Problems With A Jeremy Scenario

[Erik Narramore]

The evidence is open to interpretation.

I accept it is possible that June was shot in bed several times, including in the head, and then managed to get out of bed and crawl around.  No-one can dismiss this out-of-hand.  It is possible.  But I believe it is not very plausible and so I wish to consider other scenarios.

In short, I do not accept that Nevill or June were shot in bed, and in Nevill's case, I doubt he was in the main bedroom at all.  I also believe June's body was moved by the police prior to forensic photography.

[Erik Narramore]

I don't believe we can entirely rely on the position of the casings and bullets, but if we are going to do so, then how do they demonstrate that Nevill was shot in the main bedroom?  It's being assumed that if there are four casings left, then four wounds must have been inflicted to Nevill in that same room, but the casings seem to be in the wrong place to account for that.  I appreciate that they will bounce off walls and so forth (one reason we can't rely on the position recorded), but if Nevill is shot in the main bedroom, there should be more casings on the bed itself and near Sheila's body, not in the area near June's side of the bed.  I suppose there is a possibility that Jeremy fired shots to Nevill while facing the exit to the main landing, and the cartridge cases then bounced off the northside wall of the main bedroom and ended up near where June's body would come to a rest.

I think either the casings have been moved within the main bedroom, or a combination of circumstances has occurred in which maybe one or two bullets were never recovered in the main bedroom and Nevill was shot on the main stairs and one or two casings have somehow ended up in the main bedroom, probably because they bounced off the walls and initially ended up on the main landing near the entrance to the main bedroom.  In either situation, the movement of the casings was probably accidental/inadvertent.

[Erik Narramore]

There should be more cartridge cases on the bed and/or by Sheila's body and/or possibly in the area at the foot of the bed.  Would you accept this?  Casings and bullets were moved around.

[Erik Narramore]

Anyway, if Jeremy is shooting Nevill four times in the main bedroom as Nevill flees, I have some questions:

At what angle are these shots?

In which direction is Jeremy facing for each shot?

Was Sheila walking around of her own accord?

[Erik Narramore]

Are we now conceding that the Crown cannot establish that Sheila was sedated and we are relying on her being asleep?  Genuine question.  I think if we're being honest and following the evidence, we must accept this.  That's not to rule out sedation as a theoretical possibility for speculation, it is only to say that the evidence doesn't support the possibility.

That being so, it seems to me the prosecution is in difficulty, but this can be overcome if you can convince me of one or both of the following:

(i). Jeremy used a silencer in the killings.  Either the silencer that was found or a different silencer.  This is necessary because the three bedrooms are in close proximity and are also directly or almost-directly above the kitchen/laundry area.

(ii). Jeremy was intercepted by Nevill shortly after he entered the farmhouse and the father-son struggle took place before Jeremy fired on any of the others.  This would assist because it would allow for Sheila becoming alert and account for her initial movements and reactions, making the time-and-motion scenario more plausible overall.

I think the prosecution will struggle with (i).  Even on a good day, the silencer is a poor piece of evidence and the circumstances of its discovery, seizure and examination are more befitting a slapstick comedy production than a serious criminal case.  Moreover, the blood findings look inconclusive.  Even Arlidge at trial stated that the jury could disregard the silencer, which I think was a very telling slip.  Then we have the DNA testing, which the Court of Appeal rejected in 2002 as "meaningless". Use of a silencer also doesn't tie-in very well with the murder scene we can see in front of us.  It was chaos.  A 'silent' killer, even an amateur, would have to blunder badly to end up in such a melee.  It doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Point (ii) is also a problem because it's not consistent with the blood evidence, which has Nevill bleeding on the stairs and in the jamb of the foyer, suggesting one of two things: either Nevill escaped Jeremy from upstairs, or Nevill was following Jeremy upstairs and Jeremy fired back before returning downstairs with him.  Either way, while allowing for inevitable inconsistencies in any real-life scenario, it's difficult to see how Sheila knots into it all.  There's also the informed conjecture about June being on the stairs to consider, which Lookout raised the other day in reference to Dr. Vanezis' evidence.

Is there a solution?

