Sophie: A Murder in West Cork - Netflix.

The tragic thing is this...

It's highly lightly that the cold case review will produce absolutely diddley squat.

I have my suspicions that the new investigation was only to appease the French anyway... Can't have Macron giving out in Dublin and all that...

Assuming the above two statements are correct, and the odds would be poor if you could combine them as a double, this would leave a second victim.

When Ian Bailey casts off his mortal coil on this world, he will die an innocent man in the eyes of the Law.

Yet, even after his demise, he will always be referred to as the prime murder suspect in the Sophie Du Plantier murder.

As time goes by, and memories dim, the next generation will read about the murder, and the Bailey connection, followed by the French conviction of the same, and the general assumption will be that Bailey got away with it.

To me, this is tragic... To be condemned, even after death, is a slight on the Irish Justice System.

(Note - I see he is still being abused on a weekly basis)

Shocking!

The whole driving to the dump the next day is a bit of a weird one isn't it. For Shirley to decide to go is weird enough, but for Alfie not to disuade her is stranger still.

What if he was the one driving down and out the gate a little earlier that morning. Maybe to the dump or for some other reason. He gets down to the gate and finds it is closed. Sophie may have closed it after getting home from the pub the night before. P!ssed off and perhaps thinking no time like the present seeing as she will be back in France imminently, he marches up and bangs on the door to have it out with her. She is having breakfast, but with the safety of it being morning and perhaps knowing it is him at the door she answers it. They have a bit of an arguement about it and she decides to lace up the boots, but not get fully dressed as this will only take a minute, and follow him down to the gate to state her case at the gate itself. Maybe she is trying to close it again right in front of him which enrages him or maybe it is then she hits him with the plan to fence it all off. I'm not absolutely certain which gate the dispute was over but both work for this scenario. In fact the side gate to the field being the one in question would make even more sense because if you look at the photo a few pages back where it shows horses on his land, it looks as though the most obvious way to transport them to and from the land is through her field and out her gate. If she tells him she is fensing the whole lot off it may have tipped him over the edge seeing as it was a likely revenue stream for him having them on his land and the perceived injustice of her fencing it off despite hardly ever being there.

He attacks her violently because of this and she attempts to flee over the gate as perhaps his car is blocking the entrance/exit past it and obviously she gets snagged on the briars. Perhaps that would explain the route she tried to take given that it was maybe too tight to pass if a car was parked right in the middle of the open gate. He leaves the car where it is and heads back up the driveway where he quickly scopes Sophies house as he may not have been certain she was over from France alone until that point. Could have left the bloodied sleeve mark at the door in the process. Explains to Shirley what has happened and she agrees to go along with the story that the reason the car was down at the murder scene is because she was the one driving to the dump and found the body. I have to say it's a bit bizzare her going to the dump instead of him, her going to the dump anyway after the fact, him calling on Sophie to let her know that despite there being no neighbours for a mile in any direction there just so happens to be a woman murdered at the bottom of their drive and did she see/hear anything.

Another thing I thought of. What if Alfie was the one taking baths in her house and in the process took a bottle of wine home with him. Being a chef he'd know a good one when he saw it which invariably it was. What if he hadnt got around to using it yet but couldnt get rid of it just after the murder as they were confined to their house for a few days. He didnt know in that moment that the cops wouldnt tear his house apart. How would he explain away such a hard saught, not locally available expensive French wine in his house with her finger prints on it. He could say it was a gift maybe but that would lead to more questions about their relationship and maybe too risky an avenue to go down. So instead he traversed a few fields in the dead of night while confined to barracks and got rid of it. Perhaps where it was found was as far as he would dare venture without risking being seen.

All wildly speculative of course but who knows. Like others I feel that not enough attention by law enforcement appears to have been given to persons who knew her, was in the vacinity when she died, knew she was there, had disagreements with her in the past with her dead body turning up at the exact location of said disagreement.

Lastly even though it would have been very difficult to think straight in the aftermath, not moving the body off site would make sense in this case as his fingerprints would naturally be on the gate and on her door. Maybe even in her house. Same for DNA like spittle or tiny flakes of skin etc. even if found on her as it could be explained away if he said he knelt down to examine the body etc. Moving her body elsewhere and then finding his DNA is another story entirely.

