Jeremy Bamber's tiny gesture gave away his guilt after White House Farm murders

It is one of Britain's most disturbing family murders - and one that might have gone unsolved if not for a single, subtle gesture caught on camera.

In the early hours of 7 August 1985, police were called to White House Farm in the quiet Essex village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy. The call came from 24-year-old Jeremy Bamber, who told officers his father had phoned him in terror, saying his sister, Sheila, had "gone berserk" with a gun.

When police entered the farmhouse, the scene was devastating. Inside, they found the bodies of Nevill and June Bamber, their daughter Sheila Caffell, and Sheila's six-year-old twin sons, Nicholas and Daniel. The rifle lay beside Sheila's body, and the immediate assumption was she had killed her family before turning the gun on herself during a psychotic episode.

Bamber, a former public schoolboy and adopted son of a wealthy family, appeared distraught. He spoke of his sister's fragile mental state and her previous hospital stays.

To the press, he was the picture of grief - calm, articulate, and seemingly heartbroken. Yet over time, police began to notice details that didn't fit the narrative.

The gun appeared too long for Sheila to have shot herself in the way described. Bullet holes and blood patterns didn't match a murder-suicide. And when a sound moderator - or silencer - was later found in a cupboard, traces of Sheila's blood and tissue on it would prove she could not have been holding it when she died.

Still, at that stage, no one could be certain. The turning point came not from forensics but from footage taken at the family's funeral.

In public, Bamber seemed to embrace his role as the grieving son. Cameras captured him walking behind the coffins of his parents, dressed in black, with one hand pressed to his face as though overwhelmed with sorrow. Newspapers described him as "composed but heartbroken."

But to experts who later examined the footage, the expression didn't ring true. Body language analyst Cliff Lansley, who has reviewed the images in later years, explained the facial movements associated with real sadness - drooping lip corners, softened eyes, raised inner brows - were entirely absent. "What you see," he said, "is tension, posing, and conscious control. The mouth opens slightly, but the muscles that express sadness don't engage. It's a performance."

Another moment from the same funeral would become even more striking. In one still image, Bamber's lips are drawn into what some described as a "pout," a fleeting but revealing motion that betrayed irritation rather than despair.

Psychologist Kerry Daynes has noted the expression resembles the frustration or sulkiness seen in children, not genuine mourning. "His face shows controlled anger," she explained. "He wasn't grieving - he was managing his image."

Off-camera, those close to the investigation noticed other troubling behaviour. Within days of the service, Bamber was reportedly drinking with friends, making jokes, and discussing the sale of his parents' possessions.

Detectives who saw him that day said they felt something wasn't right. One of the first officers on the scene, Detective Sergeant Chris Bews, later said: "We left the house and hadn't gone fifty yards before both my colleagues said, 'He's done it, hasn't he?'"

As forensic evidence mounted, Bamber's story unravelled. Telephone records showed the supposed call from his father never happened. The silencer confirmed that Sheila could not have fired the shots. A motive also emerged - Bamber would inherit his family's estate, valued at around £436,000, a huge sum in 1985.

By the time he was charged, prosecutors painted a chilling picture: a son who had killed his family while they slept, staging the scene to frame his sister. At trial in 1986, jurors were shown photographs of Bamber at the funeral, the same images that experts said revealed his deceit. He was convicted of all five murders and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Bamber, now in his sixties, has always maintained his innocence. Over the decades, he has lodged multiple appeals, arguing police mishandled evidence and new findings undermine the prosecution's case.

In March 2021, his legal team filed a fresh application with the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), citing new material among 350,000 documents released in 2011 after the lifting of a Public Interest Immunity order. Eight issues were submitted, with two more added later that year, challenging key aspects of the original investigation.

In October 2022, Bamber's solicitor advocate sent 10 new items of evidence to the CCRC, claiming they cast doubt on whether the silencer was used during the murders - a critical point in the case against him.

The following year, in May 2023, the Independent Office for Police Conduct ruled Essex Police had breached its statutory duty by failing to refer 29 serious complaints about how senior officers had handled the case.

Then, in November 2024, amid the fallout from the Andrew Malkinson miscarriage of justice, it was reported Bamber's conviction was among more than 1,200 cases under review by the CCRC.

Most recently, in July 2025, the commission announced it had reviewed four of the 10 grounds submitted by Bamber's legal team and decided they did not warrant referral to the Court of Appeal. Six grounds, however, remain under review.