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Murder at the Cottage

375 replies

MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 21/06/2021 23:01

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?

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JaneJeffer · 27/06/2021 13:08

I felt bad watching her parents knowing they have requested their interview is removed from the documentary.

bubblesforlife · 27/06/2021 13:22

What is missing from all of these documentaries is about who Sophie was.
Why did she buy in such a remote part of Cork? Was she running away from some one or somwthing?
Why did her marriages breakdown? The usual thing in any investigation is to start with the husband where there is a murder.
Why was she in cork alone at Christmas time?
The comment about seeing the white lady in the first episode, I mean that’s fascinating, tell us more.
Where was her son, why wasn’t he there? He was a child at the time from what I can see.
It was all about Ian Bailey. They don’t have any known link.

Tell ya more documentary creators.

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MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 27/06/2021 13:29

The White Lady was,I suspect a bit of folklore story telling added after she's died.

They covered why she was there at Christmas.

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JaneJeffer · 27/06/2021 13:33

Her parents said she had gone there to get the heating fixed.

bubblesforlife · 27/06/2021 13:35

Did it get fixed? Who fixed it?
It’s very much glossed over

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MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 27/06/2021 13:37

It was probably glossed over because whoever did it had a cast iron alibi in the same way they glossed over her lover- he must've had a strong alibi .

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SisterMichael · 27/06/2021 13:40

bubbles I think the West Cork podcast covers more of that. I don’t remember the heating bit, but she had asked several people to come with her that time but no-one could.

JaneJeffer · 27/06/2021 13:40

What became of the DNA evidence? I think they need to start a fresh investigation.

SionnachRua · 27/06/2021 17:36

@MillionBells

They said IB was sentenced (if he ever went/was made to go to France) and yet they said there was no defence team. How can someone be sentenced without a defence team?
Because it was a show trial really, they were always going to convict him no matter what. Him not mounting a defence wasn't an issue when his guilt was predetermined anyway, I think that's why he didn't even bother tbh.

The above makes me sound like an IB fan, I'm really not 😛

JaneJeffer · 27/06/2021 18:10

You'll be writing him letters next @SionnachRua Grin

Cherries590 · 27/06/2021 19:21

@JaneJeffer

I felt bad watching her parents knowing they have requested their interview is removed from the documentary.
Ah, I didn’t know that. That’s terrible. I didn’t watch all of this. I can’t bear IB, I think he gets off on all the attention and his ex-partner Jules is odd as hell too. There’s an excellent podcast that covers all much better and a Netflix doc coming this Wednesday.
SionnachRua · 27/06/2021 19:25

@JaneJeffer

You'll be writing him letters next *@SionnachRua* Grin
Yerra I'd have to stop writing Graham Dwyer first. Terrible persistent, so he is. Grin

....before some yoke comes in and accuses me of fangirling over murderers, no I don't penpal with Graham Dwyer.

JaneJeffer · 27/06/2021 20:15

Ugh now he is a proper creep Sionnach. He's still trying to get out of his conviction.

Bailey strikes me as one of those people who like to pretend they're an authority on something which led to him being the main suspect.

Cherries590 · 27/06/2021 20:29

@JaneJeffer Thanks for this. I can’t say I blame them after reading this.

Bonedry · 27/06/2021 20:35

I don’t see any evidence it was a hit. Do hitmen usually chase their target down a boreen and just hope there will be a handy hatchet, stone and breeze block to hand to use as weapons? Is battering someone to death the usual method? Is a hitman likely to travel then to Galway and wander into a travel agents referencing the place of the hit and looking for a flight out?

Her family, who knew her husband, never appear to have suspected him, even when he didn’t travel to Cork with them immediately after the murder.

And in fairness, if you’d ordered a hitman to kill your wife, wouldn’t it be best to show up at the scene and show some distress?

JemimaTab · 27/06/2021 21:19

It does seem like the way she was killed was excessive - overkill, it went way beyond what was necessary to kill her. I think that would tend to suggest either that it was highly personal, and/or there was an unusual level of rage involved, e.g. a sexually rejected male. That makes me doubt it was a hit - that and the method (surely they’d have taken a weapon).

SisterMichael · 27/06/2021 21:38

I agree a hitman seems unlikely. I haven’t watched to the end, is it ever explained how IB knew she hadn’t been sexually assaulted? It sounded from that journalist that he didn’t have Garda contacts, so how did he know that so soon?

MillionBells · 28/06/2021 08:42

Maybe because he knew he hadn't sexually assaulted her

MillionBells · 28/06/2021 08:56

I see IB is fighting to get an interview he gave removed from the netflix series coming out on Wednesday

Bonedry · 28/06/2021 09:09

@MillionBells

Maybe because he knew he hadn't sexually assaulted her
Well, that's possible. But given that he also wrote for weeks about the case after he realised he was a main suspect and authoritatively included 'facts' that turned out to be both true and untrue, it could also be that he was just grabbing the limelight (and seeing a chance to reignite his career as a journalist to its previous heights, after spending most of his time in west Cork being a jobbing gardener and working in a fish factory) by presenting guesses as fact.

Other people see a significance in the fact that he pushed French connections from the start, and said Sophie was known for bringing multiple lovers to the cottage with her -- viewing it as the efforts of a guilty man to push the scrutiny away from the local scene.

But if this 'new' evidence Jim Sheridan (which seems to be Marie Farrell's identification of the man she saw outside her shop when Sophie was inside as a French man known to Sophie, her husband and her family) thought was significant enough to pass on to the gardaí turns out to have any basis in fact, maybe it's a different story? One that was overshadowed by the almost immediate concentration on IB by police, and the fact that IB is a dreadful human being, narcissistic, violent, egotistical, limelight-grabbing and entirely incapable of acting in his own best interests.

There's also some separate discussion knocking around online of her postmortem stomach contents indicating she'd eaten breakfast (or at least foods she typically ate for breakfast), which would move the time of the murder to morning, and if not actually put IB in the clear, at least give him a far stronger alibi.

notawittyname1954 · 28/06/2021 21:32

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor
have found it here too
podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYWNhc3QuY29tL3dlc3Rjb3Jr?sa=X&ved=0CAkQlvsGahcKEwjgzJ6ulbvxAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en-GB

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MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 28/06/2021 22:54

Thanks Smile

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MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 29/06/2021 18:42

The podcast is REALLY good, I've been listening to it this afternoon. Will come back with my thoughts when I've finished it.

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Blueskytoday06 · 29/06/2021 18:47

Netflix releases the same story tomorrow.