RedHanded - Episode 15 - The Spy in the Bag

Episode Date: October 5, 2017

In August 2010, 31 year old MI6 cryptologist Gareth Williams was found dead, in his flat, in his bath, padlocked inside a bag. Pretty much zero forensics would be found, and the case still remains unsolved to this day.Was Gareth murdered? If so, then who by? And why? And is it likely that a spook could be murdered in his home, just yards from MI6 HQ, and they can't find who did it? Join the girls this week as they try to decipher what really happened.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. Thank you guys again. It's been another crazy week with the number of five-star reviews you've been giving us. And we charted. Not only did we chart in the top 50 in the UK comedy category, we charted overall in the UK charts and we charted in the US comedy charts as well. So it's just bonkers.

So we have today, we've got a man in a bag. We do have a man in the bag. charts as well. So it's just bonkers. So we have today, we've got a man in a bag. We do have a man in the bag. We have a spy, to be more specific, a spy in the bag. Gareth Williams was a 31-year-old cryptologist working for MI6. But little would this man,

who spent his life cracking codes, know that his death would end up in the middle of a mystery that itself may never be solved. In August of 2010, Gareth was found dead in his flat, in his bath, padlocked inside a bag. And as if that wasn't weird enough, no forensics were found. Anywhere. In the bath, around the bath, or on the bag.

And what makes this case really sad was that despite the fact that Gareth was so obviously murdered, he was the one whose life ended up on trial. And even after a three-year investigation, Despite the fact that Gareth was so obviously murdered, he was the one whose life ended up on trial. And even after a three year investigation, all that was concluded that he was probably not killed lawfully. Now with this case, there are the facts that we know, the facts that we're told to believe, and then the theories. So what happened? Let's start with Gareth. Since one of the main questions in this case was, if we believe Gareth was murdered, why was he murdered? Was it to do with his job or was it something from his personal

life that led to his death? Gareth was born on the 26th of September 1978 in Wales and he grew up an incredibly bright young man. He began studying maths part-time at Bangor University while still in secondary school and he graduated with a first class degree at the age of just 17. He then went on to do a PhD at the University of Manchester but later would drop out from another postgraduate degree at Cambridge. Clearly a very smart cookie. Beyond his academic career and the fact that he loves cycling it's hard to know much more about Gareth than this because he was described by those who knew him as an intensely private man.

But what we do know was the fact that he was then discovered by GCHQ after his talents were spotted as he was playing online games. So basically they're just spying on us all the time. That is terrifying. MI6 terrifies me more than like the fucking triads. Like they know everything.

But no, this was gchq that spotted him but i agree with you about mi6 like even when we were researching this case i was like trying to read articles on my phone and my phone kept like turning off and like the google the google like app kept closing down stop i mean it might be because i regularly get drunk and throw my phone on the floor but it also could be because mi6 are on to me researching this case so yeah this is how you know he was discovered by gchq so gareth was recruit and when i mean discovered he they recruited him and so gareth went to go work at gchq in cheltenham which is a town really near the southern border between england and wales now before we carry on what is gchq gchq is the

government communication headquarters and it's an intelligence and security organisation here in the UK that is responsible for providing signals intelligence and information assurance to the government and armed forces. So what is signals intelligence? Signals intelligence is intelligence gathering by the interception of signals, either between people, which is known as communications intelligence, or from electronic signals not directly used in communication, and this is electronic intelligence.

And as the sensitive information intercepted is often encrypted, signals intelligence often involves the use of cryptanalysis. So you need code breakers like Gareth. So originally Gareth seemed pretty happy working in Cheltenham for GCHQ, but then he was seconded to MI6 headquarters in London.

