Grounds For Reasonable Doubt

[Erik Narramore]

I came to the Blue Forum already quite knowledgeable about the case, but based only on mainstream sources - the books, documentaries, articles, the campaign website, blogs, etc. - and having conducted a correspondence with Jeremy some years ago.

It is reasonably clear that the culprit is either Jeremy or Sheila.  I rule out a collaboration between Jeremy and Sheila because it would have made no sense from Jeremy's or Sheila's point-of-view.  I also rule out a third party professional contract hit instigated by Jeremy, due to the elements of the incident, such as the phone call, that seem to me unplanned and ad hoc, as I will explain briefly below.

I allow that there is a small possibility that the killer was a third party completely unconnected to Jeremy or Sheila and the phone call to Jeremy was made by Nevill with a gun to his head, but I see that possibility as very small indeed.

My belief - which I told Jeremy - was and remains that Jeremy is probably guilty but there is too much doubt in the evidence to sustain a conviction; thus if I were a juror, I would have to vote Not Guilty.  As to the circumstances under which he may have committed these deeds, that is a whole other topic, but briefly, I came to the conclusion that, if he did do this, it was an unplanned drug-induced rage killing in which he ran amok.  The elements of the offences that seem 'planned' or premeditated have been interpreted that way in retrospect.  The best example of this is the phone call - which is a majorly misinterpreted aspect of the case, if you assume Jeremy is guilty.  I believe Jeremy never planned this and it was not intended as some sort of quasi-alibi.

Jeremy made up the phone call, or staged it (I'm not sure which), because Nevill somehow ended up in the kitchen, instead of the bedroom, and Jeremy decided that he needed a way of explaining this.  Without the phone call, the police would obviously be asking how that physical struggle could have come about, and if Sheila did it, they would be asking themselves how that could be without Nevill simply disarming her.  Why would Sheila take that risk instead of just shooting Nevill in bed?  Thinking quickly, Jeremy instinctively decides on the phone call, quite possibly influenced by a genuine phone call he received earlier that night from Nevill in which Nevill was angry with him about something to do with work done or not done on the farm.

If Jeremy had thought about it more, and certainly if this was planned, he might have wondered whether the fact of a call from the farmhouse would be logged and recorded somewhere, but he wasn't thinking, because - as I believe - it wasn't planned.

I joined the Forum mainly for access to the documents archived by Mike and others.  During my time here since late 2020, nothing I have seen and read has altered my general position, which is 'Not Guilty, due to reasonable doubt'.  I describe this as a neutral stance because it implicitly leaves me open to further facts and arguments from others, which are always welcome.  Unfortunately, nothing from the pro-guilt camp has shaken my stance - if anything, the pro-guilt camp have only deepened my doubts about the case.  It is an unfortunate paradoxical position I am in, but there it is.

Here are the main grounds for the reasonable doubt position (this list may not be exhaustive, as I may have forgotten some of the grounds; if my memory improves and I do add things later, I will post in the thread to let you know).  There are one or two speculative points I have not included.  For instance, I believe the police may have moved Sheila's body from the bed, but that is only a belief; I don't have enough evidence to include it as a ground for reasonable doubt.

For the abundance of clarity, let me stress that I am not arguing for Jeremy's innocence and none of the points that follow establish his innocence.  Furthermore, none of these grounds are unchallengeable, they can all be argued over, but the point is that they cast doubt on the prosecution case:

(i). Julie Mugford's evidence cannot be considered reliable because the account she gave of the killings is wrong.  It could be that Jeremy is guilty and gave her this account as a way of discrediting her, but we can only deal with the evidence we have.  You also have ask why Jeremy would tell her anything.  It simply doesn't make sense.  Furthermore, large parts of Mugford's behaviour make no rational sense at all.  I don't necessarily doubt that Jeremy and Julie had certain conversations, but the bottom line for me is that it is just as plausible that Jeremy was joking with her as it is that he was being serious.

(ii). I believe Julie Mugford misled the court about her dealings with a tabloid newspaper.  I simply cannot believe she had not entered into a contract, oral or written, prior to giving evidence.

