Murder at the Cottage | Sky

chooseusername

I told ya wrote: »

I'll bow to your superior knowledge of the hitman trade:). Could be a woman warning her off her husband/partner and got out of hand.

All joking aside, I don't know. I would suspect that a lot of people's view would be coloured by what they see on TV/films, read in books, etc.

In a lot of cases the facts of what happened are not spectacular.

Shocking that the Gardai are never held to account.

Or the pathologist for not attending for nearly a day and a half.

monkeybutter

jimwallace197 wrote: »

I think a hitmans main concerns are getting in and out cleanly & silently. No witnesses and and no dna/fingerprints etc. How the crime scene will look to garda siochana would be low down on the list of priorities I'd say. I'd imagine a silencer being used to put a bullet in her head would be the preferred method & in a location more isolated than where she was was.

I really dont think the crime scene would have ended up like it was if it was a hitman and if he was staging it or covering it up, why didnt he move her body back to the house where it would have been another few days before she was found. Buying himself a lot more time.

The manner of the death and the location of the body leads me to believe it was definitely a crime in the heat of the moment by someone possibly rejected who is most likely local but definitely Irish. Someone not used to killing and who was probably high on drink or drugs at the time.

lads this had gotten way too hollywood and not the County Down one neither

JimmyVik

monkeybutter wrote: »

Don't even need a map, but there were maps back then I believe



Just simple directions will get you there



1. Take the road west out of schull

2. turn right at Kealfadda bridge, before the OSKA store

3. second left road



easy peasy


it was harder to find stuff in a city than out in the country

Thats how we used to get around in the country before all this fancy GPS
Its amazing how people just cant comprehend that people were quite good at getting to places before gps and phones in your pocket.

jimwallace197

odyssey06 wrote: »

Well, the last thing I'd expect a hitman hired in this case to do is make it look like a clinical mafia style hit because then it would point towards the husband hiring someone in such an obvious way even to the Gardai here.

No, they would make it look more like a robbery \ assault that went out of control scenario.
It would have to have some element of 'messiness'.

But this seems too far to the other extreme.

You're expecting a lot from a hitman there. His main concern is not getting caught himself, not trying to protect some director from how it would look like to the police. He's paid to a job, kill, not stage a crime scene in such a way that it looks like a crime of passion. You must have met some very skilled hitman.

Also, it still begs the question, why on earth didnt he move the body back to the house. Would have bought him days to get out of the country or otherwise.
Little did he know the garda investigation would have been so incompetent as to buy him so much time.

Addle

I find it so odd that her son has kept the house. I can’t imagine feeling at ease there.

Mackinac

jimwallace197 wrote: »

You're expecting a lot from a hitman there. His main concern is not getting caught himself, not trying to protect some director from how it would look like to the police. He's paid to a job, kill, not stage a crime scene in such a way that it looks like a crime of passion. You must have met some very skilled hitman.

Also, it still begs the question, why on earth didnt he move the body back to the house. Would have bought him days to get out of the country or otherwise.
Little did he know the garda investigation would have been so incompetent as to buy him so much time.

Re the Garda investigation, corruption disguised as incompetence maybe?

JimmyVik

jimwallace197 wrote: »

You're expecting a lot from a hitman there. His main concern is not getting caught himself, not trying to protect some director from how it would look like to the police. He's paid to a job, kill, not stage a crime scene in such a way that it looks like a crime of passion. You must have met some very skilled hitman.

Also, it still begs the question, why on earth didnt he move the body back to the house. Would have bought him days to get out of the country or otherwise.
Little did he know the garda investigation would have been so incompetent as to buy him so much time.

Youve obviously never tried to carry a blood dripping dead body that far have you

jimwallace197

Mackinac wrote: »

Re the Garda investigation, corruption disguised as incompetence maybe?

Well, after reading, listening & watching a lot of content on the case, my conclusion would be that it was most likely a senior garda who has now since passed away from the area.

It would explain the gross incompetence & cover ups that went on.

No one is likely to ever find out the truth though.

Creamy Goodness

Addle wrote: »

I find it so odd that her son has kept the house. I can’t imagine feeling at ease there.

Speaking as someone who lost a friend to a murder a few years back in which the parents still live in the house that it happened in, I can well believe it. Grief and loss can make you think of nothing else but not selling up.

jimwallace197

JimmyVik wrote: »

Youve obviously never tried to carry a blood dripping dead body that far have you

No obviously:) but if you were to argue that point. Why not even throw her someone more discreet, rather than leaving her on the side of the road for anyone to see.

monkeybutter

jimwallace197 wrote: »

Well, after reading, listening & watching a lot of content on the case, my conclusion would be that it was most likely a senior garda who has now since passed away from the area.