In an interview, Gareth's sister said that it wasn't great for gareth he hated london he ate the rat race office life post work drink i hear you i'm a big fan that he even spoke of friction in the office which that's just that's office life like office politics are just part and parcel of the whole thing he said that the job just wasn't what he expected there was too much red tape and i do understand that can you imagine getting head hunted for mi6 and you get there and like some guys are washing their mug properly yeah and i think also maybe people going into the intelligence service it seems really like glamorous and a bit maverick because that's what we think about it but when he gets there he's like there's so much red

tape there's so much bureaucracy i just want to be able to do this without having to get security clearance for every little thing and I think he became really frustrated with that. So according to his sister Gareth had asked to leave MI6 and return to GCHQ. He had even called his old landlady in Cheltenham and she said he was planning to move back in at the start of September 2010 but he never would because his body would be found just days before his planned move. So it's the 16th of August, and Gareth is meant to be chairing a meeting at MI6, but he failed to turn up. Now Gareth was described as an incredibly punctual man, but even if this wasn't the case, it wasn't like he just turned up 10 minutes late. He didn't turn up at all to work for seven days. And it wasn't until a colleague

eventually called his family that the alarm was raised at all. This is the secret service. Like, that is... It just makes absolutely no sense. We will keep coming back to this because it is such an important part of the case. But finally now, the police are called on the 23rd of August. So yeah, seven days later. And PC John Gallagher is sent to Gareth's flat to investigate. Right, let's just stop a second. So your MI6 and a colleague who lives literally just metres from the front door of your headquarters and place of work doesn't turn up to work for seven days. And firstly, no one raised the alarm.

And secondly, they call the police to go over and they just send a PC over. work doesn't turn up to work for seven days and firstly no one raised the alarm and secondly they call the police to go over and they just send a pc over whatever we may think about this this is what we're asked to believe so gallagher goes to the flat flat 4 36 albany street and found an odd scene to say the least almost immediately gallagher was struck by the temperature in the flat the heating was on full blast, but it was summer. It was 21 degrees centigrade that day, and it had been for days. In the living room, PC Gallagher found a mobile phone and two Sims on the table. He also found a red lady's wig draped on a chair and a laptop by the sofa,

as well as another mobile phone. In the spare room, he found numerous boxes and a holdall filled with £20,000 worth of women's clothes. In the master bedroom, he saw that Gareth's clothes were all neatly folded away except a dressing gown and a duvet flung on the floor, which seemed very weird given how neat and tidy the rest of the house was. The bathroom was the key discovery. In the bathroom, he found a red North Face bag in the bath. Gallagher picked it up, but became immediately suspicious when red liquid started to flow from the bag. A detective was called, who on arrival made a three inch incision in the bag and found Gareth's body. So this was now a crime scene. How big was this fucking bag? It is very big.

It's like... Is it like a backpack? No, it's like, it's like, it's like a holdall. It kind of like zips around the top, but it would be big enough. When they find his body, as we'll come on to, he's found like in the fetal position, you could get in. And I think he was like five foot seven. So not like hugely tall guy. And he was very slight as well immediately of course this was treated as a highly suspicious death but was it a murder dr richard shepherd the home office pathologist who did the autopsy said he looked for patterns of bruising for restraints but there were none so gareth had put up no significant struggle so how the fuck did he end up in a bag was he already dead or unconscious

or had he been drugged? They start to look at what could have happened before he ended up in the bag because he didn't get into that bag while still alive. So was he drugged? Was he poisoned? The problem was the toxicology. They found tiny amounts of alcohol and GHB in his system but they were tiny amounts and Gareth was apparently largely teetotal in life. And in fact, the forensic expert said that the alcohol and GHB they found could have just actually occurred naturally through decomposition. Whoa, that's mental. It was absolutely not conclusive at all what they said. So no alcohol or drugs in notable amounts were found. So was he poisoned? The problem here was the level of decay that had occurred made it really hard to tell.

The pathologist said that after that amount of time, some substances just can't be tested for. This also was inconclusive at best. But it seems likely that, because of the lack of defensive wounds or marks, or restraints or anything like that, Gareth may have been asphyxiated if he wasn't drugged. Three pathologists carried out three separate postmortems

and all failed to conclusively identify the cause of death. So they agreed upon asphyxiation or poisoning. The investigation was truly hampered by the time that he had spent in the bag and the level of decomposition that had occurred, especially with the high temperature of the flat. That has to be deliberate. Has to be. No one turns their heating on in August.

