Murder at the Cottage | Sky

I don't know where he lived.

I don't think he owned the land the horses grazed on,

I believe Sophie allowed them to graze the horses on her commonage.

Leo and his partner wanted to buy some land from her and she refused.

She had about 13 acres in all spread over 7 or 8 small sites around the area.

Does anybody know, is the VM interview also intended for somebody who knows something to come forward?

Lol....and the cow jumped over the moon. It was a full moon that night wasn't it? (No reference to your screen name intended)

A French wine bottle found four months after the murder in a field next to the scene;

source; https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30859712.html

anyone know what time the interview tonight is on VM?

Wouldn't be jumping up and down about a bombshell revelation just saw a bit of the Bailey interview on the VM News, he just reiterates he thinks the person who killed Sophie is now dead

Shin

This bottle of wine is another mystery. How far from the house and the scene of the murder was the bottle found? It would at least give us an idea of the possible radius of the struggle between the victim and the murderer? Were there any checks of fingerprints on the bottle? Also where in France was the bottle from? Was this wine also available in Ireland? French supermarkets can be very regional, in what they offer. If the murderer brought the bottle and we know what kind of wine and from which winery, it may give us another indication.

Regardless of anything else I really just think Bailey is a disgusting human being.

What could he possibly provide in any interview with the media? He knows nothing about the case, right?

It's all about self-promotion and no doubt a bit of money too.

He has every right to expose Garda misconduct and to talk about it in public. Speculating on who did the murder etc seems out of order to me.

How was the bottle of wine not discovered during the initial search for evidence (if there even was one)?

Also, is it possible the wine ended up there a few weeks after her death through other means?

Something that always stuck with me is that throughout her changing story she always stuck with a few key points.

She saw someone suspicious outside the shop. There was someone in the car with her. She drove past a suspicious person down by the bridge.

She has never really changed from that basic narrative even though at the time of claiming the police forced her to make it all up she would have been able to just say "it has all been a lie, I was in bed the whole time but I just wanted to be involved and to help the Garda".

My personal opinion on that is that she was in the car with someone else and she couldn't lie about that as there would always be the possibility that this person would come forward or someone related to them would come forward. For the Garda it would be convenient if this person was never found as they could very easily end up saying "yes, we were in the car and we saw someone but it wasn't Bailey". A large part of the case against IB relies on him being at the bridge. The Garda influence on MF seems to have been to insist that the person she saw that night was IB.

This "mystery man" aspect of the case is just so disturbing and bizarre. From her absolute stubbornness in not naming this person, or at least not admitting that there was no 2nd witness at all, to the Garda's inability to extract this information from her. You have a lady all but admitting that she has vital information in a murder case and knowledge of an additional witness and yet it's just allowed to sit there. Like, oh, we just couldn't find the passenger, you know, just can't get that information for some reason and just letting her keep that secret. It's just sits there like a really troubling elephant in the room. Who the hell is that passenger and why were they never identified and questioned?

I would say that Bailey is the number one suspect. Of course. As his "alibi" develops through the case to "oh actually I did get out of bed and I did leave the house and I did have scratches and a cut on my head but it's all a coincidence and there's an explanation for it all" he just looks like a more and more likely suspect.

HOWEVER, there was another man in the area. Driving around in a car. Near the scene of the crime. At around the assumed time of the crime. What's this? The identity of that person has remained a secret? That's really, really, so convenient. That person never came forward despite the case being national news? That person never contacted or saw MF ever again and so never discussed the case? MF manages to weasel out of naming this person again and again. Even going so far as to name other people to throw the Garda off the trail. What is that all about? Now, of course, that individual is supposedly dead and gone. Still unnamed.

I wonder if that person even exists? If they do I wonder if they ever talked to anyone about that time when they actually had been driving around the area on the night of Ireland's highest profile murder mystery. Just never ever brought it up, I suppose.

I think after so many years it's very very hard to figure out what really happened that night. There is also too much police corruption and incompetence involved, lost evidence, etc..., to ever really get a clear picture on this.

The only thing Bailey can do at this point is to clear his name, and possibly get the court ruling in France overturned.

Other than that this case will always be with a high speculative element. The only thing one can do at this point is some form of profiling or some forme of motive hunting. In terms of likelihood, motive I can only see three options:

1) Sophie seen or noticed something she shouldn't regarding drugs, involved the police, and triggered everything else. If a local Guard did it who was in it, or Alfie, or somebody else in that drug operation is all speculation. Within that drug ring ist's also possible that they coerced one member to do the "dirty work" for the rest? Motive for killing was to shut her up, and send a message hence the brutality of the killing.

2) Some relationship, marriage/divorce or other sexual matter, possibly involving a contract killer. Motive was anything from avoiding a financially costly and media-public divorce or simply jealousy or a rejected lover in a heated argument.

3) Bailey did it himself, but for what motive? Just to write newspaper articles and be in the center of journalistic attention? To blow off steam after a night out in the pub? And be the first to volunteer DNA and hair samples?