Colin Caffell is currently married and living in Cornwall with his wife as he tries to live with the effects of the gruesome White House Farm murders of 1985. It was one of the most unsavory and disgustingly vicious events of the mid-1980s. The savagely violent incident has been dubbed The White House Farm Murders and to date, the public is yet to recover from the shock. The White House Farm Murders details the tragic killing of Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas Caffell. Although Sheila and her sons were not the only victims of the sad and bewildering tragedy, her ex-husband Colin Caffell has been left to pick up the pieces.
Let’s take an in-depth look into the life of Colin Caffell, who was the ex-husband of Sheila Caffell and the father of her unfortunate twin sons.
Early life and family background of Colin Caffell
Not much is known about the early life of the man who lost most of his family members in one of the most horrific murders that happened not just in Britain, but the world in general. Some basic facts like his birth year have been accurately deduced by taking into account that he was just 20 years old at the time of his marriage to his late ex-wife Sheila Caffell in 1977.
His wedding date, when taken into account, leads to the objective consensus that Colin Caffell was born in 1954. However, the actual date or month of birth is unknown at the moment. Also, the fact that the White House Farm Murders took place in the UK ultimately leads one to come to the unofficial conclusion that Colin Caffell is a British citizen.
Beyond his date of birth and nationality, the identity of any other members of Colin’s birth family, like his parents or any siblings, are currently not available to the public.
Education and professional career
With regards to his educational qualifications, records show that Colin was an art student during the late 1970s and his background as a licensed therapist has left the public with the impression that the 70-year-old must have gone to a higher institution of learning and graduated with a degree that is related to the field of medicine. Again, there are no official records to prove the truth behind the part about Colin as a medical practitioner.
Prior to the events of the White House Farm Murders, Colin Cafell lived his life away from the eyes of the public and as such, not much information is available when it comes to his professional career pursuits before the tragic occurrences of the mid-80s.
Colin Caffell was married to one of the victims of the Farm House Murders
The unfortunate incident in 1985 took away not just Colin’s children but their mother as well.
The exact timeline of Colin’s first meeting with his late ex-wife, Sheila ‘Bambi’ Caffell, falls between 1974 and 1977, during their final years as teenagers. Credible sources reveal that Sheila was 17 and a model when she met Colin who was an art student. Although exact accounts of their meeting are not recorded in any public annals, the couple dated for a while before getting married.
The wedding happened as a result of the fact that Sheila got pregnant, leaving them with a variety of options, including marriage. They chose the option of marriage and in 1977, they were officially a married couple. Colin Caffell and Sheila Jean ‘Bambi’ Bambers were both 20 when their marriage was contracted at Chelmsford Register Office in May 1977. Sadly, the marriage ended shortly after the birth of the twins with accusations that Colin had cheated on his wife with other women.
Colin and Sheila Caffell had two children together
The pregnancy that led to the wedding in 1977 wasn’t Sheila’s first with Colin. Evidently, she had been forced to abort her first pregnancy by her adoptive parents in 1974. Sheila was just 17 and fresh out of secretarial college in Swiss Cottage, London.
The second pregnancy was unfortunately terminated in November 1977 following a painful miscarriage. Sheila took in again but it suddenly seemed as if her womb was unable to carry a child to term and the couple suffered another tragic miscarriage.
The fertility of the couple, which had never been in question, resulted in yet another pregnancy, and to prevent this one from following the same trajectory as the previous two pregnancies, Sheila was committed to four-month bed rest. This method proved effective as she delivered her twin sons, Nicholas and Daniel Caffell, on June 22, 1979.
The only significant event about the boys’ lives revolves around the fact that they were only six years old at the time of their deaths in 1985. Other significantly notable accounts of their lives include the fact they had to live with their father after the finalization of their parents’ divorce in 1982. This was primarily because their mother was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and was often heavily medicated.
White House Farm Murders – how Colin Caffell lost five members of his family in one day
In August 1985, Colin Caffell experienced one of the worst tragedies in his life, which is losing a close family member or a loved one. In Colin’s case, he lost not just one or two members of his immediate and extended family but five of them.
Arguably, he felt worse because his twin young sons were victims of one of the worst crimes in Britain in the last 40 years, but in addition to his sons, Colin also had to deal with the murders of his ex-wife, Sheila, as well as the murders of Sheila’s adoptive parents, Nevill and June Bambers.
White House Farm, which belonged to Sheila’s adoptive parents, and was located near Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex, England, UK, was the scene of these brutal murders. Jeremy Bambers, 24, had invited the local authorities to the scene of the crime that had occurred on the night of August 6, 1985. Police discovered five dead bodies including, Nevill and June Bambers along with their adopted daughter, Sheila Caffell, and her twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas Caffell.
