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Hi, Crime House community, It's Vanessa Richardson. Exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays, we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it. Follow conspiracy theories, cults and crimes now on your podcast app because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder and go darker than ever before.
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This is Crime House. Undercover agents, a missing door mystery, DNA, and an MI6 analyst whose death was truly stranger than fiction. We all have things we prefer to keep private. Whether it's family drama, painful memories, or a niche obsession we just don't think other people would understand is normal. We don't want all our business out there for the world to see. Sometimes it's not by choice. There are certain careers that require you to keep things hidden. This was the case for 31 year old Gareth Williams. As a master code breaker for the British intelligence agency MI6, he had to keep a lot of information close to the chest. But Gareth wasn't just protecting the UK's national security. He was also keeping a lot of secrets about his own life. Things that even his family had no idea about. On August 23, 2010, Gareth was found dead under bizarre circumstances. No one could understand how he died, whether it was intentional or if someone killed him. But one thing was clear. Gareth Williams had some very dark skeletons in his closet. This is the story of the Spy in a Bag. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy and this is True Crime Stories, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. New episodes come out every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Thursday. Thank you for being part of the Crime House community. Please rate, review and follow the show and for early ad free access to every episode. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to another episode of Murder Mystery Fridays where I'm covering unsolved cases with questions that I can't get out of my head. The ones where the evidence points in multiple directions and every theory feels like a possibility. Today, I'm discussing the 2010 death of Gareth Williams. It is one of the strangest cases in modern history and something I could talk about for hours. Gareth was a genius mathematician who worked for MI6, the UK's intelligence service. He had a bright career ahead of him, but at just 31 years old, he was found dead, stuffed inside a sports bag in his London apartment. After a long and winding investigation, his cause of death was ruled to be an accident. The police thought Gareth had somehow locked himself inside the bag and suffocated. A lot of people disagreed, and given Gareth's shadowy work, his death has spawned a ton of conspiracy theories. Some believe Russian agents killed him with an untraceable poison. Others think it had to do with a sex game gone wrong. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Buckle up, because this is one of the craziest cases we have ever covered. And the twists and turns are something you'll have to hear to believe. All that and more coming up.
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In June 2010, Carrie Subby and her husband Chris walked into the Ritz London Hotel. Carrie's younger brother, Gareth greeted them in the lobby with a warm hug. It was Carrie and Chris's second wedding anniversary and Gareth was treating them to afternoon tea. A waiter wearing a full tuxedo with tails led them into the spacious dining room. Moments later, steaming cups of tea were set down in front of them. After that came a silver tower of pastries and finger sandwiches. Gareth couldn't stop grinning. Cary was more than just his sister. She was also his closest and maybe one of his only friends. Around her, he felt like he could let loose and be himself. The trio spent the next hour chatting as the menu grew more extravagant. That said, Cary did most of the talking. Gareth couldn't share much about his life. For the past six months, he'd been on a temporary assignment as an analyst for MI6. Before that, he worked for the government Communications Headquarters, or gchq. Although these were two separate agencies, there was overlap between them. GCHQ was tasked with monitoring electronic communications to protect the UK's national security, while MI6 was focused on collecting foreign intelligence. Carrie didn't really understand what either job entailed, but she was proud to see her younger brother's success at just 31 years old. Still, she wasn't surprised. Gareth had always been special. Back in primary school, while the other kids his age were playing with blocks, Gareth was already a computer expert. At 13 years old, he started taking extra math classes at a local university in Wales. His teacher at the time said Gareth had the fastest brain he'd ever encountered. While working on his PhD. At 18, Gareth continued to wow everyone he met. Then, while writing his dissertation on computer games, the British Security services approached him with a job offer. He dropped out of school at 21 years old to take the role. Gareth Williams was more than just an intelligent mind, but truthfully, it was hard to get to know him beyond that. Maybe because of his genius, he had trouble socializing with people his own age. In public, he was reserved and quiet. He spent most of his time either working or biking, which kept him fit and slim as a rail. When Gareth came home each day, he returned to a sparse apartment. His only furniture was what had been there when he moved in. A twin bed, a dresser and three old wooden chairs. He almost never