Cold Case Review of Sophie Tuscan du Plantier murder to proceed. **Threadbans lifted - see OP**

My last reply on this. It was called in as a dead body. She was very likely dead, sadly. The first garda also likely determined she was dead. The doctor who first arrived determined she was dead. A number of people would in fact have been on the scene in the first hour and all determined she was dead. I'm not going to get into a back and forth about what if she was alive. If you think she might have been alive you are certainly entitled to that opinion, but factually speaking a number of people on the scene determined she was dead.

Take a look at the case of Lynne, Megan and Josie Russell and then tell me how you determine someone is dead.

So if you came upon the victim of a hit and run, unconscious and covered in blood you would just assume they were dead and do nothing until the emergency services arrived only to be told that had you performed CPR or even just put them in the recovery position they might have survived. Suppose that hit and run victim was a member of your family would just say "Oh that's OK then - you assumed he/she was dead. No worries. I quite understand".

The question is when did she die, these are important points in a murder investigation, determining the time of death. The police believed (without necessarily carrying out a determination) she was dead when they arrived, I don't have a reason to really doubt that she was, however there is a slim possibility she was barely alive, but probably couldn't be saved. There is a higher likelihood she was alive when Shirley passed her by but even still probably pretty low. There is a very strong chance she could have survived for some period of time after the assailant left. She could have been lying there for hours barely alive, it's not clear. Overall though its easy to look back and shrug and say there is nothing we could have done, but part of the justice for Sophie in my opinion is identifying why so many mis-steps were made, and for the gardai to be transparent about it all. If it truly was Bailey I don't see any reason for them to hold information back at this point. Hopefully that is what the cold case review will be able to discover. Answers to some of these fundamental questions. Many people, including her husband passed away in the meantime, and never saw justice. Her son and former partners still have yet to see true justice to this day.

Thank you. What I was trying to say was not that she could have been saved but if just one person had thought to do the right thing and to check for a pulse we would potentially have an idea of how long she'd been there which, in turn, would have helped to inform the investigation.

I assume you were there as otherwise you would just be "surmising". Something you so obviously disapprove of.

I agree they likely determined (from their on-site judgement not a legal perspective) she was dead. I will say, given it was a cold morning, they probably would have been able to see that she had no visible breath for e.g. There are clearly many things that the Gardai should have done though, which would have helped determine the time of death. Simple, basic things like check for freshness of all visible blood, was it still forming drips etc., determine Rigor Mortis Status, body temperature, and of course check for pulse. It doesn't take a previous murder investigation experience to carry out these steps though, most accidents have these conditions and I would assume in basic training they learn most of this. The gardai on the scene were presumably nervous about what to do and didn't want to make a mistake, or contaminate the scene, but unfortunately that is not good enough imo, and here we are 27 years later with no further clarity. I don't think anyone would reasonably complain if the Gardai looked for signs of life or if anyone called an ambulance. The fact is they didn't, and that is relevant imo.

What does it matter about the uproar though, it's a cold case review, the question to be answered is whether the Gardai followed the correct protocol or not?

I must remember to do that if I ever come across someone who has been attacked and just looks to me to be dead.

There were very few clues to solving this crime, but a shoe or boot print was one of the few. Numerous shoe prints around the area of the body and it becomes complicated. I think you'd agree with that one?

And if it ever went to court, a defence council could argue the crime scene was compromised.

I would agree with the gardai on this one in preserving the immediate scene around the body.

I believe they got a boot print and there's been mention of wheel tracks. If someone appears to be obviously dead with zero indications of life, there is little value in bringing a load of people in, paramedics, ambulances, gardai, etc to essentially destroy the crime scene.

Scene preservation is critical.

Do what you want! As I said earlier people make different decisions.

Interesting article on crime scene contamination.

https://www.crime-scene-investigator.net/crime-scene-contamination-issues.html