The Spy in the Bag: New Revelations - Channel 5
14 years after an MI6 spy was found dead in a padlocked bag, the mystery has finally been solved… or has it?
14 years after an MI6 spy was found dead in a padlocked bag, the mystery has finally been solved… or has it?
In 2010 Gareth Williams, an MI6 spy, was found dead inside a padlocked duffel bag in the bath of his London flat.
In 2024 an forensic review concluded that he must have acted alone. Case closed. Or is it?
For some… the mystery remains unsolved. And the evidence of a cover-up is overwhelming.
A post-mortem examination carried out by a Home Office pathologist failed to determine the cause of death, but in 2012 a coroner ruled that it was likely Williams had been unlawfully killed, before the Metropolitan Police concluded he had acted alone.
But three years ago, Scotland Yard ordered a forensic review into Williams’ death. Using modern forensic techniques, not available at the time of his death, lab tests were carried out on key items from in his government-owned flat in Pimlico.
The review was front page news and revealed a major breakthrough: detectives were now finally able to identify the DNA discovered on a green towel in a kitchen cupboard in the flat, described at the time by investigators as a “significant find”. It belonged to Williams rather than a third party.
Several other items found in the two-bedroom flat where he lived alone were also considered for re-testing, including the holdall, its zip toggle and the padlock and its key. No footprints or fingerprints were found in and around the bathtub in which the bag was found.
The police claim that that this revelation means Williams must have acted alone, but those close to the case believe this is just another cover up.
Despite the latest forensic evidence, there are too many unanswered questions: if Williams had decided to take his own life or if this was a sex-game gone wrong, a popular theory at the time, how did he get into the bag in the bath without leaving a trace? Why did he leave all the lights on in his flat? And why, on a mid-summer’s day, did he turn his heating up full blast?
Using several new interviews with the people at the heart of the investigation this documentary delves deeper than ever before into this shocking unsolved mystery.
