Sophie: A Murder in West Cork - Netflix.
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Continuing on to the dump just 4 hours after finding a dead body is weird alright, but I think it says more about the laisse-faire attitude of the police early on than it does about Shirley.
Have a look at the interview with Shirley in the French Documentary linked below and see if you think she is in your opinion the type to cover up a brutal murder, it starts about 35 mins in;
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Ive long suspected Aflie & Shirley knew more than what they let on but I dont buy the argument that Alfie murdered her. In saying that though, I dont buy that Bailey murdered her either. On the balance of evidence, Alfie should have been investigated & harassed by the gards as much as Bailey & had his name dragged through the mud also. He was much closer to the scene of the crime than Bailey, known drug user, was in dispute with her & was known to have used her place when it was vacant at least once & had drug dealing associates visiting his properly fairly regularly. I dont know about ye, but if I found out my neighbor was using my bath etc when I was away, id blow a gasket in all likelihood so I can understand if STDP was more than a little unhappy with the behavior of her neighbor when possibly Josephine Hellen informed her of it.
Maybe he or Shirley or both heard screams that night but were too afraid to leave the house to investigate, Id understand that alot more than they never heard anything at all even in winter with the windows shut. Why didnt they ring the gards though? Was it a gard or was it someone they knew possibly? Her dumping the rubbish the next morning, as dodgy and as weird as that sounds, I find it hard to believe they would risk it knowing the gards were on scene and had to get past them.
So i just dont buy the theory but I think it highlights the ineptitude of the investigation that they werent investigated more thoroughly & not treated in a similar fashion to Bailey & Jules.
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I agree Alfie and Shirley probably knew more than we think they knew.
We don't know to what extent they were investigated by the Gardai, but they were obviously eliminated on some grounds.
Alfie admitted using the house for water in the past but it was not Sophie's place then.
It has never been established that Alfie used Sophie's bath, it was a suggestion made by Josie Hellen that Alfie got in through an unlocked window.
(There was no love lost between Alfie and the Hellens, so was this an attempt at deflection)
This led to Sophie changing the door locks suggesting Sophie must have thought otherwise and entry was by the door.
I would suggest whoever used her bath would have good knowledge of her house - power, water, boiler etc. and also had access to the keys.
The difference in the treatment of Bailey and Alfie was probably down to Alfie telling the truth and sticking to it from day one, whereas Bailey didn't.
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The Investigation team haven't even visited Bailey yet... Instead, choosing to head over the sea to France?
That kinda tells a tale in itself.
Whatever new information or leads they have, they don't appear to lead to Baileys front door step.
There could be a lot of high end politics going on behind the scenes here??
What if all roads are leading to a French National?
Shur didn't Macron stand on his soap box, and all but tell the Irish Police who the murderer was, and what must be done to save face... ??
Realistically...If Mehole is caught between a rock and a hard place, he's only going to side with one party... And it ain't the drunken poet of Schull.
Can you imagine the scandal that would bestow the French legal system? A man found guilty of murder and jailed for life... Oops, wrong man!
Surely the froggies would be having a quiet word in the ear.... Don't embarrass us here lad, nobody will ever trust the French legal system again... they'll be pulling this card at every trial going forward... And what about the Chief talking a load of old tosh on Irish television....??
Look.... There's lots of French investment money going around... Ireland is nice for the taxes oui....?? Pull up a chair Mehole.....
No need for an international scandal here... Let the drunken poet carry the can... Who cares about him anyway??
More wine Mehole?
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All that said, I do agree that Alfie and Shirley knew more than they said. I don't know how or why the Guards eliminated them as suspects and never considered revisiting them as potential suspects later on. It would be hard to believe that they both heard or noticed absolutely nothing that night, unless the luck was totally in favour of the murderer. Like he knocked her unconscious without warning, Sophie not making a sound etc...
Regarding Shirley's trip to the dump I'd say that's genuine and honest even though it gives a lot of thought. If she was going to the dump to get rid of any real murder evidence, she could easily have transported the body, or together with Alfie they could have disposed off the body in the sea, thrown Sophie over the cliffs. etc... They would also have known the area intimately, known which cliffs, which parts of the coast, etc...
