Blood Relatives, Episode 5

Summary

In The Dark – Blood Relatives, Episode 5 (November 18, 2025)

Podcast: In The Dark
Host: Heidi Blake (for The New Yorker)
Main Theme: A breakthrough investigation into the Jeremy Bamber conviction, centered on a mysterious, potentially exculpatory 999 emergency call from inside the White House Farm on the morning of the murders.

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Overview

This episode of Blood Relatives explores a pivotal detail in the infamous White House Farm murders: a 999 call reportedly made from inside the farmhouse, which, if verified, could upend the entire case against Jeremy Bamber. Host and reporter Heidi Blake uncovers new evidence and contradictory statements about this call, raising serious questions about the original police investigation, prosecution strategy, and the integrity of decades of appeals.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The 999 Call That Changes Everything (00:28–10:58)

• Heidi Blake recounts sifting through case files and finding a brief mention of an emergency call made at 6:09 a.m.—a time when, according to the prosecution’s theory, everyone inside the house was already dead and Jeremy Bamber was outside with police.
• She tracks down Nick Milbank, the police officer noted as having received the call. He tells her:

  "To be honest, in those days, it was just another. Just another phone call." (01:36, Nick Milbank)

• Milbank’s recollection is casual, but when pressed, he says he remembers answering a 999 call from the manor, hearing only background noise and movements, not voices:

  "I just sat there with the phone open to see if anyone did say anything or I heard anything." (06:29, Nick Milbank)

• The significance: If the call came from inside at that time, someone in the house was alive, contradicting the trial’s central timeline.

2. Contradictory Evidence and the House’s Timeline (10:58–16:25)

• Heidi highlights the shadow spotted in the manor’s window by officers after the police arrived, suggesting Sheila might have been alive until police entry.
• There are references to the possible movement of a body, confusion about who was seen in the kitchen, and the theory that Sheila may have killed herself during the siege, not beforehand.
• The inadequacy of the forensic investigation at the time is emphasized—pathologists didn’t properly check time of death, leaving a critical evidentiary gap.

3. The Family, Fostering, and Motives (16:25–22:17)

• The show delves into the emotional state of Sheila and the fraught family dynamics. Heidi finds independent confirmation from family secretary Barbara Wilson that discussions about fostering Sheila’s twins did occur—contradicting prosecution claims.
• Disturbing drawings by Sheila's son and the "I hate this place" graffitied in the twins’ room underline the troubled environment.

4. Agatha Christie Syndrome and Miscarriage of Justice (22:17–26:58)

• Dr. Dennis Eady (Cardiff Innocence Project) introduces his theory of "Agatha Christie syndrome":

  "It's the application of the whodunit fantasy to the real world... over complication and the looking for a better story with kind of catastrophic results." (22:45, Dr. Dennis Eady)

• He argues that authorities fixated on the notion of a scheming, evil perpetrator rather than the simpler, tragic possibility of murder-suicide driven by severe mental illness.

5. The Mystery of the 999 Statement (26:58–32:17)

• Heidi investigates a 2002 statement, attributed to Milbank, that downplays the significance of the 999 call, saying he merely monitored an existing open line:

  "I certainly didn't give anyone a statement. No, as far as I can... any statement that I've made, I've always signed. And if it's typed, signed by NR Milbank or... What does it say signed by?" (30:03–31:24, Nick Milbank)

• Milbank maintains he never gave such a statement; the document is unsigned and includes inaccuracies about his standard practices.

6. Institutional Skepticism and Cover-Up Allegations (32:17–37:57)

• When Heidi contacts Mark Oliver, the detective from the 2002 review, he brushes off her questions:

  "Do you know what? I really wouldn't waste any of your time on that case. ... He'll continue to make spurious allegations until the day he dies." (35:22, Mark Oliver)

• Heidi lists accumulating evidence of investigative failures: contaminated crime scene, mishandled murder weapon, unexplained sightings and calls.
• Jeremy Bamber, presented with Blake’s findings, expresses hope:

  "If Sheila made a 999 call from White House Farm at nine minutes past six in the morning, I was with 50 odd police officers. I mean, it proves my innocence. I've sat in jail for 40 years for absolutely nothing." (37:40, Jeremy Bamber)

7. The Case Moves Forward (37:57–End)

• As a result of the article and the new findings, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) agrees to initiate an expedited review of Bamber’s case.
• The episode ends on the cusp of new developments, with the promise that Bamber’s fate could soon be decided after decades in prison:

  "Suddenly, after 40 years of waiting, it seemed like he might finally have a path to freedom." (39:30, Heidi Blake)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Just another phone call." (01:55, Nick Milbank) — The casual dismissal that belies the call’s potential to exonerate Jeremy Bamber.
• "If this call had really been made at the time I'd seen referenced in the case files, that could mean only one thing. Jeremy Bamber could not have committed this crime." (01:55, Heidi Blake)
• "Who's this. Who's this Hydrophosis he gave a statement to?... I certainly don’t recall anyone speaking to me and making a statement in 2002." (30:35–31:47, Nick Milbank) — The baffling issue of the purported statement.
• "It's the application of the whodunit fantasy to the real world and to real cases… with catastrophic results." (22:45, Dr. Dennis Eady)
• "We looked at everything... He'll continue to make spurious allegations until the day he dies." (35:22, Mark Oliver)
• "It proves my innocence. I’ve sat in jail for 40 years for absolutely nothing." (37:40, Jeremy Bamber)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:28–10:58 — Discovery and recounting of the 999 call; first interview with Milbank.
• 12:19–22:17 — Window sightings, Sheila’s mental state, family dynamics, and alternate timeline possibilities.
• 22:17–26:58 — "Agatha Christie syndrome"; wrongful conviction context.
• 26:58–32:17 — The dubious 2002 Milbank statement and Heidi’s real-time investigation of its origins.
• 35:22 — Dismissive police response to renewed investigation.
• 37:40 — Jeremy Bamber reacts to the new evidence.
• 39:30–End — CCRC development and the case’s potential future.

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Conclusion

Episode 5 of Blood Relatives is a revelatory deep dive into a single phone call whose existence could unravel the official account of one of Britain's most notorious murder cases. Through dogged reporting, clear-eyed analysis, and compelling audio interviews, Heidi Blake exposes unsettling gaps and inconsistencies in decades of police and prosecutorial work—leaving listeners to wonder whether justice might finally be within reach for Jeremy Bamber. The stage is set for a potentially seismic shift in the story, as the CCRC embarks on an accelerated review.

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For further updates, listeners are encouraged to subscribe and follow the next (final) episode.

Transcript

[Madeline]

Hi, it's Madeline. Before you tune into this episode, I wanted to remind you that New Yorker subscribers get access to the full Blood Relative series early, all six episodes ad free in the New Yorker app. It's just $1 a week to subscribe, which you can do by visiting newyorker.com dark that's newyorker.com D.

[Nick Milbank]

Hello?

[Heidi Blake]

Oh, hi.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Is that Nick Milbank?

[Nick Milbank]

It is.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Hello, my name is Heidi Blake. I'm a writer for a magazine in New York, the New Yorker. And I'm doing a, like, longish piece about an old Essex police case from the 80s, which. The Jeremy Bamber case.

[Heidi Blake]

When I made this call, I'd been wading through the White House Farm case files for a few weeks, and honestly, by this point, I was overwhelmed.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

There's just so much. I mean, there's so much documentation.

[Heidi Blake]

It's just like.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

It's completely bamboozling.

[Heidi Blake]

I just stumbled upon an especially perplexing detail about this guy, Nicholas Milbank, a longtime Essex police officer. And a 999 emergency call that he'd apparently received on the morning of the crime from inside the manor at Whitehouse Farm. A call that, unless I was very much mistaken, should have been impossible.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

I understand you had some involvement with sort of monitoring the phone lines on the night of the crime. Basically, I'm just. I was wondering whether you might be willing to have a chat with me about it and just make sure I'm not completely barking up the wrong tree with the stuff I'm looking at.

[Nick Milbank]

Yeah. To be honest, yes, I was. I was on the telephone. But say it was back in the 80s. My recollection of it. I mean, I've taken millions and millions of phone calls since then. And to be honest, in those days, it was just another. Just another phone call.

[Heidi Blake]

Just another phone call, he said. But that moment right there, when Nick Milbank began to tell me about this call, that was when my whole understanding of this case started to shift. Because if this call had really been made at the time I'd seen referenced in the case files, that could mean only one thing. Jeremy Bamber could not have committed this crime. From in the Dark and the New Yorker. I'm Heidi Blake, and this is Blood Relatives.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

One of the most notorious and shocking crimes in living memory. A bloody massacre at a remote English farmhouse.

[Heidi Blake]

Well, spot a mad woman could do this.

[Nick Milbank]

It was such a believable story. It was. It was crazy to think anything else other than what we were presented with.

[Dr. Dennis Eady]

He's lying.