Definitely. Tiny little scratches, identifiers, substances, any tiny clues that could have shone a light on what potentially happened had been totally destroyed. And all that was found was tiny amounts of DNA on the zips and handles of the bag that didn't match Gareth. The DNA, again, was a tiny amount. It was a tiny amount.

It was found on a towel in the flat. And two hairs were found on Gareth's thumb. But forensic experts say they can't identify any of it. It's trace DNA. It means absolutely nothing. They can't use it. And in any case, with the postmortems and forensics basically finding nothing, you have to wonder, is this exactly what they wanted to happen?

And by they, I mean MI6. Because why did it take seven days to report Gareth missing? Given the situation, we have to calm down a little bit and look at this through a different lens. Absolutely, because there's just so little in the way of forensics, we have to come at this from a different angle. So let's start with how Gareth had been padlocked naked into a bag. He was found in the bag in the fetal position as we mentioned and apparently investigators that found him said that he had a calm look upon his face. His legs were folded and his hands were on his chest and in the bag beneath his body were the keys to the padlock.

So how was the bag fastened? And like I'll post a picture of this on Instagram as well because it's important to see but I'll try explain it here. It's basically a lock like a big old Yale padlock that you'd put like on a shed door or something was put through the eyelets of the bag's fasteners so you know when you look at a zip the hole that's at the end of the zip both the zips had been pulled together and then the lock had been put through the holes of the zip so there was no way you could move the zips but there was no way you could unzip the bag and at first the police bizarrely genuinely thought it was a suicide what the fuck why would that be your first conclusion that's genuinely they did there was a police officer at the press conference saying look just because we think we

couldn't do it and maybe you couldn't do it but it's not impossible that he did it and i'm like why is that your it genuinely is impossible why would that be your first conclusion but I really don't know why this was their first like thought that Gareth had locked himself inside a bag to commit suicide because you know if he had asphyxiated while he was in there why was that the method he used to kill himself it doesn't make any sense it's just it's the padlock there is no way he could have zipped himself up into the bag and then locked it from the outside while he's in the bag. Like, it's just impossible.

We're obviously thoroughly convinced that he didn't do it. But I do get it. And they did investigate if it was possible. So to know conclusively, the police got Peter Folding. Quote, he's a confined spaces expert. What a job. I mean, it's like a man who just laughs in the face of claustrophobia. We should have rung him when we got stuck in the cupboard. They got Peter along

and they asked him to try lock himself in the bag, a bag that was the same as the one that Gareth was found in. And we watched the video of him doing this and we'll post it to the Facebook group. It's really interesting. It takes him ages, but he could eventually get into the bag but he couldn't lock it because there is literally no way you could do that. Like you couldn't be in the bag and lock the padlock from the outside and if a confined spaces expert can't do it then I don't think Gareth would have been able to do it. There's no hole to put the lock through. This guy he has to put his hands everywhere to get himself inside the bag. It's on the sides of the bath, on the wall, his feet go up on the wall, but there's no prints or forensics found anywhere. So if he was trying to kill himself by putting him

in the bag, so let's say he can magically lock it from the outside, he can't lock himself inside the bag and then do a bit of a cleanup and then get back inside the bag that makes no sense this is absolute evidence in our opinion that at least one other person was there and involved and gareth absolutely did not commit suicide somebody else just has to have been there so why has nobody else been implicated i don't even think it's one person that could have to do such an incredible cleanup coming back to sort of like the weird trace dna they found they apparently found DNA around the rest of the house that indicated two other people that weren't, that two other DNA profiles found. But again, what does that prove? Looking at this circumstantially, this couldn't have been done by Gareth. I think definitely at least one other person. I think probably more than one person. But the DNA says

like, oh, there's two other people in this house. But when were they there? Like, why were they there? They could have been anybody anybody it could have been like a pizza delivery guy who just came in like that doesn't prove anything but this is why i love a bit of circumstantial evidence this is logically there was more than one person involved and gareth didn't do this to himself so we've ruled out suicide and with little else to go on the police start to look into gareth's personal life so there were unconfirmed reports of Gareth at a gay club just yards from his place of work at MI6. He had also apparently visited many sites on bondage and specifically searched terms on Google like escape from bondage sites on his phone. They also found a vast array of women's clothes and shoes in his flat. But he

