Jeremy Bamber's Strange Behaviour

[Erik Narramore]

One explanation for Jeremy's post-incident behaviour is that he is trying to keep Julie onboard.  In effect bribing her. How do you we therefore reason Jeremy's confession to Julie at Bourtree Cottage in the aftermath?  Is it that Jeremy has been rash?  Yet the guilt camp say he planned this meticulously, and you admit that the relationship was in decline, as stated by Jeremy (and I agree, corroborated by Michael Deckers).

[Erik Narramore]

If Jeremy did it, the only explanation can be that he thought he was 'home and dry', so he could split up with Julie without consequences.  It may also explain why he let family members in the house where the silencer still was.  He was clearly unhinged anyway.

[Erik Narramore]

If Jeremy is guilty, wouldn't it be more of a good idea to keep his mouth shut? 

The questions in my mind are:

Did he and Julie have that conversation about the hitman?  There are reasons why Julie may have invented it that include both guilty and innocent scenarios.

If they did have the conversation, did Jeremy mean what he was saying or was it a fabrication, perhaps intended to tease Julie?

More questions for the pro-guilt camp:

Would you accept that teasing Julie in this way would be consistent with Jeremy's character and the behaviour we saw at the funeral, as reported by Colin, and perhaps even with the alleged outburst to Robert Boutflour when Jeremy had said he could easily kill his parents?

Would you also accept that an innocent Jeremy is more likely to have been caught off-guard in his behaviour than a guilty Jeremy, who would be very much more careful about how he carried himself with people so as not to attract suspicion?  It may be that Jeremy was not the brightest spark plug in the garage, but you do keep telling us that he planned it all out.

[Erik Narramore]

Quite simply, a guilty Jeremy had no reason to inform Julie and every reason to keep his mouth shut.  You say Jeremy planned it all out.  Why didn't he plan this?  It's said that Jeremy was a cold, unfeeling psychopath.  Why didn't he keep his cool and just tell Julie what he had told the police?  He wasn't going to stay with her anyway.

You claim that Jeremy could not deny involvement in the massacre due to what he had (allegedly) told Julie before.  Why not?  Julie had nothing on Jeremy.  Even if Julie had gone to the police and confessed to the holiday park theft and told them about her conversations with Jeremy, that would not have been enough.  Besides, if Jeremy had kept his mouth shut, the whole question of 'denial' would not even have arisen as the police would only have had the silencer, which probably would not have been sufficient.

I agree that possibly the proxy could have been a way to discredit Julie with the police.  But that part of what you say only makes sense on the condition that Jeremy had to tell her.  As I've just explained, he didn't, thus your argument collapses.  Guilty mass murderers don't go round confessing to girlfriends they are about to ditch.

Another way of putting that last point would be that to evaluate things fully, we have to consider three possibilities:

(i). Jeremy is the killer and he confessed to Julie, through the proxy of the Matthew MacDonald story.
(ii). Jeremy is not the killer and he made up the story as a way of teasing her or for some other motive.
(iii). Jeremy is not the killer and Julie made up the story, not Jeremy.

Whereas you only consider one possibility, I consider all three and conclude that each is a real possibility, but as I will now explain, only one is at all likely.  You admit that Julie will have been aware of Matthew MacDonald.

It seems to me that (iii) is not very likely as she would not just insert some random person into the story.  If she was lying outright, it's much more likely that she would have simply reported a full confession from Jeremy.

Possibility (ii) does seem quite likely because it fits with Jeremy's character and behaviour and it is also, arguably, more consistent with how an innocent but very immature person would act.  It also bears some consistency with Julie's conduct in the aftermath of the tragedy.

The problem with the official explanation, which is (i) above, is that it means a guilty Jeremy has freely confessed in circumstances when he did not have to and there was no pressure on him to.  It makes no sense for this and several other reasons.

[Erik Narramore]

The issue I have with possibility (iii) on my list above is that, as I have said, it seems unlikely to me that Julie would just randomly insert Matthew MacDonald in the story.  She knew him, but he was a relatively obscure character from her viewpoint.  If she was going to fabricate an account, wouldn't she just have Jeremy as the hands-on killer?

I think (ii) is much more likely, and in my view, it is the most likely: i.e. Jeremy was joking/teasing, and he put Matthew MacDonald in the story because MacDonald was a Walter Mitty-type character and it would have seemed funny/amusing to have him as the fictitious hitman.

Julie has still lied, but the lie consists of omitting the context of the conversation with Jeremy. It wasn't a confession.