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?

I've read that IB signed an exclusive contract when he took part in this documentary which means he can't take part in the Netflix one so it'll be interesting to see how they address that.

From the point that the police had IB's black coat, couldn't find any evidence on it and then decided he must have two black coats I knew they were clutching at straws.

The cleaner says that they suspected someone had been breaking in and using the bathroom etc of the cottage while it was unoccupied and I would have liked to see this angle explored more.

Just been reading about the case on Reddit and one of the many pieces of evidence that were "lost" by the Gardai was a blood splattered 14 foot gate.

I mean, how?

Exactly what alibi did her lover have? The lover that a few weeks prior had tried to strangle her??? I mean, wtf?!

Also, lots of inconsistencies in IB's story on the pod cast- walking at night, the staff that disappeared, the list is endless. Part of me just thinks if it quacks like a duck...

AND there was the suggestion that possibly she laughed at IB's poems/writing and that indurated him. That makes a lot of sense.

Yes I know what you mean OP. In one episode of the podcast his partner said something like well of course he couldn’t have done it, he was so normal the next morning and I thought given that IB has completely glossed over the fact that he’s hospitalised you multiple times as if it’s no big deal it’s not really a stretch to think he could appear normal after killing a woman.

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

Exactly what alibi did her lover have? The lover that a few weeks prior had tried to strangle her??? I mean, wtf?!

Also, lots of inconsistencies in IB's story on the pod cast- walking at night, the staff that disappeared, the list is endless. Part of me just thinks if it quacks like a duck...

Are you talking about Bruno Carbonnet? Hadn’t they split up in 1993?

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

AND there was the suggestion that possibly she laughed at IB's poems/writing and that indurated him. That makes a lot of sense.

Everyone laughed at his poems, though — he used to perform them with a bodhrán in pubs, and they were awful — and he seemed largely oblivious. The poet John Montague, probably second only to Seamus Heaney in stature, lived locally, employed Ian as a gardener, and both on the West Cork podcast and in an article for the New Yorker, said he’d tried to encourage Ian to work on his poems to improve them, but he hadn’t wanted to.

Sophie's friend testified in the French trial that she felt bad that she hadn't accompanied her on that last trip because a local man had been pestering her to listen to his poetry.

And yet Ian claims they had never spoken, barely remembers meeting her at his neighbour's house.

With an ego that size, he'd be all over her.

Oh I thought her former lover was very recent to her murder- where did I get 2 weeks from?!

Apparently Sophie had a very cutting manner of speaking ,I can well imagine IB making a nuisance of himself and her cutting him off short and laughing at him to put a stop to it.

I don't believe for a minute if he'd met her he wouldn't have remembered her,in a place that small surely anyone new is a source of news.

Ohh wish I had sky!!

The podcast is brilliant squishyegg and you get more of a feel of just how remote her cottage was than in the series.

Oooo Netflix one is out today,isn't it?!

I have a million things to do today but am currently parked on the sofa watching the Netflix series

Looking forward to seeing the Netflix one too and I will listen to the podcast, binged the sky one last week. Such a brutal murder, really feel for her son.

Ohhh is there one on Netflix? I'll have a look! Is it called the same thing?

It's called Sophie

Episode 2, about 20 mins in and IB describes killing the turkey and how he allegedly got the scratch on his head.

Listen to his description of killing it- is that how you kill a turkey- catch it then hang it upside down and then wring it's neck? Surely not, surely a quick wring to the neck, why the hell would you use such a convulted method?

Then he says that everyone says he must've killed Sophie and that's how he got the head scratch....and this is interesting.... The film slows down and he does a weird affirmative nod at yeh end of speaking. "So that's how he got that after he killed Madame DP".... and he nods. He also addresses her as Madame DP , to distance himself from her.

I have watched far too many body language programmes

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

Episode 2, about 20 mins in and IB describes killing the turkey and how he allegedly got the scratch on his head.