was single and lived alone so accusations that Gareth was a cross-dresser suddenly came to the forefront but Gareth's friend said that he wasn't a cross-dresser and she said we spoke about everything he would have told me he would have known that I wouldn't have judged him or cared she was basically saying there's no way that if that was the case he would have felt he needed to hide it from me and it's just not true and also later with regards to all the £20,000 worth of clothes, when the family were eventually told about this, Gareth's sister and another female friend came forward and said that Gareth had bought the clothes for them. That's a

lot of money to spend on clothes and shoes for your sister and your mate. £20,000. I mean, how much were they paying him at MI6? That's the question. I mean, yeah, but it is really weird. So they were basically saying that just before all of this happened before he went missing he had just come back from a conference in las vegas where he'd apparently done some shopping and some of the clothes were american and also when he came back just days before he went missing he was seen on the west end doing loads of shopping in places like harrods so i guess that's high end like you could spend that amount of money but it's kind of strange yeah and also i think if he was quite unhappy unhappy in general and didn't really like going out drinking and didn't like doing all of that he probably had quite a lot of disposable income and wanted to

spend it on his mom and his sister rather than himself if he was a bit miserable maybe that's the thing i don't know if he was miserable because it becomes a really important factor in this case because when they tried to say he committed suicide, his friends are saying he was totally happy that he was single but he wasn't a lonely man. He just preferred his life that way. But I know what you're saying. He might just be the kind of guy who finds pleasure in spending money on his friends and his family. It's not beyond the realms of possibility but just struck me that 20,000 is a lot to spend on clothes. We also had ideas that maybe Gareth was going undercover as a woman or as a cross-dresser. I mean, maybe? What?

But he's not a field agent, is he? He's a codebreaker. Thing is, he was, like, in active duty. Whatever that means is quite hard to know. But also, undercover as a woman? Why? And in a bright red wig? That's hardly subtle. The wig is, like, costume wig. So there's all of these kind of salacious things coming out, accusations being made, digging into his personal life. But one piece of like substantiated evidence that does come out around this was from Jenny Elliott, who was Gareth's

former landlord. She came forward and said that she and her husband had once had to use their keys to enter Gareth's flat in Cheltenham to respond to cries of help. And when they found him, he was just in his boxes, on his bed, with his hands tied to his headboard. What had happened there? He told the couple that he was just playing around and that it was an accident. But they thought at the time that it was sexual.

It's obviously sexual. Whether someone tied him up and just left him or, like, he managed to do it himself somehow. But that's a sexual thing, for sure. It is, yeah. And that was kind of substantiated and said. Whether someone tied him up and just left him or like he managed to do it himself somehow. But that's a sexual thing for sure. It is, yeah. And that was kind of substantiated and said. So it kind of fits in with the sites that he might have been visiting and the bondage.

Gareth's death was seriously being investigated as a bondage sex game gone wrong. But I don't buy it at all because if he was engaged in some sort of bondage sex game situation he absolutely would have had bruising from restraints which we know he didn't so that doesn't sit with me at all obviously people are into stuff like that and that is fine no judgment but it seems like if your kink is wanting to be trapped in a bag in a small bag you die, that seems a bit much. We don't think that's what's happened

at all. And even if this was the case, I know we keep coming back to it, but I think this really is like the key point. Why did it take MI6 seven days to report Gareth missing from work? He was meant to be running that meeting the first day and he was a no-show. And he was meant to meet a colleague from GCHQ that night who was interested in taking on his flat because he wanted to move away back to Cheltenham but he didn't show and then four days later again he was due to chair a meeting and he didn't show up again. We both work jobs where there's very little chance of us being kidnapped and murdered or vanishing. But if I was half an hour late, my boss would be all over me. There's just no way I could get away with not turning up to work for seven days and no one would do anything about it. We're just normal people and

that would happen. This guy's a spook and no one is looking for him. He literally works for the secret service and he vanishes and no one even bats an eyelid. And all they say is it was totally uncharacteristic. That's totally uncharacteristic for anyone who has a stable job. It just baffles me that no one went to look for him. Someone in the UK Foreign Intelligence Service, who lives actually next door to the HQ, stops going to work and nobody notices.

