Old thread seems to be permanently locked. It will be interesting if anything can come of this at last.
Threadbanned Posters:
I find this really interesting.
Melita certainly had a motive. Of course people from violent backgrounds don't always go on to be violent themselves, but there's no limit to how a seven-year-old's brain chemistry could be affected by their father killing their mother.
I'm reluctant to put much stock in Marie Farrell's testimony at this point but it's interesting how closely her description of the original man matches Melita's brother.
There's also the report of the Frenchman who came into a Galway travel agent in Galway the very same day that Sophie's body was found.
'Mr Sweeney said the man came into his travel agent business at 2.30pm on December 23, 1996 -- four-and-a-half hours after Sophie's bludgeoned body was discovered outside her holiday home, near Schull, Co Cork.
The man was looking for a hotel near Dublin Airport and also for the numbers of bed and breakfasts in west Cork, as he had left one without paying.'
and from another source:
'Yesterday, in a Sunday newspaper, Mr Sweeney, 62, said he told gardaí a man fitting Ms Farrell's original description of the suspect had booked flights from Dublin to France the day after Ms du Plantier's murder. Ms Farrell originally described the suspect as sallow and of medium height, at odds with Mr Bailey's stature.'
I believe he later identified the man as Sophie's former lover Bruno Carbonnet. But he might have been mistaken.
VERY strange to have left a B&B in west Cork without paying.
There's also the case of the bottle of wine available from French duty-free found in a nearby ditch.
There's the speeding Ford Fiesta seen around 8:00 a.m. that morning.
Even if the murder occurred at night, if this mystery person had been staying in a B&B somewhere he would be getting out of there immediately. Probably freaked out and covered in blood. So maybe he went back to his accommodation and then sped off, getting rid of the wine in the process?
Apparently Sophie had used Maurice Sweeney's travel agency before. Several times, when she stayed with friends in Galway, before she bought the house in West Cork. Big coincidence.
Also, this! (which would probably rule out the Frenchman in Galway)
'Gardai are looking at a number of possible new suspects over the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.
One is a French speaking individual who was spotted in a Kerry pub the night after her murder with marks and scratches on his face.
A suspicious barman at the time in Cahirciveen reported him to the local Gardai and he was questioned before being eventually let go.
It later emerged that this person was the spitting image of an individual who was spotted by shopkeeper Marie Farrell following Sophie, 38, around Schull village, west Cork, in the afternoon before she was killed on the night of December 23, 1996.
The man speaks fluent French but is from another European country. He also used a rented car which had false number plates.'
I mean if they questioned him they questioned him but the Gardai haven't exactly proved themselves up to procedural standards in this case.
There's also the sighting of Sophie in the petrol station in Skibbereen with a mystery man.
There's also the question raised by many posters by now: Why did Sophie come to west Cork in the dead of winter?
Let's not forget that the last person she spoke to on the phone was her husband Daniel.
S
The point was he had left the bedroom and nobody could support his alibi after that, whether he was downstairs , at the studio or trekking over the roads to kill someone. (It's less thab 250 yds btw, not that it matters)
It's not an independent house i.e. it wasn't treated as an independent house, it wasn't an independent household of Baileys. It was treated like an annex of the main property and part of 'home'.
There's a big difference between failing to remember you popped into another room of a warm house and failing to remember you had to walk 400 yards in the cold darkness of a December night in rural west Cork.
What difference does it make, whether he was in the kitchen working or in the studio? He was out of the bedroom.
No he wasn't still at home, if he was in the studio he was in a completely separate house 200 yards away.
The DPP can explain it much better than I can...
Sophie was killed on 23 December 1996.
Bailey's first questionnaire was completed eight days later.
It is a difficult exercise for any person to recall with precision the timing and location of ordinary matters even after a very short time.
The same observation applies to the questionnaire completed on 14 January 1997, some three weeks after the murder.
The same observation applies to the interviews conducted while Bailey was in detention on 10 February 1997, some seven weeks after the murder.
The fact that Bailey and Jules Thomas have made errors in their recollection does not necessarily mean they are deliberately lying. Errors made by other persons are regarded as simple mistakes in terms of recollection.
