Murder at the Cottage | Sky

This would make sense of everything...

As far as I can recall it was found in a ditch in a nearby field, 4 months later. Can't see that it would be unrelated to the murder, just too weird.

My theory about the bottle of wine is that it was stolen from her house sometime in '95 or '96 or even on the Sunday she was away from the house and was the kind that gets kept for a special occasion. It was thrown away after she was murdered because whoever had it definitely didn't want to be found with it. Obviously there are only a few people would have had the opportunity. Could be as simple as that.

You could take that further and say it might have been a banal reason for a confrontation. I'd be very pissed off about something like that and might even accuse someone of stealing from me with no proof, but we all make mistakes.

Was it found in an area that had already been searched?

Not so nonsensical if taken before the murder!

I think you're overthinking this one. The idea of someone trying to impress a high society French woman with a bottle of wine she could have picked up in duty-free is a bit far fetched. I think it was robbed. It was discarded quite a distance (1 km maybe) from the house and whoever found it would be discounted as a suspect given their fingerprints were obviously going to be on the bottle.

I disagree with the idea that the murder was impulsive and something out of range, as we simply don't know. For the murder to be impulsive and totally unplanned, I'd expect more evidence on the murder site, however we have nothing here. Either there was really nothing there, or it was the incompetence by police or forensics? The murderer must at least have known that Sophie was at the cottage at the unusual time before Christmas, and that the Richardsons were not at home at the time, which leads to the idea that he has had local knowledge, or was given this knowledge by somebody who was local. Suppose Alfie and Shirley really didn't hear anything that night, because they were sound sleepers, I doubt that the Richardsons would have had a similar experience, if Sophie had screamed. Their house is practically in sight of the murder scene, or at least the site where Sophie was found.

Also regarding the bottle of wine, I think it's over-interpreted. On the one side it seems strange and out of place to just lose a full and unopened bottle of expensive French wine, but also on this one we don't know and can only speculate. We can't pin the bottle on anybody, not Sophie, not the killer, not possibly one of the neighbours, not Bailey. Did Alfie and Shirley ever visit France and bring back wine, did Bruno bring wine over? We don't even know how long the bottle has been there, or whether it's been there when the murder happened, or been left there way later on. We also don't know with certainty that this particular wine was really never sold in any special wine store in Ireland. It is not impossible that the bottle was sold in Ireland in some special wine store which specialises in wines from France or anywhere in Europe, Italy, Spain, etc... Even though rare, stores like this existed in Ireland, even back then, whether that bottle was from such a store, again, we don't know.

Regarding Bailey, I'd say rage could very well have been part of his behaviour, especially after a few stronger drinks. With Bailey on the scene, it would also not have been a quiet encounter, I'd say, it would have been a loud event. What I can't imagine is Bailey hiking over on foot to Sophie's after a night out in the pub, building up a rage while hiking for one hour, killing her, hiking back, cleaning up and never leaving any traces. I'd suggest Bailey would not have been so calculated.