Police Investigation into MI6 Spy's Death Plagued by Critical Errors
The mysterious death of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams continues to baffle investigators more than a decade after his decomposing body was discovered padlocked inside a sports bag in his Pimlico flat. New revelations have exposed significant failures in the police investigation, including detectives mistakenly identifying the name of a Welsh mountain as a secret code.
The Discovery and Initial Investigation
In August 2010, the body of 31-year-old mathematics prodigy Gareth Williams was found naked inside a red North Face holdall in the bathtub of his London apartment. The bag had been fastened with a padlock from the outside, with the key discovered underneath his body. The flat, frequently used to house intelligence personnel, had the heating turned to maximum despite it being midsummer, and forensic teams found no fingerprints on the bag, padlock, or bath surfaces.
Scotland Yard launched a major investigation, receiving unprecedented access to secret service operations due to Williams' position as a GCHQ worker on secondment to MI6. During their examination of his personal effects, officers discovered a jumbled phrase in his diary that they believed represented an "uncrackable" cipher potentially containing crucial clues about the circumstances leading to his death.
The Embarrassing Code Mistake
When detectives presented the supposed cipher to Williams' friends and associates, they immediately recognized it as "Cadair Idris" - the name of a prominent mountain in Wales written in Welsh. A source close to the family revealed that Williams had been training for the Snowdon marathon at the time of his death, making the mountain reference completely logical rather than cryptic.
"That just shows you how useless they were," the source told reporters, describing the error as one of several "embarrassing failures" in the police investigation. This fundamental misunderstanding of basic context highlights the challenges investigators faced when dealing with the complex world of intelligence work and Welsh language references.
Conflicting Conclusions and Expert Doubts
In 2012, coroner Fiona Wilcox concluded that Williams' death was "unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated," suggesting that a third party may have been involved in placing the bag in the bath. However, Scotland Yard maintained that Williams most likely died alone after accidentally locking himself inside the bag.
A comprehensive forensic review reopened in 2021 was closed in 2024, with police stating it identified no further lines of inquiry to disprove their primary theory. Despite this, numerous experts continue to question the official narrative that Williams acted alone.
Confined space rescue specialist Peter Faulding has conducted approximately 300 attempts to replicate locking the bag from the inside without leaving forensic traces, failing every time. He has publicly called the police's solo-death theory a "physical impossibility" that defies basic forensic science.
"My belief is that the bag was placed in the bath with Gareth dead already," Faulding explained. "Even if he could get in the bag, and even if he then padlocked it from the inside, there would be footprints and fingerprints all over the bath and the bag."
Current Status and Family Impact
The Metropolitan Police confirmed today that while they are not reopening the case, any new evidence will be reviewed by specialist detectives should it emerge, consistent with standard procedure for unexplained deaths. A spokesperson expressed that their thoughts remain with Williams' family, who continue to grieve his loss more than fifteen years after his mysterious death.
"Since 2010, we have carried out extensive enquiries into Gareth's death which has seen officers collect and review a significant amount of material and statements," the spokesperson stated. "As part of our investigation, officers also conducted a three-year forensic review. This was a thorough and in-depth process, which concluded in 2024 and identified no further lines of enquiry."
The case remains officially unresolved, with conflicting expert opinions, embarrassing investigative errors, and the fundamental question of how an intelligence prodigy ended up dead inside a padlocked bag continuing to generate speculation and doubt about the official conclusions.