invited anyone over, didn't make any noise, and only occasionally went out to drink with his co workers. Even then, it was more out of obligation than a genuine interest in partying. Kerry was the only person he ever really opened up to. And that day at T, he shared something he hadn't told anyone else. Although he was passionate about his career, he wasn't enjoying his time at MI6. In fact, he planned to leave his post soon and return to his job at the gchq. Knowing Cary, she probably encouraged Gareth to do what would make him happy. They ended the meal on a high note, full of croissants and gratitude for one another. But it wasn't long until those warm feelings turned into something much darker. Two months later, on August 23, 2010, Carrie was getting worried. The last time she talked to Gareth was two weeks earlier, on the 11th. She tried again about a week after that, but he never returned her call. Which was weird. Gareth was nothing if not meticulous. Carrie rang him again and again, but never got a response. So by the 23rd, she was sure something was wrong. Since Gareth was only a temporary assignment at MI6, and primarily worked for GCHQ. That's who Carey called around 11:30am that day. She learned that they were already planning on doing a welfare check. Apparently, Gareth hadn't shown up for work at MI6 for a full week. Somehow, his absence hadn't raised any red flags sooner. And for some reason, GCHQ didn't call the police right after speaking to Kerry. Instead, they waited five more hours to make the call. Finally, at around 6:30 that evening, an officer knocked on the door of Gareth's one bedroom apartment. When he didn't get a response, an employee with a spare key let the policeman in. At first glance, nothing looked out of place. The curtains were drawn and the heater was turned up high, which was odd for such a warm day. But the place was as neat as ever. On the kitchen table, there were two iPhones, a collection of SIM cards and an Apple laptop. But the bathroom was a different story. A bright red sports bag sat in the middle of the empty tub. A stream of scarlet liquid seeped out from the bottom and dribbled into the drain. And the bag zippers were secured with a padlock. The officer called in for backup and a pair of bolt cutters. He held his breath as he broke the lock. Even so, he couldn't help but gasp when the bag split open. Inside was the body of Gareth Williams. Already heavily decayed, he was in the fetal position. There was no sign of a struggle or forced entry, but it seemed like the heater had been turned on to accelerate the decomposition. The first officers on the scene were quick to say it was, quote, a neat job. In other words, it was the work of a highly skilled professional killer. The London police notified MI6 immediately, which set off an avalanche of investigations. MI6 called its sister agency, MI5, to help. While MI6 gathers intelligence in foreign countries, MI5 roots out enemy spies in the UK. Given Gareth's line of work, maybe one or more of those enemy spies had targeted him. And so MI5 sent agents to go through the apartment. As part of their sweep, they took the front door off its hinges and removed the locks. When they were through, homicide detectives came in with Another group called SO1 5. This was a special counterterrorism department within London's Metropolitan Police Force. They eliminated several possible causes of death. Authorities determined Gareth hadn't been stabbed or shot. Forensic experts tested his blood for 100 different toxins, with inconclusive results. The killer, if there was one, hadn't used a common poison. But they might have used a custom poison that pathologists had no way to test for. At that point, there were more questions than answers. But lots of people agreed that whatever happened to Gareth, it probably had something to do with his work. When I say the word spy, you probably imagine James Bond carrying out high stakes missions all across the world. Gareth Williams didn't do that. He was a cryptography and mathematics specialist who spent his days in the office in front of a computer. Even so, Gareth's work was instrumental to the UK's national security. The GCHQ is responsible for compiling intelligence from all over the world and regularly works with the NSA in the United States. Reports suggest Gareth was a mid level technician there. Not particularly high up the food chain, but definitely in a position that could put him at risk. He started there back in 2003, shortly after the US's invasion of Iraq. And at the time, The NSA and GCHQ's main focus was combating violence from terrorist groups. That meant the agencies intercepted and monitored cell phone calls and emails from all over the world. One intelligence analyst told the Guardian that Gareth may have come into contact with Russian radicals. During this time, he'd reportedly become fascinated by a foreign espionage ring that was operating undercover in the uk. There's no way to know if this was true, but by 2010, Gareth was working more closely with the NSA as part of his temporary assignment with MI6. Together they were making plans to defend both the US and UK from cyber attacks, which were seen as an emerging threat. Another unnamed source told the Guardian that Gareth was looking into Russian, Turkish and Chinese hacker gangs that may have been planning to launch a digital assault. Whether or not that was accurate, it was out of the London Police's jurisdiction. With few solid leads to go off, the authorities decided they had no choice. If they wanted to get tips from the public, they'd have to air out Gareth's dirty laundry in front of the entire world.