Jeremy Bambers committed the White House Farm Murders
Initial police findings ruled the incident as four murders and one suicide. The suicide was Sheila who had supposedly gone off her medications, killed her parents, finished off her boys, and then turned the weapon on herself. However, further police investigations revealed that the murder weapon was in fact a semi-automatic rifle that belonged to one of the victims, Nevill Bamber.
Sheila didn’t know how to use a gun and the make and design of such a high caliber weapon made it seem implausible that Sheila could have committed the murders. The mystery was further compounded by the fact that the silencer on the gun would have made it impossible for Sheila to use the gun on herself afterward. The suicide was thus ruled out, the police were forced to dig deeper into the history of the family and eventually uncovered the truth that the dead Bambers’ adopted son, Jeremy Bambers, had committed the sinister crime.
Police revealed that their investigations showed that Jeremy’s account of the events was quite inconsistent with what actually happened. Jeremy had made mention of the fact that his father had alerted him to Sheila’s meltdown. An intensive search by the police showed no record of such a call from the deceased Mr. Bamber. He was further linked to the murders by his then-girlfriend who said that Jeremy had revealed to her that he had no intention of sharing the Bamber family’s sizeable inheritance with his sister or nephews.
She stated that Jeremy had made it clear that he was willing to kill whoever stood in the way of achieving his ambitions. These revelations and Jeremy’s lies about the phone call from his father convinced the authorities that he, Jeremy, was responsible for the five murders. He was subsequently arrested and charged for all five murders.
The trial which lasted 18 days began on the 3rd of October 1986 and ended with the final guilty verdict which condemned Jeremy Bambers to an initial five life terms with a recommendation of a minimum of 25 years in prison. Jeremy, who continues to declare his innocence regardless of the seemingly insurmountable evidence presented during the course of his trial, witnessed any hope of ever leaving prison to disappear after the then British Home Secretary, Michael Howard, declared in December 1994 that he would never leave prison.
This declaration followed 2 failed attempts, in 1989 and 1994, to appeal the verdict that landed Jeremy in prison.
Nevill and June Bambers’ niece inherited White House Farm
The events that followed the trial and conviction of Jeremy Bamber saw June Bamber’s niece, Ann Eaton take over the farm. Christine “Ann” Eaton is the daughter of June Bamber’s sister, Pamela Boutflour.
Ann was the one who made the police take a second look at the case after she discovered the silencer while she was rounding up the personal items of the deceased members of her family after the tragic murders. It was also her testimony in court about Sheila’s inability to handle a gun and Jeremy’s conduct after the murders that ultimately led to his conviction and sentencing.
Being the only surviving member of the family directly related to the Bambers, most of the family’s estate and possessions fell to Ann Eaton. Shortly after the 18-day trial, Ann moved into the White House Farm with her family, though it’s unclear if she still stays at the farm currently.
Colin Caffell is currently a resident of Cornwall
In order to cope with the unfortunate incidents of his life, Colin Caffell was convinced to write a book about what really happened at White House Farm. The book titled In Search of the Rainbow’s End: Inside the White House Farm Murders, gives a detailed and in-depth description of the pertinent details of the event leading up to the White House Farm Murders.
The events also launched the bereaved father into the field of mental health. He opened a psychotherapy practice. One of the psychotherapy workshops called Life, Death, and Transition focuses on him working with convicted murderers. Colin had in the course of his practice as a psychotherapist helped a woman who lost a daughter come to terms with the unfortunate incident. Colin Caffell is now remarried and lives with his wife in Cornwall. The identity of the said wife is not public knowledge yet. They have an 8-year-old daughter.
Colin has since closed up his psychotherapy practice and spent the last two decades being a professional artist. His work as an artist encompasses different forms of art, including sculptures and pottery.
The murders that took place on August 6, 1985, will surely stay in the memory of Colin Caffell probably for the rest of his life. He is proof that events of a single night can change the outcome of your life forever.
A TV series has been made about the White House Farm murders
Titled White House Farm, the British television series revolves around the murders of the five victims and the event that led to the killings. New pictures produced the series for ITV and it has a total of 6 episodes. The network broadcast the series on January 8, 2020, more than three decades after the murders.
The ensuing investigation by the police and the court case that sent the culprit to jail is also documented in the series. The Essex farmhouse murders were investigated by two police officers identified as detectives as DCI Thomas ‘Taff’ Jones (who led the investigation) and his partner DS Stan Jones. While the former is portrayed by Stephen Graham in the TV series, another British actor Mark Addy depicted the DS Stan Jones.
Freddie Fox played the role of Jeremy Bamber who was later convicted for the murders at White House Farm. Other notable roles were portrayed by Alexa Davies as Julie Mugford, Cott Reid as DC Mick Clark, Gemma Whelan as Ann Eaton, Mark Stanley as the bereaved Colin Caffell, and Cressida Bonas as Sheila Caffell among many others.