Murder at the Cottage

[MrsPelligrinoPetrichor]

Documentary on Sky Crime, I think it is 5 episodes.

Omg it was so good ( if a programme about a murder can ever be 'good')

I can't remember anything about this in the news at the time so I was watching it with fresh eyes.

I started watching it, DH came in to get a coffee, sat down and he was hooked too which is rare.

Anyone else seen it?

@WeatherToday

Marie Farrell identified man seen near Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s house as associate of victim’s husband

www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/garda-need-dpp-approval-to-request-help-from-french-police-in-west-cork-case-1.4616072%3fmode=amp

Though at this stage any evidence Marie Farrell provides must be close to worthless.

Especially as the Gardaí will then need French cooperation to interview this man, if found, and I imagine they feel the case is closed since IB was found guilty.

I have just finished watching the Netflix doc. I don't think it mentions any blood on a door. In fact, I just rewatched the part where the search of the cottage is described and there is no reference to it. Is that in the Sky doc?

Yes. Blood on the door in the sky doc.

How can you lose a gate ffs. Someone wanted it 'lost

And something weird/arrogant about the police chief chap with the really strong accent. Couldn't take to him at all.

Wonder if the German or French man drove a blue car. Perhaps it was dismissed as it didn't fit with their story

I

The Guards are now saying they disposed of the gate as it had no evidentiary value 6 years after the murder.

They claim they offered to return it to the property but the parents declined.

m.independent.ie/irish-news/blood-stained-gate-in-sophie-murder-inquiry-wasnot-lost-gardai-reveal-40647261.html

I suspected a fairly mundane explanation like that regarding the gate. It's nowhere near as sensational as "The Gardaí hid the gate!"

Some of you might find this analysis by The Behavour Panel interesting:

I wonder what the outcome would have been had Greg Hartley been doing the questioning back in 1996. Not just of IB, but of all suspects.

I have seen that. They clearly think he's lying. Still doesn't explain the lack of evidence though

They found no evidence of anyone though, which seems crazy. Reading about other older unsolved cases, it's not uncommon. They said they couldn't take any fingerprints from the rock or block as those surfaces made it impossible. All the blood and hair was revealed to be the victim's. The fact that there were no forensics linking to IB is not really an argument for him definitely not being the perpetrator when they found no forensics at all at the scene. I do agree that he cannot currently be charged on the basis of the lack of hard evidence. Better that a guilty man walks free than an innocent man be charged. I read the French file that lead to his prosecution in France. Clearly, very different legal systems!

Breaking news, Ian Bailey is innocent

I saw that.

Horses!!!

Well it's certainly creative.

If anyone wants to chat directly to the bould Ian twitter.com/IanKennethBail1

[quote WeatherToday]If anyone wants to chat directly to the bould Ian twitter.com/IanKennethBail1[/quote]
Gosh, he has all the self-awareness of a shoebox. Plus I can’t decide whether he tweets drunk or whether he actually thinks people in Schull and surrounds will actually appreciate an English guy doing a comedy west Cork accent and phonetic attempts at Irish greetings while he advertises his presence at the local markets..

He reminds me of David Brent, apart from the DV.

He has a bit of a nerve calling himself a “legal academic”.

I’ve just listened to the West Cork episode where they interview Marie/Fiona. She doesn’t strike me as someone closely acquainted with a moral compass, I’m afraid.

Yes. I was watching MATC again last night and when she's driving Jim back to the bridge and he points out the turn down to Sophie's, she says "I didn't know that". YEAH RIGHT - lived in the area, 25 years and 3 court cases on, and she didn't know which road lead to Sophie's house. "As sincere as a hoor's kiss" is the phrase that comes to mind.

When I saw her on the Netflix series I thought initially that Marie Farrell came across as very believable. Obviously her later retractions suggest she may be a fantasist of some kind or else was somehow intimidated by the guards.
Her evidence was crucial in Ian Bailey becoming the prime suspect, without that he may not have even been questioned.
In hindsight her evidence seems very dubious.
Bailey would have to have gone a very circuitous route home from the crime scene to have been seen at Kealfadda bridge.
Surely if you'd just murdered someone in a fit of rage you would want to get home and remove any blood or clothing etc.
Even, if he had, for some bizarre reason gone the long way around via Kealfadda bridge he would have seen the headlights of a car approaching and hidden. How could she possibly have identified him in the dark of night unless he stood in the middle of the road in the full glare of the headlights.

