous?  I agree it isn't rational, but we're not dealing with a rational frame of mind, so we have to use our imagination a bit.

[Erik Narramore]

Isn't the problem that if Sheila was the killer, then when killing herself she must have got quite a tight grip of the rifle?  This is especially the case when you consider her slight frame and the angles at which she supposedly shot herself, twice.  That being the case, shouldn't there be more than one single fingerprint on the gun from Sheila, if she did it?

I am willing to accept that Sheila herself could have wiped/cleaned the rifle before killing herself, and this may explain the smudging.  Let's allow that, and let's also remember that Ron Cook handled the rifle without gloves.  Even so, wouldn't she have still left more recordable prints?

On the other hand, if Jeremy is the killer, then we may only see one single print from Sheila because Sheila has not put any manual pressure on the rifle, rather Jeremy has positioned the rifle in her hands, probably after shooting her at least once, and he has perhaps deliberately attempted to make prints from her fingers, and succeeding in establishing one.  Gloves may also have caused the smudging of prints resultant from normal handling of the rifle prior to the incident.

Do we have a diagrammatic representation, or even photographs, of where the smudged prints are and the pattern formed?