If done so, they could have done that while it was still dark, say at 5 or 6 am, and that without any potential witnesses, also the Richardsons were not there. It would also have been more than a while until the body was discovered. I think anybody would have noticed something strange by 10 am, caretaker not getting an answer, husband in France trying to call, later on, not showing up for a flight, not returning the rental car, 24 hours and everybody knew Sophie was definitely missing.
The murderer having 24 hours advantage, plus the body may still not have been found. 48 hours later, maybe they found her, after drifting in water, washed ashore somewhere. Forensics having an even harder time to establish time of murder and absolutely no evidence connecting murderer to victim.
If Alfie and Shirley did it, I'd say chances are high they'd gotten rid of the body as well.
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I don't know how or why the Guards eliminated them as suspects and never considered revisiting them as potential suspects later on. It would be hard to believe that they both heard or noticed absolutely nothing that night, unless the luck was totally in favour of the murderer.
Maybe they eliminated them because there was absolutely nothing to suggest they were involved.
Maybe they didn't eliminate them straight away but continued to look into them and then came to the conclusion that they had nothing to do with it.
We don't know any of this.
As for them not hearing anything.
On a winters night go into a house in a rural location, close all doors and windows and go to sleep.
While you are asleep get someone 100m away or so to start a ruckus, see if you wake up.
I know I certainly wouldn't hear anything 100m away from my house in the middle of the night while I was asleep with doors and windows closed.
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The fact that they were only 2 people close by that night should have meant they were treated as chief suspects iniatally. Based on what happened the morning of the discovery of the body indicates they were not treated as suspects by the Gardai which is strange. The facts also still remain that:
- The trip to the dump may have been an innocent trip but she should not have been allowed to go at all - thats the important point. Why couldnt it have waited? Why did Shirley still want to proceed to the dump given that she should have been shook up? There is always going to be that doubt there as to what she was disposing of. Given she was allowed go on her dump trip at lunchtime means there is no way the gardai checked out the rubbish in detail or that something wasnt concealed in her car.
- Shirleys car should have remained at the scene
- Why didnt Sophie run toward her neighbours house and scream her head off - she was more likely to get their attention and possibly her attacker may have been scared off. Now she probably wasnt able to think this out and just ran and maybe it was easier to run the other way. But again this raises doubts against her neighbours
- Both Alfie and Shirley didnt think that the body could be Sophie. Now I get that they didnt look closely at the body - thats understandable but based on the size of the body ( Sophie was a small lady), the hair colour and given that she was their only neighbour how could they not have considered that it could be Sophie. They could argue that they didnt know Sophie was at the house but they lived so close to her house that it would be impossible not to notice that she was staying there - car parked outside and lights on in the house.
- Not hearing anything - their house didnt seem well maintained and probably had single glazing. Sound carries alot in the silent nighttime countryside. I still live in the country and have a well insulated house with double glazed windows - I am still able to hear a dog barking for example in the dead of night. Now I do have good hearing though. I suppose this depends on how good Alfie and Shirleys hearing was. I often wondered did they see and hear something that night and chose/paid/threatended to stay quiet.
- Motive - Sophie and Alfie had issues in the past re property and definately were not friends.
- If this murder happened today a criminal psychologist would be bought in. Both Alfie and Shirleys behaviour on that morning would be considered very unusual and would be called into question. Their reaction and actions that day definately wasnt normal. Of course Baileys behaviour in the days after the murder would also be called into question but it could be argued that he was doing his job as a journalist.
All the above could dismiss a case against anybody else ( including Bailey) for this murder. All of the above are probably innocent incidences but Im sure you would have to agree that the Gardai messed up with their initial investigations bigtime and how a defence team could use this in court.
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“As for them not hearing anything.”
Maybe there was little to hear, except maybe the clattering against the gate.
Also bear in mind, when Shirley realised what she had just seen, she ran back to her car and leant on the horn for a good while and screamed for Alfie.
She had to make her way back up to the house to alert him. He had heard nothing.
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A cover story for what exactly?