Mate, they were letting his body decompose. Look at what we're being asked to believe. I really feel like that's the reason. They were waiting just long enough that it would make it harder to make any use of what would be found and give them time to clean things up. And in an interview I watched with Crispin Black,

who's an intelligence analyst, he said that the flat seemed to have been prepared, cleaned. Because it was, it was absolutely spotless. So, zero forensics. And he said that there was a real possibility that there had been a clean-up or a cover-up by MI6. In his words, which I totally agree with, and I think we both do,

the police were unlikely to have been the first people in that flat. There is such a surprising dearth of forensics. So was Gareth killed by someone who worked undercover for MI6? Was the killer or killers planning on taking the body with him? I mean, it makes sense. Why else put Gareth so cleanly in a bag? It was also described by an expert as the perfect crime. So someone criminally sophisticated, or at least very forensically aware, committed this crime. The door to the bathroom was closed, the shower curtain was pulled across, the heat was turned up high, no forensics were found at all. And the forensics expert said that he thought Gareth had been killed,

placed in the bag, and then placed in the bath, so that all the decomposition fluids would run down the plug hole. And with the door shut and the flow of fluids, it would totally stop the smell of decomposition escaping that flat. And the heat was turned up on high, obviously to speed up and accelerate the rate of decomposition. It's also important to note that due to the nature of the witnesses and suspects, and the victim himself, SO15, a team within the Met who have higher levels of security clearance, ran the case. They seized Garrett's laptop and phones and everything,

but they were unable to check it all for clues. The investigation is continuously being stopped and facing security... I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey

to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him.

This is a story that I came across purely by chance. But it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding. And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America.

But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. ...delays. It was also SO15 who questioned MI6 and GCHQ. The actual detective leading the case, a woman named Jackie Sparrow, wasn't even allowed to interview them.

And what statements were gathered were described as not entirely accurate. Can you imagine? It's impossible. It's impossible. I also wonder with, if Gareth was a code breaker, surely if he had something to hide, his laptops and his phones, even if they're like burner phones,

they would be encrypted to fuck, surely. I think so. And I think also when it means that they were able to seize these items, but not able to check it, would have been because Gareth firstly wouldn't have made anything easily available, like you've said. But I also think they were stopped they were told you can seize this but you can't you can't do this you can't do that with it's like the investigation at

every turn they were just being stymied and they weren't given the access that they needed and I know that we can be critical about this like Jackie Spira the detective wasn't allowed to do so much of it but then how do you feel about the fact that yes it's a horrible murder and it should be investigated and they should have access but also the fact of which they will use is we can't compromise national security I just wonder like any sort of review of anything within MI6 is basically impossible like no other no external agency can investigate MI6 because of the it compromises national security so it's really hard but this is why they could cover things up because literally no one is allowed through the gate they can do what they want and that's what makes so many things

in this case hard to believe you read a piece of evidence you read a piece of something and you feel like but was that just planted it's really hard i we've fell down a big old rabbit hole with this for sure so when she was investigating this crime spera had to take second-hand interviews because she just didn't have the access but apparently after a thorough investigation and collecting not entirely accurate statements so 15 detective superintendent michael brawster said there was no link between Gareth's death and his job well fucking kelseprise like that come on I know what a thorough investigation they ran as well even admitting I was not entirely accurate but there's absolutely no link you don't need to

look any further here it's very strange so what exactly was Gareth's job Michael Brawster was saying that had no link to Gareth was a link to. Gareth was a cryptanalyst. Gareth was a cryptanalyst. He had actually won awards for his work. He was incredibly well respected in the field. He was even described by his colleagues as being world class. And what we do know was that he was operationally active as part of a four person team. He had clearance to access sensitive information, but he was labelled low risk. they weren't keeping too much of a tabs on him they weren't like he wasn't constantly under supervision or anything like that or surveillance he was deemed pretty low down the risk ladder but there was also evidence that a