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On August 23, 2010, 31 year old Gareth Williams was found dead in his London apartment. An autopsy revealed he'd likely died a week earlier, on August 16. Since then, he'd been locked in a red airtight sports bag in his bathtub. His employer, MI6, vowed to launch an internal review into the death, but as an intelligence agency, they couldn't perform a full scale murder investigation. That was the job of the London Police Scotland Yard. The problem was rank and file officers didn't have the security clearance to interrogate Gareth's co workers. If his death had something to do with his job at MI6, well, they would have no way of knowing unless the agency decided to tell them. Still, the London police were determined to get to the bottom of things, which meant collecting as much evidence as possible. Forensic experts determined Gareth was probably alive when he got into or was placed inside the bag. Otherwise, rigor mortis would have made it difficult to contort his body into the fetal position in which he was found. Once the zippers were closed, he could have suffocated after only a couple of minutes. But because his body had decomposed so much, it was impossible to say if that was really how he died. It seemed unlikely that Gareth had gotten in the bag and locked it all on his own, especially since the key to the padlock was found inside the bag under his body. Apparently the apartment complex didn't have any security cameras, but there was almost no physical evidence to suggest that anyone else had been in the apartment with Gareth. Meaning there were no hairs, no fibers, no signs of a struggle or a break in. The only thing experts could find was a possible trace of someone else's DNA on his wrist and two fragments of DNA left on the bag. Police sent the samples off for testing and Hoped they might shed some light on what had happened. In the meantime, detectives tried to construct a timeline of Gareth's final days. Despite the lack of security at Gareth's building, London is one of the most surveilled cities on earth, with tens of thousands of CCTV cameras scattered throughout its streets. Police took full advantage, poring over hours of footage and comparing it with phone and credit card records to figure out what Gareth was up to. By September 2010, they had a few hits. At 3pm on August 14, two days before his death, police found footage of Gareth walking by a subway station in West London. That was three days after his sister Carrie was last spoke to him. Authorities also heard from a cafe near his apartment. The restaurant confirmed that in the week before his death, a man matching Gareth's description showed up on multiple days. Each time, he brought a laptop and spent a few hours there. Witnesses said several people came to meet with him while he worked. Then, just one day before he died on August 15, Gareth was seen going to an ATM at 2pm from there, cameras showed him walking into a luxury department store, then strolling along Sloan Street, a popular shopping destination. After that, they lost track of him. Unfortunately, that's where the investigation stalled. Police wanted to speak to Gareth's co workers at MI6, but they still didn't have the security clearance to do so. Instead, they had to rely on counterterrorism officers with SO1.5 to conduct interviews on their behalf. Notes from the talks were then anonymized and passed along to homicide detectives. This made it difficult to get a full sense of what Gareth was actually doing at work. Not sure how to proceed, the police released Gareth's body to his relatives in late September 2010. On the 26th, the Williams family held a funeral for him in North Wales. The head of MI6, Sir John Sawyers, came to pay his respects. As a representative of the agency, he told reporters that Gareth was a huge talent who did valuable work defending the UK's national security. Not long afterward, MI6 completed an internal review of Gareth's death. The agency reportedly found no evidence that he had been threatened before he died or that he was in contact with any particularly dangerous parties. Apparently, he had been communicating with two undercover agents. These may have been the unnamed visitors who met with him in the cafe prior to his death. But MI6 didn't believe the agents put him at risk in any way. This brought detectives Back to square one. They had no choice but to take MI6 at its word. So they focused the investigation on Gareth's personal Life. To take stock of what they knew so far, they reexamined the evidence. Tests on the two DNA fragments from the sports bag were deemed inconclusive. The authorities had no idea who they belonged to. The third sample found on Gareth's wrist was also still a mystery. Some investigators thought that was the missing piece of the puzzle, the thing that might blow the case wide open. But until they came up with a positive match, it was useless. The laptop