Old thread seems to be permanently locked. It will be interesting if anything can come of this at last.
Threadbanned Posters:
There is no evidence that the person in the bar in Cahersiveen ever meet Sophie.
Where are you getting that from?
Sorry I thought there was some connection, that the guy with the fake number plates and scratches was connected to those on the run.
But even more bizarrely... he is not. So wtf was he doing with fake number plates.
There's this pair:
"The pair were hiding out in the isolated rural area after receiving death threats from a French criminal gang. It is understood that Sophie had met the men while she was in Ireland and Gardai are investigating whether she was targeted because of her friendship with them."
Speculation but possibly the ungerers?
Yes but it wasn’t the day of the murder was it?
im not saying there’s anything in this, but a 2.5 hour drive isn’t much, especially if someone wanted to get away from a scene.
the article is by John Kieran’s though, who gets most of his information from Bailey, so this could just be another of his attempts to send folk on a wild goose chase. Unless Kieran’s has a genuine Garda source who is giving much more away than the lads in the press conference. Who knows.
Initially Farrell said the lad was 5'10 , sallow skinned and of slight build, so obviously not Bailey.
About the foreigner with scratches in Caherciveen, maybe it was Yu Ming.
Yea a two hour drive is not far but it's far enough away for the presence of a French speaking European with scratches on his face to be totally irrelevant to the case.
If the person was seen in Goleen or Bantry or Schull it would be a very different story.
Yu Ming.what has he got to do with it?
Yu Ming
It was the night after according to the article.
why would you hang around locally if you murdered someone? I can’t see how a 2 hour drive makes someone irrelevant.
ah look, at least if Bailey did it, they can’t see this time they didn’t look at other suspects too. 26 years too late like.
I love the way someone did a quick google on how long it would take to get from Schull to Cahersiveen and reports it as 2hrs and 35 minutes, (which it is based on someone leaving tomorrow in a modern car on much improved roads with no unexpected delays) and this is then in the space of two posts knocked back to 2 hours, which Billy Coleman with a co driver and no oncoming traffic wouldn't have had a hope of doing in 1996.
It sums up this thread and the quality of amateur detectives posting on it quite accurately. All that's short now is for someone to chime in with their alternative theory of the international drug gang connection and high speed boats and their personal recollection of how calm the sea was that evening.
What makes it irrelevant is that all it was was a person with scratches on his face who spoke French in a town two plus hours drive away from where a French woman was murdered a day earlier.
You might as well put a pin in Schull and draw a 80 mile radius and suspect every French speaking man with scratches on their face within that radius.
The road between Dublin and Cork has improved considerably since then but roads in west Cork and south Kerry not so much.
A few turns have been straightened and bad bends removed but no towns have been bypassed or anything like that.
So a car journey between Schull and Cahersiveen in 2022 would not be much shorter than the same journey in 1996.
So I'll use Google maps as a reference thank you very much.
"on much improved roads with no unexpected delays"
There's a motorway through the black valley now, and the jarveys have to use the hard shoulder. So that's at least 10 mins saved.
The article is a bit unclear but after the paragraph where it says the Cahersiveen man is the spitting image of the person following Sophie it says
"Gardai have the name of the man following Sophie and an address for him in France".
The inference is it is a different individual. Maybe he was a spotter for the hitman with the false number plates. It starts to look more like a contract on Sophie by her husband.
"Maybe he was a spotter for the hitman with the false number plates"
Boardsie`s Detective Agency will solve it in the end.
It starts to look more like a contract on Sophie by her husband.
Except it doesn't.
Yeah, it's probably best that you keep to your crime busting strategy of ignoring the facts while zooming around in your 1996 Ford Fiesta with the go faster stripes Fr. Ted. Interpol will be head hunting you soon.
But I'm not the one crime busting.
I'm doing the opposite.
I'm rubbishing theses notions that a French speaking person miles away has anything to do with the murder.
I've my mind made up long ago that the person with the history of violence towards women, the suspicious scratches, the lack of an alabi, the ambiguity about knowing the victim, the amazingly fast arrival at the scene, and the adminissions to numerous people that he did in fact kill her, is the actual murderer.
