"So a French journalist who interviewed him after he had been identified as a suspect was fairly wary of him and felt uncomfortable" Wimpy journalist hope they never go to to a war zone
I think Nick’s point was that IB never, to anyone’s knowledge in any case, mentioned Kali in his poetry, diaries or conversations with others. An attractive French journalist is interviewing him and, Nick believes, this seems to have triggered the association in IB’s mind: female French writer, an intellectual, very interested in Kali, this prompts IB to mention it to the journalist. It might have come to mind just by association with the situation or, maybe it was a deliberate provocative statement, if the French journalist knew how Sophie had spoken and written about Kali.
I don’t think it’s the smoking gun Nick thinks it is, but I do agree it’s suggestive.
Not even a non smoking gun with wet powder
The gate is not evidence. The evidence is the blood on it. Which samples were taken of. There was no need to keep the gate.
But they should at least have a record of what happened to the gate and when.
They do
Strange they couldn't provide this basic innocent explanation to GSOC when they were compiling their official report into the investigation and classified this as a missing piece of evidence? Along with the pages ripped from the evidence book?
Do ye guys think the gardai have the appetite for a new investigation?
We don’t know what explanation or process the gardai gave GSOC regarding the gate. They could just as easily given the same explanation they gave last week. The Gardai passed it to the forensic lab who disposed of it. The GSOC report list several items and says they requested information on the last known whereabouts and efforts made to locate each item. The report gives details for none of the responses they were provided with for any of the items and instead treats them all the same.
nah - there could be plenty of other stuff not visible to the naked eye
I mean, I know it's a small island, but surely we could find a spot for the gate - it's an unsolved murder investigation, not a "let's declutter" reality TV show.
The scientists in the FSI lab don't just use their 'naked eye' you know!
The gate should have been kept,
advances in forensics over the last 20 years may have shown up clues by now or in the future.
As an aside; have any of Maria Farrell's three 'sightings' been corroborated by anyone else around Schull?
Nobody else has been mentioned as seeing this mysterious french guy. Conveniently its only Marie who has seen him 3 times.
Did someone not encounter a french lad in Galway who was looking to get to west Cork, or had come from there?
Yes there was a travel agent in Galway who had enquiries from a French guy in the area around the time Sophie was murdered. The gardai never investigated this as far as Im aware. It would be interesting to compare both descriptions to see if they are similar.
Maries description has changed over the years so Im not sure if her sightings of this guy are reliable.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/missing-link-man-in-sophie-case-offers-new-help-26461911.html
https://magill.ie/archive/garda%C3%AD-fail-follow-lead-sophie-murder-case
Sorry, posting links on this new s(h)ite is crap!
It appears the Galway travel agent had dealings with Sophie and her French friends
several times in the past
It was said that a book was found on a table in the house with a marked Yeats poem titled 'A Dream of Death' - a verse about a young woman dying alone in a foreign land. Odd.
Said by whom?
The crime scene photos show a book held open on the table by a jar of honey, it looks like a novel. Definitely does not look like it's open on a poem.
Right, I've watched this series and am listening to the podcast West Cork. To be honest, digesting all the information I've encountered in these pieces so far, I'm no more convinced that Bailey committed the murder than I was before. If anything, I have more doubts.
So let's get back to basics on this a bit, at least for a moment. If one is to advocate the theory that Ian Bailey committed the murder, what is would be your prime piece of smoking gun evidence, while considering that,
A) The thing about Bailey cutting down the tree and killing the turkeys appears to have been at least partially corroborated in terms of them both being genuine events, though we'll now never know for certain if they led to the scratch marks.
B) Marie Farrell has since claimed that she was pressured by the Gards to identify Bailey.
C) The alleged confessions of Bailey to townsfolk were claimed by Bailey to be dark ironic comments taken wrong and out of context. Even so, this kind of hearsay is never the best evidence.
And for those who have doubts about Ian Bailey's guilt, what is, in yere opinion, the most compelling competing theory as to the circumstances of the murder?
He admits he made those admissions, he says he was being sarcastic.
Also he contradicts his own alibi, therefore he has no alibi.
No need to keep it at all. All evidence had been removed from it.
DNA and blood samples are not seen by the naked eye. If we were to go by your standards, no-one should ever be allowed into the house or gardens, just in case there was some evidence that could be found sometime in the future.
I think there is some evidence that the murder happened early in the morning, the undigested food, her travel plans, the speeding fiesta reported that morning.
The problem is there isn't enough hard evidence to hold up any theory.
My opinion is an early morning altercation over the closed gate with some random nut job trying to get to the neighbours house.
Not having an alibi means he cannot be ruled out as having been at the scene on the night in question, but you still need something that puts him there.
There is one comment made by Bailey where, if the witness is to be believed, cannot be discounted as mere sarcasm. The testimony of Richie Shelley,
“I thought it was a bit strange to see such a big man crying. He put his arms around me and said “I did it, I did it . . . I went too far,” said Shelley, adding he was shocked because he understood Bailey to be confessing to the murder. He said he would remember it until the day he dies.'
There remains the possibility that Shelley is misremembering or lying, but it is, in my opinion, a more compelling piece of testimony.
That "admission" took place in Dec 1998 but no statement was made on it until July 1999 - seems odd not to report an apparent admission of guilt from the prime suspect in a high profile murder case. From the DPP file:
"From the report of Inspector Horgan dated 27 July 1999 it appears that Richie and Rose Shelley have indicated that they did not come forward with the above information previously because they did not want an involvement in the case. This diminishes the credibility of their recollection still further. In fact Richie Shelley in his statement dated 19 June 2001 states that he did not come forward with the information until he was approached by the Gardaí. If the alleged conversation took place he did not attach sufficient weight to it to even bother reporting it.
Richie and Rose Shelley were collected from outside the Thomas house by John Shelley but neither Richie nor Rose bothered to tell John Shelley about the alleged admission.
On an overall basis the Shelley evidence is dangerously unreliable."
The problem with the Shelley statement is that word 'understood'.
Bailey was drunk and just woken up and he still didn't say what it was he did. He might have been referring to his attack on Jules or any number of things.
Also, the Shelleys met them for drinks again the very next day.
I don't think Bailey did it.
The West Cork podcast and the two documentaries both focussed on Bailey's odd character and circumstantial evidence.
An odd character plus circumstantial evidence does not equate to murder.
From the Praire cottage to Ms.Sophie's house was 40 minutes on foot and less on bike.
No media production has offered a plausible explanation as to how Bailey did it and covered his tracks.
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