The Murder of the 10th Earl of Shaftesbury | Millionaire Murders | Forensic Files

[Music] [Music] [Music] the code daier stretches from uh Monaco across to uh Sant trpe and just beyond
and it's been a holiday playground for a good two centuries if not more we're dealing with a very glitzy
moneyed part of Europe the massively wealthy all live along the French Riviera a lot of it you could almost say
is based around Monaco one of the richest places in the [Music] world places like can Sant
Trope all those kind of Seaside results have always been associated with film stars we say billionaire businessmen
nowadays not even just multi-millionaires there's so much money there you see it in the very flash cars
that you see along the coast you see it on the super Yachts it's a very rich moneyed
area the central player in this drama was of course Anthony Ashley Cooper the 10th Earl of shpr he was somebody who is
interesting as a person um but also very interesting historically his family go back many centuries
and really are a part of British history he had arrived from England in n on the 4th of November 2004 the purpose
of the visit was to meet his third wife Jamila bar from whom he wanted a divorce
so that he could marry for a fourth time to another woman he'd met nardia Hawk he visited a fortune teller oddly
enough he confided in the fortune tell his desire to divorce and start a new life
with this woman and the visit ended with the fortune teller saying that happiness
lies ahead for you the day he's due to go to meet Jamila he's in the bar of the hotel at a
Hilton hotel in K's the ban serves the Earl his second drink of the day at at 11:00 in the morning when the ear
receives a phone call and the remark he makes to the barman is I have to go and see somebody but leave the drink there
I'll be back he then walks out of the hotel and that is the last time anybody saw the Earl
alive my involvement with a case was in 2004 a file landed on my desk in the office in relation to inquiries that
needed to be done by the French police a missing person inquiry the file related
to The Disappearance of Anthony Ashley Cooper the Earl of Shaftsbury I was in London when I first
heard of The Disappearance of Lord chy clearly somebody's disappearance is uh interesting at all
times but if you've got a peer of the realm who is missing in strange circumstances it becomes even more
interesting for obvious reasons so the police in Sussex and the police in Dorset were tasked to go and
speak to the family to family members to speak to business associates to get as much background as possible on the ear
his movements and any place that he may well be that could be traced to Lord shpi was an old etonian he'd been
to Oxford he lived uh on a country of State the Earl had two sons Anthony and Nicholas the shrey family are part of
British aristocracy they were very well to do a flamboyant Lord some did a lot of
character with a lot of influence a lot of friends and crucially a lot of money houses uh all over the world huge uh
easy access to to Ready Cash uh this was a a fortune which in total was worth many
millions of pounds even on the values then and would have been worth a lot more now the Earl was essentially a good
man with many many fine qualities he was philanthropic he was very active in conservation he'd been honored his
family had a noble tradition of Humane causes he was just the kind of person who would find Escape in
Cosmopolitan moneyed sophisticated area full of people from uh all over the world uh enjoying themselves drinking
very expens of champagne eating Cordon blur meals staying in magnificent hotels finding pleasure
[Music] everywhere he is somebody who could fly anywhere he wanted in the world he could
go and see old friends he might go and have a lot to drink sleep in for a day or two and so for that reason there was
no real worry to begin [Music] with the Sussex police sent a report to the French
police and more aspect of his lifestyle became apparent I had a copy of that um and it was fairly obvious from the
contents of that report of the people they've spoken to that the Earl uh led a very hedonistic Life Style there was
certainly alcohol involved in his life uh to the point I think where it would be fair to say that he was an alcoholic
and this really should have rung alarm Bells right at the very start there was a lots of slight
relationship by slight relationships I mean ones that aren't based on a great deal apart from a great deal of
money so if I had to describe the Earl's lifestyle I would definitely say extravagance and decadence so he had a
reputation for being a bit of a socialite bit of a partygoer he had a string of relationships with women he
would bestow upon them expensive Jewelry and Gifts so there we have incredibly good
living the uh ability to be able to buy what he wanted whether it was a new house a new car or D I say a new
girlfriend that is a classic example of the massive Danger of unlimited inherited
wealth it's part of the pattern that the Earl has had throughout all his life he
seems to meet beautiful women is smitten and then there's a roller coaster ride because he has money and he Bank rolls
and they lead a high life if a woman in his life who he had married or had been spending a lot of