(iii). The jury were also clearly misled on Julie Mugford's criminal record, and although this was a minor point, I believe it was significant and I think the police and prosecution acted intentionally to mislead the court in this respect.

(iv). Sheila was shot at very different angles, which is apparent when you triangulate it.  On the face of it, this establishes Jeremy's guilt, due to the belief that Jeremy adjusted the rifle after realising Sheila was not dead after the first shot.  But on further reflection you have to ask how, if Jeremy is guilty, this is consistent with the pathologist's evidence.  Dr. Vanezis says Sheila fell back after the second shot.  That can't be true if Jeremy did it.  Mr Ismail's evidence, which is inconsistent with Dr Vanezis', does not assist on this point and is wrong anyway.

(v). The lack of post-mortem rigidity (rigor mortis) in Sheila's body, as confirmed in the witness statement of Ron Cook, who attended the body and moved Sheila's arm.

(vi). The apparent lack of lividity (livor mortis) in Sheila's body, as confirmed by the crime scene photographs.

(vii). Jeremy must have gone to and from the farmhouse on foot.  For a number of reasons, I find it doubtful he could have accomplished this in the time frame assumed.  By push bike or car was too risky for somebody who supposedly planned the act, because he could have run into somebody or easily been seen.

(viii). There is none of Nevill's blood in the bedroom.  I think this is one of the biggest problems for the prosecution.  It means that the incident sequence/choreography is thrown all over the place unless you either ignore the lack of Nevill's blood in that position or you switch around the position of the spent cartridges.  Otherwise, it makes more sense if Sheila is the killer and the phone call that Jeremy claims he received is consistent with a Sheila choreography.  For Jeremy to be the killer, he would have had to shoot Nevill on the main stairs, but that stairway is steep and narrow and it just doesn't seem likely to me.

(ix). There is also the question of where Sheila was shot by Jeremy and when and how he managed to subdue her without incurring injuries or leaving Sheila with obvious injuries.  The prosecution explain this by trying to say that Sheila was sedated, but we have no evidence that she was sedated.  It's also not explained why Sheila would not react if, as the prosecution claim and rest on, a mayhemic and chaotic assault was taking place in the house only yards from where she was sleeping.  I don't accept that Jeremy, June and Nevill (if he was upstairs) would have agreed to be silent or extra quiet just so as not to wake up Sheila.

(x). The blood and DNA evidence remains inconclusive:

(a). It has never been established that Sheila's blood was found in the silencer.  There is even a possibility is was not human blood at all.

(b). The jury at trial were misdirected by the judge on the blood evidence.

(c). DNA testing was carried out on the silencer in the 1990s, but the DNA samples were not blood-based, thus the findings cannot be considered probative.  Remember that these people lived at this house, or in Sheila's case, stayed there quite often, and the silencer could have been left around, which means there was a possibility of innocent contamination.  In any case, the findings were scientifically inconclusive.

(xi). I believe at least two silencers were examined by the FSS and recorded as bearing two sets of incriminating evidence.

(xii). I do not believe the scratch marks on the underside of the mantelpiece of the aga oven could have been made by the silencer while it was attached to the rifle.

(xiii). The rifle pull-through test was completely unscientific and unreliable.  The rifle should have been subject to either chemical testing or been dismantled by machinists.  But if we accept Fletcher's findings at face value, then we have to believe either that the blood in the silencer has defied the laws of physics or there is some physical argument rooted in tension dynamics that explains the lack of blood in the rifle.

(xiv). The chain of custody of the silencer was completely unsatisfactory.  First, the police failed to find and/or record and remove the silencer immediately at the scene, despite (they claimed) a thorough search.  Then there was a failure to isolate the exhibit itself, and the exhibit was tampered with, and potentially valuable forensic evidence was lost.  The officer who took the evidence away was inebriated.

(xv). The distribution of blood in the silencer is consistent with contamination.  The relatives had the means, motive and opportunity to contaminate the silencer.  That, I stress, is not to say they did contaminate the silencer and I do not make that allegation - nor do I need to, as we only need doubt.

