Murder at the Cottage | Sky

There's three houses within a 100m radius at the 'end' of the cul de sac. The first on the left, about ¾ mile up the cul de sac is the one, exactly as described.

I don't think anyone would expect someone to measure the distance to each front door to measure to the metre or centimetre, which was the furthest from the turn off and therefore 'the end of the cul de sac' in the narrowest, most literal, to the point of absurdity, interpretation.

At this stage I can only conclude you are being deliberately obtuse as you are not comfortable with the fact that from what we are aware of, this crime is still completely wide open.

You conveniently haven't addressed whether you would have noticed the driveway and large white gable on the left as you got to the 'end' of the cul de sac.

As you round the corner around ⅔ way down the cul de sac it's the first house you would see.

By your reasoning the murderer would drive past the first house on the left, as described, within a metre or two of the house and drive a further 50m or so to get to the second house at the 'end' of the cul de sac before looking for a house on the left. 🙄 or having been told it is on the left you would go right 🙄🙄

Again I can only conclude you are being deliberately obtuse as you are not comfortable with the fact that the house is easy to find, even by someone not familiar with the area and the implications this has for the investigation.

It is very simple to find for anyone who is even approaching average intelligence and is willing to learn.

About ¾ mile from the turn off, exactly as described. QED some people just don't want to learn.

It is about as difficult to locate today as it was in 1996, except for the local postman. No road number - the "main " road, that is, let alone Sophie's boreen - no streetview and the name of the townland, Dreenane, is not listed on OS or Google maps.

It was no more difficult to find in 1996 than it is today. Here is her house is on a map, actually printed in 1996. Most people would not have a dot on a public maps for their house. So in fact very easy to find even for a stranger.

I'm mainly pointing out that it's trivial to provide the directions and work from them, if you engage your brain. Many people have received training in just such a task e.g. boy scouts, military, rescue volunteers ... and even film location scouts.

There's lots of holiday homes in the area, how did the people coming from abroad ever find them I wonder? And wouldn't that give good cover for a recon? Hmm.

Hiring a hitman is non-trivial, for sure. It explains why quite a few people are in prison here and elsewhere for hiring someone to murder their spouse & the people they hired because they hired someone non expert, or left a trail in doing so. From this, we can also conclude that there are occasions when people hire a hitman to murder their spouse and they get away with the murder. So apparently people are capable of hiring other people to commit a murder (or other crime) on their behalf. Now I don't know how they did it, but apparently they do. So no need for nonsense about the French Golden Pages.

I'm not even pushing the hitman theory, just saying if you're going to dismiss it, or claim the killer had to be someone from the area, I think it needs more than just the house is hard to find.

I suspect a lot of foreigners don`t find their holiday homes at the first attempt. It`s no big deal to them once you get there in the end. Kind of important to get it right if you have murder in mind though.

You are making assumptions about hitmen and spousal murders that you cannot substantiate and I`m not sure it is that common anyway. Catherine Nevin comes to mind but that fell apart fairly quickly. The reason why this murder remains unsolved in my opinion is because there is only one person who knows who the killer is and that`s the killer. Sometimes I wonder if the killer even knows for sure himself that he did it.

Right so you accept that people are capable of hiring someone to murder another person. It occurs.

Nobody said it was common, but that it happens. The people in jail for such crimes is proof - here and elsewhere.

It is entirely reasonable to conclude some people have gotten away with such crimes. It would be absurd to conclude otherwise.

Why does it have to be common?

If you only go with common solutions you will be right more often than wrong but wrong in some significant percentage of cases. This could be one of the uncommon cases.

If it did turn out to be a hitman, it would be uncommon but not novel in the annals of crime either and would not surprise me.

You are still making assumptions, apparently without evidence, that it was a male, acting alone without the knowledge of anyone else, either before or after the fact.

It would be helpful if you could explain the basis for your opinion.

The problem with this crime is the lack of evidence. Even the time of death is so uncertain that the murderer(s) could have been 100 miles away, even if their only form of transport was by bicycle, within the possible window of uncertainty between the time Sophie was killed and she was found.

Perhaps advances in forensics will allow the unidentified blood on one of Sophie's shoes or DNA from the stone or block she was struck with to be identified. I don't think it will be solved on current evidence as there doesn't appear to be much.

Why do we need "advances in forensics"? They already found male DNA on her boot, which she was wearing when she was murdered! This was over 10 years ago and nobody is talking about this.

Soulwriter, will you stop with the snide remarks? Glossybox has a lot of excellent info.

Everything he/she said is public domain sources, I can confirm

the scratches are a rabbit hole no point going down,they are not relevant because nobody can catergorically dismiss Baileys version so let it go,