time with wasn't very happy with him and was attacking him in whatever way he could just say look I'll buy you a house
I'll buy you a car I'll give some money to your relatives and of course this was
absolutely disastrous I think it would be fair to say that initially in the first few days
the family were not particularly worried when the Earl wasn't in contact with him
despite his lifestyle and the fact that he would not contact them for several days he had this apparent tendency to go
off unannounced out of contact it was unlikely to completely disappear for more than a day or two before people
started getting extremely worried about him for him then to not have contact for
several days in itself was not unusual But after those few days had gone his family they would generally have some
contact it was only when that period of time started to grow and of course uh it
was inevitably one of the women in his life nardia was spending a lot of time with the ear by this point in his life
and she clearly became seriously worried his family who by then were expressing extreme concern about his
whereabouts so Nadia orc mentioned this to Lord Char's a lawyer in the south of France and the lawyer thought well look
there's something going on here it's looking extremely worrying and so he went to the police on the 15th and then
we were looking at a missing person's inquiry and then everything could be done to try and find the
Lord the initial thoughts were that he had done what he done in the past he's gone on a Bender drinking drugs women
and he would turn up eventually and then as the T go by the family we starting to
become concerned the media was becoming very interested in this story for obvious
reasons a peer of the realm had gone missing in France from a family which is really a part of British history
somebody who was a significant figure and because he was missing to begin with people were
working out theories as to why he might be missing I think everywhere in the world captured the
imagination as part of the investigation you have to look at the wealth that's involved here because that could be a
motive for an abduction or a murder the apartment that the Earl owned in Versailles um he'd furnished with3
Million worth of Arts antique furniture alone and it will be a fair assumption that criminal Enterprise Russian mafia
North African gangs will become involved because to kidnap the Earl and demand a
ransom would certainly be a huge payout a missing ear inevitably leads to conspiracy theories look at the case of
British ear Lord Lucan he went missing in the 1970s we still regularly hear conspiracy
theories about him very early on I got the impression that the missing uh Lord charby was turning into another Lord
Lucan type case all the ingredients were there last seen in a beautiful part of France let's not forget about
that a whole range of just total off-the-wall speculation um that would have had the
effect of muddying the waters for the French police and their investigative process and so it was inevitable that
all these theories came out and they were all investigated and of course all these
theories came to nothing but what we do know is that he had plans to visit his estranged wife
and again alarm Bell should have been ringing he's getting divorced let's look at the
wife he had a ponchon for foreign women his first wife was a entian banker's daughter second wife u a Swedish
ambassador's daughter and then we had jam and [Music] bar so Jamila and barck was born in lens
in France and she had a Moroccan father and a Tunisian mother she was one of seven siblings her father was a cooner
of Tunisian origin by all accounts was not a particularly happy [Music] childhood she eventually persuades her
mother that she should go to Switzerland so she could learn languages and she goes there
with her sister in Switzerland Jamila very quickly drops out of Education she's found the high life she's found clubs
casinos Jamila then met and married a wealthy Dutch businessman he had two children but unfortunately the marriage
fell through and she left with the kids and to support herself after her divorce
she started working as a high-end escort so her clients would include high-profile people and the
wealthy they travel to France to K's and then one day she gets a call from a fellow colleague of hers who had an
arrangement to meet the L of shury in Versailles at his apartment and she's not able to make that so she asked
Jamilla if she can do that appointment which she duly does the ear met janilla just before
2002 and she fitted his um ideal female company to a [Music] te there's no doubt about it they
enjoyed each other's company it will be fair to say at this point at that first initial meeting the
Earl is absolutely SM Mitten with Jamila she's beautiful she's exotic the type of
woman that he likes he makes concerted efforts for them to be together to the extent within
a matter of weeks they move to ks he buys an apartment there for her and him and her two children from a
previous marriage of course when Lord Char's family found out that he was not just
seeing a call girl but he actually wanted to marry her and turn her into lady [Music]
shpr now the marriage between the Earl and jimiller took place in the Netherlands in November