(xvi). The fingerprint evidence on the rifle, collected and recorded by Ron Cook, is more consistent with Sheila as the killer.  The lack of prints, with only two or three found, means that somebody wiped the rifle.  The person who wiped the rifle was the killer.  Jeremy had no motive to wipe the rifle, as it was effectively his rifle anyway, so any prints found could not incriminate him.  Sheila did have a motive to wipe the rifle, if she had just used it to kill her twins and parents, as she would not want to use it on herself if it had their blood on and/or she may have ritualistically cleaned it.

(xvii). Jeremy's behaviour after the incident is often cited as a further reason to suspect him, but these same people also want us to believe Jeremy coldly planned the whole thing.  Would a cold-blooded mass murderer conduct himself as Jeremy did?  Furthermore, a lot of the behaviours that are seen as suspicious could be interpreted the opposite way.  Jeremy was obviously acting at the funeral, but the funeral was being broadcast on the TV in front of millions.  What was he supposed to do?  Jeremy started hurriedly selling the valuable contents of the farmhouse.  Certainly this could be considered tactless and insensitive, but somebody had to attend to the estate and selling the contents is the obvious thing to do and would the expected course of action of an innocent person.  A guilty person might have been more cautious.

(xviii). Jeremy, who is supposed to have planned it all out, answered police questions freely and openly.  Wouldn't a cold-blooded inheritance killer who had just committed mass murder have been a bit more reticent and cautious?  It should be stressed that there is a right to silence and an innocent person could well remain silent under such circumstances (indeed, that is normally the advice received from lawyers), but Jeremy was taking a big risk as a guilty man answering police questions and giving away all that information.  He had already given witness statements.  Why not just ask the police to refer back to those?

(xix). In my view, the inheritance motive falls down, mainly to do with the legal and practical complexities of the estate.  Jeremy was not a lawyer, but as a farmer's son, and having regular conversations with Nevill, he would have been aware of a lot of these issues.  I appreciate that a guilty Jeremy would have had in mind getting his hands on family money, but it was not a simple matter of killing his family and then receiving loads of ready cash.  He must have known this.

(xx). The police destroyed a lot of evidence immediately at the scene and then later in the mid-1990s, important evidence was destroyed.

[Erik Narramore]

The sources for my points above:

Points (i) and (iii) are my own.  I have my own unique take on Julie Mugford, and I spotted the discrepancy in what the court was told about her criminal record.

Point (ii) came from NGB1066.

Point (iv) is mine.

Points (v) and (vi) were highlighted to me by David, and seem to be widely discussed.  Having checked, I agree with what the innocent camp say.

Point (vii) is mine.

Point (viii) is my own, as I have my own theory about the incident choreography, but based on a known evidence fact as a starting point.

Point (ix) is my own.  Nobody else, to my knowledge, has pointed out that there is no evidence that she was sedated.

Point (x) is common knowledge - though it is denied by guilters like you.

Points (xi) and (xii) are my own, based on Mike's documents.  I don't believe anybody else spotted these.

Point (xiii) and (xv) are my own as well.  Nobody else has considered the significance of tension dynamics.

Point (xiv) is common knowledge.

Point (xvi) is my own.  Nobody else has spotted that the fingerprint evidence could support Jeremy's case.

Point (xvii) is my own.

Points (xviiii) is common knowledge, but with my own take.

Point (xix) is my own.  Nobody else has identified how the inheritance would work and the implausibility of this as Jeremy's planned motive.

Point (xx) is common knowledge.

[Erik Narramore]

Are you familiar with the phrase, 'running amok'?  The word amok comes from Indonesian/Malaysian culture, where traditionally there was a phenomenon that young men would suddenly crack and commit a mass killing.  It's seen in Western culture as well, hence we've borrowed the word to describe it.

Jeremy was a regular cannabis user.  Cannabis is linked to poor judgement, mood changes and violence.

Jeremy was also in the right age bracket for an 'amok' killing.