Jeremy Bamber: Where his ex-girifriend Julie Mugford is now, after she gave damning evidence against him
Police believe the White House Farm murders were a murder-suicide until Julie's ex-girlfriend spoke up
Jeremy Bamber: Proof of Innocence – The Missing Phone Call is a new Channel 5 documentary which questions his guilt – so could his ex-girlfriend Julie Mugford have helped put an innocent man behind bars?
The new film claims to present new evidence proving his imprisonment is “the most appalling miscarriage of justice Britain has ever seen”.
For more than 40 years, Jeremy Bamber has been in prison serving a life sentence for killing five members of his family. However, since his conviction in 1986, he has always claimed his innocence. This Channel 5 documentary claims it has “astonishing new evidence” that could prove he’s right.
So where does this leave the testimony of his ex-girlfriend Julie Mugford, and where is she now?
Jeremy Bamber: Proof of Innocence – The Missing Phone Call
The new Channel 5 documentary claims to bring new evidence to light in the Jeremy Bamber murder case, otherwise known as the White House Farm murders.
In 1985, one of Britain’s most horrific crimes shocked the nation when five members of the Bamber family were brutally shot dead. The massacre in the village Tolleshunt D’Arcy, near Maldon, Essex, became known as the infamous White House Farm murders.
At first it looked like an open and shut case. The evidence seemed to show that Jeremy’s sister Sheila had tragically committed murder-suicide. Having suffered from serious mental health problems, including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and psychosis, police believed Sheila had killed her parents and her six-year-old twin sons, before turning the gun on herself.
However, this changed when Julie claimed he was “desperate to get hold of his parents money and estate”. She also said that “Jeremy was going to destroy the family” in order to get the money.
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Julie told police that Jeremy “told her he was going to murder his family”. According to the new Channel 5 documentary, her testimony “turned the whole investigation on its head”. Although some questioned her motives, claiming she turned against him after he “played the field” and subsequently broke up with her.
What happened between Jeremy Bamber and Julie Mugford?
Julie initially supported Jeremy’s statements to the police, telling them that he had called her “worried” at around 3am on August 07 1985. At that time, he told her that “something was wrong” at White House Farm. She also supported Jeremy during the funerals of his parents and sister Sheila. Photographs of the day show him clinging to her arm and weeping. Julie was just 20 years of age at the time, while Jeremy was 24.
However, Jeremy Bamber and Julie Mugford split up in September 1985, roughly a month after the White House Farm murders took place. They broke-up after she discovered he had been unfaithful.
Following the split, Julie Mugford went to the police to change her initial statement. She revealed that Jeremy had plotted to kill his family for their inheritance. This led directly to his arrest the very next day, and his subsequent murder convictions.
Julie was a key prosecution witness at Jeremy Bamber’s trial in 1986. She said he boasted about his plans to kill his parents and collect his £500,000 inheritance. In Julie’s revised statement, she told police Bamber had repeatedly said he wished he could “get rid of them all”. She claimed he would often complain about his “old” father and “mad” mother, who he told his girlfriend were “trying to run his life”.
Jeremy Bamber has always denied killing his mother, father, sister and twin nephews at their farmhouse at Tolleshunt D’Arcy in Essex. However, a judge sentenced him to five life terms, with no chance of parole.
Did she sell her story to the papers?
Julie Mugford sold her story to the News of the World, allegedly for £25,000. According to reports at the time, the huge sum was conditional on his conviction.
This caused immense controversy during the trial because the jury was led to believe she did not stand to benefit from her testimony.
In the weeks after his conviction, Julie told her story about life with the killer to the now-obsolete Sunday tabloid newspaper. It was a huge sum of money at the time and Julie claimed she had been under the murderer’s “spell”.
Where is Jeremy Bamber’s ex-girlfriend Julie Mugford now?
Julie completely disappeared from the public eye after talking to the News of the World. The first new pictures of her emerged at Jeremy Bamber’s appeal hearing in 2002.
She married in 1990 and is now called Julie Smerchanski. Julie lives with her Canadian husband Glen and grown up children in Winnipeg, Canada. She is currently 61 years of age, and lives a quiet life out of the public eye.
Julie started work as a special needs teacher before being promoted to the deputy head of a primary school. She is now an education officer in Winnipeg.
One of her neighbours told the Mail On Sunday: “She’s rebuilt her life. She’s not the same person now and then. She and Glen are a lovely couple.”
Her husband Glen said: “Julie just wishes it would all go away and we could get on with our lives. How would you feel if you did the right thing and your life continued to be ruined by it.”
During Jeremy Bamber’s October 2002 appeal, Julie flew in from her home in Canada to be “cross-examined by Bamber’s barrister”. But she was later released as a witness by the three judges.
The campaign to free Jeremy Bamber maintain the claim that she changed her story as revenge after he cheated on her.
What happened in the White House Farm murders?
- On 7 August 1985, a 24-year-old Jeremy Bamber rang police claiming his father had called him to say his sister Sheila Caffell had "gone crazy" and had a gun.
- Police visited White House Farm and found the bodies of Jeremy Bamber's parents Nevill and June, Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twin sons Nicholas and Daniel.
- Officers initially treated the case as a murder-suicide after Sheila Caffell was found with her fingers around the rifle used in the shootings.
- A silencer which allegedly had traces of Sheila's blood on it was found in a cupboard three days after the murders.
- A month after the killings, Jeremy Bamber's then girlfriend Julie Mugford told police he plotted to kill his parents for the £436,000 inheritance.
- Police charged Jeremy Bamber with the murders. He stood trial in 1986.
- The trial heard expert evidence that Sheila Caffell could not have placed the silencer in the cupboard because of her two gunshot wounds. Her injuries from the first shot would have rendered her incapable.
- A jury found Jeremy Bamber guilty by majority verdict. He was sentenced to five life prison terms, despite protesting his innocence.
- The judge, Mr Justice Drake, called Bamber "warped and evil beyond belief".
Read more: New documentaries and true crime on TV and streaming in June 2026