If I was acting for the Crown here and I was facing the above as appeal points, I would probably consider obtaining the following evidence:

1. An incident reconstruction demonstrating interior noise levels with and without a silencer.  One would hope that the gun is still relatively unobtrusive even without the silencer on, though we shouldn't get our hopes up too high on that.  I know a fair bit about guns and I suspect it was quite loud.  If I'm right about that, then we've got problems.  It is little wonder the relatives were keen on the silencer.

2. Expert pharmacological and psychiatric evidence to demonstrate that, while we cannot establish that Sheila was sedated, her responses and reactions out of sleep would have been impaired due to her psychotropic regimen and possibly on account of other medications.

[Erik Narramore]

One possibility I've noticed that guilters sometimes raise is that Nevill was elsewhere at the time Jeremy began the assault - usually it's either downstairs and he interrupts Jeremy on or soon after entry, or he's in the upstairs office.  Neither works in my opinion, simply because of how he is dressed when found.  An additional problem with having him already downstairs is that you then have to explain the cartridge cases found in a completely different part of the house, which can only work if Jeremy pursues him upstairs, but again, why is he barefoot and in pyjamas?   If he is going to confront a potential intruder (as opposed to Sheila having a tantrum) then he'd have footwear at the least.  And how does he then end up back downstairs, if Jeremy is pursuing him with a fully-loaded rifle? Remember also that, unlike Sheila, Jeremy would not run ahead of him up the stairs to get at June or the twins, instead Jeremy would deal with him first - surely.

I believe the only likely Jeremy scenario is Nevill in the master bedroom already alert.

Jeremy may have entered the master bedroom from the box room, with Nevill by now on the threshold or the landing.  This could be why he shoots June first.

Nevill sees him and takes flight in the opposite direction, down the stairs.

Jeremy shoots from the landing and hits him four times.

This delays Jeremy, which allows Nevill, albeit severely injured, to make it to the kitchen.

By this point, if we assume the twins have already been shot twice and June has been shot three times, this leaves two bullets left.

I don't believe there was a struggle.  Jeremy simply shoots Nevill twice more, then clubs him with the butt of the rifle, perhaps knocking him unconscious.

Jeremy reloads, and realising Nevill is still breathing and/or conscious, shoots him twice more in the head.

[Erik Narramore]

What if the situation was that Jeremy entered the master bedroom undetected via the box room, while Nevill was on the threshold or main landing alert to a possible intruder?  In that scenario, Jeremy might have shot June first before turning fire on Nevill, and it could be considered natural for Nevill to run for the stairs rather than confront Jeremy.

[Erik Narramore]

Sheila's bed:

Why in the crime scene photographs does the bed look like it's not been slept in?

[Erik Narramore]

It may be that Scott Lomax says otherwise, but that doesn't particularly interest me.  I'm referring to what the crime scene photographs show.  It does look like the bed either hasn't been slept in or somebody has got out of bed very carefully.

[Erik Narramore]

Well it does look that way from the photograph.  If she got out of bed, surely that would be obvious from the bedclothes?  She wouldn't tidy the bed if she was worried about a disturbance in the house.  If Jeremy killed her, why would he be concerned about keeping her bedclothes tidy?

Sheila was a schizophrenic.  She was also, according to the prosecution, sedated.  I think she had complained to her general practitioners of tiredness and lethargy due to the drugs.  It's quite common for schizophrenics to be night owls and to sleep a lot during the day and be up at night until quite a late hour.  It's also not uncommon for schizophrenics to go wandering around, aimlessly, especially at night.

[Erik Narramore]

Why didn't Jeremy put the silencer next to Sheila?

I can't think of any reason why he would not have done.

A further point is that if we assume he is guilty and he did replace the silencer in the gun cupboard, then why was no blood found on the carpet of the den or in the gun cupboard itself, or even in the cardboard box in which the silencer was found?  Both Jeremy and the silencer would have had blood on them.

And why did Jeremy allow the family to take the keys to the house after the police had completed their search?  Surely, even if the silencer had been noticed as missing, that in itself is not concrete evidence and he could plead ignorance.  (I suppose that raises the more fundamental point of why he would put the silencer back at all).