It's possible the guards used the threat of exposing her affair to force her to claim she'd seen Bailey.
Why would the guards have done that? Well they were obviously under immense pressure to charge somebody. There must have been pressure coming from senior people in the Gardai and the government to find the culprit not to mention the pressure that would have been coming from her Family in France and French politicians.
It was only just over a decade previously that the guards had beaten confessions out of Joanne Hayes and her family for the Kerry babies murder, a crime for which they were completely innocent. No Guards were ever convicted of any crimes in relation to those beatings/forced confessions.

PS. I'm not saying that Bailey isn't a scumbag of the highest order and quite possibly did Murder Sophie but the key piece of evidence from Marie Farrell was I suspect concocted.

I don't understand why Marie Farrell got involved. Maybe she genuinely saw someone washing their boots at the bridge and was being a responsible citizen but to then lie in order to make that person fit IB's description is despicable. She has to take some responsibility for the fact that the murder hasn't been solved. Part of me wonders (& I said this earlier) if the man with her was the murderer and he contacted her in a panic for a lift. Maybe she lied about the man at the bridge because she was afraid she'd been seen in the area. I'm not saying it happened but it might have and I doubt the Guards looked at that angle because they were so blinded in their attempt to shoehorn IB as the chief suspect, purely on circumstantial evidence.

This page seems to have a bit more of the nitty gritty detail regarding MF's timeline: magill.ie/archive/falsely-fingering-sophies-killer

Am I right in saying that the man with Marie Farrell has never been identified or interviewed?? A male who was in the area at the time?! How is that possible when we know every little detail about Bailey?!!

Could it be that this unknown man is the murderer and MF was trying to deflect attention?!

It seems crazy that Farrell would employ the daughter of Jules Thomas to mind her children when she thought Bailey was a murderer??!!

I hope she feels ashamed of her lies in this matter... Its entirely possible the murderer wasn't caught because of her interference.

I thought Marie Farrell had given two names, one of whom had died by the time she named him.

This article says she gave three different names.

www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30654781.html

This one suggests that John Reilly was the last name she gave, and that she says she never talked to him again after that night:

www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/farrell-i-never-spoke-to-my-male-friend-again-30832772.html

It's not clear to me whether the police followed up John Reilly, if that is considered to be the 'true' identity of MF's male companion -- even if he was dead, there's at least the possibility they could have established from family or friends whether he was had possibly been in Cork the day before the murder (where he supposedly encountered his ex-girlfriend MF at her market stall in the Coal Quay in Cork) etc.

Of course, I suppose it's possible she chose someone with no family or people likely to be able to say he definitely was or wasn't somewhere that many years on...

MF is definitely a strange character. She comes across as a humdrum enough little creature without any obvious appetite for drama or any particular imagination, yet it is reported that before moving to Schull, she left London in a hurry because her SIL reported her for benefit fraud and she was being required to pay back a big sum, and even leaving aside whatever she was up to with 'John Reilly' (or whoever) the night of the murder, she seems to have half-enjoyed her importance to the police at first.

Actually, I'd be more interested to see those body language people do their stuff on MF than IB. He's such a weird, stagey, self-important speaker, anyway, that I think some of their schtick simply doesn't work on him, because he appears fundamentally unreliable and mendacious even reading a menu. Even his tweets contain weird lapses, imitations of what I can only assume he thinks is an echt west Cork accent, and suggest someone with no self-knowledge or ability to communicate normally.

I was thinking same, but don't think there are any recordings long enough. The MATC one would be the longest. I am not a Tweeter, but if you are, you could tweet the panel and see if they will do it!

@Caiti19

Yes. I was watching MATC again last night and when she's driving Jim back to the bridge and he points out the turn down to Sophie's, she says "I didn't know that". YEAH RIGHT - lived in the area, 25 years and 3 court cases on, and she didn't know which road lead to Sophie's house. "As sincere as a hoor's kiss" is the phrase that comes to mind.

Yes.. I noticed that too - it was absolutely ridiculous of her to imply she didn't know that was the road to Sophie's house.. I think she is a fantasist of some sort. I wonder was she even out that night at all?! Has her husband ever had anything to say about it?!! I wouldn't believe a word out of her mouth..

It’s amazing with all the lies she has told that she can’t be charged with perverting the course of justice or equivalent. Though I am no lawyer! Would that apply here? Though if the guards did pressure her they can’t really do anything can they?

I read that MF had committed benefit fraud previous to the murder. If that is true and she approached the whole thing from the start with the intent of what she could gain (like a council house) then you can't believe any of her words.

I truly believe there was no man in the car and the guards knew that too. They used the 'secret affair' as a fake excuse.