small number of times gareth had accessed mi6 database without authorization and a witness from mi6 said that he could by doing this he could have made himself a target to hostile and malign parties within mi6 what was he doing i mean it's not like secretly going on facebook at work is it it's like just yeah exactly and this is the thing maybe this wasn't anything dodgy it was just because you know what his sister said that he hated how much red tape there was maybe he just wanted to be like look i need this information to do my job, to crack this code. And someone who is like that, who wants to get to the answer,

wants to crack that code, if he's got that information, it's just behind a little bit more of a security level than he's allowed access to. Is it that surprising that he might just be like, well, I'll just take a peek because it will help me crack this. And I feel like maybe that was a frustration

that he was being told, you can't access this without authorization. And he didn't like that. But with the police basically hitting, as we said, kind of wall after wall in this case, an inquiry was held to determine what had happened. And Gareth's boss gave testimony at the inquiry as Mr. G. And he spoke entirely from behind the screen. When questioned on why it took them seven days to raise the alarm when Gareth was missing,

he said that it was weird that Gareth didn't turn up. And this is brilliant. He apparently said that he checked a list of suggested actions that he was given on what to do in such a case. I mean, helpful and like painfully obvious suggestions, like maybe call some hospitals. But he did nothing anyway. Oh, come on. Unsurprisingly, Mr Mr G was never punished or found to be responsible in any way for failing to alert the police or Gareth's family for seven whole days even though it's clear that the delay totally fucked up the investigation and they admitted this in the inquiry. There was also a lot of talk at the inquiry into Gareth's state of mind at the time

of his death. On the 999 call from MI6, why is MI6 calling 999? Do they not have like a quick dial? What's quicker than that though? Nine. I just think they have like a red phone that's like immediately through to whoever they want. They did, they call 999 and like, you know, when we listen to the recording, it's so weird that they're like, oh, calling from MI6, like one of our agents is missing like what the person from mi6 calling the police when asked about gareth's mental health says he has just been pulled back from a job he really wanted to do and we're not quite sure how he's taken the news

which explains if it's true why they didn't look for him i can understand if it's a bit like oh he's probably really upset we should just leave him and he'll come back when he's ready still weird but i i could buy that yeah it definitely could be true because maybe that suggests something to do with the state of mind but this is a contradiction to what gareth was telling people because remember he said that he wanted to go back to gchq and go back to cheltenham because he was unhappy with his job at mi6 and the whole thing about not liking the office or London. But this woman is now saying that he was being pulled back from work by them. But he told people, I want to leave here because I'm so unhappy. But she's saying we were pulling him back. But this same woman at the inquest said this about his state

of mind. At the inquest, she contradicts herself completely and says that, oh, she didn't actually know anything about his mental state at the time. Weird weird was that trying to use that as a reason for why they didn't look for him we thought he was just pissed i'm much more inclined to believe that he was moving back to gchq because of the landlady in cheltenham and all of that i'm much more convinced that that was what was happening rather than he was taken off an assignment but obviously with the clearance levels and everything well no we're never really gonna know but it's so easy to say no i completely think that he was moving back to cheltenham and moving back to gchq but it's interesting that he was telling people i was going back because i was unhappy at mi6 and they're saying on the 999 call we were we were cutting him

out and that's why he was going back to gchq that i feel like that could be the way that they're trying to explain away the fact that they weren't looking for him. Like, oh, he's a disgruntled employee. He's just not turned up to work for a week because he's having a strop because we pulled him off a case. Maybe. And they could have pulled him off a case because he was breaching security protocol. You can also see from his life that he was planning for the future. He planned a holiday to Switzerland. He'd also booked a trip to see his sister that weekend. He wasn't planning on killing himself. He had plans. That's not...

