What Happened In The Kitchen?

[Erik Narramore]

Adam quite reasonably asks me why I am sceptical regarding DI Cook's deductions about bullet choreography.  To be clear, I am not questioning DI Cook's integrity or competence.  I'm simply suggesting that he and his colleagues may have made a mistake - which we all do from time-to-time.

Here's why:

(i). I gather that there was almost no discernible blood trail between the main landing and the kitchen, aside from two isolated spots of blood - respectively, on the main stairway wall and the jamb between the kitchen and the main foyer.

(ii). Poor old Nevill suffered eight gunshot wounds.  I am open to correction on this, but my understanding is that of these, only two were non-head shots.

What this evidence is telling me is that Nevill was not shot four times upstairs.  I don't doubt that Nevill was shot outside the kitchen.  Probably he was shot at least once upstairs - most likely it was on the main landing rather than in the master bedroom (perhaps with the perpetrator firing from the vantage point of the master bedroom while Nevill is on the landlng) - and then he is also shot on the main stairway.

As an aside, my personal view is that the shot to Nevill on the main stairway may have been with Nevill going up the stairs rather than down - if so, the prosecution have problems.  But we'll skip that point.  For present purposes, let's keep it simple and assume that Nevill is shot on the main stairway with the perpetrator behind him, meaning Nevill is heading down the stairs for the kitchen.

With that preamble, let's get down to the business I want to address: If Nevill was shot upstairs at all, never mind four times, then the following is happening:

(i). He is in pain.
(ii). He is in shock.
(iii). He is bleeding.
(iv). He is touching his own wounds and getting blood on his hands and fingers.

On top of this, if we accept what the Crown say, we think Nevill is shot in the head while he is somewhere upstairs.  Perhaps the shot to Nevill's head at this stage is to the jaw/mouth area, which might - might - not incapacitate him, but we need to account for one more head region shot.  The problem for the prosecution seems obvious to me.  It is of course possible that DI Cook was correct and there was one more head shot at this stage that didn't incapacitate Nevill, but it seems to me rather unlikely.

But let's stick to the Crown's choreography for now.  Nevill has been shot upstairs and he is on the main stairway.  Then we say Nevill runs to the kitchen.  Why?  Myself and Adam have been discussing this on another thread.  I think I have shown that Nevill could not have made a 999 call, given the evidence available (though, importantly, it does not follow from this that he didn't intend to and try to reach the phone).  Following further discussions with Adam, I am also satisfied that it is at least plausible that Nevill was running for the back door (i.e. the side door on the 'white' side of the house) in the belief that the key was in it and he could make an escape.  He would be going out into the night barefoot and in pyjamas, so it's not a perfect theory, but let's remember that he was fleeing an armed lunatic in the middle of the night and didn't have much time for carefully-considered thought.  Maybe he had it in mind to flee and try to rouse somebody in the nearby farm cottages.

Here's where I see a problem with it: the lampshade.  We're told the glass lampshade in the kitchen was broken and shattered.  The background to this is that the prosecution and people who hold to Jeremy being guilty have always maintained there was a struggle in the kitchen.  This has been thought to be a point against Jeremy on the basis that Nevill would easily overcome Sheila.

The problems with this theory are:

(a). We are asked to believe that Nevill had been shot four times before even reaching the kitchen, including twice in the head region, but then we have him struggling with Jeremy.

(b). The blood distribution in the kitchen doesn't cohere with Nevill attempting to transit the kitchen to flee.  For instance, why are there three blood prints on the worktop?

(c). Following on from (b) above, given that there are blood prints on the worktop, how come, at the very least, there is no blood on the kitchen phone very near it, if not also a recorded 999 call from Nevill?

(d). Adam tells us - and I accept this is plausible (I am not being disrespectful) - that Nevill wasn't running for the phone, but to flee via the kitchen out the back door.  So where does the struggle fit into that?  How come the lampshade is shattered?

One possibility, which we'll park for now, is that Adam is correct and Jeremy staged the scene by breaking the lampshade, etc., in order to give the impression of a fight or struggle between Nevill and Sheila.

Now let's compare and contrast.  Let's see if the above issues can be resolved by making Sheila the killer rather than Jeremy.  Interestingly, they can.

