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?

Yes it does, definitely.

I remember this so well from the time and the subsequent appeals and Crimeline episodes.

I’m in two minds whether or not to engage with the Netflix or the Jim Sheridan one. There can be no justice for Sophie because the gardai spectacularly failed on this one. Can anyone ever conclusively say what happened to her? Probably not.
The dark tourism and the voyeur industry around her death is deeply distasteful. I feel like as long as IB is encouraged she will never be allowed to rest in peace. IB shouldn’t be the story and yet he is and it emboldens him. You only need to see him stand on the steps of whatever village in West Cork he’s landed down to and court attention. Tangentially, I’m horrified Jules’ daughters weren’t removed following the DV. What a shadow their mother’s relationship has cast over their childhoods.

The neighbour who took Jules to hospital was moved to tears recounting the story. He said the daughter looked at him in a way that just said 'help me' and it was his deepest regret not being able to do more as Jules didn't press charges. I think these days the police would have done anyway regardless of what she wanted.

I agree @PoseyFlump, I had been thinking the same myself.

There's a thread on Boards about it and someone on there was saying she didn't get on with her neighbours and that all she would do is arrive every so often and complain about everything. She'd had suspicions someone had been getting into the cottage while she was away and had the locks changed. Another thing I came across is that she'd complained about drug dealing that was going on. Her neighbour grew weed apparently.

I also find it very odd that she chose to fix the heating a few days before Christmas. As it happens I also read elsewhere that it had been fixed previously and she was there to check everything was ok. But why do that so close to Christmas? If it wasn't working it would be horribly cold and no doubt miserable in the cottage and if she needed a tradesman to fix it they'd be nigh impossible to get a hold of in the days before Christmas. Perhaps she had a lover she intended to meet? If you had a lover you'd likely meet them around that time of year?

So I have two theories:

1. she had a dispute with a neighbour that went horribly wrong. The fact that she was trying to get people to come with her to Ireland suggests she was uncomfortable in the house. Also the blood on the door - someone had to have walked back up to the house after the murder to have left that there and this is in the direction of the neighbours houses.

2. she had a lover in Ireland that she was over to see, she maybe ended the relationship and he violently killed her.

Ian Bailey has few redeeming features but given the reasons already mentioned here by pp, I just don't think he did it.

I think her son was with his dad and she was in the process of splitting up with her husband, think that's right. I imagine heating is pretty important in a place like that or your pipes might burst? Apparently she asked just about every member of her family to go with her, she really didn't want to be alone.

I think IB is just so unsettling (though I appreciate that doesn’t make him guilty). Like with the video at the Christmas dip in the sea- it was weeks before he was arrested, why was he even mentioning lawyers? Another one of his “jokes”?

But I agree that the French trial isn’t what we’d consider justice and I agree with IB’s lawyer that I wouldn’t like to be accused of a crime in France.

Also I think Dermot Dwyer is another one with very little self-awareness.

What makes you say that about Dermot Dwyer?

I think he comes across badly. No awareness that the Garda have let down Sophie and her family, whether or not IB is guilty. Or that they might have been wrong or not investigated properly, only that the DPP was wrong not to prosecute. He seemed more interested in his chat with IB after Christmas, like it was him vs IB rather than needing actual evidence.

I think he came across well on the Netflix series.

Just remembered IB saying he doubted Dwyer had ever interviewed anyone as intelligent as him before and Dwyer laughing when he was told that,he'd got the measure of him.

I agree that was embarrassing on IB’s behalf. But at the same time it seemed like he thought he would get a confession quickly and it would be done and dusted and it wasn’t.

I got the sense he was as frustrated as everyone else they couldn't make anything stick.

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

I think he came across well on the Netflix series.

Just remembered IB saying he doubted Dwyer had ever interviewed anyone as intelligent as him before and Dwyer laughing when he was told that,he'd got the measure of him.

In fairness, that’s not a particularly usual view from a certain type of English person visiting or living in Ireland — a sort of colonial condescension to the boggers — IB was just brasher about saying it out loud and often, to the media. And yes, at the same time as he was Hibernicising his name as Eoin Bailey or Eoin O’Báille and declaiming poems with a bodhrán.

