Old thread seems to be permanently locked. It will be interesting if anything can come of this at last.
Threadbanned Posters:
To date, no biological evidence has been found linking anyone to the murder. There are questions about some DNA found on one of Sophie's boots but there is also nothing to suggest it was from the murder. As for other evidence, there is nothing of value. The wine bottle disclosed nothing. The house and car revealed nothing. No suspects were found to have any of Sophie's DNA on the (including the various things taken from Bailey). The only "evidence" available was based on assumption and none of it would not be laughed out of court.
She probably came to challenge them at the gate and they panicked.
It's unlikely they will release anything until either there is an arrest or the review team are deployed elsewhere but declare the case still open. But remember it's only been about 8 months since the M-VAC testing. You mentioned the Kerry babies case. That took 18 months from the time baby John's sibling was found to the arrest of the sibling's parents. You're right the murderer wasn't identified, but at least the DNA led to the identify of baby John.
From RTE, March 24th 2023;
"In January 2018, …At the announcement of the cold case review, gardaí revealed that a full DNA profile for Baby John had been generated from samples preserved during the initial post-mortem examination.
Later that year, in September 2018, RTÉ News revealed that DNA samples had been taken from a small number of people in the south Kerry area, as part of the garda cold case review.
In September 2021, gardaí also exhumed the remains of Baby John
Since then, there has been very little public update on the progress of the cold case review.
Last night, (23 March 2023) we learned that, in addition to thousands of hours of investigation, hundreds of people have been interviewed and more than 500 lines of inquiry have been followed. Gardaí are not saying where the two people now being questioned were arrested. "
Some form of closure to be sure, which is a great thing, although still not true justice. Good point on the timeline though, I don't remember whether there were any leaks before the arrests came about.
I don't recall any leaks, plenty speculation though.
There was a kerry baby's thread on here ran from Jan 2018 to 2024.
There were no Garda leaks mentioned in the thread from the exhumation of baby john in Sept 2021,up to the arrest of the parents in March 2023. (doesn't mean there wasn't any of course, but unlikely).
So, I'd say the review team run a tight ship. Not like the time when the press were "invited" to the arrest of Ian Bailey
Crazy timing, but we finally have an update on that story, and the gardai have submitted a file to the DPP, again no further leaks after they interviewed the parents a year or two ago. We certainly can hold out some hope for Sophie in this case I would say.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41822255.html
Edit: I just now see you updated the other thread with the same story.
DNA made this possible. And the tragedy happened in 1984!
Also, concerned witnesses and possible suspects do sometimes speak out after many years have passed.
So we don't lose hope, not at all.
Cold case teams never give up.
It certainly gives a lot more hope for justice in Sophie's case. Especially since there were minimal leaks during the cold case investigation, and in addition it seems that they were able to get the file to the DPP without anyone in the press getting wind of it, which is pretty incredible really. There were interviews with family members and friends etc. which shows that the gardai must have been really coming down hard to prevent information getting out. This is particularly relevant when you want to get charges to stick, and take a case to court, because information getting to the public discourse can undermine the case.
Makes it much more palatable that we haven't heard from the DNA findings etc. I imagine more things are going on behind the scenes in Sophie's case.
Even local Gardaí are kept out of the loop it seems.
In the Kerry Babies' case, when the couple were arrested they were taken to 2 separate Garda stations in Listowel and Castleisland a fair bit from their home. Local officers were not involved, in fact they basically took over the stations I believe. A far cry from the "leaked" information in the arrests of Ian Bailey and Jules Thomas and the media frenzy that enseud.
The cold case review team are still waiting DNA results from America
Out of curiosity, where are you seeing that?
From someone involved in the cold case
That seems very slow. I thought they had the profile(s) but were working on matches?
I don't think it's slow, it's more that basically they don't have anything on anybody. Possibly only a lot more DNA samples and a lot more questions about "could have happend" but nothing beyound reasonable doubt.
The question about the delay is how long it's taken the DNA results to come back from the M-Vac tests. Not about having anything on anybody or questions about "could have happened" beyond reasable doubt. That would be for the Gardaí to follow up when the DNA profiles, if any, come back from the M-Vac team in America.
