page_title: White House Farm murders
section_title: Events outside
hierarchical_section_title: White House Farm murders / Scene at White House Farm / Events outside
caption_attribution_description: Pages Lane, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, England. The lane leads to Whitehouse Farm and Wycke Farm.
context_page_description: The White House Farm murders took place near the village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, England, during the night of 6–7 August 1985. Nevill and June Bamber were shot and killed inside their farmhouse, along with their adopted daughter, Sheila Caffell, and Sheila's six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas Caffell. The only surviving member of June and Nevill's immediate family was their adopted son, Jeremy Bamber, then 24 years old, who said he had been at home a few miles away when the shooting took place.
  The police at first believed that Sheila, diagnosed with schizophrenia, had fired the shots then turned the gun on herself. But weeks after the murders Jeremy Bamber's ex-girlfriend told police that he had implicated himself. The prosecution argued that, motivated by a large inheritance, Bamber had shot the family with his father's semi-automatic rifle, then placed the gun in his unstable sister's hands to make it look like a murder–suicide. A silencer the prosecution said was on the rifle would have made it too long, they argued, for Sheila's fingers to reach the trigger to shoot herself.
context_section_description: After the telephone calls, Bamber drove to the farmhouse, as did three officers from Witham Police Station who later testified that Bamber had been driving much more slowly than them; they passed him on Pages Lane and arrived at the farmhouse one or two minutes before him. His cousin, Ann Eaton, testified that Bamber was normally a fast driver. The group waited outside the house for a tactical firearms unit to arrive, which turned up at 5 am and decided to wait until daylight before trying to enter. Police determined that all the doors and windows to the house were shut, except for the window in the main bedroom on the first floor. Using a loudhailer, they spent two hours trying to communicate with Sheila. The only sound they reported from the house was a dog barking.
  While waiting outside, the police questioned Bamber, who they said seemed calm. According to the Court of Appeal, Bamber told them about the phone call from his father and that it had sounded as though someone had cut off the call. He said he did not get along with his sister. When asked whether she might have "gone berserk with a gun", the police said he replied: "I don't really know. She is a nutter. She's been having treatment." The police asked why Nevill would have called Bamber and not the police. Bamber replied that his father was the sort of person who might want to keep things within the family. He said that he (Bamber) had called the police station, rather than 999, because he did not think it would affect how long the police would take to respond. Over the next few hours he talked about cars in general with one of the officers, saying that the Osea Road caravan site "would be able to stand him a Porsche" soon.
  Bamber told the police that Sheila was familiar with guns and that they had gone target shooting together. He said he had been at the farmhouse himself a few hours earlier, and that he had loaded the rifle because he thought he had heard rabbits outside. He had left it on the kitchen table fully loaded, with a box of ammunition nearby. A doctor who was called to the house testified the deaths could have occurred at any time during the night. He said Bamber appeared to be in a state of shock: Bamber broke down, cried and seemed to vomit. The doctor said Bamber told him about the discussion the family had had about possibly placing Sheila's sons in foster care.
caption: Pages Lane leading to White House Farm
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