[Nick Milbank]

I mean, it's A classic detective novel thing, Agatha Christie or whatever.

[Dr. Dennis Eady]

I'm gonna kill my family so I.

[Nick Milbank]

Inherit all the money. I didn't murder my family. I promise you, no matter how many times we slice up this case, I'm always innocent.

[Heidi Blake]

Part one the 999 call. The line in the documents mentioning this phone call was buried amid thousands of pages of police memos from a review of the case by Scotland Yard codenamed Operation Stokenchurch. The review was conducted in 2002, right before Jeremy Bamber's last appeal. And the memos refer in passing to a quote, 999 call made from White House Farm at 6:09 on the morning of the murders. The case files contained hardly any detail about this call, beyond revealing that it had been received by police constable Nick Milbank. Prosecutors had certainly disclosed nothing about it to the jury at Jeremy Bamber's trial. But when I reached Nick Milbank, still working at Essex Police all those years later, as it turned out, he was willing to tell me all about it.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

It's obviously hard to dredge it all up from all of that time ago.

[Nick Milbank]

From what I can remember, it was a case of sort of someone find the 999me answering it. And then it was just hearing background noises and police entering the build the room or the. I don't think, I don't think there was any actual conversation, but I really don't remember much about it at all, to be honest.

[Heidi Blake]

Oh, interesting. Okay. This was another one of those moments in my reporting when I trying my best not to let my astonishment show. But it was hard because at 6:09am when the memo said this call had come in, Jeremy Bamber had already been waiting outside the house with police for hours.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

And so you were, you were you like in the control room and picked up a 999 call or.

[Nick Milbank]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the, in the central control room in Chelmsford.

[Heidi Blake]

Milbanke's shift that morning had just started at around 6am Now I do dispatching.

[Nick Milbank]

Most of the time, but on that occasion I was call taking and. But yeah, and obviously came through on the 999 system.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

And so there was a call came in and it was from the farmhouse itself.

[Heidi Blake]

Yeah, no one spoke. When Milbank answered the phone, he said, but the police department's policy when this happened was that the call taker would just stay on the line listening.

[Nick Milbank]

If you get a phone call where it's technically an abandoned call because people either aren't speaking or there's there's someone who's obviously in fear of danger or, or whatever. Our policy is to stay on the phone with them until the police arrive. And then as the police officers would get there, they pick up the phone and say, yeah, we're here now. And so I can then hang up the phone call and go straight to the next 999 call.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Right, right, okay, yeah, that makes sense. Totally.

[Heidi Blake]

So Nick Milbank said that's what he did that morning. He just sat there listening in to what was happening inside the manor.

[Nick Milbank]

And so I just sat there with the phone open to see if anyone did say anything or I heard anything.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

And like you could hear sort of movement in the background, did you say, or what exactly?

[Nick Milbank]

As far as I can remember, there was, yes, a movement or voices in the background. I'm not sure I actually spoke to anybody.

[Heidi Blake]

So Nick Milbank was saying not only did someone dial 999 from inside the manor that morning before police entered the property, but when he answered, he heard apparent signs of life inside, movements, maybe even speech.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

I just sort of piercing through the records and. Because I was thinking, oh, like a 999 call from inside the house. I didn't know that I hadn't seen that before, but that sort of. Yeah, interesting, huh?

[Nick Milbank]

Yeah. Who actually made the phone call? I don't know.

[Heidi Blake]

This conversation was becoming more and more surreal, not least because Nick Milbank didn't seem to realize the gravity of what he was telling me.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

I'm just trying to get my head around some of this new stuff and that it does seem like if it's true that. Because, you know, the way it all went down was apparently, you know, Jeremy claims there was a call from his dad to him at three in the morning saying, come round, your sister's gone berserk with a gun. And he went round to the farmhouse and they got there at about 3:48 in the morning. And then from that point on he was stood outside with the police and the police didn't enter till 7:30am so if there was a call from inside the farmhouse, it sort of doesn't quite make sense that, you know, that would have happened. And because that would indicate someone was alive in there, basically, you know, they're all dead by the time, obviously.

[Heidi Blake]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, obviously Nick Milbank said someone was alive in there. Needless to say, that was a gobsmacking thing to hear a police officer say, because if the prosecution's story was true, that Jeremy had murdered everyone himself, shooting all five members of the Family in the head before cycling home, cleaning himself up and calling the cops. At around 3:30am There was no way anyone could possibly still be alive inside the house all those hours later at 6:09, according to the pathologists, they would have died all but instantly. The police hadn't entered the property until 7:30am so Milbank had been listening in for an hour and 21 minutes before the bodies were found. And he'd heard noises that might have been crucial clues to what was going on in there.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

And so did it sound like. Because I think there was meant to be a bit of a struggle in the kitchen at some. Did it sound like a commotion or did it just sound like, you know, didn't sound like, no, it's just.