Yep, but I don't think it would take that long to get something from the M-Vac team in America.
Deleted.
Maybe but which of us actually knows? Maybe it takes ages. Maybe they have to do technical things to it.
I believe that they may well have to do legal things - as far as I know, in Europe because of Privacy laws you can't just upload a stranger's DNA to a genealogy website (like eg Ancestry or whatever) just in order to find out who they are related to.
Seems a shame when there is murder involved, though I can see the threat to personal privacy, of course.
Reports in the Sunday Times of a caller who called another person at 6am on the day of the murder saying something had happened near Sophie's house.
Witnesses being reintereviewed and reports of a wall of silence and a pact not to speak among locals.
Lots of snippets of information and the only conclusion in the article being what's usually discussed here too, the known facts don't add up and there have been conflicting accounts given by witnesses.
"Whether there was any concealment of knowledge" LOL LOL
Clearly there was, of course there was!
(Otherwise we would know who did it)
The article
Michael Sheridan, could be something in it. I won't hold my breath.
Is this a rehashed verson of the story from a few months back involving Chris Doe?
From the article;
"in 2015, officers from a French judicial police unit specialising in cold cases travelled to Ireland to interview witnesses. On October 1 that year, the witness was questioned by a member of the unit in the presence of a garda representative and a translator."
@bjsc might have witness statements from the French investigators in Oct 2015
Accounts by witnesses or those who claim to be witnesses will probably not be accpted anymore at this point. It's too many years back. Nearly 30 years onward, I doubt anybody can be certain and credible having heard or seen something and worst of all not spoken about that until now. A real cross examination in a court room won't go anywhere.
It's also a bit hard to have "heard something" that night. Except for Alfie and Shirley, the Richardsons were not there that night. The place was far to remote for somebody having heard something, unless one was out roaming the wilderness during that night….
And by all accounts I wouldn't trust anybody's verbal statement for that night. The locals are all far too filmsy, too local, knowing each other well, or one or the other having a grudge against the other, most having had a brush with the law in the past. Anybody could also have a motive to incriminate the other for whatever reason.
Found this on YouTube, posted recently:
I have not finished viewing (it's over an hour long) but there are photos of the main characters. Also photo of one of the possible items used, the concrete block - looks like a conventional breeze-block to me. But - warning - stains visible.
I did finish the whole video. There isn't anything substantial new. Many things are hearsay of course.
There is most likely a simple explanation why the chairs in the house were placed opposite and beside the window, like Sophie was sitting there, reading something and had her feet up on the chair oposite. Nothing unusual.
Of course Bailey could have done it, but he would have to have known that Sophie was home at her cottage in the first place, and Bailey to a degree certain that she would have opened up the door to him at rather odd hours of the night. That would have been no earlier than 2 to 2:30 am in the morning, if he walked and didn't drive. And if he did drive, chances of blood inside the car would have been a very strong risk, same of the car being seen.
If Bailey did it, I don't think the motive would have been to enhance his journalistic career, - theoretically it's a possibility, but it doesn't seem credible to me.
Bailey also most likely would have had some police radio scanner. Most journalists back then had them to listen in, if they were to report on something first. So him knowing something at a time when most haven't wouldn't be any surprise. It's certainly not evidence.
I do. But I'm in the middle of moving house. Will check when I have a couple of minutes.
Best of luck with the move & the new house!
If I'm understanding this correctly, the witness had provided a statement previously, but then upon questioning about that statement, and other questions about suspects etc. then volunteered that they had heard about there being a phone call at 6.00 on the morning of the murder.
This call presumably is the same as reported elsewhere recently, as it has the same not many people had my number detail. I expect this latest witness just repeated that same rumour which had presumably done the rounds back then. It's interesting the gardai are probably just taking statements again to see if they can pick up new leads, but unfortunately anything which has recently been reported on is what will be highest in the people's consciousness.
It was reported back last August that the M-Vac had found DNA profiles on Sophie's evidence. if that's true it must mean that the matching is the delay?
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