SEVEN clues in the ‘Spy in the Bag’ case are still raising eyebrows 13 years after Gareth Williams’ death.
Cold case detectives have carried out a number of forensic reviews since the 31-year old MI6 agent’s death in August 2010 at his safe house in Pimlico, London.
Gareth Williams was found dead in a London safe house in August 2010Nicholas Razzell
Nicholas RazzellCCTV footage shows Gareth at Holland Park tube station on 14 August 2010, two days before his death[/caption]
Nicholas RazzellAn expert putting himself in the bath how Williams’ body was found[/caption]
The Met Police say ‘no new DNA’ was found in Gareth’s Pimlico flat
The gifted codebreaker from north Wales was last seen nabbing cakes from Harrods and peppered steaks from Waitrose on a sunny August day just hours before his death.
Padlocked inside a North Face holdall in the bath with the key inside, Williams’ decomposing body was found by cops seven days after he passed away.
Last week, cops conducted a fresh forensic review of the cold case.
The force combed the holdall, its zip toggle and the padlock and key but no new discoveries were made.
Metropolitan Police sources told The Sunday Times that the 31-year-old Welshman was therefore likely alone when he died.
Det Ch Insp Neil John, the senior investigating officer, said: “Since 2010 the Met has carried out extensive enquiries into Gareth’s death.
“An independent forensic review began in January 2021 and we received the findings in November 2023.
“No new DNA evidence was found and no further lines of enquiry were identified.
“We have informed Gareth’s family of the outcome and our thoughts remain with them.”
The Met added that any further information or evidence will be reviewed by detectives.
Gareth was found in August 2010 during a routine welfare check by police, who were informed by his colleagues that they hadn’t heard from him in several days.
Despite the Met’s ruling, a cluster of clues continue to raise eyebrows.
THREE KEY DNA FINDINGS AND A SHIFTED DUVET
Cops collected the DNA of 15 people in Gareth’s flat in separate rooms.
Gareth was known to keep his living space clean, but police found a semen stain on the bathroom floor which was identified as the victim’s.
Another semen stain was located on a crumpled green towel in the kitchen area.
This time, DNA findings revealed it belonged to another person who has not been identified.
Cops also noticed that the agent’s duvet had been pushed onto the floor.
Two further unknown samples were spotted on the zip and padlock of the North Face bag Gareth was found locked inside.
When police discovered the agent, a single hair was found on his hand, but again was non-identifiable.
“If there was someone else in the room, that suggests a voluntary consenting participative act where something happened, and Gareth died,” says DCI Hamish Campbell, the Met’s Head of Homicide at the time of Gareth’s murder.
“That would mean that the person would have seen that or understood what’s happened, then walked out, which in itself is pretty unfathomable.
“If you’re a friend and you’re engaging in some participant acts that went wrong, why on earth did you leave him?
“If he’d met someone who was a stranger, who had gone there for some sexual activity and Gareth has died, it’s unlikely the other person would think ‘I know what it I’ll tidy this place up a bit – and there’s a bag I can put him in.”
WIPED PHONE AND WOMEN’S CLOTHES
Gareth’s £500 iPhone had all of its data wiped on August 15 – hours before he is believed to have died.
Cops said the service provider showed “no data history”.
Crime expert Peter Bleksley asked: “Who restores their phone to factory settings if they’re not selling it?
“There are huge unanswered questions.”
Gareth was also said to have spent time on bondage websites.
An inquest into his death heard that the landlords at the codebreaker’s former home in Cheltenham once found him tied to his bed frame wearing only his boxer shorts, unable to free himself.
At the Pimlico flat, police unearthed make-up, wigs, 26 pairs of high-end women’s shoes and £20,000 of women’s designer clothing stacked in six boxes in a spare bedroom.
Detectives also noted Gareth had visited fetish clubs including a Jonny Woo drag act in East London just days before his death.
A timeline of the case of Gareth Williams’
12 August 2010 He goes shopping alone in west London, this time at Harvey Nichols and Harrods department stores and a Waitrose supermarket in the Knightsbridge area. According to witnesses, he also pops into his London office but it is thought he goes only to drop off some documents.
13 August 2010 He goes to work and attends a show on his own by drag queen Jonny Woo at the Bistrotheque club in Bethnal Green, east London.
14 August 2010 Gareth goes shopping again, visiting the Holland Park area of west London and luxury department store Fortnum & Mason.
15 August 2010 He does yet more shopping in Knightsbridge, buying some cakes in Harrods and some peppered grilled steaks in Waitrose. The final CCTV image of him is captured at 3.05pm entering Alderney Street in Pimlico, where he lives in a top-floor flat half a mile from MI6’s London headquarters.
23 August 2010 Gareth is found dead in a North Face holdall in the bath He had been there sometime and his body had decomposed.
DCI Campbell explored the possibility of a solo sex game gone wrong.
“People who engage in auto-erotic asphyxiation usually have an escape plan, whether it’s self suspension, tying up or bondage,” he said.
“Medical literature is full of people, particularly young men, who unfortunately die.
“It’s possible that the key was in the bag to enable him to get out.”
RUSSIAN CONNECTION
His work as intelligence agent for MI6 led to speculation that Gareth had been targeted by shadowy Russian forces.
The claim was given added clout in 2015, when former KGB agent Boris Karpichkov claimed the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service – known as the SVR – had murdered him to prevent him unveiling a spy inside GCHQ.
The method, he claimed, was “untraceable poison introduced in his ear.”
Other clues include the absence of the intelligence officer’s own fingerprints, footprints or traces of his DNA on the rim of the bath, the bag zip or the bag padlock, suggesting someone later cleaned up the scene.
Also, in the weeks leading up to his death three unexplained payments of £2,000 were paid into his bank account, then withdrawn shortly afterwards. Two piles of bank notes, each totalling £500, were found in his flat.
Although he has never completely ruled it out, DCI Campbell believes the theory has deep flaws.
“It’s been suggested the Russians poisoned him in the eyeball, or put it in his ear and those things are not impossible, but foreign agents usually kill people from their own country, not other countries,” he says.
“The North Koreans have been doing it at airports with poison, the Russians have been doing it in clear cases that we all are aware of, such as Alexander Litvinyenko.
“There was no forced entry. Gareth was a risk analyst and he was very private and insular so the idea of him letting in people who pose a threat is unlikely.”
Theories surrounding Gareth’s death
Gareth’s death has sparked swirling rumours over what motivated his bizarre death. Some of these include:
The Russian mafia murdered Gareth to prevent him investigating money-laundering networks.
MI6 or American intelligence agent killed the codebreaker after he threatened to make secret intelligence public.
Gareth was the victim of a bizarre sex game.
The spy locked himself in the bag and no one else was involved.
He was poisoned.
Agents killed Mr Williams then got into his flat through a skylight to dispose of any incriminating evidence.
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