[Nick Milbank]

Just movement, you know, Movement, Really? I don't know, I can't remember, but I'm guessing. So either a door opening and closing or a chair being moved or. Yeah, there was some noise of some sort of movement and. And then all of a sudden, you know, there were police sounds of police. I think someone picked up the phone and said, it's okay, we're in now or we're here now, whatever. And I said, that's fine and put the phone down.

[Heidi Blake]

Huh. Okay, interesting.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

So someone said. Someone said we're here now.

[Nick Milbank]

Yeah. So it's obviously, I'm guessing it was a police officer that picked up the phone and so obviously there was no longer the need to leave the 999 call open.

[Heidi Blake]

Who could have made this call? Neville, June and the twins had all been shot in the head at close range. If someone was alive inside the house after the police turned up, it could only have been Sheila who was found dead inside the locked manor holding the murder weapon. If you're a reader, or even an aspirational reader, I hope you'll join us on Critics at Large from the New Yorker.

[Madeline]

Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here.

[Heidi Blake]

And because we're culture critics, we just love to go back to the text. Yes. So if books are for you, critics at large just might be for you as well.

[Madeline]

Join us on Critics at Large from the New Yorker every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want, like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. VRBO Last minute deals make chasing fresh mountain powder incredibly easy. With thousands of homes close to the slopes, you can easily get epic pow freshies, first tracks and more. No need for months of planning. In fact, you can't even plan. Pow Pow is on its own schedule, thankfully. So somewhere in the world it's always snowing. All you have to do is use the last minute filter on the app to book a last minute deal on a slope side private rental home. Book [e-mail].

[Heidi Blake]

Part 2 the Shadow @ the Window As I combed through the records from the night of the crime, I saw that from the very first moment after police arrived at the manor, there had been indications that Sheila might still be alive. Almost immediately when police approached the house with Jeremy, they reported a possible sign of life inside that shadow that seemed to move in the master bedroom window, the one sergeant Chris Buese told me he'd seen, though he dismissed it at trial as a trick of the light.

[Dr. Dennis Eady]

It was quite a moonlit night, I thought. Out of the corner of my eye.

[Nick Milbank]

I caught a movement and as the.

[Heidi Blake]

Firearms team prepared to enter the property at around 7.30am, one officer reported seeing the slumped body of a woman through the kitchen window. It took several blows to batter down the door with a sledgehammer, and when the team got inside, the woman was nowhere to be seen. The officer later said in a statement that he must have mistaken Neville for a woman. Jeremy Bamber's lawyers have proposed a different theory to explain this sighting. They've suggested that Sheila was in the kitchen when the police began battering down the door, but then fled upstairs and shot herself amid the commotion. Nick Milbank didn't tell me he'd heard any gunshots over the phone, but then again, the gun used in the killings was a fairly quiet one. It uses subsonic ammunition that makes a noise closer to a thud than a loud bang. The rifle was so quiet that a prosecution expert said the twins could have slept through all the shots that were fired, even without the silencer attached. Two of the firearms officers who found Sheila dead upstairs more than 30 minutes after they entered the house noted that blood was, quote, leaking from both corners of her mouth. But it's impossible to say exactly when Sheila died, because in those shambolic early hours of the investigation, pathologists didn't examine her for rigor mortis or even take her body temperature. Many people who knew Sheila found it impossible to believe she could have killed her sons. Everyone, including Jeremy, agreed that she adored the boys. She would have done anything for them. But as soon as he'd arrived at the scene, Jeremy had offered police a story that seemed to explain what might have tipped Sheila over the edge. He said that before leaving the farm the previous night, he'd heard his parents urging Sheila to place her twins in foster care. Sheila's psychiatrist told police that this suggestion would have been abhorrent to her. It would threaten whatever precarious balances she had. He said she would resist it in any way she knew. But at trial, prosecutors dismissed Jeremy's account of the fostering conversation as a cynical fabrication designed to throw the blame onto Sheila. Mike Ainslie, the chief investigator, had written in a memo to prosecutors, jeremy is the only source of such a suggestion, and he has been quite active in spreading this information, or, as I would believe, misinformation. Every person who knew Neville, June and Sheila are all agreed that this is an outrageous suggestion and would never have been suggested or entertained. But when I spoke to Barbara Wilson, the White House farm secretary, she told me that the police had got this totally wrong. The Bambers did have a plan to remove the boys from Sheila's care. Mr. Bamber said that they were thinking.