You got a slightly different, more romanticised, US version of it when Elizabeth Wassell said that if only Sophie had called to see Irish people rather than the German Ungerers after she supposedly saw a ghost believed to foretell deaths that she’d have lived, because no Irish person would have let her go home. Nonsense. They’d have perfectly possibly suggested she cop herself on. Not every west Cork native is druidically attuned to the supernatural.

Yeah I thought that was an odd thing for her to say too about not letting her home

I'm halfway through Netflix. I found the interviews with young IB fascinating.

When he said he didn't commit the murder he sounded genuinely like he was telling the truth, no give away signs. If he was lying he's got an excellent control of body language. He was a lot less theatrical than he is now too. He clearly was taking it seriously.

How were the close neighbours ruled out? Or even potentially a visitor to their houses? Did any of them have grown children? I'm thinking a situation where they go to talk to her to sort out a dispute and it goes wrong.

Some of the residents don't come across well. Almost like a witch hunt. We hated his poems so we're happy for him to hang even if he didn't do it

I specifically remember this phrase from one witness:

'Somewhere in the back of my mind I think I remember IB saying...'

I wouldn't want to be found guilty on evidence like that.

That Loch where the white ghost woman is seen was seriously eerie. Such a remote point for ? Norman castle to be built. I want to go and see it now.
Could someone have wanted to kidnap her?
Someone bangs on her door, claims car accident/ car broken down, she pulls on boots and runs to help. They try to push her in the boot - this fails and in the struggle she is killed. Car leaves with any blood stained clothing etc in it.
That doesn't explain the blood on the door. I can't remember who first found body. Maybe a local found her, ran to the house looking for help - found it empty and ran off to avoid being accused.

When he said he didn't commit the murder he sounded genuinely like he was telling the truth, no give away signs. If he was lying he's got an excellent control of body language. He was a lot less theatrical than he is now too. He clearly was taking it seriously

Interesting, I thought he was exactly the same, saying the same phrases over and over again ( so as to get his story straight)

Episode 1 and 2 of Murder... I was convinced IB was guilty. By the 3rd episode I wasn't sure. There wasn't genuine evidence against him, which is why the DPP wouldn't prosecute him. He's an unlikeable, violent man who never shuts up, even when it's obvious he's making himself look bad. However, no matter how IB comes across, there was no evidence to tie him to the murder. Marie Farrell's evidence was a complete lie.

The friend who said a poet was bothering Sophie only (according to the Sky programme) spoke up at the trial and not before. That, to me, could be a false memory - someone desperately wanting justice for their friend and subconsciously half remembering something as it fits with the suspect,. Crucially though, she never named IB.

As much as the murderer could be IB, it could also be many other people who were in West Cork at the time. People are viewing IB through a retrospective lens - knowing all about his violent past, knowing about the murder, knowing he's the chief suspect. It's easier to consider him guilty looking at it that way. However, the Gardai or press didn't go through other individuals lives as forensically. They might have similar dark episodes in their lives that make people consider them guilty.

The footage of IB Christmas Day appears inconsistent with the comments by the woman who made the video. She said he had his hands in his pockets the entire time apart from when, off camera, he shook her hand. That's when she saw the scratches on this hand. Jim Sheridan showed parts of her footage wher IB had his hands out of his pockets.

The Gardai massively destroyed any chance of the murderer being caught. From the state pathologist insisting the body stayed outside overnight until he arrived to the loss of evidence, deciding on the murderer early on and not seemingly considering other suspects to the coaching of Marie Farrell and persuading her to give false evidence to identify IB, both directly and indirectly.

I'm not sure who killed Sophie. As much as it might have been IB, it could be anyone. Because of a badly run investigation we will probably never know. There are 2 guilty parties in this murder - the murderer and the Gardai, as they let Sophie and her family down by their inept investigation.

What about the witnesses who saw Marie Farrell being harrassed by IB? Why would she come forward when she wanted to keep her affair quiet?

