Old thread seems to be permanently locked. It will be interesting if anything can come of this at last.
Threadbanned Posters:
Interesting that no bread was found in the stomach.
What would also be interesting is the contents of the rubbish bins, especially the one outside the back door, maybe @bjsc might have information on that?
From the autopsy report;
“The Neck
13. An area of diagonal abrasion on and to the left of the midline of the neck at the front, up to 3/4in. wide and 1 1/2in. long. In this abraded area there were several fine parallel linear abrasions up to nine in number. These resembled slightly the imprint of a "Doc Marten" boot but could have been inflicted by some serrated object passing across the skin of the neck. Slightly similar marks were seen on the skin above the left eyebrow and below the left cheek bone, though these looked more like the mark of a rough serrated object passing over the surface of the skin where there was bone close beneath it.”
Doubt the knife was involved in the assault - even back then they would have had the technology to analyse that knife for near invisible blood stains which would have remained after a frantic washing - that and the kitchen sink would have had remnants of blood traces
Horrible reading it in B&W isn’t it? An awful pity the remains and the crime scene haven’t given up their secrets after 27 years
I posted earlier in the thread around having faith in the current investigation team putting their hands up around past mistakes of the previous team - having listened to the Garda Commissioner this week making disparaging remarks about a serving guard who was totally cleared of any wrong doing over a bicycle no one wanted, I don’t hold out any hope that this investigation team will admit to any past wrong doing - the culture was rotten in the past - it’s a different type of rot these days but it’s still rotten - fear and cover your arse along with never admit mistakes is now the culture
I don’t think the knife was tested, can anyone confirm if this is the case?
Indeed - no bread found to have been eaten and the washed dishes make it look like breakfast was done and finished with. That makes the whole bread and knife set up look really odd to me.
Well, not necessarily. You eat your granola, you drink your coffee, you wash up the dishes and then you go to tidy up and put away the bread that you cut but didn't eat. You glance out the window...
and you see WHAT? or who?
Something unusual, maybe; if it was a normal everyday thing you wouldn't go rushing out. But then??
At first glance I looked at that scene and thought she was standing at the counter cutting the bread and saw someone coming from or to the stone out house and went out to them. If it were me in a kitchen with counter space as small as that, if you were finished breakfast, you’d put all the food away and then do the dishes rather than try to work around all that pile of bread. All the dishes have been done. It could be that she fancied some bread after tidying up breakfast but where’s the plate for the bread, the butter or jam? Everywhere looks neat and tidied and then there’s this big lump of bread and a knife sitting there. The more I look it seems out of place for something that initially shouldn’t look out of place.
But whatever bread was cut from the loaf- it looks like a half slice off the bottom to me- is nowhere to be seen.
The knife is slightly under the bread which is odd too. That’s a lot of bread for one person over a couple of days-though maybe the housekeeper left the Keating’s Sliced Pan and brown soda I suppose.
The bread looks like it was cut and eaten. A half slice from the bottom. Wouldn't think there's anything unusual about having a batch loaf left out. See it in lots of houses over the years
I would be surprised at a French person leaving a cut loaf out overnight. It would get dry and stale very quickly, and she would have known that.
Or maybe she was planning to make toast with it!
Eaten by who?
At the risk of sounding obsessed by the bread, the whole set up is really awkward-if you wanted to cut a slice surely you’d remove the brown soda behind to give yourself a bit of space. Surely, you cut it on top of the board rather than the paper too. It all looks a hems.
Might have been eaten the day before. It could have been taken out with the intention of having some but decided not to have it for another while. You'd hardly need to move the soda bread to cut the loaf?
It's a fair old chunk of bread as well, I'd say!
For Sophie to have eaten it and it not to be in her stomach, she would have had to have eaten it by midnight Sunday, I'd say.
Which would be odd to leave it like that and go to bed. All the other utensils are washed up, having said that, I don't see a spoon anywhere that she would have used to eat the cereal.
There seems to be one next to the fork although it looks quite short but that could be the angle it is lying at. Two cups and two bowls though?
Two cups, two bowls, and two wineglasses. A coffeepot.
The two wineglasses makes it look like this is yesterday's washing-up, left to dry overnight.
I mean, nobody has wine for breakfast, but Sophie's regular supper (when she was alone) would be some bread and cheese and a glass of wine.
Maybe she habitually left the used dishes to be all washed together, last thing at night.
I wonder if it was possible to tell, from these, how long ago they had been washed? Any water pooling at the base, or everything dry as a bone?
It is SUCH A PITY that they didn't enter the house until quite long after the body was found! Even the temperature of the water in the kettle, or the dryness of a towel, could have helped.
Whatever about now, back then French peoople, on average, wouldn't have been binge eaters (tgey would eat a meal and that was it) nor would they tended to eat breakfast cereals. She had eaten fruit & nuts but it probably was fresh rather than Kelloggs and so may not have required a spoon.
At the risk of sounding obsessed by the bread,
People seem to be getting obsessed with the bread.
Everyone should send in a picture of their kitchen counter top of any given morning and others can guess what is going on.
I'd bet none of us would get it right.
Just getting your excuses in first in case the cold case review continues to point at Bailey.
There was also a glass with red wine dregs in it on the mantlepiece in the sitting room.
I don't think it was necessarily cereal. There was a huge bowl of clementines on a shelf below the bread. Harbison describes the stomach contents as yellow fruit skins and possibly nuts.
Not to the best of my knowledge. There is no mention of it.
Oh for goodness sake will you go bother someone else - your badgering is intolerable at this point
Thank you.
So, three wine glasses, one for Friday, one for Saturday, both washed up, and one on the mantle for Sun, unwashed, but no wine in her system.
She must have had the 3rd glass of wine on Sunday with the bread and cheese early enough to be gone from her system before she died.
They may have fingerprinted it but although we know there were numerous prints lifted and that some remain unidentified we have no further details. The table that the bread is on was taken away to be screened for, I assume, blood but nothing was found.
Suggests a morning time more likely for the murder to me.
That would seem likely.
Is there anything to suggest she took her bread and cheese into the sitting room where the wine glass was left?
Or that that fire was lit on Sunday night?
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