[Nick Milbank]

Because Sheila, I think that was when she was in hospital again.

[Heidi Blake]

And he said then that they were thinking about fostering the children and sending them to school, private school here. Now, remember, Barbara didn't like Jeremy, but here she was saying that on this point, he'd been telling the truth all along. The idea was that Neville and June would be the twins foster parents and the boys would come to live with them on White House Farm. That was what Mr. Bamber told me, because. Did you. I don't know if you picked up at the time that one of the things that Jeremy Bamber had said to.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

The police was that Neville and Jean had suggested to Sheila that perhaps they might foster the twins. And I, you know, there was a.

[Heidi Blake]

Question about whether he was lying. No. No, he didn't. No, that was right.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

He didn't make it up.

[Heidi Blake]

Okay. No. No. 100%.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

100% sure that that was something they were discussing.

[Heidi Blake]

Yeah. Sheila had told her psychiatrist that she felt trapped in a coven of evil by June, and she knew that her boys were frightened of their grandmother. Witnesses had told police that June had upset the twins on a previous visit to the manor by flying into a frenzy as she chanted about God. And she often forced them to kneel and pray. Weeks before the murders, one of the boys, Daniel had produced a series of disturbing drawings of the manor which his father discovered after his death. One depicted a large severed head and beneath it a figure brandishing guns. Another showed June with jagged teeth and narrowed eyes, blood gushing from her head. When the police searched the room where the twins slept at the farm, they'd found the words I hate this place scratched into the wardrobe door. The twins father, Colin Caffell, had sensed their horror of being left on the farm. He'd dropped Sheila and the boys at the manor that final time and later wrote in a memoir that he felt a nagging fear about leaving them. He recalled that Sheila was blank faced and silent throughout the journey. When Colin dropped them off, the boys clung to him desperately, as if in terror. Then there were several suggestions that Sheila might have left a suicide note in the Scotland Yard files. I found an intriguing statement from a detective involved in the case. He'd told investigators, you've got a note saying I've killed myself. So it was treated as four murders and a suicide. The detective, who's since died was not asked anything else about this, and the possibility of a suicide note was never raised during the trial. But amid the files disclosed long afterwards, I found two undated letters, both addressed to Mummy and signed Bams, Sheila's nickname. They cover pages and pages in a chaotic, swirling scrawl and had been marked illegible by police, but it is possible to make out many of their words. One letter began, stop looking at my picture, you will break your heart. Police are going to be in touch soon and get this whole dirty mess cleared up. Jeremy told me he was baffled when he read the letters. Sheila had beautiful writing, he said, quite different from this wild scribble. But who else would have signed her name? The defence team hired a handwriting expert to compare the writing with examples of Sheila's neat cursive. And he found both similarities and differences. Multiple studies have shown that handwriting can change dramatically during moments of psychic disturbance, particularly in those suffering from schizophrenia. The letter went on. Oh, Mummy, don't you think I have feelings also in this floating space I am in? As soon as the dirt is dug up and the public know, then, my darling Mummy, will my babies and me go to our rest. If it was Sheila, after all, who had murdered the family rather than risk losing her sons, how had that been missed for all these years?

[Madeline]

Hi, it's Madeline. I'm excited to tell you that Inthedark has merch. There's a hat, a shirt and a tote bag, all with the new in the dark logo. They're modern and high quality and you can get them by going to store.new yorker.com.

[Heidi Blake]

Part 3 Agatha Christie syndrome A couple of years ago, before I'd ever spoken to Jeremy Bamber, I talked with a scholar of wrongful convictions, Dr. Dennis Eady. Eady heads up the UK's leading innocence project at Cardiff University and he's developed a theory that interested me about the sorts of cases that tend to result in miscarriages of justice. Here he is describing it to me recently.

[Dr. Dennis Eady]

Agatha Christie syndrome. It's the application of the whodunit fantasy to the real world and to real cases. And it's the kind of game that people play, working out how somebody could construct the perfect murder and then the kind of over complication and the looking for a better story with kind of catastrophic results.

[Heidi Blake]

Eady has argued for years that wrongful convictions can occur when the agents of justice, police, prosecutors, juries, fixate on fantastical notions of an evil perpetrator with a master plan and overlook facts that are often a lot more mundane. He told me there was one case that struck him as a perfect example of this phenomenon, the conviction of Jeremy Bamber.

