One night in August 1985, five members of the same family were shot dead at Whitehouse Farm, a country manor house in the rural county of Essex in southeast England. The police were alerted by Jeremy Bamber, the twenty-four-year-old scion of a local farming dynasty, whose parents, June and Nevill, occupied the estate. Inside the locked house, officers found the bodies of Jeremy’s six-year-old parents, sister and twin nephews. The murders initially appeared to be an open-and-shut case of murder-suicide, carried out by Jeremy’s sister Sheila. Then, after a series of shocking twists and turns, suspicion turned to Jeremy and he was sentenced to life in prison the following year. The crime became the most infamous family massacre in British history and, to this day, Jeremy Bamber remains one of the country’s most reviled convicts. But almost four decades later, New Yorkers Editor Heidi Blake received a tip that all might not be what it seemed.
October 28, In the Dark, The New Yorker investigative podcast, will release “Blood Relatives,” a six-part series that examines the murders at Whitehouse Farm. The series takes a comprehensive look at the case, airing evidence that was never shared with the jury and conversations with sources whose memories upend prosecutors’ theory of the crime. The findings raise questions not only about Jeremy Bamber’s conviction, but also about the British justice system as a whole.
New Yorkers Subscribers receive immediate, ad-free access to every episode of “Blood Relatives,” on the New Yorker app and on Apple Podcasts. For non-subscribers, the first two episodes will be broadcast, on all podcast platforms, on October 28; the remaining episodes will air weekly on Tuesdays. Be sure to follow In the Dark to never miss an episode.
“Blood Relatives” is In the Dark’s first release since the podcast won a Pulitzer Prize in May for its third season, which examined the killings of twenty-five civilians by U.S. forces in Iraq. Since the podcast’s debut in 2016, In the Dark has become one of the most respected programs in long-form audio journalism. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, it has received three Peabody Awards, and in 2019 it became the first podcast to win a George Polk Award, one of journalism’s highest honors. ♦