It would explain the gross incompetence & cover ups that went on.

No one is unlikely to ever find out the truth though.

if you were a member of the force, would you try to protect another member who had murdered someone? I mean there were a fair few people involved in this

Gussie Scrotch

The most shocking aspect of this affair is the amount of forensic evidence that was lost, not preserved or destroyed.

At the very least, it may have eliminated IB ( or incriminated him) and at best, maybe identified the attacker.

Blood and fingerprints on the gate, blood on the door, fingerprints on the wineglass, fingerprints on the winebottle, hair in Sophies hand ( said to be her own, but afaik no proper dna analysis done.

I think that any one of the above would have provided a lead. But no, all lost or destroyed.

Why?

chooseusername

I told ya wrote: »

I'll bow to your superior knowledge of the hitman trade:). Could be a woman warning her off her husband/partner and got out of hand.

All joking aside, I don't know. I would suspect that a lot of people's view would be coloured by what they see on TV/films, read in books, etc.

In a lot of cases the facts of what happened are not spectacular.

Shocking that the Gardai are never held to account.

chooseusername wrote: »

[/B]
Or the pathologist for not attending for nearly a day and a half.

Having said that it appears the Pathology dept. was as much a shambles as
Schull Gardai.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20251448.html

jimwallace197

monkeybutter wrote: »

if you were a member of the force, would you try to protect another member who had murdered someone? I mean there were a fair few people involved in this

Mightn't necessarily be trying to protect him but concerned about your own self if you did come forward. We all know what happened to whistle blowers in recent times in the force, can you imagine what it must have been like back then.

Also, only a few may have known and they may have lead the case where they wanted it to go. Lower down officers would have followed the orders of the more senior ones, clean that, get rid of that, speak to that person etc. etc. probably not knowing what they were doing.

Also this senior gard may have had dirt on other gards that they didnt want that coming out and were intimidated into helping the cover up. Maybe he said Sophie attacked him & he was acting in self defence initially.

Its hard to know obviously but I just think the behavior of the gards is too suspect in this case to be put down to sheer incompetence.

Mackinac

jimwallace197 wrote: »

Well, after reading, listening & watching a lot of content on the case, my conclusion would be that it was most likely a senior garda who has now since passed away from the area.

It would explain the gross incompetence & cover ups that went on.

No one is likely to ever find out the truth though.

I doubt there will ever be a confession at this stage too but hopefully any DNA has been well preserved. There was a murder from 1956 solved in the US just last week using forensic genealogy and a well preserved semen sample from the crime scene.

JimmyVik

jimwallace197 wrote: »

No obviously:) but if you were to argue that point. Why not even throw her someone more discreet, rather than leaving her on the side of the road for anyone to see.

Well as a professional hitman I can tell you its not the done think.
You go and you set up the murder the way you want it to look.
You go to your cleanup location and clean up. You never approach the body or the scene of the crime a second time.
More interactions, more evidence left.
I learned this on day one of hitman college.
Then on my work experience I lost marks for moving a body after the job was done.
Only for that i would have got a first.

Deeec

Gussie Scrotch wrote: »

The most shocking aspect of this affair is the amount of forensic evidence that was lost, not preserved or destroyed.

At the very least, it may have eliminated IB ( or incriminated him) and at best, maybe identified the attacker.

Blood and fingerprints on the gate, blood on the door, fingerprints on the wineglass, fingerprints on the winebottle, hair in Sophies hand ( said to be her own, but afaik no proper dna analysis done.

I think that any one of the above would have provided a lead. But no, all lost or destroyed.

Why?

My guess is incompetence, lack of experience and the fact they all wanted to eat a christmas dinner and enjoy christmas. If you look at the video recorded of the scene by rte it looked very amateur - they just stuck a bit of gardai tape and done little else.

JimmyVik

monkeybutter wrote: »

if you were a member of the force, would you try to protect another member who had murdered someone? I mean there were a fair few people involved in this

Yeah, to me it requires too many innocent people protecting one guilty one.
You might get one of them who might put their own lives on the line to help him, but more than that? I doubt it.

monkeybutter

jimwallace197 wrote: »

Mightn't necessarily be trying to protect him but concerned about your own self if you did come forward. We all know what happened to whistle blowers in recent times in the force, can you imagine what it must have been like back then.

