Old thread seems to be permanently locked. It will be interesting if anything can come of this at last.
Threadbanned Posters:
It all depends on how close the footprints were to Sophie. If they were garda shoe prints and close to her, this might indicate a garda did actually approach and look for signs of life including a pulse, but simply ommitted to record this fact. Its possible the shoe prints are a dead end and dont actually belong to the murderer, but someone who attended the scene. Its unfortunate there was nothing definitive said about them.
In certain circumstances it is safe to assume a person is dead and is beyond saving and feeling for a pulse is pointless.
You are right to assume the Garda was reluctant to contaminate the scene, it makes sense based the evidence.
"Safe assumptions" are based on experience, how else would someone know. I don't think the initial gardai had that experience, it was their first murder, I think they were afraid to both contaminate the scene, and therefore afraid to look for proof of life, this makes the most sense based on the evidence imo, however there are other reasons I'm sure someone could come up with. They may have legitimately been scared themselves of the perpetrator still being there, and hesitant to do anything, look at Ulvade for example. I'm pretty sure I would have been scared in that situation tbh. I have compassion for those Gardaí.
The blood on the door has always perplexed me. I have never believed it was transferred from Sophie herself trying to get in or out the door. Instead, I think it was transferred from the killer either going to the cottage to get something incriminating or else returning something to the cottage. Either scenario is especially risky though in case you might be seen. There’s just something about that bread and knife that looks odd to me. Maybe the knife was returned to the house.
Well we will see what she says. I've said a garda would be reluctant to contaminate a murder scene if a person is obviously dead, and there are certain albeit rare circumstances where its safe to assume someone is dead without feeling for a pulse.
I also said if same garda did contaminate the scene you'd bet some idiot years later would try to argue they were responsible!
She means both options are still valid, which is an is open-minded way of thinking. Two potential reasons for the same information. I fact there are more, as I said also above: There is of course high likelihood that many pieces of evidence truly did get lost, or disposed of by accident etc. too.
I take it you mean by this that a garda was not actually a suspect in the murder, but rather the shoe prints came from a garda on the crime scene that day?
What are the theories that explain the morning murder
Alfie isn't a likely suspect now
Hard to know. Potentially matched one of them who got too near the body thus contaminating the scene accidently. Sounds like that's what might have happened if it wasn't mentioned again. Another potential clue gone if so.
Not Alfie Lyons? The neighbour who also used that laneway?
Shoes / boots were seized from Jeremiah Scully, Karl Heinz Wohlny, Ian Bailey, John Hellen, Garda Malone, Garda Byrne.
You know you're right, it is a heck of an amount of bread, that's a great point actually. You tend to be able to only buy bread by the loaf, or sometimes half loaf. It looks like she just had eaten a portion of it, and it also looks like the other bread samples are unopened. She was probably just nibbling away at that one over the previous couple of days, it has a thick rind, and would no doubt have survived a few days. If anything this would indicate to me that she didn't in fact have any guest over perhaps.
Oscar_Madison-I agree the knife should have been tested and maybe it was? But given how the initial crime scene was handled I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t.
Bread like that’s goes stale pretty quickly too, there would definitely have been a difference if it had been sitting out all night or just a couple of hours.
Also, I realise the French like bread but that’s a powerful amount of bread for one person, especially as she was leaving the next day. I suppose she may have expecting Josephine Hellen to stay for lunch or something in the Monday.
I think that is a reasonable assumption, in fact I would go as far to say it is a reasonable assumption to make that any and all missing evidence, or evidence that has not come to light, either does not enhance Bailey's guilt, or pointed somewhere else (or else we would have heard about it). There is of course high likelihood that many pieces of evidence truly did get lost, or disposed of by accident etc. too. Who knows which is what now.
I presume you mean eating not killing, but if not, to clarify death was 2-3 hours after eating, according to the pathologist, which would allow consumption of food all the way up to perhaps around 8.30 a.m. or a little bit later even. if we allowed for bjsc's proposal that Sophie may have been still alive at discovery, or died very shortly beforehand.
Not saying this is when I think she ate, just that it would be possible, definitely a more reasonable time though, and the brightness would be much higher at that time, it was bang on sunrise actually. The brightest time of the whole duration of Sophie's window of death. No lights on in the house too, makes you wonder.
Or maybe it did!!!!
If it was breakfast! I guess breakfast of Granola would put the killing around 6am, very early riser.
Another missing! I guess it didn't match the local Garda shoes anyway?
