Murder at the Cottage | Sky

Do we know whether it was possible to reach the other gateway unobstructed by hedging? The gate in question, I think, is situated at the very end of the (main) road at a right angle to the entrance gate to the DuPlantier. It leads onto farmland owned by, well, we don't know. It is unclear if there was a hedge straddling the divide between the front garden and this adjacent land. My guess is there was. So, if there was and Sophie knew this, why would she run toward this barrier? It makes more sense that either she was running down the driveway from the house with her killer in pursuit or she had walked down of her own volition and first encountered him there.

You have no evidence of squat yet here you are trying to construct a case.

I, unlike you, knew both Alfie and Shirley and was at their house in 1996.

I spoke to them in the aftermath. I am fully aware of the level of questioning, the searches of their home by AGS, the press, and ghouls who think they have the answers. In fact they know better than Alfie's doctors who certified he was physically incapable of lifting a block. Are you going to deny a block was used?

They were quickly eliminated from the enquiry as there was and is zero evidence they were involved beyond being unfortunate to live near the victim and find her body.

Shirley Foster is a lovely women in her 80s who recently lost her partner. You are here implicating her in a very serious crime 25 years after the AGS cleared of of any involvement and you are showing scant regard for the trauma she has lived with all these years. Shame on you.

Bull?

I never mentioned IB in my recent posts, in my past posts I outlined my reasons why I do not think he is guilty. Based on a conversation I was part of.

You can get outraged all you want - including aiming several personal digs at me - but the fact remains people here are implicating Alfie and Shirley when they know absolutely nothing about them or the circumstances. Not offering an 'opinion'. There are posts here that have gone well beyond that and have strayed into implicating them.

Alfie has also been referred to as a drug dealer several times. Utterly baseless, and if he was alive, libelous.

I am not an authority 'on the case'. I was a friend of Alfie and Shirley. I met IB in 1996 at their house. I am an expert on that.

If you don't like my calling into question baseless speculation by people whose knowledge of the area is based on google maps, and would be hard pressed to identify either Alfie or Shirley in a photo but are able to state with certainty what they were physically capable of - feel free to ignore me.

Bannasidhe what is Shirley's theory on who murdered Sophie and what happened that night/morning?

As written before, there is absolutely no need for language like that.

We all myself included don't know what happened, we myself included could all be right or wrong here. We were all not there that night, we've all seen nothing.

There is very very little evidence in this case. There are also no fingerprints, no DNA, no hair, no fiber of clothes, we don't even have a time of death or an approximate time of death. None of the people mentioned here can be tied to the murder scene.

This naturally leads to speculation, if that is more around motive, or ability to do it doesn't matter.

The only thing we can be certain of, is that the Guards did a pretty bad job on this. Especially in the case of this ex British Army soldier or Marie Farrell apparently seen something.

If one doesn't have the facts or wasn't there then the view is certainly different, than if one has facts or a bit of facts. I've never met Shirley personally, nor am I implying that she did it, or that Jules did it.

However judging from the point of a layman myself a lot of things sound strange or cry out for some further consideration:

To me it just sounds strange that:

• Alfie and Shirley heard absolutely nothing that night, as Sophie would have been scared.
• There was blood on the door and at the gate, but Sophie was found between them.
• If Sophie would have known about drug trafficking in the area and spoken to others about it, it would strange if somebody in that drug ring wouldn't have tried to teach her a lesson, whatever that "lesson" would have been.
• The Guard from Bantry was apparently never really investigated, at least not the way we know.
• And then the husband, having a life insurance in the event of his wife's death, having financial problems himself, - in terms of motive this would be the classic "number one motive" even more he failed to travel to Ireland upon his wife's death.
• Sophie's love life while in Ireland, how many casual lovers did she have? What is proven and what not? Maybe there was somebody whom we don't know of?
• If Bailey did it, what kind of anger or motive would have made him taking a hike for 5 km at night, to kill Sophie and hike back again, after a night out in the pub and his usual level of alcohol? and hide the whole event from Jules?

Has your source seen and read the statement ? The Indo article claims to have seen the statement and quotes Josephine Hellen.....

"As regards friends in this area, apart from ourselves and her two neighbours living near her, and the odd workman coming to the house, she was not friendly with anybody else."

That suggests that Sophie was on good terms with Alfie and Shirley.

Locks were changed after intruder at du Plantier house, said housekeeper - Independent.ie

I do like the theory that a gentleman caller spent the night at Sophie's.

Half way through the night Sophie realizes this guy is a big mistake but has to gracefully see 'the date' through until his morning departure. Happens all the time with one night stands. The guy is parked down below the gate. In the morning she decides to walk him down to the gate. He is like "great night, let's do it again sometime". She tell him straight it won't be happening again. He takes this news very very badly.......

It explains Sophie's attire and the blood around the door as he might have gone back to clear away obvious traces of him ever being in the house.

I responded because I was tagged.

You, yourself tagged me at least twice.

If you are not interested in what I have to say don't tag me.

And if all I'm going to get is abuse then don't bother reading my posts either.

That goes for all of you who play let's tag Bannasidhe then get snarky if she says she thinks you are full of baseless, speculative crap.

Just to add, I already said when first asked some weeks ago (when I was last in this thread) that I know absolutely nothing about Leo Bolger. Never heard of him.