Also, only a few may have known and they may have lead the case where they wanted it to go. Lower down officers would have followed the orders of the more senior ones, clean that, get rid of that, speak to that person etc. etc. probably not knowing what they were doing.

Also this senior gard may have had dirt on other gards that they didnt want that coming out and were intimidated into helping the cover up. Maybe he said Sophie attacked him & he was acting in self defence initially.

Its hard to know obviously but I just think the behavior of the gards is too suspect in this case to be put down to sheer incompetence.

its a fairly unlikely scenario though right


as unlikely as the hitman scenario, ask Catherine Nevin about hitmen

monkeybutter

chooseusername wrote: »

Having said that it appears the Pathology dept. was as much a shambles as
Schull Gardai.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20251448.html

doesn't seem to have been the fault of those who worked there but the Dept of Justice really


its not schull Gardai that are the problem, they would have been doing the donkey work only, it would be bandon or cork really

I told ya

chooseusername wrote: »

[/B]
Or the pathologist for not attending for nearly a day and a half.

I know I've posted this before and a reply was posted quoting State Pathologist's website, statinh he was appointed in 1974.

I clearly remember reading at the time, and before it, that back then there was no official SP.

John Harbison was a Prof of Pathology in TCD. He was retained by the state to carry out post mortems, as and when requested by the Gardai. He carried out the PM, prepared his report, gave evidence, was cross examined, etc. and, I'm sure there was a fee scale and expenses.

A cynic would say, typical state penny pinching. Maybe the murder rate didn't justify it.

A wag would say, whoever said you can't put a price on a human life never considered the deceased.

IIRC it was after this case that an official position of SP was created, with staff, laboratory, etc.

Prof Harbison was retained back in 1974, per the website. Could well have been in the aftermath of the Dublin/Monaghan bombings. The hospitals would have been overwhelmed and sufficient medical expertise might not have been available.

Prior to that I don't know. It was probably a very loose arrangement. Who's the local doctor, that we can rely on.

His non attendance on the day should be looked at in the first instance, what was the terms of the engagement? Notification? Response times? He can't be expected to be sitting by the phone 24/7. It has been reported that he was having a birthday lunch, or after it when notified. Chances are he had a couple of glasses, given the day and time of year. Would he be in a position to drive and/or be perform his duties? He probably make the assumption that the Gardai could be trusted to do their job.

FWIW, my view is if the scene was properly preserved things may have worked out better.

I have no connection to the man or his family.

Bashing someone over the head 50 times with a cement block would take serious hate/rage. Not sure heat of the moment or someone just snapping would have gone that far.

monkeybutter

Deleted User wrote: »

Bashing someone over the head 50 times with a cement block would take serious hate/rage. Not sure heat of the moment or someone just snapping would have gone that far.

but them randy farmers have some strength

Addle

50 times though…

jimwallace197

monkeybutter wrote: »

its a fairly unlikely scenario though right


as unlikely as the hitman scenario, ask Catherine Nevin about hitmen

Well a murder like this is a highly unlikely situation & stranger things have happened haven't they.

I don't believe the foreign hitman with a beret and long black jacket story for a minute who was able to find his away to that extremely remote location back and forth without a hitch. All the while leaving behind an extremely messy bloody scene close to a neighbours house where the body would be found shortly. All because he wanted to stage it as a crime of passion:D

I dont buy the Ian Bailey story. As stupid & attention seeking as he is, I dont believe he would be still claiming his innocence to this day, asking drew harris to re open the investigation & still hanging around west cork if he did this. Dont think he would have started writing extensively about the case in the papers shortly afterwards if he was involved either. And there wasnt one bit of hard evidence linking him to the crime either.

So it doesnt leave many other options does it. What we do know is that there was gross incompetence and a cover up by the gardai, we know that so called witnesses were bribed, threatened, co-oerced to implicate Bailey. We know there was little to no evidence retained despite there being plenty of it especially on the gate that went missing. We know that several vital leads such as a blue fiesta were not followed up on.

Sounds like the most likely scenario to me

monkeybutter

Addle wrote: »

50 times though…

wait a second how do you know how many times it was?

buttercups88

Does anyone know when her last visit to Cork was prior to this one? And who had she travelled with on the previous one

machiavellianme

monkeybutter wrote: »

lads this had gotten way too hollywood and not the County Down one neither

So the Wicklow one?

Biker79

Leaving the body at the gate, rather than attempting to hide it, points to a person overcome with rage I think. Unable to think clearly enough to hide it/ move it elsewhere.

Or maybe too powerful to care.

monkeybutter

machiavellianme wrote: »

So the Wicklow one?