On the contrary the knife would /should be tested for fingerprints along with many of the other crockery out of the press-the likely theory early in the investigation may well have been the killer was someone she knew and quite possibly entertained in her home- it would have been madness not go test such utensils at least to confirm that they only contained her prints or DNA
The mention of the serrated object in the post-mortem immediately made me think of the knife and the bread. I doubt the knife was tested because it looks as if was being used to cut the bread, you’d never think twice about it.
It's odd alright, it looks like she had just cut the loaf.
If she had eaten the bread before the cereal you'd think she would have tidied it away as all the crockery and utensils had been washed up.
If she had eaten it with the cereal (unlikely) , or after, it would have been detected in the stomach.
So to me it seems she cut the bread, but didn't eat it, there are crumbs on the wrapper, and it appears it was a half slice from the bottom of the loaf.
There was nothing else around you would expect to see eaten with bread, like butter, cheese etc. The cheese was in the back kitchen on top of the fridge. ( only Irish people put cheese in the fridge).
Edit;
sorry Mackinac, just saw your post, I can't see any slice of the loaf there.
Yes, it’s possible she never got round to eating the bread just cut (it looks like there is a cut slice there) so died 2-3 hours after her breakfast granola.
Can I return to the shoemark for a moment. Footwear was received from 6 members of AGS up to and including 27th January 1997. These were handed to Liam Fleury from the Garda laboratory chemistry section. After that I can find no further mention of the shoe/boot impression from the crime scene and whilst Liam Fleury did write a report it was never disclosed and is now "missing".
I wonder was the knife tested in any way? Is it possible she started a fight with the killer(s) using a poker or knife or even a wine bottle?
Sunrise there would be around 8.45am so I'd expect any killing that wouldn't be seen would be before that. As for early rising wasn't she planning to return by air to France the next day?
What's odd though is that the evidence (pathologist) says that she ate 2-3 hours before she died. Therefore she was either planning to eat the bread 2-3 hours after the nuts, which would indicate that she was already awake for 2-3 hours (how early did she get up given she was awake the previous night at midnight, perhaps 6 a.m.?), or she was attacked and left for dead, but didn't die immediately.
There is also the possibility that she was cutting bread and just left the knife there, perhaps hearing the phone ring or something, and never went back to clean up, less likely imo, but certainly possible.
These two photos of the bread - in one it looks like there is a very thickly and (badly cut on the skew) slice of bread by the loaf yet I can’t see in the close up one unless it is covered by the brown paper.
If the bread had been cut that coupled with the fruit and nuts would lean more towards morning.
The bread knife is still in the bread though, unless you think they wen't back to put it back in place. Not impossible, but highly highly unlikely imo, bordering farcical if I'm honest, much like the murderer trying to sneak bags containing evidence through a police cordon that they called upon themselves 😀
There are some possibilities in which nobody actually is being nefarious, the Gardai and the DPP are actually making a well-reasoned decision not to move forward with prosecution as it is not in the public interest or is not prosecutable.
For example IF Bailey was not the killer AND the attack was purely frenzied, spur of the moment, AND, they now feel evidence does not reach the standard of murder (an assault gone wrong), then it is possible that they feel their hands are tied, even if new evidence comes up and even if they knew who did it. They cannot back away from Bailey, as the can of worms that opens up means almost certainly and immediately other real innocent peoples lives will be affected.
Regarding the morning theory, the food set up in the kitchen ie. the bread looks as if it is just about to be cut. Something caught my attention in the post-mortem, the marks on the neck could have come from something serrated. A bread knife?
The blue fiesta with red plates seen driving recklessly at 7.30 in the morning - does anyone know how seriously this was taken? Was it referenced against the 50 suspects?
I don't disagree with this, Bailey almost certainly was the cause of his being put in the frame. Even if you think he had done it, if he had laid low, imo it is highly likely he would have gotten away with it. Once he put himself in, it was up to the police to take him out, and they were not willing to do so for their own reasons, a terrible limbo. He served almost the worst punishment possible for his personality worse than going to prison I think.
In fairness, knowing Bailey, and the way he was, it's even possible that he could have lived an even more miserable life without this infamy. There is a decent chance that if he just kept wandering around as a barely functional alcoholic with a terrible temper and a propensity for violence, without the incessant scrutiny he brought upon himself, he would have ended up killing someone else, like Jules.
Needless to say though, this is not how justice should be wrought, and for Sophie it makes no difference at all. Justice for her is black or white, and she didn't get it. She is who I think about when I consider this case, not Bailey.
No, the threshold hasn't changed and i agree there was insufficient evidence previously
All that can change is the case file
I don't think that information is in the public domain as to what's happening with the CCR
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