Spy In A Bag Mystery

[louisa]

Has anyone been following the strange death of Gareth Williams, the MI6 agent who was found suffocated inside a sports bag? It was padlocked on the outside. He was found in his London flat.

This happened a couple of years ago but it's currently in the news because they're only just got around to holding the Inquest.

[Robert]

I always think it strange when they talk about a third party. Don't they mean a second party?

[mariab]

Gareth Williams, AKA Sam Flynn?

[Errata]

Is that not how MI6 guys commit suicide?

[Robert]

They usually do it more discreetly. After getting into the bag, they mail themselves through the British postal system - and disappear without trace for ever.

[louisa]

They usually do it more discreetly. After getting into the bag, they mail themselves through the British postal system - and disappear without trace for ever.

Very good.


This is one of the newer links to the story:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/crime/mi6-spyinbag-gareth-williams-tied-to-bed-in-sex-game-7678657.html

[lynn cates]

The REAL story.

Hello All. See, and I thought he was just a down and out male prostitute. Sounds conspiratorial to me.

Cheers.
LC

[louisa]

It's now been decided that another person was involved in the death of Gareth Williams, but nobody knows who.

I don't think M16 had anything to do with it. It just so happened that he was an agent.

I'm guessing but it may have been a guy from one of those gay escort agencies. He turned up - as arranged - for a spot of bondage (as you do) and it all went horribly wrong.

[Robert]

Anyone remember this show about an intelligence agent?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAT97qNiYHE&feature=fvwrel

[Archaic]

Why the Bath-tub? Why No Fingerprints?

Here's an excellent article about this bizarre case from the Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/02/gareth-williams-key-unanswered-questions?newsfeed=true

It seems ludicrous that people are claiming the ladies' clothing didn't belong to Mr. Williams. Why are they doing so? Cross-dressing isn't illegal. I suppose it might be frowned upon if one works for MI6, but the extensive female wardrobe is an obvious clue to a secret lifestyle. It might furnish other clues to the circumstances which led to his death, as well as the identity of the person who either accidentally contributed to that death or deliberately murdered him.

One of the first questions I had when hearing of this case was "Why was he in the bath-tub?" To me, the fact that he was inside the bag and it was placed in the bath-tub was an indication that it wasn't just a kinky game gone awry. Even if one accepts temporarily accepts the premise that Williams was a *claustrophiliac and got into the bag voluntarily, why in the world would he do so in the bath-tub?? I would expect that sort of experimentation to happen on a bed or a floor.
(*Opposite of a claustrophobic; someone who gets a thrill from confinement.)

The fact that the bag with Mr. Williams inside was placed in the bath-tub suggests to me that someone knew he was dead (or unconscious & about to be) and would soon start to decompose. Bodily fluids would leak out of the bag, possibly through the floor to the apartment below. The body & the bag were placed in the tub to prevent that from happening.

Another odd thing is that it was summer time, yet the heat was turned on in the apt. Was this to speed decomposition so no signs of foul play could be discovered? ( I still haven't heard an official cause of death- was the body too decomposed to tell? Was it suffocation? Was he already unconscious or dead by some other means when placed in the bag?)

Perhaps it all began as a consensual "experiment", and Mr. Williams entered the bag voluntarily, but the fact that the bag was padlocked on the outside & the keys were found locked with him on the inside means that he was fatally trapped- if the 2nd person didn't have another set of keys, and didn't use them quickly, Mr. Williams would suffocate within a few minutes.

So was it just a badly botched "game", and the second person panicked when he realized he had no spare set of keys with which to open the bag? Fearing a homicide charge did he then carry the bag & body to the bath-tub, turn the heat up, and leave?

But then why were no fingerprints found?? How could Williams get into the bag in its position as found in the bathtub without at least touching the bathroom wall or the side of the tub? How could the 2nd person not leave a fingerprint, footprint, hair, anything?