2002 if you look at it from Jim Miller's perspective this is now this wonderful lifestyle she's married into British
aristocracy there are the trappings of wealth a huge country estate they have apartments in
France and it's almost as if all her Christmases have come together in one moment but the family reject her there
was certainly one occasion in a restaurant in London where the Earl introduces Jamila to his two
sons um Anthony and Nicholas and Anthony St storms out of the restaurant and refuses to
meet his father's new wife the Carries On with his lifestyle even though he's married he's drinking
heavily and he will go drinking for days and days on [Music] end when it became clear that there was
a lot of antagonism between them they couldn't function as a married couple and indeed that Lord charp was seeing
other women the ear this point in time has a girlfriend uh a French woman called Nadia
or and when that happened clearly Jam found out what was going on and that was hugely
combustible Jam was hugely angry one might even say jealous of the new woman in uh Lord shp's life there are
arguments developing but in the same breath the Earl as a wedding present has bought her another property a mill
further down the coast there are cars that are given to her but there are already Rifts very quickly coming into
the relationship and then the marriage between Jamila and the Earl breaks down it's no huge surprise to me the Earl
already had a long string of failed relationships and marriages and I think there were a number of factors I think
some of it was the ear's behavior but also some of jamila's behavior as well so she had apparently lied about being
pregnant and when the Earl found out about this he would have been upset jamila's lie about being pregnant seems
to me like a desperate attempt to keep the Earl interested in their relationship the whole thing really
started to disintegrate in a very serious manner certainly by 2004 the marriage was at an end and the ear eventually
started to file for divorce from Jamila what is happening at this point is his solicitor has made an offer to Jamila in
relation to the divorce she's asking for a fairly substantial amount of money in
a divorce settlement um which is being rejected and this of course is a point of
conflict the police made this rather exceptional appeal for information into the um whereabouts of the ear of
chasbury who had been missing for by then a couple of weeks there was s a possibility that Lord shpi was going
through a particularly unhappy stage in his life and just wanted to disappear himself just get away from it all
nothing was ruled out the very fact he's only been married for a year should have
rung at least a very small investigation Bell that should have peaked their investigative
curiosity regardless of whether there is the appearance of a distressed worried wife we know that on the 4th of November
the Earl travels back to France to try and sort out some details of the divorce and he contacts jimila and tells her
that he will be contacting her coming around to see her the next day to sort out some details involving the
divorce she had claims on other properties of his which were dotted around France and uh in the UK and
Ireland Lord Shaftsbury was paying his wife the equivalent of about 10,000 e each month and she also had this flat
which was duplex in superan worth more than million euros all the uh ins and outs of the
settlement were meant to be agreed and then he was going to go home back to Britain what inevitably
happened instead was that of course he disappeared in terms of how Jamila reacted when the
news broke that the Earl was missing this was exactly what one might expect she was really
upset she was inconsolable distraught uh barely coherent I felt and the only thing I remember her saying
which was quotable was that uh she was as worried as anyone about his disappearance we have this period when
the early is last seen on on the 5th of November he was due to return from n having completed the mission which was
to confirm that he wished to divorce that he wished to extricate himself from the expensive Financial Arrangements he
had with Jamila the had been missing for several weeks now and had no contact and it's
out of character I think you've got to now say quite categorically that the ear is more than
likely come to some harm the police focused on Jamila mabarak uh his wife at the time lord shpi was missing
Jamila was acting in a very eccentric strange way Jam leaves France and travels to the
Netherlands and to Germany her brother lives in Germany she travels there then she goes to
Switzerland and then eventually to Tunisia to her family there she was darting around uh all over the world
there were visits to Turkey to Germany and to other parts uh of Europe right up till February
2005 when she booked herself into uh a place where she was looked after psychologically we know that Jamila
checked herself into a psychiatric unit it's a bit hard to know exactly what was
going on because the details are sparse but to me there's a few different distinct possibilities it could be that
she was genuinely quite quite upset in her mental state and she wasn't coping related to the ear going missing or it
could be that she'd been guilty of something and she couldn't take the pressure which led to a breakdown and
