Not impossible at all. I've already mentioned Wayne O'Donoghue going to Robert Holohan's parents house to offer to help search just hours after concealing his body. Larry Murphy went home and had sex with his wife after spending the night raping a woman in multiple locations and getting caught red handed in the act of trying to smother her.
Who knows when he wrote the article. It would have only been a ruse for what he got up to while he wasn`t in bed for approximately 8 hours. Not just for the Gardaí but initially for Jules. I don`t necessarily think Jules was an accessory here. She certainly doesn`t have to be part of any clean up.
Arianna didn't arrive till the next day. Virginia, I think, I arrived home in the early hours and went to bed. Presumably I&J were in bed?
There's no exact times in any of this, except at some point he got up to write an article which was due in earlier than usual with it being Christmas week. This has been verified by the newspaper and the editor who contacted him the next day to make sure he met the deadline.
So according to your theory, we have a half drunk IB who not only murdered a woman in a very tight time frame, he wrote an article about Internet coming to West Cork AND had it published days later!!
Man's a frickin mastermind.
We've heard a few things about the record of Judge Moran in this case. You are well aware of something very suspicious as regards the questioning of Jules Thomas. This is that some Guards were recorded discussing their displeasure with a colleague, who had taken Jules' statement when arrested, because he had written down that she was a truthful witness. They felt they would have to do something about this. She is effectively giving a solid alibi for someone who could be looking at spending years in prison if they don't have one, and these Guards would prefer he didn't have one and are wondering how to get it changed. Is that incredible? What more were they prepared to do?
So you are not correct in saying that the Guards "disbelieved" her. Quite the opposite. Some Guards found her truthful statement problematic but the Guard who took her statement believed her. It cannot be stressed enough that following 61 days in Court the 'State' decided to invoke the statute of limitations which meant that this particular fact, among others, could not be deliberated upon by a jury.
There are conflicting accounts all over this case because some witnesses are lying for whatever reason. Jules Thomas isn't one of them. There can only be diametrically opposite accounts of events if someone lies. The only problem with your kind of "right on all sides" argument is that we have a recorded conversation which is particularly damning for anybody who is suggesting Jules Thomas could be lying or not telling the full truth. The problem that the Guards have/had is that this information didn't come out until they had "built their case". Is it any wonder they didn't want to co-operate with GSOC.?
I think it's a very simple question to answer given the benefit of certain things which have come to light. I believe Jules Thomas was giving a truthful account of events on Dec 23rd 1996 when questioned in Feb 1997. I believe other witnesses are lying. Some of them have to be.
I don't believe Jules Thomas is a liar. Do you?
Sorry...not Ariana....I meant the daughter that came home at 2-30.
Its an interesting angle but we have no likely candidate who would need to use the studio as a refuge, and given how many people lived there not the best port in a storm.
What?? None of that made sense
You've given me an idea, could the studio have been used as a refuge by the killer and IB/JT then decided to clean up the scene for some reason.
I can't help thinking that IB may indeed be compromised in some peripheral way.
Of course. All my imagination. But the facts are he says he got up not long after going to bed. Ariana comes in at 2-30 and there`s no sign of him.
can you not see how unrealistic it is that you'd even have people come and stay if trying to conceal the fact you'd just murdered someone?
Not really, because to stop it you would have to call it off at very short notice, and rem there were few mobile phones about then. Also, it wasn't really Bailey having guests over, it is Jules house.
The more relevant evidence is: what did these people notice about Baileys behaviour the days after the murder. I can't believe that a human being could go through the trauma of that night, psychological and physical, and show no behavioral anomaly signs to those living with him in the following days. Absolutely impossible I would say.
This is all in your imaginary narrative, you understand?
Where did Jules' daughter come home from in the early hours of the 23rd? Would she have passed Ian if he was making his way towards Sophie's house? Is this the same daughter that contradicts Jules' statement that she didn't leave the house on the morning of the 23rd? If so she would likely say if she had seen somebody on the road as she was coming home.
