Actually he was delivering to Alfie at 6 p.m. Sunday evening in the dark. Claims to have seen lights in upstairs and downstairs in Sophie's house. Which is odd as Yvonne Ungerer stated Sophie left theirs at 5.45 p.m. and then Sophie went to the pub.
There is no way a postman in Ireland would be delivering on a Sunday, even a Sunday before Christmas. He had Monday and Tuesday to deliver. Where would he pick the mail up from? No sorting offices would be open.
So what is the point of this self-evident lie? To place Alfie at home at that time or to place the postman there at that time? Or explain why Alfie had Monday's post delivered on Sunday getting around the problem of why the postie didn't find the body Monday morning?
Well you incorrectly claimed that for Bailey to be a suspect we have to believe he walked to Sophie's house, I don't think we need to assume that at all. That he left with no evidence of the attack on his person, no reason to believe this at all, in fact the bonfire and other statements suggest otherwise.
We know he did not resume his normal daily activities since the story he supposedly spent all night writing was supposed to be returned that morning yet he had to get an extension for another 24 hours. Several witnesses say he rang them that morning to cancel prior arrangements, Jules' daughter said they both left the house for an hour and two witnesses said they actually saw Jules in the area during that time. However, both of them say they were at home. Jules' daughter's partner claimed she was put under pressure to withdraw that statement that they had left but has refused.
So, no I don't accept your strawman arguments.
Of course you don't.
Mr. Blue Fiesta - Where was he racing to, or more like, racing from..?
No evidence yet provided that this man or his car ever existed, or that a statement making that claim is in the garda file. Happy to discuss it when we know its more than a convenient rumour.
Does anyone know where this story came from? Actual source? The only thing I've seen is IB bringing it up in Episode 4 of the Sky/Sheridan documentary. He says he found the statement in the Garda files during discovery in the French trial. Maybe/maybe not. There's a history there of him pointing out and/or offering up other suspects to divert attention away from himself.
I personally don't accept several of the assumptions you make in this post, nor are they even necessary for IB to remain a compelling suspect.
This is a case of being lured so close to the trees that you can no longer see the forest. Whether he faxed or dictated his article , for example, is academic.
Because there is no real evidence against Bailey, advocates of his guilt are forced into attempts at muddying the water by trying to shift the debate into the realms of ever more insignificant detail and hiding there, whilst desperately trying to divert attention from "the elephant in the room" Which is : there is no foundation to the case against him. Nothing to put him at the scene of the crime, nothing to link him to the victim, no motive.
Endless nit picking of insignificant trivia, assertion and counter assertion is a distraction and is just a game of point scoring. The overriding weakness in the case against Bailey is that there is nothing of real evidential value to implicate him.
Having, by now, read up extensively on the subject and taken on board the views, opinions and theories expressed on this and other forums, I would go further. The likelihood of Baily being guilty is very remote.
We are asked to accept that on a cold dark December night, a drunken man got out of his bed, walked three miles to the house of a person that he didn't know, battered her to death for no reason, managing, in the process to ensure that he left no evidence of his presence, and no evidence of the attack about his person, then walked back three miles, taking an inexplicable diversion en route. We are then expected to believe that he calmly brought his wife breakfast and resumed his normal daily activities as if nothing unusual had happened.
Furthermore, we are told, that he subsequently confessed his guilt to some drinking buddies and a fourteen year old boy, yet also managed to hide it, for 25 years, from his common law wife and her daughters, with whom he co-habited.
To compound the absurdity, we the learn that key witnesses against him claim manipulation, coercion and bribery by the Gardai to secure their testimony against him. Then the Gardai themselves lose, mishandle and, most tellingly, deliberately destroy evidence relating to the case.
It stinks.
You haven't given a reasonable example of someone pulling a drunken all-nighter to finish an article for a national newspaper which they said they had written out by hand and then typed by 10am but still needed a 24 hour extension to the deadline. With them then forgetting about this incident entirely despite having to dictate it over the phone last thing on Christmas Eve, a couple of hours after sorting out the, obviously more urgent, shortage of bleach in the house.
I accept some people may be disorganised and do some panic writing in the middle of the night, but they would remember it and they would definitely remember missing the deadline for a national newspaper, especially when trying to get a career in journalism back on track. You said this all sounds reasonable to you, that's fine, I just don't put any weight behind that opinion.
a classic put-down when someone can't reason with the response. I gave you scenarios that virtually every writer will experience on a regular basis and this is your best retort. Laughable
as I said, good luck to you and your wild imagination that bears no resemblance to the facts.