There is also the prior question of whether a silencer was used in the first place to execute the killings.
Personally, I doubt it would have had much of a mitigating effect acoustically, but I think NG1066 takes a different view, and I also must acknowledge that Jeremy would not necessarily have known about the acoustic effect (even with all his firearms experience) and may have just assumed it would significantly muffle the weapon.  He also had no realistic way to test the point beforehand, even if he had planned the whole thing through to that extent.  The matter would have to be properly tested. We do have the finding of human blood in the silencer.  Assuming it was human blood, and if we are sceptical about the involvement of a silencer, then one must ask: How did the blood get there?  The way that the blood dispersed in the silencer (on the outer side of the baffles) would be consistent with the blood having been planted, but how would a conspirator know that the blood being planted is consistent with Sheila's blood type?  And would a family member take such a risk?  What could motivate them?  They weren't threatened with homelessness or some comparable catastrophe.  Could the blood have got in there accidentally, either from cross-contamination or something else that occurred prior to the incident?

The DNA testing that was undertaken in the 1990s does not really help because it was inconclusive and not linked to blood.

[Erik Narramore]

No blood is visible in the image of the main bedroom on what we assume is Nevill's side of the bed.  Adam assumes Nevill was shot in the bedroom, but I am very sceptical.

Is that another duvet on the left hand side on the floor?

Also, the design of the lamp on the right-hand side of the photo.  Looks very sinister.  What's that all about?

Whose was the pink cuddly toy (looks like an elephant)?  (If you look very closely, there may be a brown teddy bear visible next to it too).  Did the parents always have that in bed with them?  Seems strange to me.  Doesn't seem to fit how we think of June.

At a guess, and if I didn't know better, I would say the cuddly toy is the twins' and it's there because sometimes they would want to go in the bed with one or both parents, but were they emotionally- and physically close to June?  Seems a bit incongruous, given what we know about her.

Maybe Nevill used it and the twins would sit propped up in the bed next to him while he read them a bedtime story?

Or maybe it's Sheila's and she slept in the bed sometimes when Nevill was sleeping downstairs or in the upstairs office perhaps?  But would she sleep in the same bed as June?  Again, seems not to fit with what we know.  I think there was a strong paternal bond, but Sheila was in her late 20s at this point, so surely that can be ruled out.

[Erik Narramore]

It looks like:

- June was shot in bed and then was later shot again;
- Nevill was not shot in the bedroom, probably he was first shot on the stairs by an assailant who was up the stairs or on the top landing and in front of him.  He was then followed back down the stairs and killed in the kitchen;
- the twins were shot in two fusillades.

This means if Jeremy is guilty, Nevill must have already been downstairs, perhaps inconspicuously sleeping in the den or lounge, and must have first confronted Jeremy on the mstairs.

This, in turn, means one of the following must have occurred:

(i). Jeremy has started up the main stairs and Nevill has challenged him at that point.

(ii). Jeremy has started his assault upstairs, realised Nevill is not there, and made for the main stairs where he has been caught by Nevill.

In either of those scenarios, Nevill has then been pursued by Jeremy back to the kitchen, where he is killed.

If Sheila is guilty, then Nevill must have made the call to Jeremy with Sheila present. Sheila has then run out of the kitchen in the direction of the main stairs.  She has then fired on Nevill while he is ascending the stairs behind her.  She has then pursued Nevill back to the kitchen and killed him there.

[Erik Narramore]

I didn't say you are wrong.  I just asked you to confirm what you are saying.

So he is shot twice in bed, gets out of bed, then is shot twice again, then gets past Jeremy and on to the landing, all in five to 10 seconds.

Admittedly, 10 seconds, when you count it out, is a long time in that type of situation, but I think it must be considered likely for your scenario that he was already awake when Jeremy entered the bedroom.  Would you agree?  It may be that Jeremy had made enough noise elsewhere in the farmhouse that this had disturbed Nevill's and/or June's sleep.

[Erik Narramore]

If Nevill is alerted, would he be out of the main bedroom?

Not necessarily.  Remember that, from our perspective, this all happens quite quickly.  Nevill may well have been awake and still in bed wondering what the noise was.

However, I appreciate that if Nevill has heard something that is enough to make him wonder, then he may investigate.  Yet what evidence is there that tells us he wasn't either just getting out of bed or even standing in the bedroom as Jeremy entered?

We've gone over all this before, of course, in August last year.  Another issue is why it appears that Jeremy shoots June first (for some reason, I had come to that conclusion - I can't now remember why)?