With regard to the fire: If Bailey is the culprit, then like others have said he likely went back to the studio after the murder. Maybe he climbed into bed there, still in his clothes. Hence the need to burn the mattress and bed clothes. Bleach to clean up the room once the bed etc. was destroyed?
Just a theory to counter the arguments I've seen that say the stuff that is known to have been burned is not relevant to the murder.
Like I've said before I'm on the fence as to whether he did it or not.
He was gone before 2-30. She heard Jules snoring. I think they were probably all oblivious at the time. And he has hoodwinked nobody really. If he had we wouldn`t discussing any of this. The fact is he got lucky that he didn`t leave any trace of himself at the the scene, he just about got away with destroying the incriminating clothes. The rest is a shitshow but it seems people are happy to accept his versions and ignore the overwhelming testimony of a significant number of witnesses. Sure it`s all a big setup. Oh by the way,....I`ve been re-reading Gemma`s Village piece....the genesis of the confession in Bandon or lack thereof.
The problem is that Ian Bailey's limited "freedom" hangs by the thin thread that Ireland won't extradite him on a European arrest warrant. This is regardless of the question whether the trial in France was fair or not. Bailey can in my understanding only roam around Ireland freely and quite possibly can't even return to his native UK, as the UK authorities would quite possibly have to extradite him to France as well?
The main question which will be on Bailey's constant mind, is how long can the Republic of Ireland stay steadfast on this, plus I am sure that there will be general international pressures for Ireland to change this attitude, regardless of the Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder case or not.
And now, 25 years on, any kind of a fair re-trial with evidence and witnesses seems impossible. To date there is also nothing, not a single piece of evidence, that ties Bailey to the murder scene. And then there is the legal cost as well, plus Bailey seems to have unpaid legal bills from previous trials in Ireland as well?
It's irrelevant WHEN she arrived, can you not see how unrealistic it is that you'd even have people come and stay if trying to conceal the fact you'd just murdered someone?
I feel like common sense is largely missing from the entire garda narrative to be perfectly honest.
As pointed out by others above, there are conflicting accounts all over this case. That doesn't mean they are deliberately lying or covering up for someone. According to some there's a long list of witnesses in this case and most, if not all of them, were coerced or wanted to ingratiate themselves with the gardai for selfish reasons. It seems incredible that they would maintain this knowing someone could spend years in prison, right up until GSOC interviewed them again between 2102 and 2107/2018. It's not for me to say who is lying, that's for a jury or a judge. I know during the libel trial, the judge felt the witnesses for the newspapers, whom the DPP wrote off, were more convincing under cross examination and the judge accepted they were telling the truth.
Ariana said she heard about the murder on the bus down to West Cork so it was late in the afternoon before she got to the house.
Makes complete sense. I'd say if he was sill in bed with Jules at 2.30 am and that can be said reliably by the daughter, it's extremely difficult for Bailey to actually complete the murder in time, and not making use of a car. The main reason, why I think that Bailey is innocent is that no traces of him have been found at the murder scene, no fingerprints, no DNA, no hair, no fiber from his clothes, he also wasn't seen by anybody there. To date we also have no real credible motive for Bailey for the murder.
However regarding time frame it would still have been possible:
If the daughter was then asleep by 3.00 am, Bailey would sneak out of the house, to make it to Sophie at 4.00 am at the earliest. Would Sophie even have opened him the door at this time of the hour, not recognizing his voice? Suppose the bashing of Sophie's head was 10 to 15 minutes after meeting Bailey at the door. Bailey would then hiked home, blood all over himself, have returned home by 5.00 am at the earliest, most likely 6.00 am, shower at the studio, put on new clothes, clean up the mess, and be done by around 7.00 am in the morning. ( It would still have been dark at this time of the year...) Friends showing up at Jules house not before 9am, I would guess?
There were several other people, including one daughter coming home at 2.30am and noticing absolutely nothing amiss, in fact she heard snoring from Ian/jules room.
