The 'cottage' she was murdered in was enormous. This woman was rich. Her husband remarried eighteen months after her death. This murder was IN West Cork but why the assumption that this was OF West Cork?
Are there so many possibilities?
For someone claiming to be innocent all he had to do was tell the truth. There are more holes in IB's story (and that of his partner) than there are in Swiss cheese.
Well the gardaí started off with fifty or so potential suspects, known and unknown. Any of those perhaps someone living near, perhaps the driver of the blue ford, perhaps the other occupant if Marie Farrell's car, perhaps the mystery man seen in town the previous Saturday, perhaps the man who died saying he had done something terrible, perhaps whoever had been using her cottage, perhaps the possible passenger in Sophie's car, perhaps the person enquiring about B&Bs in West Cork and flights to France in the Galway travel agents, perhaps a former lover, perhaps a professional hit, perhaps whoever the unmatched DNA found near Sophie's boot lace, perhaps....
There are so many possibilities it does not make any sense to elevate one above another in the absence of solid evidence and without solid evidence I doubt there will ever be a conviction barring a confession.
The point I think in all of this is that IB likes to think he's clever as he messes around with people's heads with information he knows about the victim or crime.
He did something similar when he brought Donal McIntyre and Nick Foster with a camera crew out to a stone quarry and started smashing up rocks whilst carrying 15-20kg slabs.
He knows exactly what he's doing.
That's not really a competing theory, though. It's just another way of saying that Bailey is not guilty. A competing theory should have an alternative suspect, motive, means etc.
I don`t see the issue about him promoting his book..... good luck to him. Bailey clearly lied in his initial testimony about his whereabouts on the the night of the murder. It also appears that Jules Thomas lied about her whereabouts on the morning afterwards. There is also a witness statement that implies that Marie Farrell was expecting a payout if Bailey won his court case against the Gardaí.
Thanks for response.
I have Foster's book and look forward to reading it. My bias is that I have reservations given Foster's own self-promotion ("I put in a clue that only Ian would know")
Even if the method of transport, the car is correct, he drives there and kills Sophie after a failed tryst. Drives back and everything is fine.
What people perceive as erratic behavior from Ian could also be attributed to a journalist finally getting his foot in the game in Ireland after a hiatus from his success in England
Circumstantial evidence does equate to murder if you have enough of it. Bailey liked to walk at night, but he could have just driven there. I`m currently in the middle of Foster`s book and I have to say that my opinion of Jules Thomas has changed. There is a lot of witness testimony that contradicts her whereabouts on the morning after the murder, including that of one of her daughters.
The most compelling competing theory as to the circumstances of the murder is that someone else did it.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
He admits he made those admissions, he says he was being sarcastic.
Also he contradicts his own alibi, therefore he has no alibi.
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?
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.
Said by whom?
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.
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
https://magill.ie/archive/garda%C3%AD-fail-follow-lead-sophie-murder-case
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/missing-link-man-in-sophie-case-offers-new-help-26461911.html
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.
Did someone not encounter a french lad in Galway who was looking to get to west Cork, or had come from there?
Nobody else has been mentioned as seeing this mysterious french guy. Conveniently its only Marie who has seen him 3 times.
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?
The scientists in the FSI lab don't just use their 'naked eye' you know!
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.
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