Murder at the Cottage | Sky

He got news that her head had been crushed by a stone and concrete block. I can somewhat understand not wanting to view the body, there's often cases of 'closed coffin' funerals. She had been positively identified so it was not necessary for him to travel. But, if you think it's suspicious, maybe that's because he was afraid to travel in case he was 'found out', that doesn't make sense since he did travel to Ireland later.

Amazing though it sounds.... I wouldn't have expected the Husband or the Girlfriend to do the dirt work themselves...

You really have to look at the bigger picture here (the one without Bailey in it)

Please don't ask me to clarify and itemise every point for you, ask a grown up if you are uncertain about any theories I post, they'll explain the intricacies to you.

Your posts are completely incoherent then. First you say you never suggested there was a hitman and now you are saying you wouldn't have expected the husband or girlfriend to have carried it out themselves. Can you explain in plain English how you feel they might have been involved in her death if they did not do it themselves nor hired or instructed anyone to do it? The power of positive thinking? Ouija boards?

So 'reverse psychology' then?

• The gardai would see there was nothing disturbed in or taken from the house which would lead them to think this was purely a personally motivated killing, but if we do take stuff or ransack the house it will look like a botched robbery. But then the gardai might think it was actually a hit made to look like a robbery. Let's outsmart them and make it look like it's a killing made for personal reasons and then they will think it was a botched robbery that was made to look like a personally motivated attack. Nice one.
• Make sure to announce the arrival of the hitman in the general area well in advance so she has time to get her boots on, could be bits of glass or something in the grass and that would invalidate our safety and risk assessments. We'll just have to take the chance that she won't raise the alarm, either on the phone or if she escapes.
• No weapons in the vehicle, use whatever is within reach once she is confronted.
• Under no circumstances is she to be approached and bundled into a car in the remote locations she is fond of walking at, we want the body found as soon as humanly possible.

Yes, it is. I agree. But there is so much that is far fetched about this entire situation.

How often is a woman, living alone, in such a remote spot, attacked without apparent reason without the perpetrator leaving a single clue?

It is utterly bizarre.....baffling and, I think, it is this which intrigues so many.

Yes, credible sources please for the husband's "financial difficulties" theories. Also, the "divorce" theory and "he did it for the insurance money" theory. I've not found anything on these from reliable sources. They sound like typical gossip crap.

Sophie was not faithful to her husband. Infidelity is a major, if not the major, cause of marital strife and often results in fatal violence.

Of course its plausible. Statistically, husbands are always the most likely killer of married women He had clear motive, knew exactly where she would be, benefitted financially from her death and had the means to arrange it. Unlikely perhaps but certainly plausible.

'Often' is a stretch. It's still very rare. It's even more rare to sit coolly at home and order a hit on a partner. Maybe if a partner came home drunk after being with someone else and it was a heat of the moment thing, but the idea that a husband would seek someone out and ask them to beat her to death at a date in the future is very unlikely. It is even more unlikely that it would be carried out in this disorganised and uncontrolled way. Whoever did this looked her in the face as she fought back with her bare hands and continued on to crush her skull with a large concrete block. This was a complete nutcase.

He benefitted financially from her death? Maybe, I haven't seen clear evidence of this, however is that worth the high chance of spending decades in prison or exposing yourself to a lifetime of threats of blackmail?

Neighbour disputes frequently erupt into violence and even murder. There are many, many examples. People have even been murdered over parking spaces.

She was only in the country a few times a year. If there was intense friction between Sophie and her neighbours her family would have known about it. None of them ever raised the possibility, the violence and determination to kill seems extremely out of proportion. There hadn't been a murder in the entire area for around 100 years and there's no suggestion of a bitter feud here. Her housekeeper said any issues with the neighbours had been resolved, she went there to get away from people and it seems unlikely she was intentionally provoking her neighbours while she was there on her own just before Christmas.

It is acknowledged that at least two of the players in this drama were involved with drugs. Drug dealing and violence often come hand in hand. So, yes, another long shot. But certainly not "laughable"

Yet there were no other murders in this 'drug den', no punishment beatings or executions for drug debts. It was a few people enjoying social smokes from all accounts. The gardai even provided the DPP with information on who was growing and dealing cannabis, it wasn't 'Breaking Bad' as someone comically likened it to earlier.

The "weirdo german" as you put it, was Karl Heinz Wolney. He lived closer to Sophie's house than Bailey and committed suicide a short time after telling a close friend that he "had done a terrible thing" So again, plausible.

