The Murders at White House Farm cover art

The Murders at White House Farm

Jeremy Bamber and the killing of his family

Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

The Murders at White House Farm

By: Carol Ann Lee
Narrated by: Charlie Sanderson
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £11.33

Buy Now for £11.33

About this listen

The Sunday Times bestseller and the definitive story behind the ITV factual drama White House Farm, about the horrific killings that took place in 1985.

On 7 August 1985, Nevill and June Bamber, their daughter Sheila and her two young sons Nicholas and Daniel were discovered shot to death at White House Farm in Essex. The murder weapon was found on Sheila's body, a bible lay at her side. All the windows and doors of the farmhouse were secure, and the Bambers' son, 24-year-old Jeremy, had alerted police after apparently receiving a phone call from his father, who told him Sheila had 'gone berserk' with the gun. It seemed a straightforward case of murder-suicide, but a dramatic turn of events was to disprove the police's theory. In October 1986, Jeremy Bamber was convicted of killing his entire family in order to inherit his parents' substantial estates. He has always maintained his innocence.

Drawing on interviews and correspondence with many of those closely connected to the events – including Jeremy Bamber – and a wealth of previously unpublished documentation, Carol Ann Lee brings astonishing clarity to a complex and emotive case. She describes the years of rising tension in the family that culminated in the murders, and provides clear insight into the background of each individual and their relationships within the family unit.

Scrupulously fair in its analysis, The Murders at White House Farm is an absorbing portrait of a family, a time and a place, and a gripping account of one of Britain's most notorious crimes.

Crime Murder Social Sciences True Crime
All stars
Most relevant
If you want all of the facts about the White House Farm murders this is the book for you. Consequently it is a very lengthy listen and although I enjoyed it I did have some issues with the narrator and the editing. The narrators phrasing was off, it often felt disjointed and was not improved by poor editing that would insert a missing or changed word into the middle of a sentence in a different tone.

Nevertheless the subject is fascinating, the author is never biased but it is quite clear given the clearly stated facts that Bamber was guilty. His full life sentence is fully justified.

Very detailed reference book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

If the case interests you, then this is a superb listen, I disagree with other reviewers and enjoyed the narrative and narrator. Essential listening and well written and read.

Comprehensive & interesting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The story itself is very compelling and the ongoing issues well researched.

I found the narration frustrating, with long unnecessary pauses used to indicate, what I can only assume are direct quotes.

Interesting story, found narration annoying

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The author has clearly done her research. There is a lot of information to consider and the author remains impartial, merely quoting others and stating the known facts. There are still many unanswered questions but the evidence points heavily in one direction. It's a real who-done-it and worth listening to just to see whether you agree with the final verdict, having heard all of the witness statements and first hand accounts. Some parts are a bit protracted and the narration is poor with breaks in the middle of sentences and a tendancy to emphasise the wrong parts of words and sentences. An interesting listen.

Lots of information but narration is disjointed.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Author Lee constructs a wide-ranging yet detailed account of this appalling multiple murder. She has clearly done her homework, tracing and interviewing the many key (and some more minor) individuals whose recollections inform the story. Her style is fluid, dense with direct quotations and forensic detail. But this solid piece of work is badly let down by the inexplicable choice of a narrator who sounds like a 12-year-old girl, when such a sobering and harrowing tale demands a mature voice. Sanderson mispronounces numerous words, eg the surname Pargeter (which she says with a hard ‘g’), hypostasis, demurred (which she pronounces ‘demured’), et al. She misplaces emphases, too, with the result that sentences sound sing-song, odd or downright puzzling; and in her effort to convey that she’s reading the many (presumably inverted-comma’d) quotes, she leaves exaggerated pauses before the actual quoted material. This makes for a bitty, broken narrative flow. Unwisely, she sometimes attempts an accent, thus straying into dramatisation. Finally, she has a peculiar habit of lingering on the final letter at the end of sentences, giving her lingering ‘s’ a strange, whistling hiss. All told, it badly detracts from a very well-crafted tale which deserves narration of a much higher quality.

Excellent account let down by poor narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews