Bamber horror dad had a premonition of slaughter
NEVILL Bamber had a terrible dream he would die days before he was gunned down by his son Jeremy in a family killing spree that has now been turned into a TV dramatisation.
The wealthy farmer, haunted by his nightmare vision, had even told his secretary: “I think there might be a serious shooting.”
Days later, the 61-year-old ex-RAF pilot lay dead in his mansion, shot eight times and with bruising indicating there had been a fierce fight. Also dead were his wife June, 61, daughter Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas.
All five had been blasted at close range with a semi-automatic rifle.
Mr Bamber’s adopted son Jeremy, 24, who alerted police, was the only member of the family who did not die in the 1985 massacre at White House Farm,Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex.
Mentally ill Sheila, 28, a one-time model nicknamed Bambi, was suspected of carrying out the killings before turning the gun on herself.
But suspicion fell on Jeremy. He denied involvement but he was convicted and locked up for a minimum of 25 years, which in 1994 was increased to a whole-life term.
The killings are now the subject of a fascinating six-part ITV seriesWhite House Farm, which stars Freddie Fox as Jeremy and Prince Harry’s former girlfriend Cressida Bonas as Sheila.
Rampage
The drama depicts a slaughter that trial judge Mr Justice Drake described as “evil, almost beyond belief”.
But it also casts a spotlight on key issues surrounding one of Britain’s most horrifying mass murders.
Jeremy insists his father rang him as Sheila went on the rampage. If Nevill did not call, how could Jeremy have known about the shootings unless he was the killer? The son called the police but did not use 999.
A blood-stained silencer was found. It would have been impossible for Sheila to shoot herself under the chin with a rifle fitted with a silencer.
Sheila’s feet were clean. If she had gone on a murder rampage, there would have been blood on her feet. Blood on Jeremy’s shoes allegedly came from a rabbit.
The bedroom phone was plugged into the kitchen socket.Why would Sheila unplug and switch the phones during a homicidal psychotic episode?
Jeremy, apparently through grief, broke down in front of TV microphones yet at the funeral he was cracking “smutty” jokes.
Sheila, also adopted, was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs and appeared calm in the days before the killings – but Jeremy claimed talk about taking her twins into care unhinged her. Slightly built Sheila would have struggled to over-power 6ft 4in Nevill, while Jeremy stood to inherit £500,000 from his parents’ deaths.
Julie Mugford claimed Jeremy was the “Devil incarnate” and said he rang her on the night of the murders, saying: “Everything is going well.”
Sheila’s ex-husband Colin Caffell claims the gripping new ITV drama will reveal the “psychological underbelly of the story”.