Not to mention the friend coming to stay on 23rd for Christmas, I mean... Imagine you've just murdered someone and welcoming a house full of young adults, coming and going. To believe bailey is guilty must also assume they were all complicit in some way, or absolutely oblivious which seems implausible either way.
Either that or he's a psychopathic mastermind who hoodwinked them all, and frankly, he isnt.
No bother
I apologise, I realised that now
I wasn`t replying to your last post.
With all due respect, I'm not addressing this to you
You have excluded one possibility here. She just thinks he didn`t do it and she is prepared to fib a bit to help what is in her mind an innocent man. He probably never confessed to her that he did it. He certainly wouldn`t have returned to a house full of people covered in blood stained clothes when he could have went to the studio down the road to clean up. She hasn`t a clue what he was up to during the 8 or 9 hours he was out of bed and had no reason not to believe he was writing his article. She believes him. Plenty here seem to too.
There is no doubt there were scratches on his hands and a scratch on his forehead. The question is when, how and why there might be confusion? Any time the family ask about the scratches he tells them the xmas tree, the turkeys etc. So for a few weeks nobody thinks anything about that until the Gardaí come knocking and get specific....."Ah yes....but when did ye all first notice the scratches? Was it before or after the night of the 22nd?" Jules acknowledges that she didn`t notice the scratch on his head until after the murder. She just accepts that it was there and she didn`t see it because his hair was covering it.
It is possible that Jules didn`t have clear memory of the timing of events on the 23rd and 24th and allowed herself to be led by Bailey on it. In the days after the murder he had to build a timeframe as best he could around when he first heard about the murder from Cassidy. This included putting Jules in Goleen on the 24th rather than the 23rd. But James Camier, the vegetable seller in Goleen has been specific in both his statement and also under cross examination by Bailey`s counsel. Jules Thomas was the first person to tell him about the murder on the morning of the 23rd before 11-30. From 2pm on the 23rd the murder was national news.
It is virtually impossible that James Camier has his dates mixed up and didn`t hear about the murder for another 24 hours. The same would apply to Bill Fuller.
The thing is, that in the house Ian lived, there would have been too many people around for things to go completely unnoticed, if Ian actually really came home his clothes full of blood. Or he took a shower and changed clothes at the Studio before returning to Jules, - after all that's a separate house a bit further away.
In general, I always thought that either Shirley or Jules knew a lot more than they were telling. Maybe they should come forward, if this murder can ever be solved.
Maybe not to destroy the grass. Also that is probobly not the first bonfire ever had at the property so perhaps that's just where the bonfire takes place. So the bonfire prior to that one may have been in the exact same spot but prior to any murder.
Jules Thomas is emphatic that there were no scratches but normal scrapes that were the result of Ian cutting down a tree something her daughter witnessed him doing. There were no new scratches on the morning of the 23rd. She said yes there was a fire but as far as she could recall much earlier maybe October or November. She denies all allegations about her movements on the 23rd and says that the investigators manipulated statements.
Anyone, like yourself, who persists with debating things, like whether Ian knew Sophie etc. is saying that Jules is a liar and that her daughters are also part of this conspiracy to evade justice. There is no other way.
Shirley Foster discovered the body and Alfie Lyons had a bandaged hand but not only was her alibi for Alfie seen as rock solid she was also able to place Jules and Ian at the scene of the crime much earlier than they said they arrived there.
Jules or Shirley is telling lies. Which one?
You persist with giving creedence to other witness statements on the morning of the 23rd whose accounts differ from those of Ian and Jules.
You have written extensively on this. Do you believe that Jules is a liar?
Maybe to prevent it being seen? It looks like there's another house directly behind the 'studio' house, maybe another one north of it too?
What would be the theoretical benefit of having it there from the point of view of someone trying to dispose of evidence? You could keep a close watch on it and make sure nothing blew away?
I've been trying to find a screenshot but can't find one from the Netflix series where they showed the remains of the fire. I agree that it looks very odd, the fire was right outside the door. Crazy having a fire so close to the house especially if it was to burn something big like a mattress. At the very least it looks a bit crap having a big burnt patch right outside the door.
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