Michael Martin Launches Book.

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122630694#Comment_122630694

Gemma tends to espouse fantastic theories and compelling causes alright.

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122630762#Comment_122630762

I was aware of the author alright - still nothing even in her article that isn’t repeated here a dozen times or so - we can all write a book on it at this stage - for that very fact alone, why bother?

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122630154#Comment_122630154

"Are you telling us that he had a second coat…?"

Forensics investigator Eugene Gilligan is telling you actually. The Gardaí seized the black coat, probably the one he was wearing at the Christmas swim and was unlikely to have been wearing at the murder. Gilligan clearly found the remnants of a different coat in the fire ashes. The only reason people associate the black coat with the murder is Marie Farrell`s original testimony. You`re going over to woo the classy French lady. Do you dress up like the Bull McCabe or would something less agricultural be more appropriate?

"leaving aside the more likely possibility of her being murdered in the morning"

She wasn`t murdered in the morning, at least not close to the time the body was found. Nobody gets up in mid winter without putting on some socks if you are planning to lol around and have some breakfast. The boots were clearly pulled on in haste and Michael Sheridan reported the doctor noted rigor mortis.

drury..

None of the alternative theories explain the rage killing

This was an encounter gone wrong with the wrong person probably bailey

Maloney says there was an incident at the door and she was chased to the gate

People are posting about the old frail guy Alfie the neighbor bashing her to death and then reporting her dead and the cops have no interest in him

I believe somebody who knew Alfie said this wasn't happening he was too frail to bash her head with a block

And the husband had motive , he stood to gain financially he sent a hitman over yet nobody in France on her side have any suspicion

Some people simply cannot think straight or weigh everything up or think in terms of probabilities

On balance bailey is probably the killer

However this is not certain

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122631233#Comment_122631233

So if the coat was such strong evidence against Bailey, why was this not submitted as evidence to the DPP?

The coat he wore to the swim was the one he always wore and was taken by AGS (but nothing was found linking it to the murder).

Actually some buttons were found by Gilligan in the remains of the fire but there is no suggestion they were forensically analysed or identified as being from a coat that Bailey owned (Jules did claim she burnt old clothes from her studio).

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122631290#Comment_122631290

None of the alternative theories explain the rage killing

It may not have been a "rage killing".

It could have been a panic killing by one or even multiple individuals.

Some people simply cannot think straight or weigh everything up or think in terms of probabilities

Indeed, people have a set an outline in their head that Bailey did because of X, Y and Z and this it how it happened, everything then is filled in around that.

Any alternative is ruled out with prejudice.

Much like the botched investigation.

What is the probability that a functioning alcoholic managed to stumble across miles of fields, commit a sustained and brutal murder, leave zero trace and stumble back.

Not only that, the ensuing investigation was beyond parody to the point of outright farce.

What is the probability someone could be that lucky?

That is winning the lotto on the mid week draw and weekend draw in the same week.

xl500

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122611811#Comment_122611811

Oh they would never do that

Screenshot_20240919-090748.png

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122631349#Comment_122631349

"So if the coat was such strong evidence against Bailey, why was this not submitted as evidence to the DPP?"

Because as much as it upsets the conspiracy theorists, the reality is that the Gardaí believed Marie Farrell when she said she saw Bailey at Kealfada Bridge in a long black coat and they naively assumed that the coat he was wearing in the aftermath of the murder was the same one he wore during the murder.

"The coat he wore to the swim was the one he always wore.."

Was it? How do you know that? You might be right.

JohnJoFitz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122626540#Comment_122626540

"Considering you're so squeamish about the prosecution of serious crime, and the hands that sometimes have to be dirtied in that endeavour"

I would be perfectly happy to sit on a jury for this trial and based on the current evidence, it would take me about 30 seconds to come to my decision of Not Guilty. If by some miracle some evidence became available that proved beyond a reasonable doubt (current evidence is not even in the ballpark) that Bailey did it, I would be very happy to return a Guilty verdict and see him put away for life for the brutal wanton callous murder (obviously assuming he was still alive).

What do you mean exactly by hands that have to be dirtied? Do you mean that where the evidence doesn't remotely come near the threshold of beyond a reasonable doubt, that you will be happy enough that the guards think he done it, so thats good enough for me. I'm certainly squeamish about that alright.

"why don't you tell us where you believe the Bailey case fell down?

How it wasn't Bailey that perpetrated the murder?"

I have no idea if he did or didn't perpetrate the murder. There is not remotely enough evidence to suggest beyond reasonable doubt that he did it, there isn't even enough evidence to bring a trial. I can't prove he didn't do it, but I'm afraid thats not the way it works (for normal people).

I think you're a bluffer. I think you live in a dream World inside your own head, and I don't think you have any grasp about the actuality of any of this stuff whatsoever.

I suspect you'd be the sort of person who would shirk the civic responsibility of sitting on a Jury. Or if you did somehow end up being sworn, you'd ignore all the evidence and claim its not your place to say whether the accused committed the crime or not.