"Why would she put herself near the scene of the crime willingly to gardai if there was any possibility of being linked to it?"
Well, now couldn't you say that about Ian Bailey turning up at the crime scene the next day and making himself highly visible to Gardai, scratches and all?
And Marie Farrell didn't put herself willingly at the crime scene to Gardai, she phoned a confidential line making an anonymous tipoff about someone seen in the vicinity and was then tracked down by Gardai to her house as on one of her calls she used a landline. Her original calls were from a phonebox. So if the Gardai believe MF's story, then they must believe there was another man in the vicinity of the crime scene on that night, someone the Gardai haven't been able to track down, or establish who MF was having an affair with and connect the dots. For all we know she might have thought it would distract attention towards her sallow skinned short Frenchman. Or, she was making the whole thing up. Or was genuine.
10 years after the murder, Bolger told Gardai he saw Bailey being introduced to Sophie. So this incident happened maybe a dozen years before. A very brief introduction between two people not exactly close to Bolger, not a memorable moment now is it? Either Bolger has a photographic memory, or he was making it up.
Ignoring the known effects of interrogation techniques isn't rational though.
Do you have any other suspects? What about the person who had allegedly committed a crime at the property previously, breaking in using her bath, not sure how long prior that was.
I get the impression if he had said he gave it to a passing Saudi tribesman to deliver to the post office by camel someone would be on here saying they know someone that happened to several times.
There is a self confessed person driving around the roads near the murder scene at an ungodly hour of the morning. The same person contacts the Gards stating she seen a man down by the bridge the same night, but will not divulge the identity of the male she was with during the killing hours. (That makes at least two people in the area at the time of the murder)
Why would she put herself near the scene of the crime willingly to gardai if there was any possibility of being linked to it?
You have Alfie Lyons - Schull's answer to breaking bad doing his thing next door.
You have the young buck looking at a long sentence for drugs related offences, who magically provides details of a Bailey confession as his charges evaporate into thin air..
Lots of people growing 'medicinal plants' around the area at that time, probably still now. There's no indication that any of this was known by Sophie or that she was bothered by it, she brought her young teenage son to the place regularly.
Leo Bolger did not provide a 'Bailey confession', he said he saw Bailey being introduced to Sophie. This has no great value in a prosecution, Judge Moran had already accepted Alfie Lyons' testimony that he had introduced him. Leo's statement came almost 10 years after the DPP had officially shelved the case. It gives no significant advantage to the gardai, a 'trade' of suspended sentence for a very minor and inconsequential statement seems very far-fetched. Maybe when Leo provides a statement that he saw a blood-drenched, dark coat-wearing man about 6 foot tall throwing an axe into the sea while shouting poetry, we can seriously consider a conspiracy.
sorry if my personal experience is not plausible in your world. But looks like nothing that goes against your one tract thought process is plausible. That's the way the gardai acted too and I assure you, some gardai still act.
Good luck.
I find your contention that this is not just plausible but possibly a usual occurrence, implausible. IB was not exactly worked off his feet writing articles, he seems to have had very sporadic and scattered articles appearing in local papers. You think it's plausible he forgot the entire fiasco around a drunkenly written article written in the dead of night for a national newspaper, then having to explain why you need another 24 hours to get it in after they contact you to say the deadline is passed? Not only that, but your partner forgot to mention any of this either, even though they would later say how delighted he was with what he wrote when showing it to them the next morning?
Not in the last 18 months as the pubs have been closed. 😀 But sometimes I don't really get into the mode and the event comes right at you and the writing is done on the day itself. Doesn't happen often, but has happened and more frequently that I'd like to admit especially if its something you really can't be bothered to do. - And I just do this as a hobby so no more than 15-20 engagements in a year.
I drink very little, so put same scenario to someone that drinks regularly and add in the Christmas season and I (and anyone that does speech writing or article writing) certainly would see this a not just very plausible, but possibly something they've done themselves on several occasions.
Right, but when was the last time you waited to begin an article/speech/presentation until a couple of hours before the deadline, then begin after getting home from the pub, write it out in the early hours and then type it up in a house down the road, miss the deadline anyway, read it out over the phone the following day and then forget any of this ever happened for a few weeks?
as this is the dregs now.
The postman (and back then it was only men) would have to have something to deliver first. It was 23rd Dec. At that stage the amount of post has dwindled to very little as volumes tail off dramatically just before Christmas.
And as someone said, local postie would be getting a little tipple here and there and Christmas chats and of course a card and probably a tenner enclosed from many of the rural dwellers. Would probably be late afternoon before he got there, if he had anything to deliver.
