Old thread seems to be permanently locked. It will be interesting if anything can come of this at last.
Threadbanned Posters:
That is the first I heard of Alfie having a skating injury. It was my understanding that Alfie had a cut on his hand around the time of the murder which needed to be bandaged. Would an old skating injury cause this?
I'll dig out the statement.
As promised.
Some posts here said it was from a dog that he was minding but that states that it was a very old injury, 50 years old or so.
So based on bjsc posting the "Alfie had a cut on his hand and is important" can go on the rubbish pile that Sophie was bringing to the dump through the cordon unaccosted.
That was interesting, thank you bjsc.
The hand being uncut and pale is pretty conclusive that it was not a recent bramble injury.
Though I still boggle at calling 63 "old and feeble" !!
My pleasure.
Why ?
I know 43 year olds who look old and feeble.
And I know 73 year olds who look like 43 year olds.
LOL - I'm not 73, but I'm closer to it than he was...and apparently far less feeble!
And poor Sophie was only 5 ft nothing. It wouldn't have taken a big strong man to overcome her - in spite of the spirited struggle she made to defend herself.
And - thinking out loud here - it was a cold winter night, and morning. Quite likely the attacker would have worn gloves.
Thanks @bjsc. Another priceless contribution to the debate along with the trip to the dump stuff. Keep it up.
Still strange that he needed a bandage on it 50 years after the injury............................
Holy moly - 63 and being described as very elderly.
Yes strange for sure and I'm wondering did it get aggravated for any particular reason that he had to bandage it now and again. , possibly in examples where he ruptured wound made it flare up again..
Elderly, not "very" elderly.
Read the transcript.
But as we all know people of different ages can have different abilities.
bjsc, thank you for your contributions - very informative.
I've asked this question before on this thread and nobody has been able to answer. Would be interested in your view.
If, on day 1 without knowing anything else, you were to draw up a list of likely motives for the murder, the #1 possibility would be an agrivated or disturbed burgalry. It would feature way way further up the list to drunk Englishman, randy Garda and French hitman.
These were common in rural parts of Ireland, especially in the run uo to Christmas when homes would be full of gifts. There have been numerous serious injuries and fatalities during that era, and even more recently. Generally people from outside the area hitting random remote homes.
SDTP hearing something outside - maybe a car or voices and coming out to see whats going on and meeting her demise would fit it with this type of crime.
Now the question - how and why did the Gardai rule it out?
While you’re awaiting a reply here’s a view-
Burglars in n general don’t tend to murder people- they will choose flight over fight
If they were targeting random houses, Shirley they’d target ones less remote … and with presents in them- not some holiday cottage ?
Violent burglaries weren’t that common at that time - the sort of gangs you read about since hadn’t really even formed at that stage.But even then, such burglars tend to target homes that have the potential for large sums of cash
Gven their propensity for violence, any sort of drug dealers or smugglers theory to me, even though I think even that as highly unlikely, sounds more plausible than a burglary gone wrong theory
I think that those initially on scene were confronted with a situation that they were ill- equipped to deal with. The very first person to nominate Bailey as "a person of interest" was Garda Malone who saw him at the scene cordon on the afternoon of 23rd. He thought he was behaving oddly and obviously he, Malone, was aware of Bailey's history of domestic violence. I realise it may be hard to understand for most people but, as someone who spent most of their career dealing with major crime, you would long for the phone to ring, even though it meant heartache for many, because it's what you were trained for and what you did best. So for Bailey, a journalist in an area where the most exciting news story was the introduction of Internet cafes to West Cork, it must have been like manna from heaven. So to a degree I understand why his behaviour might appear odd.
That being said I see no reason why, at that early stage, he should have been treated as any more or less significant than any other suspect.
It is of course important to eliminate friends and family but the French police were able to establish alibis for them fairly quickly.
There was no obvious sexual motive. So you have to start with those who were likely to have come in contact with her in the everyday course of events and look at why the murder happened. For example why were all the gates open, and wide open at that. What was Sophie doing. Was she really in bed or, given the appearance of the kitchen, was she already up.
I believe the first suspect, who was interviewed and whose clothing was seized at an early stage, was Jeremiah Scully, the local oddball who lived the other side of the hill behind Sophie's house.
So in the absence of anything concrete, at that early stage, your starting point would probably be those who had reason to be in or were familiar with the area. That's not to say you close yourself off to other possibilities but the fact is you have to start somewhere.
re Motive.
The likeliest person to kill any woman is her current or ex intimate partner.
Being bashed to death by a complete stranger for no apparent reason is vanishingly rare.