Jeremy need not struggle with Nevill if he has a gun, he would just shoot him, but we've already seen the problems with that scenario.

But Sheila would struggle with Nevill because she is not necessarily intending to kill anybody, she is just going crazy with the gun.  Nevill would be trying to get the gun off her.  One can imagine a scenario in which the lampshade is broken and shattered.  Nevill would not be shot upstairs at all - there is no conclusive evidence to say he was anyway - he would be shot once as he ascends the stairs approaching Sheila, then Sheila pursues him back to the kitchen where he intends to round on her and wrestle the gun off her, but she manages to keep the weapon and she fires seven more times into Nevill.

This is consistent with almost-all the evidence, with one exception: the position of the ejected bullet cartridge casings as found and recorded at the scene.  The question arises: Is it possible that the other evidence could override the casing positions?  Or is there an explanation for the apparent paradoxy in the crime scene?  Should we instead accept the recorded casing positions on their face and assume that Jeremy staged the kitchen scene to make it look like a struggle between Nevill and Sheila?  If we do accept this, then how do we reconcile this with the forensic evidence and ordinary common-sense?

[Erik Narramore]

Nevill phoned Jeremy before the shooting started, or as the shooting started, as I've just said.

Jeremy's detractors, and the courts, have taken it upon themselves to assume that Nevill could only call after the shooting started, but why must that be the case?  It's entirely plausible for Nevill to call before Sheila starts shooting.  Why is it assumed otherwise?  Has Jeremy himself ever said otherwise?

There is no blood on the upstairs phone or in the upstairs office and there is no blood trail to the kitchen (a problem for the prosecution that none of you seem able to explain).

The idea that Nevill would casually ring Jeremy after being shot four times, including twice in the head, has to be considered a fairy story - a canard, advanced to suit the prosecution argument in that it makes Jeremy's defence seem implausible.

[Erik Narramore]

It seems to me the pro-guilt camp have to keep changign their story to suit.  First they tell us that Nevill was running for the exit and Jeremy stopped him.  Now it's Jeremy and Nevill in a struggle.  Those two things are incompatible and make no sense in the context of four shots into Nevill upstairs.  Why does Jeremy need to struggle with Nevill at all?

Doesn't a struggle, if it happened, point to Sheila?  She would hesitate about killing her father and her father would hesitate about dialling 999, and he would also be hesitant about being physically decisive with her.  One can imagine them returning to the kitchen, Sheila shouting and screaming, they are then struggling, the lampshade smashes, Nevill is trying to wrestle the gun off her.  Normally he would prevail, but he is injured and his powers fade; she pushes him away, and fires.

[Erik Narramore]

Why doesn't Jeremy just shoot Nevill?  Why does a struggle happen at all?  And why does Jeremy then change his mind and shoot him?  And why run that risk of having the gun wrestled off him?

You're saying he is running for the exit, despite being a 61 year old man who has been shot four times, including twice in the head.  He's in his pyjamas and he's barefoot.  Is that likely?  Even if we accept the possibility, why the struggle?  It's illogical.

Maybe Jeremy was chasing him across the kitchen and that's how the lampshade broke, but the kitchen isn't large enough to allow for that scenario, and again, Jeremy would just shoot him, he wouldn't pursue him.  Indeed, that's your own premise here: that Nevill never made it out of the kitchen because Jeremy had a gun, yet you now inconsistently (even contradictorily) posit that they struggled.  Why?

Maybe Jeremy had to pursue him because Nevill had opened the door between the kitchen and the back hallway, which opens into the kitchen.  But then, why isn't there blood on that door?

I think we are running into problems here.

Maybe Nevill was going for the phone, as that's instinctive whatever his injuries were.  However, the problem is there's no blood on the phone.

Maybe Jeremy caught up with him in the kitchen just as he'd reached the worktop and that's when he shot him.  This is just about possible, but if there's blood on the worktop near the phone, why isn't there blood on the phone? We also have the problem of how Nevill gets to the other side of the kitchen.  A struggle would explain it, but a struggle is illogical for the reasons already explained.  There is no reason for Jeremy to risk a struggle to position Nevill in one particular part of the kitchen.  Possibly Nevill crawls to the other side of the kitchen trying vainly to get away from Jeremy, or Jeremy drags him there for some reason while holding the gun and that's why the lampshade was broken; but in the latter case, we're back to why Jeremy would want to do that.