As for your question about the gardai focusing on one suspect, just ask yourself if the abuse inflicted on Joanne Hayes by such "highly respected" gardai such as Detective O'Carroll (scumbag!) could happen to someone else?
It was treated like an annex of the main house. Bailey using it as his office. It wasn't like he was going to an office in town and wouldn't be thought of as 'going out'. He was still at home.
"The studio was still seen as part of the property".
How did you figure this out?
The studio is 200 yards away from the main house.
The Nicola tallant interview is a revelation whoever posted it
You've got journalists who don't believe a word of what he's saying
The alibi the scratches and the confessions
Problem is it's all circumstantial
another thing regarding failure to form memory with rapidly rising blood alcohol, Jules could have been keeping up with that kind to drinking on the night to her own equivalent extent, and could have similar lack of recall.
When there’s total lack of recall like that people tend to subconsciously invent stuff to fill the void, that’s how you could get different accounts. Quite apart from the disintegration of any memories over time.
Am about 10 minutes into this
Not sure who posted it think it was the other thread
Absolutely fascinating journalists have an ear for a story
It is Twin Peaks territory.
Hypnotists?
More west Cork, blow-in, hippy bulls**t.
The person I knew who had the blackout during a bout of anger (having been drinking and totally misinterpreted what I had said and gone into a jealous rage) had very poor recollection later. Before drinking had commenced, this person was in my car, and that was their last recollection when I much later asked them how much had they recalled. Hadn’t remembered from the moment of starting drinking as it had been consumed so rapidly. Knew something had happened by my refusal to engage for a while.
My point is that several hours of memory can be completely and utterly obliterated, in fact it’s because the memory can’t form in the first place. But again that very drunk the person isn’t quite capable of carrying out a coordinated manoeuvre. If Bailey were that very drunk he’d have been very clumsy in the committal of the killing, would likely have ended up down on the ground beside her or when arriving home not composed enough to hide evidence.
I don't know how reliable all of it this is given how much rumour surrounds this case, but this guy on reddit seems to have read everything about the case, and has done up a list of points as to why "Bailey didn't do it":
After Bailey was released from custody, he could not go home and was driven to his friend Russell Barrett's house. While there he told Barrett he had no memory of the murder but if the Gardai said he did it, and had been seen by witnesses then maybe he had committed the murder but blacked out due to drink. Essentially Bailey was now questioning his own reality. He asked to fetch Irma Tullock, Barrett's sometime girlfriend, a counsellor and hypnotist. Bailey trusted Tullock, because she had helped him after he assaulted Jules Thomas in May 1996. He wanted Tullock to hypnotise him to see if what the Gardai said was possible, because he had no memory of it Tullock was interviewed by Gardai two weeks later. She wrote in her statement that Bailey talked in circles and appeared to have been subjected to "inappropriate interrogation techniques".
https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderAtTheCottage/comments/xf1kc4/bailey_didnt_do_it/
Could it account for the lapse of memory on the night?
“I was at home in bed all night”
Then;
“Yes I remember now, I got up to do some work….”
People lose muscular strength when badly affected by alcohol alone, without a stimulant like cocaine. Years back I’ve been in the company of an angry drunk person, who suffered a blackout and had but the most vague recollection of circumstance and none of an attempted manoeuvre, so to speak, but had lost so much muscle strength and coordination that they could barely stand up let alone actively cause harm to others.
It might be more the action of someone with less drink on them, or a stimulant drug like cocaine.
Plus in that scenario, where he had taken on a load of whiskey... it would have hit him hard about the time he is supposed to be walking over to Sophie's which takes something like 45-60 minutes. More likely he would be in a ditch than capable of murder.
Blackouts can happen anyone who consumes a lot of alcohol quickly, memory cannot form during a phase of very fast drinking, that might last an hour or two when there’s a complete absence of recall , and vague recall as blood alcohol level diminishes. Happens alcoholics frequently simply because they consume alcohol fast way more regularly than others.
