In the Dark Releases “Blood Relatives,” an Examination of a Notorious British Crime

On an August night in 1985, five members of one family were shot dead at Whitehouse Farm, a country manor in the rural county of Essex, in southeastern 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 parents, sister, and six-year-old twin nephews. The killings initially appeared to be an open-and-shut case of murder-suicide, at the hands of Jeremy’s sister, Sheila. Then, after a series of shocking twists, suspicions turned on 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, nearly four decades later, the New Yorker staff writer Heidi Blake got a tip that all might not be as it seemed.

On October 28th, In the Dark, The New Yorker’s 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 recollections upend prosecutors’ theory of the crime. The findings raise questions not only about Jeremy Bamber’s conviction but about the entire British legal system.

New Yorker 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 released, on all podcast platforms, on October 28th; the remaining episodes will be released weekly, on Tuesdays. Be sure to follow In the Dark so that you never miss an episode.

“Blood Relatives” is the first release from In the Dark 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 début, 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 the top honors in journalism. ♦