Murder at the Cottage | Sky

Cool the jets a little...

There is no suggestion that Jules, nor Bailey himself, is up to anything untoward.

You must keep an open mind to the many different aspects of this case. Unless there is hard evidence supporting a particular event, then it is all theories and hearsay & possibilities.

Consider this.. Shirley Foster discovers the body at around 10am, runs back to the house and tells Alfie. Shortly after 10am we assume Alfie contacted the Guards to relay the same..

Now, this is West Cork, everybody knows everybody else's dogs by name, do you think Alfie or Shirley didn't ring some friends with the grizzly news, and them friends ring their friends.??

Of course they did.. The news would be doing the rounds by 10.30am easily.. How soon before Bailey got wind of it (If he did?)

There was one local witness that states she seen Jules driving towards Sophie's at speed with a passenger on the morning of the body being discovered. This is a claim denied by Jules herself. (still, an odd statement to make)

If.. (and it's a big if), just suppose that Bailey did get tipped off before the official Cassidy telephone call, how would he react? I know what I'd do..

There is no evidence to suggest he left the Prairie / Studio that night or the following morning - None. There is no evidence that he had prior notification of the murder before Cassidy told him - None.

But this is West Cork we are talking about, a tight knit community were news travels fast. I wouldn't rule it out. It's plausible.

News travels fast in rural communities.

Don't confuse the intentions if it even occurred... 'If' they did travel out there on the morning of the body being discovered, it was at the request of Bailey looking for a scoop.. Any journalist worth his salt would have been all over it like a rash.

Once Bailey realised he was in the picture for the murder, I wouldn't blame him for distancing himself from the crime scene. If he truly believed he was about to be fitted up, why keep adding fuel to the fire.

It *was* broadcast on the radio, and the Schull Gard said it was a "murder" when he contacted the Garda car in Ballydehob at 10:15. The 999 operator in Bandon was horrified and called the station to tell them to stop. Every Garda station in Cork and Kerry knew about the murder and anyone else listening in. When Eddie Cassidy rang around all his journalist contacts at least one of them had already heard. So the news got out more or less immediately.

There is no statement from Jules Thomas to say she "drove past the scene at 11am" There is a statement from Billy Fuller to say he saw her driving on Kealfadda. He made this statement to Gardai three months later on 20/2/97. This was the same day he went down to the causeway looking for the murder weapon in the sea with his wife and child. He hallucinated seeing Bailey with a plank down at the causeway and they ran away in terrified panic. (It was a local farmer, Bailey even wasn't in town that day). This is also the statement where he first tells the story that Bailey "confessed" to him.

The vegetable shop owners didn't make their statements until 2 years afterwards and are inconsistent.

As for Fenella refusing to retract her statement, she basically refused to have anything more to do with the case after her arrest. She did talk to the French detectives when they asked. She denied contacting Marie Farrell on Ian's behalf but confirmed she contacted Ian on MF's behalf. She said she couldn't remember to more or less everything else. She denied being put under pressure by anyone outside of when she was arrested.

Nick Foster currently on Redfm... What an absolute spoofer!

He claims to have spotted a clue left by a Guard in the files which will resolve the case... He has given the information to Sophie's legal representatives (and not the Guards here).

His main motive is to make money out of this case.. He should be ashamed of himself.

Really need to cool the jets here...

Several people have made statements to the presence of Jules & Ian heading to the scene of the murder on the morning of the body being discovered.

This is not speculation, nor conjecture. These statements were actually given and exist.

The news of the murder would have been widespread by 10.30am - If you can't accept this fact, there's not much point in you debating this segment of the case any further. Some other poster has already stated the difficulty in verifying phone logs at that time.

I have stated numerous times, I don't consider Bailey a suspect for the murder. The non existent evidence, the circumstantial evidence, and the hearsay evidence, when methodically scrutinized don't add up to placing Bailey anyway near the top five suspects capable of committing this murder (in my opinion).

But to just remove the 'Bailey is all roses' sunglasses for a moment, the facts also stipulate that Bailey was not consistent with his alibi for the night in question.. He made statements that were not truthful, the Guards will say he lied about his movements that night.

Bailey stated that he was in bed all night on the night of the murder. He made an untruthful statement because he was either confused, he couldn't remember or he considered it the best option to eliminate himself from the investigation. Only he knows the answer to that question.

The Guards obviously came down on him like a ton of bricks when Jules made a statement to the contrary.. In their eyes, he was lying about his movements that night, he gave a false alibi - Of course this elevated his position on the prime suspect list.

Once Jules had contradicted his movements that night, Bailey must have known they would go over all his movements with a fine tooth comb, if he had already stated that his first inkling of the murder was the call from Cassidy, he was hardly going to start changing his story again to actually being near the crime scene that morning.. He was in a no win situation here, facing dire consequences with an investigation team that had him down already as a liar.

What if he was to change his story again with regards to the morning of the body being discovered? He'd already stated that he was at home all day until the call came through... Sorry boss, just remembered, I headed on down to the crime scene at about 11am, even though I told you I didn't even hear of the death until several hours later, sorry about that.

Several people have placed them on the road to Sophie's that morning. It could well be they have their dates mistaken, or they seen a similar car driving at speed that morning, its possible - I don't know.

The scenario I described as plausible, ties up all the loose ends... Bailey's journalistic ambitions, the witness statements and Bailey's non retracting of his movements for the morning of the murder. That's me thinking outside the box trying to make everything fit... It just as well didn't happen at all... But then why the statements? Why did the Daughter say they both left in the car that morning?

One of the many grey areas of this case.

Troll facts;

The news of the murder was 'widespread' by 10.30am on Dec 23rd . The Guards didn't arrive on the scene until 10.38am

Jules Thomas was haring around the roads of Toormore at 11am, she was worried they'd run out of cabbage in Goleen.

Ian Bailey didn't want to say he'd been at the murder scene before the priest and doctor, even though he realised himself and Jules might have been seen, because he knew that coming clean about this innocent enough information if you're a journalist, and changing his original statement Eddie Cassidy style, would have meant he was the murderer.

Marie Farrell, despite being in a shop on the main street of Schull was oblivious to the widespread news of a murdered woman and thought there had been a hit and run until Christmas day.

So you're saying the news didn't start spreading till after the Guards arrived,

some 20 mins after the body was discovered?

I'm saying that am I?

Well there's nothing suspicious about Bill Fuller is there?

I'm talking about phone calls on the morning of Dec23rd 1996 which I obviously state are irrelevant

I presume you are using the term 'scene' very loosely. The road would be about a kilometer from the end of the cul de sac.

I guess driving past the scene means something else in the countryside where it being within 1000 metres seems to constitute a drive by.

They didn't put her under enough pressure, what parent wouldn't tell their child to go in and stand up to the sc*mbags that made you sign those lies against your family

People need to relax a little on here, quit making a fool of yourself in front of everybody else.

If you can't debate a topic like a rational adult, sit it out until the subject changes.

No names mentioned.. For now.