And he didn't kill himself anyway. So we've ruled out suicide. Yeah. More and more blunders surrounding the case also came out at the inquiry. At first, the police thought they had a forensic lead to nail the person who had done this when they found the DNA profile on Gareth's hand. And they followed this lead for 18 months. But it turned out to be a huge mistake on the part of LGC Forensics,

and the DNA profile belonged to a scientist. So they literally pissed 18 months of investigation down the toilet. But a forensic expert I watched an interview with said that this kind of thing happens all the time. And although 18 months is a long time, he said he didn't feel like, other than it being a huge waste of time, that it fundamentally hampered the case in any way.

Sure. Sure. And during this inquiry, after eight days of painful evidence like this coming to light, the coroner finally gave her a ruling. And she said, and one by one, she, in her conclusion, she debunked the absolute obvious rubbish.

But close the inquiry with a starkly fucking obvious statement this is it so on the balance of probability gareth williams was unlawfully killed a third party put and locked gareth in that bag and it was almost certainly criminally mediated that's such a like wet blanket ruling, isn't it? It's like, well, yes, this probably did happen, but I'm just not going to talk about it anymore. So the inquest was there to determine whether it should be a criminal investigation, and it was ruled that it should. This was no suicide or death by sexual misadventure, so the police said that their investigation would now refocus and actively pursue all new lines of inquiry, and all the evidence heard. I also felt

really sorry for Gareth's friends and family. So much intimate evidence from his personal life was thrown around, they dug so hard into his life. And his father Robin, in his message to the press after the inquiry, talked of their distress as a family, that his employers had failed to make even the most basic inquiries as to Gareth's whereabouts or welfare as any reasonable employer would, and this frustration at their reluctance to make relevant information available. It's really heartbreaking. Also, Robin called for a review in light of the total inadequacies of the entire SO15 investigation, as was highlighted by the inquiry. For example, the leading detective, Jackie Spira, found out later during the inquiry that nine memory sticks found by MI6 belonging to Gareth had been hidden from

her. Come on, this was no investigation. This was just an absolute facade, like curtain dressing. Nothing went down. Nothing was researched apart from Gareth's personal life and looking for anything they could use. Oh, it's a kangaroo court. Like, it's absolutely a kangaroo court. Like, there's no way that this was a considered investigation. Definitely not. The ruling also determined that it was totally legitimate that he could have been killed by MI6. And the fact that they didn't report it for seven days was cited as being beyond belief. But there was no evidence found at the inquiry that could lead to any arrests.

But Jackie Spira, the lead detective, said that she won't stop until she finds whoever did this. Well, good luck, Jackie. To be honest, even if she were, by some magical feat, able to prove that it was MI6, there is no way in hell that would ever go to trial because that is, that in itself is a threat to national security. If it were to get into the press that MI6 actually did murder this person This would be covered up if for nothing else exactly you said, for the greater good for the fact that we can't compromise national security

and there is an argument to be made for that but then no one gets justice for this and like agents can just go off act rogue and murder their colleagues that's fucking mental. This case is absolutely right pickings for conspiracy minded folks. What are they?

The main one. Suicide. We've got rid of that one. Straight off the bat. Truly debunked. Sex game. Again, seems unlikely. There was no bruising on his body.

And the inquiry ruled that it was criminally mediated. Proper theory number one. Gareth was killed by the Russians. Either because he had caught on to money laundering between Russia and Europe or because there was a Russian mole in MI6 and Gareth had figured out who it was. This could be totally possible that he was murdered by the Russians but if there's anything we've learned from cases like the murder of Litvinenko is that the Russians aren't too fussed about being secretive. They literally poisoned him by pouring plutonium into his tea in public. I remember when that was in the news and I was like, what? Where do I live?