What is the source of the quote that he 'had done a terrible thing'? That vague and uncorroborated statement is obviously far more incriminating than someone saying 'I did it, I did it, I went too far' and 'Everything was fine until I went up there with a rock and bashed her brains in'. If we could find out if he had wounds on his hands consistent with a chase through brambles we might get somewhere with this lead..

The Husband, The Jilted Ex, The Weird German, The Bandaged Alfie Lyons, The House Squatter, The Invisible Man, The Horney Gard are all in the mix, along with the Drunken Poet of course.

This case is so bizarre, it only follows suite that the cast is as equally bizarre.

Nobody should be ruled out completely, there are people who gained out of Sophie's death... Many, that did not.

The manner of her death was savage, beyond human comprehension. This act was fuelled by anger and unbridled rage. Sophie said, or did something that triggered her assailant to act this way, to make him lose total control of his emotions, and lash out with the nearest thing that came to hand, in this instant, a building block.

Or was he hired? Maybe he thought he could overpower the slight five foot nothing Sophie with ease?? Did she make a run for it towards the gate? Was the building block a stoke of luck for the killer? Did he panic, hear a car coming, see headlights in the distance? Just abandoned the body were it lay to make a fast getaway..?

To continuously bludgeon his victim blow after blow, assumingly, even after her death is frightening. This is either rage, or to make sure she is dead.

Somebody was in that remote area that night. Somebody called to Sophie's house that night / morning, either expected, or unexpectedly?

The only person admitting to being in the area that night is the Babe Farrell with an undisclosed male? She said she seen another person by the bridge that night, make of that what you will.. Her testimony is worthless.

In my opinion, to find the murderer, you need to find the motive. There is a reason for everything.

The French Connection has motive, however unlikely it is.

Ian Bailey may have tried to throw his leg over, or tried and failed to impress the French lady with his poems, or whatever unlikely reason he may have had to trot over there that night... But even if he did drive over that night, had his advances turned down ect.. Would he really resort to such violent deadly actions?

I would hazzard a guess here.. Unless you are an accomplished serial killer, I would suggest your mental and emotional state, and general demeaner would be in bits the following morning after such an act of barbaric butchery. That's not to mention, the zillion things going through your mind regarding what evidence was secreted here, there and everywhere.. The last thing you would be doing, is volunteering a sample of your blood, hair and DNA.

This is a bizarre case.. Nobody should be ruled out.

It would have been discovered one hour later ,

she had an appointment with her house keeper at 11 o'clock.

I realize that. But all this going on about him hiring a hit person is far fetched and equally as sensationalist. And remember, IB is the person who started these rumors.

TBH I think most humans are 'capable' of murder depending on the circumstances. What I do not think exists is compelling evidence that IB committed this - or any other - murder. Lookit, he was a braggard I met at a friend's BBQ and promptly forgot all about until my friend found the body of her neighbour a few months later , and the party blow-hole became the prime suspect. I didn't even know his name until I was told that apparently the AGS were interviewing people they had been told were at that BBQ and they had been told to talk to me as I was the person who spent most of it talking to 'Ian' - who the F is 'Ian' I asked? The tall beardy English blow hole. Ah, right. I remember him. The Langer.

Neither far fetched nor sensationalist. There are numerous examples of hitmen being hired to kill spouses.

Catherine Nevin springs to mind.

There's drunk blow-ins all over West Cork, and home grown drunks too, Bailey is one of many and at that point not that remarkable. When I met him he was acknowledged by those who knew him as a blow-hole sometimes pain in the hole- but he could be very witty, and self-depreciating, and he is both intelligent and widely read. And I found him entertaining company, even if at times I was laughing at him not with him. At at times he was laughing at me. And times we were laughing at ourselves. I've met worse at parties. There were less pleasant people at the BBQ.

I pity him now. For 25 years this has followed him around. If he had been tried - and even with the gaping reasonable doubts - found guilty, he would be out by now deemed having served his time. Instead he is serving a (destroyed) life sentence for a crime he has never been convicted of.

I'm sure there are some in West Cork who would like him to disappear but the reality is he remains an innocent man (in the legal sense) however much folks might feel he's lowering the tone he has every right to be there. There's some right horrors in this country applauded as pillars of the community who are hush hush known as abusers and they don't have to put up with the vitriol Bailey has to.

There two victims here of an utter failure of the justice system imo - Sophie and Ian.