Not that I am saying Jeremy is innocent, but I do find a Sheila scenario much easier to explain given the evidence.

[Erik Narramore]

In my scenario I have Nevill and Sheila at stand-off in the kitchen.  Sheila is screaming and shouting, etc. (maybe the lampshade gets broken at this point).  Nevill now decides to ring Jeremy, while Sheila is there.  Jeremy takes a long time to answer.  When he does, as soon as Nevill starts talking into the phone, Sheila is haring off upstairs, which is why Nevill ends the calls or puts the receiver down [the telephonic mechanics of that will need to be ironed out on another thread].

In the kitchen, I think Nevill struggles with her, the context of that being that Sheila has only actually fired the gun once up to that point, so we have him trying to wrestle the gun off her, but she is able to push him away and Nevill is killed in a fusillade.

I take the view that almost-all the evidence points to this, with the except of the recorded position of the bullet casings.

[Erik Narramore]

It was two shots to the left arm/shoulder, which must have immobilised the arm.  The deduction from there depends on where we think the bullet casings should be as opposed where they found.  In my scenario, he is shot once on the stairs, in the shoulder, which makes sense for a shot from above.  This doesn't necessarily immobilise the arm, but even if you're right and it does, it needn't preclude a physical struggle in the kitchen - it merely explains more fully why Sheila prevailed.

I accept that one problem with my scenario is that it is rather unlikely that the police would accidentally displace more than one bullet casing upstairs.  I am suggesting they displaced maybe two.  IIf he was shot twice upstairs/on the stairs, the scenario still gels overall; in fact your version makes a struggle with Sheila prevailing much more likely if anything.

[Erik Narramore]

There were 10 or 11 bullets in a fully-loaded rifle (the precise number depending on whether there was already a cartridge in the breech), so to me your numbers can only add up if one of the following applies:

(i). Jeremy embarked on this massacre with a rifle that wasn't fully-loaded; or,
(ii). Jeremy decided to attack the twins first.

Neither of these makes sense to me.  Possibility (i) doesn't make sense because Jeremy would make sure he had a fully-loaded rifle to deal with all eventualities, and while I accept this is an assumption, it is a reasonable operating assumption in the absence of evidence to the contrary.  Possibility (ii) doesn't make sense because Nevill is the threat; by attacking the twins first, even with a silencer, he runs a high risk of discovery with Nevill fleeing outside or to the kitchen phone.

I thought he was supposed to have planned it all?  You lot do keep telling me that, so I'm afraid we'll have to base our assumptions and conclusions on that premise and accept what follows.  Of course, Nevill fleeing is exactly what happened (if we accept Jeremy is the killer), but the point is that Jeremy would not have pre-planned things that way, it being much more likely that he attacked the parents first and something went wrong at that early stage.

Ainsley agreed with me at least on this point.  He said in his report to the DPP that Jeremy attacked the parents first and he has Jeremy attacking the twins only after re-loading.

But I now see why a lot of dogmatic pro-guilt people need Jeremy to have killed the twins first.  It's because otherwise the scenario doesn't make a great deal of sense ballistically and choreographically.

Let's err on the side of the pro-guilt camp and say that the twins were attacked first.  For now, we'll shelve the problems with the scenario and just assume it.  This means the twins have nine bullets in them.  That means Jeremy has only one or two bullets left, depending on whether he started with a cartridge in the breech.  Let's be conservative and say he has two bullets left.

Does Jeremy go to the master bedroom now or does he go downstairs and re-load?  Or was he carrying the bullets with him?

What wakes up Nevill?  What wakes up June?  Is the dog barking?  Nevill wasn't shot in bed, but it looks like June was.

If Jeremy doesn't re-load on the move and we say, to give the Crown the benefit of the doubt, that he has two bullets left, then does he shoot June with the two bullets, then realise he is out of ammunition and there then follows the struggle in the kitchen with Nevill?

If so, how do you explain the bullet casings on the landing, which seem to point to somebody being shot on the stairs?  Where does Jeremy get the ammunition from?