this really is where the Breakthrough comes in the French investigation when Jamila was in this psychiatric unit she
was having conversations on the telephone with her sister there were clearly suspicions by
this time and the police applied to bug her phone this is very common in France it's
not that difficult to persuade a judge to um be able to bug somebody's phone when the police listen to the
[Music] recording sometimes they're speaking uh in Arabic sometimes in French they're
speaking in low voices in Whispers she mentioned money which she had transferred to her
brother at some point Jamila has given her brother Muhammad €150,000 and she also talked to her sister about
her intention of blaming her brother for the death there was an argu arents to her
house the argument was in relation apparently to some money that the ear allegedly owed to Muhammad Jamil's
brother when she returned to the room she says the O was dead and Muhammad the brother was saying it
was an accident he had taken the old's body into his BMW car and driven it off she'd
gone in her car and followed him for some distance and then stopped while he'd actually then gone and dumped the
body and then they' both returned to the house so if we think about why Jamila opened up to her sister why she made
these confessions it could be simply that she just trusted her sister or it could be that Jilla was just filled with
this this anxiety and this guilt about what she did and she just needed to let go of that she needed to disperse these
emotions and sister was a natural partner to do this [Music] with the bugging work extremely well it
has to be said they completely caught janilla unaware that recording in the hospital
now gives them something to ask Jamila something to put to her about the whereabouts of the year and the 5th of
November 200 for we use a method called ABC you accept nothing you believe nothing and you check
[Music] everything J clearly realized that a great deal of evidence was being built
up against her and she made that jump which alleged criminals often do from dying everything to mitigating to not
saying look I didn't do it I had nothing to do with it I don't know what you're talking about but to saying well look
okay perhaps I was involved but I wasn't really involved because because because
and this is what she started doing in this case interviewing a homicide suspect involves a
strategy it involves if at all possible asking questions to the person that you already
know the answer to and in that that way not only are you finding out when they're lying but also what they're
lying about she described this meeting back in November 204 as one that was an important uh
meeting to sort out her future to sort out where Lord Char's money would be going and Muhammad had turned up
there was an argument between Lord charpy and Muhammad and then it sounded very much as though Muhammad had killed
Lord Char although she did say that it was an accident that uh he was an older man of
course Muhammad was a much stronger younger man and everything had got out of hand that there was this terrible
argument Lord SHP ended up with a broken neck and died her main line of argument
was that Muhammad was to blame for what had happened and not her so we know that Jamila confessed to
the police but the natural question is why I mean it could just be genuine guilt and remorse or it could be that
she realized that there was an Evidence trail that was being built and that the the hands of the LA were literally
squeezing around her and she realized that now was the time to try and shift as much blame as possible onto her
brother she claimed that her brother Muhammad had battered him to death that was the obvious breakthrough
the jima's earliest admissions that she was present when the ill died allbe it that she was
was presenting her own role in innocent terms after putting Muhammad in the frame it was pretty clear that Muhammad
was in a great deal of trouble Jamila had really turned him into the number one suspect in the
[Music] case police moved immediately meaning of course that Muhammad couldn't be briefed
as to what uh Jamila had been saying about him so immediately Muhammad was arrested in
Munich it was just a day later that Muhammad was in turn arrested in Germany and quickly expedited to France Lord
Char or dare I say Lord Char's body was still missing [Music] we now have a situation where Jamila and Muhammad
arrested and they're being interviewed and it's the comparison of those stories as well that is vital to the
investigation his approach initially was to deny everything that's often what happens when uh Criminal are implicated
in very serious crimes he initially tells police that his sister is crazy uh and he wasn't involved whatsoever
because he flew back to France on the 4th of November and this was proved and he spent the the day in the next days
with his family the problem is that the French police quickly proved that having
flown back to Munich he then got in his car a BMW and then drove from Munich all
the way back down to [Music] K's the police in France were very quick to establish Beyond doubt in their minds
that Muhammad's story of not even being in France when the Earl was murdered simply wasn't true they did this through