found on Gareth's kitchen table wasn't very helpful either. But authorities determined that one of the two iPhones next to it was reset to factory settings just before Gareth died. That was suspicious, but it offered more questions than answers. By December of 2010, nearly four months after Gareth died, the police weren't any closer to the truth. They felt like they had no choice but to turn to the public for help. Hoping to spark some new tips, investigators released evidence they'd previously kept out of the media. When the case was first reported on, the press had a field day running salacious stories about the man they deemed the spy in a bag. Tabloids like the sun were especially vicious. They alleged that Gareth had a secret double life, one that had nothing to do with his actual work. They ran articles insinuating that Gareth was gay and liked to dress in women's clothing. Anonymous sources claimed he regularly solicited male sex workers, had a cocaine habit, and was into bdsm. These stories often suggested that one of Gareth's mysterious, unnamed lovers was responsible for his murder. The truth was, 99% of these articles were nothing but clickbait. Detectives hit back against the accusations, insisting there was no evidence that Gareth ever paid for sex or used drugs. He barely even drank alcohol. Gareth's relatives also came to his defense. They believed these wild claims were being spread on purpose by someone who was out to ruin his reputation. No one could say with any certainty who might want to do that or why. But months after these reports first surfaced, the police dropped a bombshell. Apparently, there might have actually been some truth to these rumors. It turned out that Gareth did own around £15,000 of women's designer clothing, worth more than $23,000 at the time. None of the clothes had been worn, and the shoes could have fit his sister Carrie. But Gareth had also apparently taken a couple of fashion design courses at a nearby college without telling MI6. He'd also attended a drag show a couple of days before his death. In addition, detectives reported that Gareth had sporadically accessed BDSM websites in the past. They were careful to clarify that the previously Reported rumors about his sex life were unfounded. He had visited these websites only a few times for short periods. Unfortunately, none of these revelations led to the break investigators were hoping for. Instead, they only created more sensational tabloid stories. But the reports did prompt Gareth's former landlady to contact police about an incident she witnessed back in 2007. She said that one morning, about three years before Gareth's death, she heard him shouting for help from his bedroom. At 1:30am she entered his apartment to find him alone, tied to his bedposts. After she helped cut him loose, Gareth explained that he'd restrained himself on purpose, supposedly to challenge himself to get free. But the landlady didn't really buy the story. She told the cops she believed it was more of a sex thing. The tale confirmed some suspicions the detectives had about Gareth's sexual preferences. But ultimately, it didn't move the investigation forward. By that point, police were close to hitting a dead end. They had one last lead to share, but it could be major. And the cops knew they had to play it carefully. A couple of months before Gareth died, witnesses reported seeing a young Mediterranean couple going into his apartment. That was unusual, since Gareth didn't get many visitors. There was no camera footage of the man and woman, but detectives were able to create a digital composite photo of them based on their physical description. Media outlets circulated the pictures, encouraging the public to call in with tips if they recognized the couple. This was their final Hail Mary, a last ditch attempt to find a solid lead. If it didn't work, police worried they'd have to abandon the investigation for good. A few months later, the authorities did manage to track down the Mediterranean couple. Apparently, they had nothing to do with Gareth's death. Since the police didn't go into detail about who the man and woman were, the public could only speculate. They may have been casual friends, lovers or somewhere in between. For all anyone knew, they could have been intelligence officers like Gareth. And with that, the investigation officially stalled. Police announced that while they suspected foul play was involved, they had absolutely zero suspects. Unless new evidence came up, they wouldn't be actively looking into the case any longer. The decision frustrated Gareth's family, and many of his relatives felt like MI6 had derailed the investigation. Over the next two years, they pressured the authorities to pursue the case more aggressively. And in 2012, their advocacy finally paid off. That year, a coroner named Dr. Fiona Wilcox agreed to hold an official inquest into Gareth's death. And what she found changed everything.