[Dr. Dennis Eady]

In this case, it always struck me as here we have Agatha Christie being played out in real life, that he's constructed this incredibly complex a set of things. Arranging phone calls, breaking into the house, managing to lock the house from the outside, riding a bike across fields, even giving his girlfriend Felicia's story. The amount of planning that would have gone into it would have been phenomenal. Absolute genius. The alternative story is of course, that Sheila, who was very psychotically unwell for a lot of her life and had made comments about killing her children and things like that, but that idea that it's a murder suicide takes any kind of responsibility for this horror out of the way. You can't really blame Sheila. It's a much better story if you can create the evil sort of aspect to it.

[Heidi Blake]

Edie told me that the official story of the murders at White House Farm was so firmly entrenched in the public consciousness that even many of his fellow justice campaigners struggled to imagine that the narrative might be wrong. But he'd spent time studying some of the case files and he told me that to his mind it was obvious that Jeremy Bamber had been wrongly convicted in this case.

[Dr. Dennis Eady]

I think there is evidence of deliberate cover ups, deliberate non disclosure, deliberate manipulation of the evidence by the prosecution and by the police and so on. So all of those factors, all of those bodies have failed and not just Failed. But they've kept digging into this hole rather than come out and say, look, we've made errors here, we need to put this right. And it just goes on and on. So at every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover up in this case.

[Heidi Blake]

Talking with Dennis Eady about this two years ago was actually what first set me off investigating these murders. That was the tip I told you about right at the start of this story. Now, as I weighed all the evidence, I wondered if he was right, that it was just easier for the public and police and prosecutors, not to mention the family, to believe that an avaricious young man who a lot of people disliked had killed his family out of greed in a highly orchestrated plot, rather than something much simpler and sadder that a beautiful and devoted young mother might have murdered her sons and her parents not because she was evil, but because she was ill. Edie's words were ringing in my ears as I sat there on the phone with Nick Milbank, trying to make sense of what he'd told me about this 999 call he'd apparently received from inside the manor on the night of the crime. A call that had never previously been disclosed anywhere. He seemed to have clear evidence to offer about Sheila's involvement, but it had never featured in the case. I asked him how that could be when this case has been reviewed so many times, because I know there's been.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Various investigations along the way, haven't there? I think City of London Police had a look at this and then the Met had a look at this. Have other people asked you about that call, like, subsequently?

[Nick Milbank]

No, no, not at all. No one, really. No one's spoken to me about it since the 1980s other than you. Wow.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Does that seem. That seems kind of strange. Does that seem strange to you?

[Nick Milbank]

Well, yeah, there wasn't an awful lot I could add to it. All I did was answer the phone. No one was there. I could hear background noises and I hang on the phone until someone picked you up and said, it's ok, we're here. So I don't suppose it was particularly pertinent to the incident.

[Heidi Blake]

To me, at least, all of that sounded highly pertinent to the incident. But that wasn't the only reason. I was taken aback to hear Nick Milbank say no one had ever spoken to him about this, because as I dug through the files, I'd found a typed statement in his name.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

There was a really short statement from you I saw in one of the bundles. Just saying. It just said you came on at 5:45.

[Heidi Blake]

This statement in Nick Milbank's name was short and fairly perfunctory. I could see in the files that it had been gathered in 2002 by officers from Scotland Yard's Operation Stokenchurch review of the case. As I scanned the statement, with Millbank still on the other end of the line, I realised that it totally contradicted what he'd just told me about receiving a 999 call.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

So this statement seems to say there was already a phone line open into the farmhouse and you took over monitoring it.

[Heidi Blake]

The statement said, I came on duty for early turn at about 5:45am There was already a phone line open into the farmhouse and I took over the monitoring of the open line. As far as I can recall, I heard nothing for a while until I heard movement and voices which indicated that police officers had entered. So this statement suggested that no one had actually called 999. Instead, it tracked with what prosecutors have always said their version of events is that the phone in the kitchen at the manor was left off the hook after the killings as part of Jeremy's staging of the scene. They say an operator at the phone company was initially charged with listening in to the open line and then transferred it over to the police station for further monitoring at 6:09. So this statement was saying Nick Milbank had just taken over listening in to that open line and he hadn't heard anything, but he'd just told me something totally different. And what's more, he'd said explicitly that I was the first person to ask him about any of this since the 1980s. So where had this 2002 statement come from?