This is hilarious. Pure Col. Nathan R. Jessep. I'm not sure where you are getting all the nonsense about civic obligations. As I said I would be perfectly happy to sit on a jury and deliver a Not Guilty verdict in this case.

I wasn't the foreperson. I documented the technical evidence in such a way as to make it add up. To coincide and to show a pattern of events.

I presume this is the "the hands that sometimes have to be dirtied in that endeavour" bit. The fact that you can do the same with the Bailey evidence and make it add up (in your own head) to being guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is just scary. The DPP did us all a massive favor by not allowing this to go to trial.

Seth Brundle

Right, so now you're going with the "the gardai believed Farrell" line - I'm done here

drury..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122632327#Comment_122632327

I merely believe that Bailey probably killed her

"What is the probability that a functioning alcoholic managed to stumble across miles of fields"

Insert "finished a newspaper article" into your sentence see if that's any more doable

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122632363#Comment_122632363

Someone won the lottery last week. Therefore I`m going to win it this week.

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122632773#Comment_122632773

Sure you are.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122632781#Comment_122632781

A newspaper article on a library getting the internet versus a intense brutal killing miles away.

If he did kill her he is up there with one of the luckiest people that have ever existed.

Probability?

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122632327#Comment_122632327

His excessive consumption of alcohol on that particular evening would not necessarily impaired his ability to walk or drive the relatively short distance between The Prairie and Sophie's, a route he knew well. His friends the Lyons' lived next door. Nobody reported him as being legless leaving the pub. He and Jules then went home and to bed according to their own accounts. Ian may have awoken during the night feeling energised and in the mood for one of his nocturnal prowls.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122633527#Comment_122633527

Excessive consumption of alcohol will impair anyone's ability to do anything.

Anyway the working theory driven by alcohol he bounded over the fields cock in hand ready to offer it to the French lady in the middle of the night, he was rebuked and he beat her to death with a concrete block, left no trace and avoided any sort of prosecution in the subsequent investigation where he was the only real suspect. An investigation where the only key witness lied and there was attempted political pressure put on the DPP.

He must have had 18 lives.

Probability? Plausibility?

Woodcutting

Bailey doesn't have a good name

Woodcutting

Was that the DPP staff member criticized by a judge in one of the court cases?

Woodcutting

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122625702#Comment_122625702

You forgot "he didn't do it because of Nicky Kelly and the Kerry babies "

Woodcutting

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122631290#Comment_122631290

"Maloney says there was an incident at the door and she was chased to the gate "

I agree. She tried to get back inside hence her blood on the door. I think Bailey knocked, she came out with the poker, she was feisty, and he took it off her and struck her. She touched the wound then, bloodied, touched the door handle.

Just because she was not sexually assaulted does not mean his original motive was not sexual. I believe it was.

I don't think walking there would be a problem to a young strong man like Bailey. Well used to drink, it would not stop him. No evidence at scene I put down to luck, delay of Harbison, and change of weather the next day which blew away any fibers.

Woodcutting

Deleted

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122634202#Comment_122634202

I thought Maloney said it was a hatchet she attacked him with?

Amazing he didn't use that to kill her instead of the 12 pound concrete block.

Woodcutting

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122635500#Comment_122635500

I haven't read Moloney's book, I am quoting the person who said it began at the door and she was chased to the gate, so it could have been a hatchet. In any case I don't believe it began at the gate. I don't believe someone killed her at gate then went up and touched the back door without going in. And there was no forensic in the house to indicate the killer went in. I read there were drops of blood on the way down she would have lost.

giseva

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122633100#Comment_122633100

Him and OJ.

AndrewJRenko

Is this thread now going to be yet another rehashing of the whole whodunnit? If so, perhaps mods should change the title or merge it with the main thread.

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122633100#Comment_122633100

If he didn`t kill her he is one of the unluckiest people that ever existed. He was a violent headcase and at about 1 AM he was telling his partner that he wanted to go up Sophie`s very isolated laneway a couple of miles down the road. He got out of his bed about an hour later, got dressed and left the house and nobody knows where he was for several hours afterwards. But during the time he was missing, a different violent headcase wandered up Sophie`s very isolated laneway and murdered her. And people have the temerity to think he did it. Very unfortunate fella altogether.

Woodcutting

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122637306#Comment_122637306

There are different claims about Bailey having scratches before the murder but I haven't seen anyone say they saw the cut on his forehead before the murder and only Jules mention it the morning after.

Did anyone else notice this cut before or after?

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122637306#Comment_122637306

Yip, violent drunk head case who left no trace during a sustained and brutal killing.

Probability?

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122638108#Comment_122638108

I didn`t say he was drunk.

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122637544#Comment_122637544

Apparently not.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122638220#Comment_122638220

Really? He was on 0.0. in the pub all day?