phone records of which show that he was indeed in France and gone back to Munich
as quickly as he could the police start to do sell site analysis on Muhammad's phone and also on
jamilla's phone and what they find is on the day of the murder in tracking those
phones they both go from KS South following the bay around and then in land Jamila stops about 3 or 4 miles away
from where Muhammed eventually ends up and having got those locations the police are then able to focus some
searching and it was three phone triangulation that they came up with this spot in to surir in a huge National
Park the obvious inference being is that because they've driven out into the valleys and Ravines and the French
Riviera but that is most likely where they have deposited the 's body Jamila has insisted that she didn't
help with the disposal of the body Jamila has always said she stopped before the issue you will have is that
whilst both vehicles stop you have no proof that Jamila stayed in her car while Muhammad drove and deposited the
body on his own equally you don't have any evidence that Jamila got out of her car left the phone in the car and went
with Muhammad to deposit the body because they both returned together having picked up her car because of the
sside analysis the police now have an area where they can focus their searching 5 months after the O
disappeared they discovered at the bottom of the Ravine the decomposed and skeletal remains of a human
[Music] being and it was down a gully very difficult to find the kind of place that
most people would steer clear of uh it's normally uh very hot weather down there
very isolated lots of bracken Lots of uh dumping of litter and whatever down there not the kind of place you would
normally be looking for anybody the body had been left uh at the bottom of a gully wild animals had been
picking at it he had been dressed in one of his suits and the thought of this distinguish uh English gentleman uh
ending his days in such horrible circumstances he could only be identified in the end through
[Music] DNA the level of decomposition 5 months it makes causes of death difficult
there'll be a level of decomposition that means that any uh injuries to the flesh would not be there um you would
not be able to see them um because that will mostly have gone um what you're relying on really are bony and cartilage
injuries there's always huge shock when a body is found in any missing person inquiry criminal inquiry uh by this
stage and in this case there was huge amount of shock but people by this time were still hoping against hope that this
very moneyed individual somebody who could potentially turn up anywhere in the world under their own Steam
might suddenly be found that it took a full 11 days to identify this mangle corpse dumped at
the bottom uh of a valley then as a result of DNA analysis it's identified of that of Anthony
Ashley Cooper the 10th Earl of Shel spry what they discovered during the postmortem was the cartridges in the
ear's throat had been fractured had been ruptured and that generally occurs during manual strangulation in other
words where something has being put around their neck and squeezed tightly and that causes those cartilages that
are more delicate than bones to actually fracture and that is just indicative of manual
strangulation and that is what the cause of death was but clearly this was proof that Lord
trpr had not only disappeared in horrific circumstances but had clearly died in horrific circumstances as
well both jiller and mammad they're both charged with the murder of the Earl and
they're remanded in custody to appear in court so the case finally came to trial
in May 2007 there are no pleas in French criminal trials it was pretty clear that
the two defendant didn't consider themselves to be guilty but it became again pretty clear once they gave their
teses in court and they were cross-examined that they considered themselves to be
innocent we had the um recorded evidence of the phone taps in which Jim quite clearly talks about the the way in which
the old died paying her brother a large sum of money and in fact she paid him a substantial amount of money around
€150,000 and she intending to blame her brother for his death and we had the evidence
quickly proved by the police which shattered The Alibi of her brother he made this 24-hour round trip uh Munich
purely to give himself uh an alibi there is evidence of premeditation the events beforehand the
cell site analysis around location where the 's bodies eventually found the flying away to Munich he then got in his
car a BMW and then drove from Munich all the way back down to K's covertly you could say why not just fly back but I
think there is certainly evidence there of premeditation premeditation in the end wasn't that
difficult for the police to prove move I mean initially it had been a difficult investigation but I think the pieces
fell into place quite steadily and uh in a way which they left the culprit with very little viable defense the fact that
they had been at the site where they dumped the body early on and that they had spoken on the phone about uh sorting
out Lord charby and indeed money had been paid and of course the key bit of evidence that Lord try had actually died
