'The Murders at White House Farm': Meet the real Ann Eaton who ensured Jeremy Bamber couldn't get away with murder
Spoilers for 'The Murders at White House Farm'
On August 6, 1985, five members -- Nevill and June Bamber, their daughter, Sheila Caffell, and Sheila's six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas Caffell -- of a family were shot dead at White House Farm in Essex. This series, produced by New Pictures for ITV and distributed worldwide by All3Media and the digital rights acquired by HBO Max, is based on the true events of that murder. The police, led by detectives DCI Thomas “Taff” Jones (played by Stephen Graham) and DS Stan Jones (played by Mark Addy), investigated the case.
When they questioned Bamber’s son Jeremy (Freddie Fox), he claimed that he had received a call from his father saying that Sheila had gone mad and had a gun. And, that’s when he alerted the police. Sheila had a history of mental illness and Taff was convinced that it was a murder-suicide committed by her. He was quick to conclude it as an ‘open and shut’ case. However, Stan right from the beginning had his doubts but was shut down by Taff in the second episode. But he still wasn’t convinced.
There was another person who was suspicious about a foul play -- Jeremy and Sheila’s cousin Ann Eaton (Gemma Whelan). In episode two, we see her growing suspicious of Jeremy when he makes a joke about the family will at the dinner table – just after a few days of the funeral.
The real Ann Eaton and her integral role in the investigation
Christine ‘Ann’ Eaton was the niece of the late June Bamber. June’s sister and Eaton’s mother, Pamela Boutflour had told police, a few days after the murder, that Sheila did not have a history of violence and that she never knew that her niece could use a gun, as reported by Express UK. The report states that as per 2002 Court of Appeal case R v Bamber, Eaton had said that Sheila “would not know one end of the barrel of a gun to another.” She also described her cousin as “not a practical person” and had “very bad hand-eye coordination.”
But as stated in Express UK, Jeremy told the police, on the night of the killings, that he and his sister had gone target shooting together in the past. The report states that Jeremy was arrested on September 8, 1985 and interviewed over three days. During his trial, a year later, he had gone back on his previous statement and said that he did not see Sheila use a gun as an adult. Eaton testified against Jeremy and played an important role in getting him convicted. Currently, Jeremy is serving life imprisonment without parole. But throughout the years, he has maintained that he is innocent.
After serving almost 25 years of his life sentence, in 2010, Jeremy had accused his family of planting evidence to exclude him from the family’s inheritance. Since the conviction, Jeremy was disinherited and the estate passed to the Bloutflour/Easton family, as per Express UK report. According to the report, as per Metro, Eaton now lives on the estate with her family. The Sun reports that since the conviction, she has not spoken publicly and refuses to give interviews.
In January 2020, after the broadcast of the series on ITV, Jeremy had written a letter from his cell attacking cousin Eaton and criticizing the series, as reported by Mirror UK. According to the report, he has written, “Ann, my mum’s niece, lives in this rented property. Her motive is that she is protecting the crime scene in case I’m retried and new techniques could find evidence to be used at a retrial. She gave ITV permission to film inside this rented property. I just find it odd and morbid to want to live in a crime scene.” He also wrote: “The program is a drama, so they don’t need to stick to the truth at all. I won’t watch the drama ever, it’s simply too upsetting to see ITV misrepresent my mum and dad and me.”
‘The Murders at White House Farm’ can be streamed on HBO Max from September 24.