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23, 2012, Dr. Fiona Wilcox launched a coroner's inquest into the death of 31 year old Gareth Williams. For days on end, she listened as police officers, forensic experts and attorneys gave their opinions about the case. Before the proceedings even began, clear lines had already been drawn. Gareth's co workers at MI6 would not be testifying. The agency continued to publicly state that they found no evidence he'd been assassinated, and they insisted that his death wasn't a sex game gone wrong or murder at the hands of an unidentified lover. Meanwhile, many police detectives sat on the fence. So far, their investigation had centered on Gareth's personal life, but that was only because they weren't allowed to investigate MI6. As for the Williams family, they made their position clear at the start of the inquest. A lawyer representing them argued there had to be another person with Gareth when he died, or at the very least, someone would have had to come by to clean up the crime scene afterward. Most people who investigated the case agreed. While there were no signs of a struggle or forced entry, Gareth's door had been locked from the outside when his body was found. Clearly, Gareth couldn't have locked the door after the fact. This suggested that his family was right and someone else had been there. But detectives weren't able to follow up on this lead. MI5 agents had been the first ones to perform a thorough sweep of the apartment, and they came in before police forensic teams. When they left, they removed Gareth's door from its hinges and took the locks with them so police couldn't even check for prints or take a look at the locks themselves. The issue of the door wasn't the only thing that called MI6's involvement into question. And during the inquest, it came out that SO one five counterterrorism officers didn't tell police about the full contents of Gareth's locker at work. Apparently, there were nine USB memory sticks that the Chief Investigating officer, Jackie Sabir, had never heard about. On top of that, Gareth had a black sports bag in his locker, very similar to the one that his body was found inside. Finally, he also kept an iPhone there. An SO1 5 officer found a deleted image on the device, which featured Gareth posing nude except for a pair of leather boots. This piece of evidence was eventually given to the police, but the SO1 5 officer had kept it for a full day before turning it over, which was a violation of protocol. These revelations concerned the investigators who'd been working on the case. We don't know what was on the memory sticks. But Officer Sibir felt that having access to them 18 months earlier might have changed things. However, the most explosive finding was yet to come. Ever since the investigation began, police had been hampered by a lack of forensic evidence. They had two samples from the bag which were deemed inconclusive. But there was also a DNA sample taken from Gareth's left wrist. For over a year, detectives had been convinced that this piece of evidence was the key to nailing the potential murderer. Now experts revealed that the entire thing was a big misunderstanding. The mystery DNA sample actually belonged to one of the forensic scientists who examined Gareth's body. A data entry error caused it to be logged as evidence, but it was never actually relevant to the case. From Dr. Wilcox's point of view, almost everything she heard suggested that police had mishandled the investigation. It was concerning that so much had gone wrong in such a high profile case. It was exactly the kind of thing that encouraged conspiracy theories. And so far, those theories, like Gareth being targeted by foreign assassins, made the most sense. Otherwise, you'd have to believe Gareth locked himself in the bag and then suffocated. That said, there were people who supported this idea. Some argued the bag could have been part of a sexual game, or that Gareth was doing some kind of MI6 training in escapology. To look into these explanations, Dr. Wilcox heard from several military specialists with similar expertise. These experts locked themselves inside the same brand of bag and tried to escape. They attempted this hundreds of times and couldn't manage to do it even once. It just didn't seem possible for one person to accomplish on their own. What's more, anyone trying this would have surely prepared some kind of backup plan. At minimum, Gareth should have carried a knife with him to cut his way out in case of an emergency. The guy was a mathematical genius and expert code breaker. It was hard to believe he could have overlooked something so simple. Then there was the fact that he didn't leave behind any any fingerprints or footprints on the bathtub or the padlock. Military experts acknowledged that while they couldn't get out of the bag, there were other people out there who could do extraordinary things. Even so, to lock it without leaving behind