That evidence when taken together is quite compelling - that being said the suspect is yet to be charged and if charged, will be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
"So a car journey between Schull and Cahersiveen in 2022 would not be much shorter than the same journey in 1996."
Distance wise, the very same.
Time wise, probably quicker in 1996, as today you would probably get stuck behind someone like you in your campervan following Google maps and ending up causing a jam up Ballaghbeama gap or Glencar, which is where Google maps sends numpties that want the shortest route. Anyway the Caherciveen barman is probably another Marie Farrell time waster.
Agreed, I'd be taking anything Marie Farrell said with a pinch of salt. Or even a shovel full.
Indeed.
The manner of the killing is not the work of a hired (dispassionate) person.
Agree, the killer knew Sophie, and most probably Sophie knew her killer. She pulled on her outdoor boots, suggesting she planned to go outside, not just answer the door to a visitor. I doubt she would have gone out to a stranger. I believe they met down by the gates and a confrontation ensued. . She felt the visitor was trespassing on her property and was perhaps in the habit of doing so when she was not there. So someone local who came and went at will? She had no right to object to anyone coming in through the gate in the lane, but the gate into her lawn from the lane was her property and that gate may have been the reason for the confrontation. That gate was open when Shirley Foster found the body in the morning.
if they met by the gate why were there blood drops down along? I think they met at the door. She was hit. Touched the wound and tried to get back inside hence her blood on the door. Failing that she made a run and as she was bleeding there were droplets of blood falling as she ran
We don't know what evidence AGS may have regarding who Sophie met
There was blood all over the gate (Sophie's blood), I suggest that she was holding on to it after being dazed by a blow to the head... Was she trying to pull herself up whilst her attacker left the vicinity...??
Where was her attack going? I suggest up to the pump house to remove a loose concrete block to finish the job he had already started...
But the questions comes to the fore ... Who would know that the top course of concrete blocks were loose?? It had to be somebody with prior knowledge of the site...
"Who would know that the top course of concrete blocks were loose?? It had to be somebody with prior knowledge of the site..."
Indeed, here's what I think, bear with me;
First 2 images are of the pumphouse some time before the murder, Sophie is filmed walking past the pumphouse. The block used is arrowed in the second image .The top course is loose laid and some gaps are left for ventilation. Note the open gap in the ditch into the bottom of Sophie's lawn, just visible in the video..
.....
Third image is of the pumphouse in the crime scene photos.
Note the felt roof is lifted from the walls of the pumphouse and the arrowed block is now missing.
.........
Fourth image is the route the attacker took to get the block from the pumphouse, across the lane and about 15 yds uphill.
..................
Fifth image is from the crime scene photos of the new gate in the gap into the bottom of Sophie's lawn. This gate closed onto the pumphouse, (I haven't established whether it was padlocked or not.)
Note this gate along with the gate in the lane is open. This is how Shirley Foster found them that morning.
...................
A few things I would take from these images;
It was probably a dawn/ daylight attack.
As Flannell said , it was probably someone who knew the pumphouse and Sophie's house and surrounds.
It was probably someone whom Sophie knew well enough to venture out and engage with, most likely local. so obviously not Bailey.
"It was probably a dawn/daylight attack"
I see nothing in the pics that suggests that.
"so obviously not Bailey"
At least four witnesses telling lies then and a few more making mistaken identifications.
It was a ferocious assault .This is not some casual encounter gone wrong.
I presume that's the theory gardai are operating on , that this person was rejected by Sophie
Not obvious at all
Her husband said she was not afraid of anyone and could be very cutting
If she rejected bailey his big ego would have taken a bruising
I believe she was first hit at door and ran to gate. Her prints on gate do not rule that out
I don't believe her attacker arrived with sexual intent or with malice in mind. But the initial encounter, whether casual or confrontational escalated into a frenzied attack. In fact I don't think her attacker came there specifically to engage with Sophie, but for some mundane reason like maintenance or looking after animals or delivery, and Sophie objected to the incursion into her property.
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