Would a person there as a (non-homicidal) "date" or paid escort really have the presence of mind to:
1. carry the bag & corpse to the tub,
2. turn up the heat, and
3. thoroughly clean away all forensic traces of himself? Even from the apartment's door-knob?

I doubt it. I think he'd panic and run. It looks to me like murder.
Then again, with all the CSI-type shows on TV, maybe the kind of person who plays such dangerous "games" wears latex gloves throughout and has a contingency plan for fatal accidents? It's all very strange.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Cogidubnus]

Anyone remember this show about an intelligence agent?

I'm ashamed to admit it Robert, but yes I recall it very well...to be fair I was but a young teenager!

Dave

[caz]

Perhaps it all began as a consensual "experiment", and Mr. Williams entered the bag voluntarily, but the fact that the bag was padlocked on the outside & the keys were found locked with him on the inside means that he was fatally trapped- if the 2nd person didn't have another set of keys, and didn't use them quickly, Mr. Williams would suffocate within a few minutes.

So was it just a badly botched "game", and the second person panicked when he realized he had no spare set of keys with which to open the bag? Fearing a homicide charge did he then carry the bag & body to the bath-tub, turn the heat up, and leave?

But then why were no fingerprints found?? How could Williams get into the bag in its position as found in the bathtub without at least touching the bathroom wall or the side of the tub? How could the 2nd person not leave a fingerprint, footprint, hair, anything?

Would a person there as a (non-homicidal) "date" or paid escort really have the presence of mind to:
1. carry the bag & corpse to the tub,
2. turn up the heat, and
3. thoroughly clean away all forensic traces of himself? Even from the apartment's door-knob?

I doubt it. I think he'd panic and run. It looks to me like murder.
Then again, with all the CSI-type shows on TV, maybe the kind of person who plays such dangerous "games" wears latex gloves throughout and has a contingency plan for fatal accidents? It's all very strange.

Best regards,
Archaic

Hi Archaic,

Great post with much food for thought. I'm wondering if this was not a badly botched game at all, but a very thoroughly planned and executed one, along the lines of that (German?) case, where a man advertised online for another man to kill and eat him. Extreme end of 'strange' but true nonetheless. Risk-taking and living on the edge would, after all, be natural attributes of anyone in the dead man's chosen profession. Maybe he was expecting his 'partner' to get him out on giving some kind of signal (a pre-arranged word shouted, or a thump on the bag) and he either passed out before he could give it, or the partner never intended to let him out. If the padlock key was inside the bag, so no chance of getting him out that way, was that perhaps the point of this deadly game?

I just don't see MI6 behind something like this, which would inevitably become such a high profile case, when they could have 'got rid' in a hundred and one others ways that could have been put down to suicide, misadventure or even 'natural causes'. It would seem as unlikely as the ripper victims being bumped off in such spectacular, newsworthy fashion if the authorities were somehow behind the murders.

Love,

Caz
X

[louisa]

For once Caz, I agree with you.

[Archaic]

Hi Caz; thanks for your comments.

I don't for a minute think MI6 was behind the death of Mr. Williams, but they do seem to have handled the aftermath a bit oddly...maybe out of some kind of "embarrassment" over its circumstances?

Or maybe they suspect (or know) that it was a deliberate murder and are keeping mum in an effort to catch the perp?

It's all very puzzling.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Errata]

Okay, maybe it's because I live in the South, and some of the most common last words here are "Ten bucks says I can!" but this reeks of one of those terrible accidents brought about by booze, the internet, and intense curiosity. We had one here where some guy tried to play a prank on his wife by hiding in the trunk of her car, planning to spring out from the back seat when she came out of the store. But she was in there longer than he anticipated, and it was an older car without the seat release in the trunk. Poor planning. Another guy drowned when he wiggled into a storm drain after betting he could make it to the other side. And my all time favorite, the guy who sealed himself in a plastic barrel after reading a spy novel where some guy did something similar in order to escape a criminal organization, the kicker being that guy in the book died from suffocation, so what on earth was the point of that experiment?

We are a nutty breed.