in horrible circumstances this is what gave them the right they felt to prosecute a premeditated murder the
defense argued will look um they had every right to all meet up to discuss uh where all the money was going things got
ugly this was their final defense and as happens with domestic arguments things got out of hand and uh a death was a
result but that death wasn't premeditated it wasn't a murder it was a tragic [Music]
accident of course during the trial Jamila continued to portray herself in the same way so she was this grieving
Widow but we also learned during the trial that she had made active attempts to find out what was in the Earl's will
so specifically what properties what uh finances she would lose if the marriage had ended so to me her outward behavior
is all deceitful it's all manipulative she knew exactly what she was doing Jamila was tearful in in in court um
maintaining her innocence of uh any deliberate act uh to cause her husband's death uh Muhammad was sometimes very
agitated aggressive he turned on the family at one stage blaming them shouting at them and saying you're the
rich you're responsible for this of course what he was doing was showing off his temper and showing off how angry he
could become and that didn't do his defense any good at all the climax of the case was the Friday
night on the 26th of May the jury retired 2 hours later just 2 hours they came back with a unanimous verdict of
guilty both Muhammad and Jamila mbarak found guilty of the murder of Anthony Ashley Cooper the 10th Earl of
shury both were sentenced to 25 years [Music] imprisonment the end of a trial and
certainly the conviction of people who have been involved in the death of a loved one will always come as as a great
sense of relief and and justice for the uh for the family and the 's family is no different in that respect for them
there was an element of closure it's an overworked emotion but it it exists in terms of my final thoughts for this case
to me it is just a picture of what can potentially happen when two two Different Worlds Collide so on the one
hand you've got Hedonism you've got decadence you've got money and wealth and boastfulness on the other hand
you've got poverty and Desperation which obviously can breed jealousy so I think
this just shows what the potential consequences of that can be this was certainly one of the more memorable such
cases uh partly because of where it happened the uh obvious glamour of uh the south of France and the involvement
of nobility and uh the the mismatch of a victim and culprit but it it's not a case I'll easily forget this is
certainly one of the most fascinating and indeed tragic and sad uh cases I've covered in my career I think it had such
a tragic Arc to it really Lord shapre I have to say I've never met him before his death but he came across as a great
character as a very affable and interesting man despite his uh personal problems there was some sympathy for the
Mubarak family they came from a very hard tough uh immigrant background all these sort of story lines all clashing
together in what turned out to be a hugely tragic and indeed compelling case and we saw it's uh all very clear what
had happened from the beginning right through to the end this case to me is immensely interesting from a
professional investigator perspective but also now as an academic it has everything it has
multiple jurisdictions it has sex it has money it has murder and they all Mill together
it's what makes it an interesting case there is a saying that uh money is the root of all evil and in actual fact
that saying is not correct the correct saying is the love of money is the root of all evil and I
think that's what we have in this case the Love of Money [Music] [Music]

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 10th Earl of Shaftesbury, vanished in 2004, sparking a high-profile investigation. His remains were found in 2005, revealing he was murdered by his estranged wife and her brother over financial disputes.

Greed, jealousy, revenge, lust, anger — any and all are motives for murder. When there's cash involved, the stakes are even higher. Explore a new case in each episode of Millionaire Murders.

Brief Summary

The episode details the murder of Anthony Ashley Cooper, revealing a web of deceit involving his estranged wife and brother-in-law.

Key points

The Earl's Hedonistic Lifestyle. The Earl's extravagant lifestyle raises concerns about his disappearance.
The Disappearance of Lord Shaftesbury. The Earl's mysterious disappearance sparks a media frenzy and police investigation.
Jamila's Turbulent Past. Jamila's journey from a high-end escort to marrying into British aristocracy is fraught with challenges.
The Investigation Begins. As the Earl goes missing, police begin to investigate his lifestyle and relationships.
Jamila's Eccentric Behavior. Jamila's strange actions after the Earl's disappearance raise suspicions.
Murder Charges Filed. Jamila and Muhammad are charged with the murder of the Earl, leading to a trial.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I have to go and see somebody, but leave the drink there, I'll be back.

The Earl's last words before disappearing.

3:08WatchApr 13, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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