Jeremy Bamber was convicted in October 1986 of shooting five members of his family at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, on the night of 6 to August 7, 1985: his adoptive parents Nevill and June, both 61, his sister Sheila Caffell, 26, and her six-year-old twin sons Daniel and Nicholas. He received a whole-life term.
Police first treated the deaths as a murder-suicide by Caffell, who had schizophrenia and was found with the rifle. The investigation turned on Bamber after his then girlfriend told police he had described planning the killings, and after a sound moderator was found in a cupboard at the farm. He has always denied the shootings and has maintained that Caffell killed the family and then herself.
He has appealed repeatedly. The Court of Appeal upheld the convictions in 2002 and the Criminal Cases Review Commission declined to refer the case in 2012. A further application lodged in 2021 by his solicitor Mark Newby remains under review; by 2025 the Commission had examined three of nine grounds submitted. A 2024 New Yorker investigation by Heidi Blake reported evidence of interference with the crime scene by senior officers, which his lawyers have added to the submission. The convictions stand.
All five deaths occurred in a single incident on one night, which makes this a family annihilation rather than a series of killings. The entry is flagged as not a serial-killer case and is kept for the disputed conviction.