Dr Karl

Is it appropriate that Meehole is hosting a podcast?

https://www.fiannafail.ie/news/new-podcast-hosted-by-t%C3%A1naiste-miche%C3%A1l-martin-drops

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122638284#Comment_122638284

He wasn`t in the pub all day. He spent his day cutting down a Christmas tree and killing turkeys. He had a few pints and a couple of whiskeys. He was a big fella and a drinker. He may not have been very drunk. In any event the issue you raise about a drunken headcase leaving no trace during a sustained killing is applicable to the killer generally and not Bailey specifically. If you think it means Bailey wasn`t there then it also means that the killer wasn`t there. Yet there was a killer there. Your point is moot.

robbiezero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122637306#Comment_122637306

I asked earlier but got no response. I had never heard the bit where he says he wanted to go up to Sophies Lane at 1am in the morning?

Where does that come from?

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122638536#Comment_122638536

The statement that Jules Thomas signed in the presence of her legal representative after she was arrested.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122638496#Comment_122638496

If you think it means Bailey wasn`t there then it also means that the killer wasn`t there. Yet there was a killer there. Your point is moot.

Sounds like the logic used in the investigation.

robbiezero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122638609#Comment_122638609

Asked about a statement signed by her at 11.50pm on February 10, 1997, she said the English used in that statement on occasions was not her English and there were “additions, omissions, inventions, and observations” she had not made.

tibruit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122638951#Comment_122638951

Compare what she said under oath about her statement in Bailey`s case against the state to what she revealed to Philip Boucher Hayes in an RTE interview in 2017. Recantations of recantations. She said what she said and signed it with her legal rep present. She felt intimidated by questions and questioners. Well hello. She was arrested and questioned on suspicion of murder. What was she expecting? Pancakes and board games?

Woodcutting

Jules shouldn't have been allowed on Pat Kenny to retract her statement. That makes a joke of any law or future case. Pat Kenny should not be allowed to host such a program. It shows how the media cared about nothing only stories.

Woodcutting

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122638951#Comment_122638951

Is that Feb 10 1997 statement available?. I have PBH program

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122638536#Comment_122638536

I have not heard that mentioned before anywhere.

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122633643#Comment_122633643

Alcohol consumption may decrease performance but it can increase desire. Bailey, being a heavy drinker, would have developed a tolerance for alcohol therefore his ability to perform certain tasks would not have been greatly reduced - for example, walking along familiar roads in the dark. In all the coverage of this case I don't recall one account of Bailey being legless or incapacitated because of drink, in a public place at least. We know how he could behave in private when under the influence.

Woodcutting

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122640102#Comment_122640102

Bailey was well used to alcohol and may have had other substances taken too. He may have had hash on the walk. If she came out of the house with a weapon and possibly even struck him his original motive, which I believe to have been sexual, could be soon turned to rage. To say no sign of sexual assault equals no sexual motive is nonsense

We only have her husband's word she was in bed. Maybe she couldn't sleep and got up to pack or left something in the car, maybe that is why she had shoes.

Sophie was no walkover. Her husband said she wouldn't back down from anyone. I can easily see her taking a hatchet or poker to a nuisance in the middle of the night. She may have picked the wrong nuisance.

donaghs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122630762#Comment_122630762

Gemma O'Doherty had admirers in all part of Irish society, until she went batsh1t crazy.

2000 ESB National Media Awards for "Print Campaigning and Social Issues"

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/top-award-for-independent-writer/26781398.html GSK Irish media awards (2011)

International Journalism Festival Award for "Best Travel Writing" (2011)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/mar/25/irish-independent-ireland (2014)

https://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/07/08/are-you-a-journalist/ Summer School Talk (2014)

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/arid-30859658.html (2018)

https://www.kilkennypeople.ie/news/home/328976/investigative-journalist-gemma-o-doherty-to-speak-at-kilkenny-event.html anti corruption event kilkenny (2018)

https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/28011 TEDx Talk 2018)

Village Magazine, whom she wrote for, outlines here how she veered "right"/crazy in I think early 2019. Although her 2018 presidential campaign :) did start to expose a nutty side, e.g. saying the state colluded in assassinating Veronica Guerin.

https://villagemagazine.ie/village-editorial-september-gemma-odoherty-2019/

She was praised for her work on abuse in Terenure College, Father Niall Molloy and the Mary Boyle disappearing, but there was always an element of conspiracy creeping into her work more and more.

Re: Bailey, she wasn't the only person the only person to suggest the bizarre botched Garda investigation was covering up for someone else.

Gemma may have gone nuts, but as in the case of James McClean in Terenure, its doesn't mean she's was wrong about every story she worked on in 2018

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122640102#Comment_122640102

Speculation. The basis of this whole case really.

It really isn't very hard to understand if you step back and look at it.

No motive.

No link between him and the victim.

Zero physical evidence.

Add in, at the best the investigation was severely flawed, in reality corrupt.

Absolutely no credible tangible evidence, how many DPP's does it take to get that simple message across?

Woodcutting

Does anyone know what kind of lock was on the door that had Sophie's blood on it? Was it one that locks behind you when you go out?

LambshankRedemption

So Michael Martin launches a book and Leo Varadkar has been telling US journalists his vision for Ireland.

Wouldn't it be great if one or both of these guys ran for public office?? They could put their visions to use and help improve the country.