🤣 Organised and efficient type? - I just showed this to my wife and she's still laughing.
I am dis-organised, a very very messy fecker and will leave things to the last minute. But I know which bundle of crap things are in. And yes, if I'm doing a speech the next day or doing a MC event, I can get up at 1am and double check element that I suddenly had thought I forgot and have done so as recently as last Friday.
And its the same for others especially when it is close to a deadline. I've two event in the next 7 days and haven't even started yet, so I know I'll wake with sweats on Thursday night. - But funny, it all turns out fine in the end.
And if the gardai or anyone else checked with a few other writers, you will be sure they will find the exact same process in most of them. Its the adrenaline and the fact that you are putting your name on it and if its not good, you may not get the next gig.
The deeper you look into the shenanigans going on around the time of the murder, the more obvious multiple lines of enquiry become ....
Strikes me as odd.... Alfie Lyons and his woman were minding a dog (s), yet neither one of them, nor their mutt heard the commotion going on outside right beside them... Nearly as strange as half the parish reporting their hounds acting queer around the same time in the early hours..
Why pinpoint Bailey as their prime suspect? There are plenty more people of interest to persue before him.
I don't know when Alfie moved there. He may have rented before he bought. But if he did not it means he was lying in the French documentary portraying himself as a friend of Sophie.
IB is posting on Twitter that Alfie was busted in 1997 for growing cannabis. And as we all know Leo Bolger was subsequently prosecuted for the same offence.
Pair of charmers.
I would suggest the postman had more drink on him than Bailey had the night before...
It was quite common for the rural folks to pour a shot of whiskey for the postman around Christmas time, in fact, it would be frowned upon if you didn't.
I remember 25yrs ago, our postie was blotto on the armchair with his van full of Christmas post outside the front gate.... When he eventually roused from his intoxicated slumber, he stated that was just what the Doctor ordered (a nap / falling unconscious), as his next call poured almighty measures of the good shtuff.....
So Bailey remembering what his movements were after a bender would be sketchy at best. Given that he was drinking till the small hours (I read somewhere Jules saying they were in a lock in that night), I doubt very much that Bailey could remember most, if anything of the previous 24hrs.
If you accept that Bailey is an alcoholic (granted, a functioning alcoholic), you also have to accept that his account of his movements on any given day are subject to variables depending on how much he consumed within the previous 12/24hrs.
He drinks wine like its blackcurrant cordial.
I'm guessing that Bailey was relaying a typical night after drinking heavily - Get mangled, go home, pour a couple of night caps, head up the stairs.... goodnight vienna!
Jules recalls him getting up during the night.... Bailey has to ponder what the f*ck he got up for... Oh yeah, to write a piece on computers or something, but can also pour a few shots of something too...
Alcoholics are the same as any other addict, they'll do anything to get another shot of liquor. I suggest that was what was driving him more that some French bird who was probably in bed anyway, a couple of miles away over the bleak moors of West Cork.
I think he only had a typewriter then.
This could have been verified if the Gardaí had done so at the time.
If he created a document on his computer it would retain the time created in the document properties, assuming once created he wouldn't need to change it.
And if he printed the document out there may be a record on the PC time-stamping when the document was sent to the printer.
If I was interested in him as a suspect, surely I would confiscate his computer and check these kinds of things. Haven't heard whether they did or not though.
From the DPP file
"8. Bailey states that it is not unusual for him to get up during the night but on
this occasion he had to get up because he had a story to write for the
Sunday Tribune and it had to be submitted on Monday 23 December
1996.
9. He states that this was a very difficult story because it was about
computers and he found it difficult to write 900 words on this subject
which had to refer to computer language etc.
He states that he hand wrote the story in the kitchen of Jules' house and
then between 7.00 and 8.00 a.m. as dawn was approaching, the first light
of the day was beginning to show, he went to type it below in the studio.
He says that he had to fax the story as he could not dictate it. Normally
he dictates his story by telephone."
A white-hot new trend called 'Internet cafes'...
Some dodgy Garda from Bantry who had a fluorescent blue fiesta................😮
Nah, it was about the internet or something along those lines; can you imagine the guff he was writing 😆
What was the story about?
I can't really see any significance to this slight anomaly Edhoven, ....am I missing something?
You don't find it curious in the French documentary he had an elaborate story about how he was advising Sophie when she moved in, showing her around the house, advising her about tradesmen, when on available evidence it could not have happened?
Postman in a rural area at Christmas would probably be running a lot later than normal and many rural areas don't have milk / newspaper deliveries. I grew up in a less isolated rural area and we never had these.
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