Why Does Nevill End Up Downstairs?

[Erik Narramore]

I don't believe Jeremy planned for Nevill to be downstairs.

To me, the suggestion defies common sense.  Put yourself in the shoes of the killer.  The whole point of this is that he (if it's Jeremy) is catching them all in bed.  Why would he want to wake them up or alert them to his presence?  And what is the silencer for, if that is his aim?  I appreciate the point that Jeremy needs it to look like it was a frenzied attack, and he has the challenge of constructing a frenzied attack on the twins while they are still in bed.  Why not the case with his parents as well?

[Erik Narramore]

As a corollary of this, I don't believe Jeremy would hide out in the twins' room or the intermediate box room.

Here he risks waking up the twins.  That makes no sense.  If the twins awake and start making noise, he could be rumbled.

Surely it would be more logical for him to take care of Nevill first. 

[Erik Narramore]

I didn't say Nevill went downstairs.  I said Nevill stayed downstairs.  I explained in my Jeremy scenario why this could make sense.  You keep over-simplifying what I say in the hope nobody will use their brains and think.  You argue that somebody dressed in pyjamas must go to bed and that Nevill had to change upstairs.  It doesn't seem to occur to you that Nevill could have changed downstairs, perhaps at June's insistence, or that just because somebody is in pyjamas, it needn't follow that they will retire to a bed.

Nevill was dirty and sweaty, so I can imagine the conversations that would have gone on between husband and wife. Perhaps you have never been married?  Or never done manual work?

There was a shower downstairs and an area to change in, and the laundry was downstairs.

I once ran a Christmas tree business and I have worked in market gardening.  I have also laboured on farms.  During the summer months, when you're working like that, you are out from the early hours of the morning until 9 or 10 in the evening, when dusk finally draws in.  In southern England, it's more like 10.30 to 11.30 p.m. before you're done working.  Nevill was out until perhaps 11 or 11.30 p.m. that night.  Would he have retired upstairs or perhaps stayed downstairs, maybe in the lounge or den?

During the summer, it can be difficult to sleep in an ordinary bed with the bedclothes up, especially if the house is old and not well-aired.  I live in an oldish house now and I sometimes sleep outside under a veranda!  I have done for the last few nights actually. I struggle to sleep otherwise, as it's too stuffy.   

I can only speculate, though.  It may have been his habit during the summer months to doze off in a less stuffy part of the house, and June may not have liked him coming upstairs and disturbing her sleep.  Downstairs may have suited him so that he could be up quickly to marshal the morning's work.

Just an idea.

It also doesn't seem that strange to suggest that Sheila could have slept in the main bedroom.  Remember that Sheila is severely mentally-ill.  She is not a regular person, sadly.  She might well have shared a bed with her mother and it puts her near the twins, whom she may have read to before they were tucked in bed.  This also explains the teddy bear on the bed.  If you think Jeremy is guilty, this type of scenario makes all sorts of sense and explains the absence of Nevill's blood and how Nevill fled for the kitchen without having to bypass Jeremy.  It means you don't have to account for Sheila perambulating around.  You can then argue that Jeremy pulls a shocked Sheila out of bed and on to the floor - which again, makes sense in the context of a murder-suicide staging.

[Erik Narramore]

What if June left his pyjamas downstairs and expected him to change downstairs because his clothes were dirty, grimy and messy.

[Erik Narramore]

I think Jeremy would have arrived at the farmhouse much earlier.  2 a.m. is too late.  More like 1 a.m., at the latest.

How long do you think it took Nevill to wake from a deep sleep?

Why didn't Jeremy just shoot Nevill between the eyes or in the head?

If Nevill is in a deep sleep, doesn't that point more to Sheila?  Jeremy would surely have killed Nevill on the spot, whereas Sheila would not have done so and perhaps did not even have the rifle at this point.

[Erik Narramore]

As far as I am concerned, the prosecution account of things is contradictory.  If Nevill was upstairs in bed, inches away from a rifle barrel pointed at him, and waking from a deep sleep, then Jeremy could kill him on the spot.  No ifs, no buts.  Period.  At end of story.

Similarly, if we posit instead that Nevill is awake already, we then have the admit the possibility that he was not killed in the master bedroom. Then where is he killed?