Listen to his description of killing it- is that how you kill a turkey- catch it then hang it upside down and then wring it's neck? Surely not, surely a quick wring to the neck, why the hell would you use such a convulted method?

Then he says that everyone says he must've killed Sophie and that's how he got the head scratch....and this is interesting.... The film slows down and he does a weird affirmative nod at yeh end of speaking. "So that's how he got that after he killed Madame DP".... and he nods. He also addresses her as Madame DP , to distance himself from her.

I have watched far too many body language programmes

I haven't seen the Netflix documentary yet. Have you ever picked up a fully-grown turkey, though? They're huge and strong. Admittedly, I've never killed one, but I grew up handling poultry and around people killing chickens, and I imagine actually picking up and controlling a turkey, which is so much bigger, and getting it into the right position for you to kill it humanely, could well be a struggle for someone not used to it. (And judging by the scene with the cockerel at Bantry market in Murder at the Cottage, IB is definitely not a skilled poultry handler.)

I wouldn't discount it as a reason for a scratch. Nor for that matter would I see the bizarre, self-conscious and self-dramatising way in which he talks about the murder as evidence of guilt. It's fairly clear from the Jim Sheridan documentary and the podcast that IB is entirely incapable of regarding anything without putting himself at the centre of it, even when his own best interests would be served by keeping quiet.

He was being interviewed on Irish breakfast radio this morning, and the presenter asked him why he kept cooperating with podcasts and documentaries, and IB said 'Well, they ask me!' and the presenter said 'But you can say " No comment"! You didn't have to take our call!' and IB did his now-familiar schtik about being an old media hound and that the stories would have happened anyway.

He's certainly been out and about locally having coffee outdoors since the Jim Sheridan doc was released. I suspect he's partly hoping someone will feel sorry for him and offer him money or somewhere to live, now that Jules has (thankfully) ditched him.

Is it "Sophie: A Murder in West Cork"?

Is it "Sophie: A Murder in West Cork"?
Yes,that's the one

Wrt to killing a turkey, you're right, he's hardly a good example of poultry keeping is he after the scenes in the market?!

Also interesting it was IB who started the narrative about Sophie having many lovers and it was him who started the talk about it being a hitman from France.

Also interesting it was IB who started the narrative about Sophie having many lovers

I remember that from the West Cork podcast - I think he’d said she’d brought various lovers to Ireland? Which I don’t think was true (even if it was it’s no-one’s business) but something that would probably create an “impression” in a misogynistic society.

Omg, I'm on episode three ( I've done fuck all all day apart bung some washing on so far!!) and there were MULTIPLE attacks on Jules from IB, the neighbours were used to seeing her with bruises. Dear God.

And him going around admitting he did it left right and centre!

Seriously, how can it be anyone but him?

The big attack on Jules happened 6 months at most before Sophie's murder, shocking!!

He said ( about the attack)" it takes two....but I'm not trying to absolve my actions."

Seriously, how can it be anyone but him?

Well, for a start there's no evidence whatsoever to link him to the murder scene, apart from Marie Farrell's discredited witness statements putting him near the scene. He was locally unpopular for his brash and unself-aware behaviour long before the murder, so a 'good' scapegoat. He's clearly a deeply unpleasant individual with a drink problem, low impulse control and zero sense of how he comes across to others, and a record of violence against his partner, but if I imagine someone who managed to commit the perfect murder, apparently frenzied but still leaving not a single detectable trace of themselves on either the victim's body or at the scene, I honestly can't see that person being IB.

And the police concentration on him from very early on meant that other avenues were never explored, and arguably meant that his self-aggrandizement over it all turned into a mania, with him joke-confessing to random people at the drop of a hat.

Which is not to say that I believe he's innocent -- I simply don't know. But for me, no one has made a convincing case. The DPP agrees there's not enough evidence to go to trial on, though obviously the very different French justice system doesn't.