Another thing - let's say Jeremy doesn't fire nine times into the twins in the first fusillade in that room, meaning Jeremy has more bullets available for his assault on the master bedroom, then how come June is still crawling around the master bedroom while Nevill and Jeremy are struggling downstairs?  The bullet count does not reckon with what is claimed happened.

Also, if Jeremy is out of bullets upstairs, why does Nevill even need to go downstairs?  Why isn't there evidence of a struggle upstairs in which Nevill endeavours to save June, Sheila and the twins, perhaps even barricading himself in the twins' bedroom (not realising that Jeremy has already shot them)?  And given that, in actuality, Nevill does go downstairs, that means Jeremy is going downstairs as well, presumably to re-load, so why is there no blood on the phone?  Why is there no 999 call from Nevill?  And what is Sheila doing while all this is happening?  Are you seriously telling me she is asleep?

Unless I am missing some key fact, I'm sorry to say at the moment it doesn't make sense.  Obviously there will always be problems and questions with any scenario, but this doesn't fundamentally hang together.  Worryingly, a coherent Sheila scenario is much easier to construct.

[Erik Narramore]

He must have been caught before reaching the door, as there is no blood evidence to the contrary.

So you're saying that Jeremy ran out of bullets upstairs.

This means he fired twice into the twins, five times into June and four times into Nevill.

I can accept that Jeremy might attack the twins first because he may have been thinking about the risk of one or both of them up and moving around and maybe hiding somewhere in the dark or even escaping the house.

The problems with all this are as follows:

(i). How does June move around after being shot five times?

(ii). Where is Sheila?  Don't tell me she was asleep.  There was gun fire on the main landing right outside her bedroom, and all the bedrooms are close together.

(iii). When Jeremy enters the master bedroom (I'm not sure from which door), he must have intended to fire on Nevill first because Nevill is the threat.  Yet Jeremy is firing five times into June and Nevill escapes.  That tells me Nevill has a considerable head start.  Jeremy does catch him on the stairs, firing at him twice from the landing (after hitting him twice in the bedroom, if you believe the bullet casings), nevertheless the question is why Nevill doesn't make it to the back door or the kitchen phone - one or the other - or maybe even his den.  He hadn't been shot in the leg.

(iv). Where is the blood trail between the main landing and the kitchen?

[Erik Narramore]

For me, the points of issue here are:

(i). I do not believe the silencer was used in the killings, and anyway, there is no conclusive evidence to say it was.

(ii). If we assume the silencer was used in the killings, the issue then is the noise impact of a small calibre moderated rifle inside the farmhouse using subsonic bullets.  Jeremy may have used the silencer in anticipation of this problem, but he would not necessarily know what the impact would be as he could hardly practice beforehand.  Personally I suspect the effect of the moderator would not have been great and I find it hard to believe Sheila would not have woken.

(iii). You assume that Jeremy fires expertly at the twins from some distance.  That being the case, how was Nevill able to escape the master bedroom?  Whichever way you look at it, at that point Jeremy has the advantage and could have felled Nevill easily.

(iv). How can June move around if she has been shot five times?  We need to know what the extent of the blood trail is in the master bedroom and her movements have to be explained.  The wounds to her should be expected to have incapacitated her.

(v). How can an injured Nevill, having been shot four times, move from the master bedroom to the kitchen while leaving almost no discernible blood trail?  How is that possible?

(vi). How can Nevill even move at all?  How can it be that the two shots to his face don't fell him there and then?  Did he get up and start moving again?  If so, why didn't Jeremy just kill him or overcome him?  And where is all the blood?

(vii). Why does Jeremy return to the twins' bedroom later and shoot them again, another six times?  What was the purpose of this?

(viii). What doesn't Sheila investigate the commotion and get Nevill and June's blood on her hands and feet and night dress?

(ix). If Sheila really did sleep through the whole thing, when does she wake?  And what does Jeremy do when she wakes?  Does Jeremy wake her up to move her to the master bedroom?  Does he carry her while she is asleep or drowsy?

[Erik Narramore]

Logic tells me that Jeremy has to catch him, and if he didn't catch him, then that must mean he had a considerable head start, and if he has a considerable head start and he isn't shot in the legs, then how does Jeremy catch up with him in the kitchen?  Why didn't he either make his escape or dial 999 from the kitchen phone?  We know he didn't make it to the back door because there's no blood.