I think if his hair or saliva was found on her body it could be quite easily explained away by him. Sure if he stated he viewed it from a distance questions of him may be asked but how often does someone find a murdered person at the end of their driveway. It would be a natural thing, perhaps by the more brave among us, to lean in for a closer look. And of course memory recollection as to how far away he was from the body would be hazy at best given the mental trauma you must be going through at seeing such a sight. I don't think any prosecution would have any success in this regard, had it ever got that far for Alfie.

As for the use of the bath - you sound so sure. Given the extremely remote location of the house I think it narrow things down substantially. Who knows, maybe the use of the bath by Alfie during the dispute could be him trying to mess with her head. Given the fact it was easily established that the bath had been used it doesn't exactly point towards the person being descreet about it. Maybe they wanted to be obvious. Was the Richardsons bath ever used by this vagrant you speak of?

Can't see Bailey throwing away an expensive bottle of plonk...

I think this is a plausible scenario, given the known facts.

It posits a motive.

It explains why nothing was seen or heard.

The proposed killer (s) were definitely at the crime scene.

The visit to the dump is curious. In terms of circumstantial evidence, it carries at least as much weight as Baileys bonfire.

Alfie had an injured hand.

Any of Alfie's or Shirley's DNA or fingerprints found on the gate could be explained.

The scenario you suggested in relation to the wine bottle is plausible. I think its a given that the wine was Sophie's.

It would, of course, require Shirley to fully collude with Alfie and to stick to their story for all those years. The motive would seem to be rather weak, given the ferocity of the attack, but neighbours have been murdered over niggly issues such as parking spaces, so its not unheard of.

Yea I think if this scenario were true then the guards, as inept as they were, would have had so very little to go on. Alfies boot marks would be expected to be present on that driveway, as would the tyre tracks to their car, his fingerprints and DNA on both gates and on surrounding blocks, his DNA on her seeing as his wife and later himself found the body according to them. Even up at her house his fingerprints/DNA would be expected at her door and maybe window. Even if his fingerprints/DNA was found within her house he could always say he had been in there as an invited guest or to fix something for her at some point in time. Chances are that could even be true and of course she was no longer around to dispute it. The only thing that would have tripped him up would be the detection of his blood. But given it was winter chances are he was wrapped up well and if its true that his arm/hand wound came via a struggle with her then any blood from it would have seeped into the heavy coat/jumper/gloves he was likely wearing with the wound not bad enough to also result in his blood dripping off him and onto the floor. Maybe his explanation for the wound is entirely true in which case he may not have suffered any injury whatsoever in the murder as he was so spur of the moment in his attack and quickly rendered Sophie helpless to properly fight back. Maybe he attacked her at a moment she was turned away from him putting her at a big disadvantage right from the off.

I agree with regards Shirley that it is a massive thing to go along with but maybe she didnt know the extent of it right away. Maybe he went back to his house and informed Shirley that there was a row and a struggle and she slipped and hit her head. In order for him not to be locked up and her left all on her own in this remote wilderness it would be best if they said she was found like that. She may have agreed at that point and he then rang the guards giving them that version of events. By the time Shirley gets down to the gate and sees for herself the brutality of it all the cops would already have been told the story that the body was found by her on the way out the gate and to the dump. She's in deep at this point. She either carries on with what was told to the cops or outs her husband. Not only would she lose her life partner but also as mentioned she would be all on her own up there. And it would be a very big thing to out him, her husband of so many years, not fully knowing what happened. How much was her pension from England and was it a case that their ability to pay the bills etc. was more reliant on his pension. Who knows maybe even seeing the state Sophie was in instilled a brand new fear of what a person she knew so well was capable of and maybe that could have been incentive enough for her to go along with his plan/story.

Not sure what your point is here Tibruit.

I'm suggesting that if Bailey's bonfire represents "circumstantial evidence" against him, insofar as it indicates possible disposal of incriminating material. then Shirley's trip to the dump falls into the same category.

Yes, that's true, of course. There are many more effective ways to dispose of such evidence.

But sometimes under stress, people act irrationally.

It's fair to say the guards did a lot wrong during the course of the investigation so being critical is warranted. I'd imagine if they did search the house then it would be mentioned somewhere. You would have expected them to have done so if only to rule out the possibility of someone staying there and watching Sophies movements planning the best time to attack. It's very important to establish detail like that no? I'm just wondering if their bath was ever used by the vagrant you mentioned? If not and it was only Sophies then why not theirs also?