even a shred of forensic evidence would have been a stretch for even a master escapologist. In the end, Dr. Wilcox agreed with the experts. On May 2, 2012, she issued a shocking verdict. She determined that Gareth Williams had likely been murdered. In her opinion, they had probably locked him in the bag, then placed it in the bathtub. Gareth either suffocated within minutes or died from some kind of unique short acting poison. And that wasn't the only bombshell Dr. Wilcox dropped when delivering her verdict. She took the opportunity to criticize the London Police so 15 and MI6 for the way they handled the investigation. She pointed out that MI6 should have checked on Gareth much sooner. By the time his body was discovered, he'd already missed seven days of work. His sister called GCHQ to share her concerns the morning he was found. And yet the agency waited a full five hours to actually call the police. Those missteps pointed to a pattern of breaking protocol. Even so, Dr. Wilcox was careful to add that none of this suggested MI6 was somehow involved in Gareth's death. But it did seem like the investigation afterward was totally inadequate. Once the inquest was over, public pressure led the London police to launch a second investigation. They started from scratch, this time examining the memory sticks and the other items in Gareth's work locker. For a full year, they painstakingly went over every aspect of the case. They even swept Gareth's apartment again. And this time, they found at least 10 more DNA samples, though none of them were located in the bathroom where his body was found. Detectives were even granted unprecedented access to MI6 agents and interviewed 27 of Gareth's colleagues over the next few months. But in the end, they were left just as baffled as before. In November 2013, the police officially determined that Gareth Williams died by accident, though they couldn't explain how. The authorities claim that he likely locked himself in the sports bag and suffocated there. Critics of the investigation, including Gareth's family, were left totally unsatisfied. They continued to believe that his work at MI6 was connected to his death. They pointed to the fact that no one could prove how Gareth had locked himself in the bag. In their eyes, this showed how flimsy the official verdict really was. And even after the case was closed, it continued to attract international attention. In 2015, a Russian defector and former KGB officer named Boris Kapachkov claimed to have insider knowledge of Gareth's death. He said Russian spies tried to turn Gareth into a double agent by threatening to tell his family that he liked to dress in women's clothing. When Gareth refused to flip, Boris claimed they killed him by squeezing poison into his ear, then stuffed him in the sports bag. It's a dramatic story worthy of a Bond movie. But there was no evidence that it was true. Even Boris admitted that it was based on hearsay. However, he did claim to have spotted Russian diplomatic vehicles outside of Gareth's apartment before he died. Since then, there haven't been many developments in the case. In 2024, London police conducted another review of the evidence and stuck by their previous conclusions. Apparently, nothing new has emerged over the past decade to fundamentally change their opinions. That said, public interest in the case remains high. It's safe to say the conspiracy theories are still alive and well, and they're not likely to go away anytime soon. In the future, a public disclosure from MI6 about the full nature of Gareth's work may be the only thing that could shed more light on the case. Until then, Gareth's death will likely remain unsolved. It's a hard pill to swallow. Secrecy is part of being a spy. Gareth knew what he was signing up for for. And he was great at what he did. But he was more than his job title. He was a human being. And he deserves more from the organization that he dedicated a decade of his life to. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy and this is True Crime Stories. Come back next time for the story of another murder and all the people it affected. True Crime Stories is a Crime House original, powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, rimehouse on TikTok and and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Murder True Crime Stories. Wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode early and ad free. We'll be back on Tuesday. Murder True Crime Stories is hosted by by me, Carter Roy and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertofsky, Lori Marinelli, Tara Wells, Sarah Camp, and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening. Foreign.
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Looking for your next listen? Hi, it's Vanessa Richardson and I have exciting news. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is leveling up starting the week of January 12th. You'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.