We do know that Sophie liked men; each time she visited she had a male guest, apart from this one time; her son, her husband, her boyfriend, a business colleague - I don't know if she ever brought a woman guest there. No judgement implied btw - I prefer men to women, too.
She doesn't appear to have EVER had a boyfriend in the area round her Irish holiday home - for one thing, she didn't get close to anyone who didn't speak French.
I don't know how good her English was - maybe not great? She seems to have only got chatty with the publican, who spoke French, and the Ungerer couple, ditto.
Maybe some ex-boyfriend was living in Ireland and had been bothering her - but he'd probably have been foreign rather than local.
Again, not being privy to every detail of the investigation, we don't know if the Gardaí searched for French nationals who were living in or around Co Cork at the time and who might have been acting suspiciously.
Wild speculation, I freely admit; but I prefer to call it Open Creative Thinking! (What if? Just suppose? is this possible? Anything to support this idea? etc etc etc)
I agree. I'm finding it hard to understand how an injury he received 50 years ago needed a bandage. 🤔
We will have to accept though that the Garda said it was an old wound. Hopefully the Garda had the knowledge to distinguish an old wound from a fresh wound and did actually take the time to look instead of just taking Alfie's word on it.
Hopefully the Garda had the knowledge to distinguish an old wound from a fresh wound and did actually take the time to look instead of just taking Alfie's word on it.
He said Alfie removed it in his presence.
Yep he said in the statement that he removed it. I'm just saying that I hope that did actually happen - I'm not very trusting of the gardai involved in this case Tod.
It doesn't explain though why this very old injury needed a bandage 50 years later - that's a bit odd don't you think.
@bjsc might be able to confirm, but I believe the doctor looked at the hand as well and agreed it was an old wound.
It wasn’t like a bandage on an open wound, the cold weather and working outdoors aggravated the condition and the bandage helped.
I find that the whole idea of a glove fastener damaging a hand is very unusual. Gloves are meant to protect a hand and what kind of fastener would break the skin?
Premonitions can’t be taken as fact, either under oath or not. They generally are just people connecting dots after the fact. Plus I don’t think oath meant an awful lot to Ian, he certainly wouldn’t have let it get in the way of a yarn that would bring him more attention.
Dr O'Connor commented on Alf having a bandage on his hand but makes no mention of examining the wound.
It was said that Sophie had reported drug dealings in the area. Was there any record of this in the Garda files?
And also if Alfies hand was visibly 'deformed' (was that the word used) surprising this wasnt generally mentioned about Alfie as it should have been noticed by anyone who came across him. Poor Alfie with the gammy hand.
He did well to run a restaurant with it.
It's amazing really that a man with a hand injury giving him grief since he was 12 was a successful chef, which is a very hands on role. This injury or his arthritis and feebleness didn't stop him running his drug operation either.
I seen video footage of Alfie on a french documentary and I wouldn't describe him as feeble, frail or elderly. He looked in reasonable shape to me.
So what we have in December 1996 is
- Alfie with a bandaged hand injury caused by an injury 50 years ago .This appears not to have been verified by a doctor at the time. I would hope though if this was genuine that Alfie had sought medical help for this injury throughout his life - so this could be verified by medical records.
Bailey with minor cuts on his hands allegedly from cutting a Christmas tree. There is a witness that verified that Bailey cut the tree.
Which story is more believable?
Thanks for that,
Now another one if I may;
"Jeremiah Scully, the local oddball who lived the other side of the hill behind Sophie's house."
There's very little on him, I know you said he was questioned and his boots were examined.
He lived just over half a mile away on what was the original track from Dunmanus to Sophie's house before the road to Kealfada was established. Why was he an "oddball", did he have an alibi, why was he considered a suspect so early on, and later discounted?
In terms of motive for Bailey, is the guards position or theory that his “advances” were rejected?
Do we have anything solid on that?
If Bailey knew Sophie, where’s the proof? Even if the Alfie introduction were true, it doesn’t mean he knew her- only that he was briefly introduced to her- an event so insignificant he couldn’t recall it, it could be argued.
If he didn’t know Sophie, how then did he find himself out at her gate late at night or early morning? Was he on walk about?
Well, that's a fundamental issue.
The only plausible motive that fits the "bailey is guilty" theory is sex.
But there is no evidence of any sexual element to the attack.
If, as some do, you start with the premise that Bailey did it, then you have to accept that the motive was as there isn't really any other plausible motive.
But as there is no evidence to support that, then its logical to conclude that the motive was something different. And if the motive was different, then it points the suspicion in another direction.
So given that there is so little evidence against Bailey in any case, and no evidence whatsoever of a sexual motive, then the Bailey theory is highly improbable. Possible, of course, but improbable.
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