If Nevill can survive four gun shots, why can't he survive a physical assault from Jeremy and make it to the back door before Jeremy can re-load?  If the blood evidence was lost and he did make it there and found the back door locked, why did he return to the kitchen where Jeremy was?  Why not barricade himself in the den, which also housed the gun cupboard?

Whose blood prints are on the worktop?  If it's Nevill's, then how come there isn't blood on the phone as well?

[Erik Narramore]

June Bamber:

Just because somebody has not been killed, it doesn't follow that they can move.  I think she did move, but the question is what was the probable order of firing in relation to the shots to her given that there is evidence she moved.  The pro-guilt camp want to say she was shot five times but you also say she was still moving around, because it suits them.  Personally I have no stake in this, I just want to know what the evidence says.  For that, I would need to be clearer about the extent of the blood found.

[Erik Narramore]

I notice the pro-guilt camp are studiously avoiding the problem of a lack of a blood trail from the main landing to the kitchen.  That's rather a serious hole in the prosecution case.  It could be resolved by saying that Sheila was the killer, but you would prefer not to do that.

The reason I think Nevill didn't dial 999 is because there is no blood on the kitchen phone.  The issue isn't really whether he dialled 999 but whether he made it to the phone.  It seems to me it would be instinctive for him to do this under attack from Jeremy, regardless of injuries; either that, or flee the house.  But he would be fleeing the house bare-foot in his pyjamas.

It's a bold statement to say that the gun fire would have been impossible to hear.  I'm not so sure, even if a silencer was a fitted, because it all depends on acoustics. A moderated rifle can still have a noticeable report, even with subsonic bullets.  I also don't accept she was sedated and I don't accept that it has been proved the silencer was even used.  It's not even certain that Haloperidol would help her sleep.  One possible side-effect of it is insomnia.  We know she had cannabis in her system and I wonder what contraindications this produced.  I also wonder about the effect of reducing her Haloperidol dosage by half.

I note the pro-guilt scenario depends on Jeremy running out of bullets.  Otherwise, you can't explain why Jeremy would need to struggle with Nevill.

In my view, what's needed is:

Expert pharmacological evidence.

An incident reconstruction looking at sequencing/time-and-motion and the noise impact of the same make and model of silencer (ideally the very same silencer) using the same make and model of gun (ideally the very same gun) and the same bullets.

Expert blood evidence, to explain the almost total lack of a discernible blood trail between the main landing and the kitchen.  Maybe the blood soaked into his clothes and didn't drip?

[Erik Narramore]

Jeremy not catching up with Nevill:

He was behind him because the bullet casings on the landing suggest this, but he stops to fire - twice - and the stairs are steep and narrow, and he is carrying a long rifle, with - as you claim - a silencer on it as well.  It would have been awkward.  I therefore wonder why Nevill doesn't make it to either the phone or the back door or the den.

[Erik Narramore]

Was Nevill bleeding or not?  Bear in mind that Nevill is wearing pyjamas, which are loose fitting, he's been shot four times - including twice in the face - and the blood has to go somewhere.  He's also touching his own wounds and therefore getting blood on his hands and fingers.  I suppose you could just deny he was bleeding.

I assume Nevill flees Sheila because she's firing at him with a gun, but the point is that he still tries to wrestle the gun off her, whereas with Jeremy he wouldn't necessarily do so.

And wouldn't he be able to tell it is Jeremy, even with a mask?  Wouldn't he just guess?  There's Barbara's sexed-up dossier, remember?  Wouldn't he recognise breathing noises, gait, build, etc.?  Do you really think Jeremy could effectively disguise himself?

I don't doubt Jeremy would have used a mask, but the utility of it wasn't as a disguise, rather it was for facial protection.

[Erik Narramore]

Nevill would, very probably, touch his wounds immediately.  That's what gunshot victims do.  It's the natural thing to do and it's done automatically without thought.  That discounts completely your explanation.

Nevill was shot in the face - twice.  How could his bleeding not protrude on to the carpets?

I'm sure there will be an explanation.  I'm still waiting for it.