The other factor affecting the investigation was that it was just before Xmas . Where normally you could contact and get hold of advice and info I would think everyone would have been winding down for Xmas/ in the pub etc

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

What about the witnesses who saw Marie Farrell being harrassed by IB? Why would she come forward when she wanted to keep her affair quiet?

I don't understand why Marie Farrell came forward. Maybe she hoped they'd never identify her and she'd done a good thing by saying what she saw. The problem with her evidence is that once she admitted she lied in court, a good lawyer could argue everything she said was a lie so the man washing the boots at the bridge could be discredited. A previous poster called her a fantasist, which I agree with. I think she got over involved with her own importance, the same way IB did.

I wouldn't put it past IB to harrass a witness, particularly if he knew she was lying. It's not right but it seems like something he might do. It doesn't make him guilty of murder though.

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

But they said back then there would have to be a lot of evidence left to test for DNA, nowadays it's a hair ,this was a long time ago .

Bear in mind he also voluntarily gave a blood sample and a hair sample to the police without being required to by law as well as fingerprints at the time of his first arrest in early 1997, when he would have known there was a definite possibility of forensic evidence having been recovered at the scene. He'd reported on crimes back in his English reporter days -- he knew what forensic evidence was, even before sophisticated DNA analysis became possible. I mean, they could have tested for blood group, for instance.

If anyone's interested, this is the 2001 DPP file on the case, which is essentially why they felt a prosecution was not warranted:

www.documentcloud.org/documents/540818-83548065-sophie-toscan-du-plantier-dpp-file-2001.html

It has some interesting contextual material on some of the assertions that IB had unprecedented knowledge of the crime, and also on his lack of violence towards his ex-wife who is said to have loathed him after their acrimonious divorce, and so had no reason to lie -- and also on two other women who say he made advances to them at parties, which they refused without him turning violent.

I've never read anything about whether IB had relationships with any woman other than Jules during his time in west Cork, I mean, whether before her or during their relationship -- given that lots of the early coverage described him as a 'womaniser', and there were all these stories about him reading poetry at orgies etc. I can imagine these women wouldn't want to come forward and associate themselves with him, but in a small place, people would know and the gossip would have meant the gardaí could easily have found women he'd had relationships with.

Flipping heck, now I've changed my mind again after reading that!

How anyone can say with any conviction that he's guilty after reading that report is ridiculous. Sure it didn't even make it to trial, it's been a witch hunt. They should re-name Schull Salem and be done with it.

I watched the first two episodes last night and the last episode tonight. It was a very high profile case at the time, although I'd forgotten a lot of the details (or never knew them in the first place).

I can see why the Gardaí believed Bailey was their man - the history of domestic violence, the scratches on his arms, the bonfire, Marie Farrell's statement placing him at the bridge etc. Not to mention his own 'confessions'. But I don't think there was enough hard evidence to put him on trial.

They were saying the detectives from Dublin had a long drive to West Cork and hit Christmas traffic in each town on the way. The M8 probably wasn't built back then. It's a shame they didn't have any detectives based in Cork city. And they had to use the public phone box to contact the local Gardaí. I guess mobile phones weren't so commonplace back then.

Does anyone know why it took John Harbison so long to arrive on the scene? I don't think they mentioned him by name and they kind of glossed over the delay.

I hadn't realized quite how isolated the house was. It was always described as remote, but I hadn't realized just how remote it was until I saw the road leading up to it. It does rather rule out the hitman theory. Obviously there was no sat nav or google maps back then to direct anyone to the house. And if they'd stopped the locals to ask directions, someone would have remembered. I got the impression Sophie kept to herself and wasn't very close to the locals. All of the participants knew Ian Bailey but I think only the two publicans and Marie Farrell had spoken to her and that's because she was a customer.

I assumed Sophie's son was a small boy at the time because of that iconic photo of them together - the one where they're smiling and he has a face full of freckles. I didn't realize he was 15. It must have been devastating for him and Sophie's family, especially so close to Christmas.

That place Three Castle Head where Sophie supposedly saw the white lady was incredibly scenic.

Very sad that Sophie suffered such a brutal death in the place she saw as her refuge and even sadder that her killer is still at large.