It is possible that if he had done the killing that he would have no direct recollection, but he would surely have left at least some traces of blood around Jules’ cottage, no matter how careful he tried to be. And drunk people/alcoholics tend to be generally careless and messy as Jukes described him to be. I know there was a bonfire of items some time around then, but to not leave at least some noticeable bits of blood would be unlikely in the scenario.
May e there was some blood, but Ian said it was from the turkeys or scratches he got from the birds/tree cutting.
There aren't three different explanations for the scratches. There were scratches in different places and he tried to relate them after the fact to what he had done. He cut down a tree - the "stick" seems to be in reference to a piece of the tree. It does not make sense in relation to anything else. And he thinks he may have been nicked by turkey. Multiple witnesses are in record as noticing some marks on Bailey before the murder. If he got the scratches at the scene, how was no trace found of him anywhere? And the briars were checked. And Sophie's nails were checked. It is even possible Bailey is the killer, but was scratched the day before.
"He confessed to the murder". Some context here - he made no formal admission as a confession. You can tell by the reaction of the people he made these so called confessions to, they did not credit them as such. Continuing to take lifts from him, continuing to socialise with him in the pub. We have seen miscarriages of justice where police acquire false confessions. These aren't even on that level.
His alibi is all over the shop, and I have given explanations as to why that might be the case with drink involved. If it was a common thing for Bailey to leave the bed to get up early to finish articles, weeks later under questioning it may not have occurred to someone to mention it, because the studio was still seen as part of the property.
They both said he was in bed then Jules admitted he left the bed, then Ian admitted he left the bed to write an article
There was 3 different explanations for the scratches , a stick , christmas trees and turkeys
He confessed to the murder
Put that all together and you have a likely killer
You don't know what "most people" think. Multiiple DPPs found the account of the scratches to be credible and many posters here agree with. Of course they could be wrong. But it strongly suggests the account is not completely lacking in credibility.
As to his alibi. It is even possible Bailey is NOT the killer, but had a blackout and made up some of the details of his account that night. He had alcohol blackouts before, but seems to be associated with heavy drinking of whiskey. We don't have certain information as to how much or what he was drinking that night, but there are no reports in the pub of him being that drunk. He took a pint home with him. But we can't rule out a bottle of whiskey at home he had a nightcap from.
So it is possible Bailey either forgot about some of his movements, or deliberately invented a fake alibi because he was worried he could be the killer.
To you it’s less ridiculous! But to most people, Ian Bailey’s account of why he changed his story of his whereabouts on the night of Sophie’s murder and how he got the marks to his hands and forehead completely lacks credibility.
Explain the alibi
And why is the Garda investigation focused solely on bailey have they got it all wrong
Sigh - would you just read the links!
You keep referring me to the report
They both said he didn't leave the bed originally
Jules changed her story and then bailey said he left to write an article, about 8 hrs unaccounted for i believe
Read the DPP report and/or read the link I posted above.
If you're happy with your bias then fine but don't tell us how you firmly know that Bailey killed her if you're choosing to follow this case in blissful ignorance!
Don't think you mentioned the false alibi ,the scratches or the confessions there
As per @orangerhyme's post above, have a read through this when you have 15 minutes spare and then tell us if you still think Bailey did it.
There is nothing really to implicate Bailey's involvement in the murder aside from what AGS are asserting. What they've asserted has been dismissed by the DPP and to our knowledge pretty much nothing new has come to light since that hasn't been found to have been made up (with the help & encouragement of AGS) or can easily be incorrect due to the passage of time. There is absolutely no hard evidence despite all of the efforts put in by the investigating team.
And you're well aware that it wouldn't be the first time that AGS members identified a suspect (despite no actual evidence or even ignoring evidence) and then put them in the frame for a murder. The only reason you know about Bailey is because the Gardai went around the area soon after the murder effectively accusing him. AGS also have been feeding the media with their belief and this is what everyone gets to read. Now most people assume there is no smoke without fire.
Now maybe Bailey did it and if evidence comes to light then I'll happily welcome our legal system officially judging him. However, it does appear that AGS are firmly focused on getting Bailey and firmly ignoring all other potential murderers. Is that giving Sophie justice?
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