[Interviewer/Reporter]

So you don't remember particularly giving that statement. But you do, but you remember, but you. Because you didn't think anyone would talk to you about it, is that right? I'm just trying to think. This doesn't seem to be signed, actually.

[Nick Milbank]

This document, since the event.

[Heidi Blake]

No, the statement wasn't actually signed by hand. Instead, Milbanke's name had been typed on the signature line, but it's not actually signed.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

And I'm just wondering what it. It says signed Nicholas Milbank, but then it's actually typed, so your signature isn't on it. I'm just wondering, because it was funny that you don't remember talking to them.

[Heidi Blake]

I'm just.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Is it possible you forgot being interviewed by them? Or do you think it's possible that maybe there was a draft statement that you didn't sign? Because actually they were. They didn't get round to.

[Nick Milbank]

Who's this. Who's this Hydrophosis he gave a statement to.

[Heidi Blake]

This is.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Well, it's. It was in the statement date is 18 July 2002. So that was during the Operation Stoke and Church inquiry.

[Nick Milbank]

Well, I certainly didn't give anyone a statement. No, as far as. As far as I can. I mean, 2002 is obviously a lot close to 1986, but I don't remember giving anybody a statement and if it's not signed by me, then I would, you know, I'm not. I'd have to read the statement through word by word and see whether it rung any bells. But any statement that I've made, I've always signed. And if it's typed, signed by NR Mil bank or. What was it say signed by?

[Interviewer/Reporter]

It says signed Nicholas Milbank.

[Nick Milbank]

And it's typed, you see, I wouldn't sign it. I wouldn't sign it Nicholas Milbank. I'd sign it N.R. milbank.

[Heidi Blake]

Huh. That's funny, isn't it?

[Nick Milbank]

So that's. If I'm asked to sign anything, I'll never sign anything. Nicholas Milbank. It's always my initials.

[Heidi Blake]

Huh.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

That's just really odd.

[Heidi Blake]

I can't make sense of that.

[Nick Milbank]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

I wonder where that would have come from then.

[Nick Milbank]

I certainly don't recall anyone speaking to me and making a statement in 2002. And if it's not signed by me, then. But if you want to send me a copy, I'll have a look through it and see if it rings any bells. But I. I'm fairly certain I. I didn't. I've not spoken to anybody about it.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

I'll pin you a copy and see what you think. See if you recognize it and then. Yeah, I'll drop you a line.

[Heidi Blake]

Okay. All right. Amazing.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Thanks, Nick. I'll send you that. Cheers.

[Heidi Blake]

Take care.

[Nick Milbank]

Thanks a lot.

[Interviewer/Reporter]

Bye.

[Nick Milbank]

Thank you. Bye. Bye.

[Heidi Blake]

Right after we got off the phone, I sent Milbank a PDF of the statement over WhatsApp. He responded a couple of hours later. Hi, Heidi. A mystery indeed. He wrote, I have no recollection of making this. He conceded that he could have misremembered things and that this statement might be right. But then he listed eight things about the document that struck a false note. Any statement made by me would have my full name and wouldn't just say PC as in police constable. It would show my caller number. He wrote, it is not signed by me and I would never sign Nicholas Milbank. There were date and formatting errors that he called very unprofessional and phrasing that he said made no sense at all. He signed off with an intriguing thought. All calls into the Force information room are recorded. I'm not sure how long the recordings are kept, but again, at the initial investigation, I would have thought that all recordings, phone and radio, would have been copied. I know it isn't much, but if this can be of any help, so be it. I certainly didn't have any such recording, and I still don't. No call recordings relating to this crime have ever been disclosed by police or prosecutors to anyone. Does a recording exist of a 999 call from inside the White House? If so, why has it been hidden? And how had this mysterious statement in Nick Milbank's name come into being? I had so many questions. But soon after sending that message, Milbanke suddenly clammed up. He told me he didn't want to talk any more about the case. So I went back to pouring through the files. And I learned that this statement Milbank told me he'd never made had played an important role in this case. It had been gathered by officers from Scotland Yard in advance of Jeremy Bamber's last appeal in 2002. Back then, Jeremy's lawyers had spotted the same line I had about the call in a batch of freshly disclosed files and raised a query before the hearing about whether someone had really dialed 999 from inside the manor. But when prosecutors pointed to this statement, ostensibly from Millbank, Jeremy's lawyers accepted it at face value. They concluded that the reference to a 999 call must simply have been an error, and they never raised it in court. I found the Scotland Yard detective who'd apparently overseen the gathering of millbank's statement in 2002, a man named Mark Oliver. When I called him to ask about it, he made his views about the Jeremy Bamber case very clear.