I know. Like, what the actual, like, fresh fuck? That is crazy. And that proves that if it was the Russians, would they have covered it up like this? I did wonder that. If you're making a statement, if you're warning people in a don't fuck with us kind of way, would you clean up the evidence? If you want people to know that it was you, then I don't fuck with us kind of way. Would you clean up the evidence? If you want

people to know that it was you, then I don't think you would do the giant clean up. You'd leave the body in an obvious place. You'd want people to find him. So that doesn't particularly make sense. And even if it was the Russians, it doesn't explain why it took MI6 so long to look for Gareth unless we're going buy the oh we thought he was just upset thing which I don't think we do that's that's a really really good point and this was all being put to either being like the Russian secret service did it or that the Russian mafia did it so if it was about the mole in MI6 it would have been Russian secret service if it was the money laundering it was Russian mafia I don't think either of these groups as you absolutely said I

didn't even think about it like that why would they cover it up they didn't cover up litvinenko because they wanted to make a statement so they wouldn't cover this death up it would be a warning don't fuck with russia so that's theory number one and theory number two that we came across was that gareth was killed by either mi6 or american agents after stumbling onto sensitive data or because he was threatening to release it and make secret intelligence public. I wonder, obviously there's different levels of security clearance within MI6, but what must he have had to find? I mean, he worked for MI6. What would he have had to find that was so sensitive they had to kill him for it? He's on their team. But unless it is the thing of like

they all have access to it and he found it you know and it's not that hard to find but it's the fact that he was saying this is unacceptable i want to release this to the public like snowden yeah so that i i agree with you i'm more inclined to believe that he was threatening to release information there's a lot of allegations that gareth hacked Bill Clinton's private information and that his bosses couldn't control him. He was just totally rogue. But obviously we can never really corroborate that because no one is allowed inside MI6. I feel like...

What do you think? What do you think happened? I think that it was... The only thing that makes me hesitant to say it was MI6 or made me when we were doing the research was if... Why wouldn't they just disappear him if they wanted to get rid of him why would they leave the body and then

potentially incriminate themselves they obviously know what they're doing because there was zero dna at the scene so that makes me think something went wrong and they had to leave the body and that's why they turn the heating on uh to make the best of a bad job so i think something happened but what could have happened to make them unable to leave his flat carrying a bag exactly what could have spooked them i don't know but it does make sense it's like i think i personally think it was probably mi6 i don't think this was to do with his personal life i don't think obviously we don't think he committed suicide i don't really think it was the russians because of what we've said they wouldn't have covered it

up like this i think it was mi6 and I think they were planning on taking the body to disappear him but you're right I don't know what could have freaked them out sufficiently that they didn't. But if you remember though that his flat is like right next door to MI6 headquarters. Unless they put him in the bag they thought let's come back and get him when it's like dark and no one's at work because your two colleagues walking out of your other colleague's flat holding a massive bag and then suddenly he goes missing i find it difficult to believe they would have made someone in his department do it like i think there probably were people that he didn't know but it could have been anybody but there's the thing of like you work at mi6 you're seen coming you're like walking around in the area

caught on cctv with a big red bag walking out of this flat london come on most cccv city in the world that's true and you know this you're an mi6 and then he's disappeared where's he gone and what were you doing coming out of his thing i think they packed it all up and they were like maybe we'll come get this later and then they didn't or they had to leave in a rush but we don't know why that could i read that you're you're caught on cctv in london 336 times a day wow that's crazy i'm scared to leave the house now but he was killed in his house that's where they'll come get you they already know i'm here they're already outside so leave your house and go stand up in front of one of those 365 time cctv shots you'll be gone i'll go and stand in the phone box outside my flat

that's definitely got a camera in it. That's where you stay safe, I think. But no, so we've talked about the case, we've talked about the conspiracy theories, we've talked about some of the more likely theories, but I think it's just a really strange case and I don't think we'll ever know the answer to what really happened to Gareth Williams

and it's really sad. No, but let us know what you think on the Facebook discussion group. Which is actually really lovely. It's so nice to be able to speak to you and hear what you sad. No, but let us know what you think on the Facebook discussion group. Which is actually really lovely. It's so nice to be able to speak to you and hear what you think. Absolutely. Thank you so much everyone who's joined

and thank you again. Please guys, follow us on at Red Handed The Pod on all the social medias. Join the Facebook discussion group. Help us keep climbing those charts because this is crazy for us and it makes such a big difference

to visibility and to our morale. Absolutely. We'll see you next time. Thanks so much. Bye. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about.

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