Dead Man Inside Bag May Have Been Killed
Regular readers know I don't hold British government officials, especially town councils, in high regard. My reason for my attitude was reaffirmed this past week, after a British coroner was accidentally allowed out of her basement to speak to the media.In a prayer offered to the patron saint of the blindingly obvious, coroner Fiona Wilcox has declared that a British spy, Gareth Williams, whose naked body was found inside a padlocked sports bag was likely "killed in a criminal act."
Let that sink in for a moment. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a suicide. It wasn't one of those crazy things that British spies are known for, like flying to space stations on a stolen shuttle, or killing an entire Russian army battalion with a small pistol.
No, a naked spy who was folded up into the fetal position, arms folded across his chest, and keys to the padlock on the outside of the bag resting under his butt, was "probably unlawfully killed."
To be fair, Wilcox did try to make sure, by proving that he couldn't have done it himself, by having two "specialists" try to lock themselves into a sports bag, but without any success. In other news, there are at least two forensic scientists in England who specialize in locking themselves into sports bags.
We may scoff at the wastefulness of government spending in this country, at least we don't have it as bad as England, where they apparently have at least two professionals who "get stuffed" as part of their job duties.
Wilcox said Williams either died by suffocation or poisoning, and said that it was possible that an intelligence agency coworker — or at least someone from the British intelligence community — may have been involved. Witnesses claim to have seen a large, seven-foot tall man with shiny pieces of metal for teeth running away from the scene.
But Wilcox's lack of commitment may be due to the resulting circus that was the police investigation.
Williams was described as deeply private, refusing to associate with coworkers socially, and avoiding strangers because of his work in the GCHQ, MI6's secret eavesdropping service. So, everyone was flat out stunned when Wilcox declared that Williams' "potential killer must have been a friend, or entered his home uninvited."
During the coroner's inquest, it was revealed the Williams' MI6 colleagues failed to report him as missing for a week, which given his reclusive nature and habit of not associating with colleagues, probably meant they never even noticed he was missing in the first place.
"I thought it was just a clever disguise," said one spy. "I assumed he was somewhere around the office, but being, you know, really quiet, on account of his work in Eavesdropping."
"I figured he was on 'Her Majesty's Secret Service,'" said another, tapping the side of his nose, giving the reporter a knowing look. "Beautiful women, fast cars, that kind of thing. You know, regular British spy stuff."
Wilcox cited several more instances where crucial evidence was badly managed by investigators, and other pieces of evidence — like the discovery of nine flash thumb drives were found at Williams' workplace — being kept from police, making a real finding impossible. Police even pursued one piece of evidence, an unknown piece of DNA, for 18 months before discovering it belonged to one of the forensic scientists on the investigating team.
Pathologists were ultimately unable to find the exact cause of death, because Williams' had been in the bag for over a week, and his body was so badly decomposed, it made the determination impossible.
When pressed further, Wilcox stated that Williams' killer was either a man or a woman, was possibly armed (but maybe not), and most likely not dead himself (or herself) before committing the crime.
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