[Nick Milbank]

Do you know what? I really wouldn't waste any of your time on that case. Oh, yeah, I really would not. We looked at everything. He'll continue to make spurious allegations until the day he dies. I don't want to speak to you any further about this.

[Heidi Blake]

Oh, We looked at everything, the detective said. Don't waste your time on that case. But after months of scouring the case files and interviewing witnesses, it seemed to me that Jeremy Bamber's claim that something had gone very badly awry in this case was anything but spurious. I'd learned that the crime scene had been shockingly compromised with by bumbling Ron Cook. Who'd repositioned the Bible and perhaps even Sheila's body before the official photos were captured, that the silencer, the linchpin of the prosecution case, had been egregiously mishandled. And now, in addition to the reported sightings of a woman inside the house, that an officer remembered someone dialing 999 from inside the manor while Jeremy Bamber was outside with police, and that this crucial witness had apparently never been asked about it until now. In July last year, I published a long article about the murders at White House Farm in the New Yorker. It asked, did the UK's most infamous family massacre end in a wrongful conviction? The findings were covered by nearly every national newspaper in Britain. Investigation raises fresh concerns over Jeremy Bamber murder conviction. The Times of London reported sensational new claims Police tampered with the evidence that put Jeremy Bamber behind bars, ran the headline in the Daily Mail. Jeremy Bamber detectives may have lied about evidence, said the Telegraph. When Jeremy read the findings, he told me that the 999 call Nick Mulbank had described to me amounted to a cast iron alibi.

[Nick Milbank]

If. If Sheila made a 999 call from White House Farm at nine minutes past six in the morning, I was with 50 odd police officers. I mean, it proves my innocence. I've sat in jail for 40 years for absolutely nothing.

[Heidi Blake]

His lawyers released a statement saying the New Yorker article presents freshly obtained evidence which couldn't be any starker. They called on the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the ccrc, to expedite his application for a fresh appeal based on the new findings, the crime scene, the silencer and the 999 call. The CCRC is an independent public body that investigates potential miscarriages of justice in Britain. It was set up following a spate of wrongful conviction scandals in the 80s and 90s to investigate cases just like Jeremy's when new information has come to light after an initial appeal has already failed. It's the only entity that can compel the Court of Appeal to rehear those cases. So it's powerful, but it's also overstretched and notoriously slow. About 40 caseworkers wade through more than 1,000 applications each year and report their findings to a panel of commissioners, mostly former lawyers, regulators or public officials who decide whether each case should get a fresh appeal. When Jeremy Bamber last applied, the CCRC complained that his submissions were too voluminous and that he kept adding to them as he found fresh evidence. It ultimately took the CCRC eight years to tell him no. But then, a few weeks after my article was published in the fall of 2024 came a major development. The CCRC informed Jeremy that it would expedite his case and conduct an accelerated review of the fresh findings. Jeremy was told that his fate would be decided by the following spring. Suddenly, after 40 years of waiting, it seemed like he might finally have a path to freedom. Next time on the final episode of Blood Relatives. Hey. Hi. So, yeah, something crazy has happened.

[Madeline]

What?

[Nick Milbank]

So, Milbank.

[Heidi Blake]

Yeah. When did you hear about Nick Milbank?

[Nick Milbank]

Two minutes ago. You just heard two minutes ago. You need to keep those recordings extremely safe.

[Heidi Blake]

If you're a New Yorker subscriber or you become one today, you can listen to the final episode of Blood Relatives now ad free. Visit newyorker.com dark to listen in the New Yorker app for non subscribers. Episode 6 will be available on Tuesday. Blood Relatives is written and produced by me, Heidi Blake and lead producer Natalie Jablonski. It's edited by Alison MacAdam. Samara Freemark is the managing producer for the series. Additional editing by Madeleine Barron, Willing Davidson and Julia Rothschild. Additional product production by Raymond Tungakar. Theme and original music by Alex Weston. Additional music by Chris Julin. This episode was mixed by Corey Schreppel. Our art is by Owen Gent. Art direction by Nicholas Conrad and Aviva Michaelov. Fact checking by Naomi Sharp. Legal review by Fabio Beone and Ben Murray. Our managing editor is Julia Rothschild. The head of global audio for Conde Nast is Chris Bannon. The editor of the New Yorker is David Remnick. If you have comments or story tips, please send them to the [e-mail] and make sure to follow inthedark wherever you get your podcasts. From. Prx.