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Well the scenario I put forward saw Alfie drive past Sophies and down to the gate early that morning. Upon seeing the gate closed, which she likely did the night before after returning from the pub, he marches up to her house to pull her up on it. It was the subject of their ongoing agreement after all seemingly. All any of us can do is guess as to what happened but this scenario would provide motive, would have got Sophie out of her house and down to the gate, would account for her wearing boots but not being fully dressed and would account for no other DNA/fingerprints being discovered during the investigation. After all Alfies DNA would be expected to be on the gate and on the surrounding blocks etc.
The cover story is that the body was initially discovered by his wife as she was driving down the driveway and out past the gate. This version of events would account for why his fingerprints would be on Sophies door or door handle, if indeed they were, as he was informing her about the discovery. Of course they would be on there as well should this scenario be true and he knocked on her door to have it out with her about the closed gate he just discovered.
Furthermore should his wife be the one to find the body then any probing questions from the guards would be directed towards her and not him, who he would state was back up at the house. The fact that the wife wouldnt actually have seen anything would bode well under questioning against her also.
As it turns out there musn't have been that many probing questions put to her anyway seeing as she was allowed leave in her car an hour or two after first allerting the cops. She could have just as easy said she was heading to the shops instead of the dump. My hunch would be that no one would be stupid enough to actually put anything incriminating into their boot but under such unbelieveably alien circumstances where your brain is surely in a state it's never been in before who can say. Also if there was incriminating material in the boot there may be far less chance of the car being properly searched if she was driving as opposed to him. This is rural Ireland in the 90s we are talking about here. Women were largely seen as homemakers, wives, mothers not capable or supected able to be involved in something like this.
One thing is for sure - she really wanted to get to the dump and she did.
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I'd say yes to that because how are any of us to know what that person would look like.
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I think it would have been crazy of them to get rid of the body. Throw it off a cliff and then what? The current would wash the body up on some nearby beach anyway. Sophies DNA would be all over their boot/car and their DNA would be on Sophie. The only way that last part could be explained away is if she was found in a location where their DNA would be expected to be. And it was.
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It's just a speculation, like all the other speculations. And I am speculating in any direction, to keep it as openminded as possible. We don't eve have a clear motive for murder here.
And yes, everything is crazy about this case, especially how she was killed. Killing somebody with a stone and a cavity block is probably a very rare form of murder. I'd say shootings, stabbings, strangulation, poisoning and even beating somebody to death with a baseball bat are probably more common.
Alfie and Shirley had a station wagon, they could have covered the boot up with something and put Sophie on to of that covering, and later on transported her to some remote site, and dumped her into the ocean. This all would have happened with considerable ease to them, as they knew the area intimately, remote coastline and cliffs, operated under the guise of darkens and time was also on their side. Later on they could have cleaned the car thoroughly, just to be on the safe side, - but then their car wasn't searched or examined.
On a latter note, from an emotional point of view, I don't think that Alfie and Shirley would have been capable of such an act, but theoretically speaking, if they killed here, they could have proceeded that way. Maybe Alfie would have needed a lot of Cannabis to calm down, and Shirley as well? Not impossible to think of.
It's also entirely possible that the killer was somebody completely different. A woman, somebody like her housekeeper, perhaps? She was expected later on that morning, wasn't she? What if she turned up early, probably a brief phone call to explain the situation, then had a word or two with Sophie about the upkeep of the house, a conversation getting into an argument resulting in a rage killing? In this case the housekeeper would have known that Sophie was home, would have known the area, and her DNA or fingerprints would also have been expected around the house and neither would her car have been suspicious, if she was seen.
Maybe Alfie and Shirley were totally innocent? Maybe there is a real credible explanation why they haven't heard anything that night? It's not impossible that there isn't.
Suppose, if the killer was a professional or a hitman, would he have chosen the cavity block and the stone? Or would the professional killer have intentionally killed this way, just to distract from any professional killer theory to a layman making it look like rage? One thing would probably be sure, is that it is most likely indeed possible, if hit unexpected like from behind with a cavity block or a stone, one might go down without any noises or screams, - the killer may have known this, or was it only coincidence?
Or was it really a rage killing with a cavity block and a stone, whatever was coming in handy and was within easy reach of the killer? Was the killer only planning to see her that night / morning and killed her in a rage? And if so, what triggered that rage? And if it was rage, why would there not have been any noise, anything for Alfie and Shirley to hear? ( I would agree that their house was most likely single glazing and one would probably even heard a dog barking from a distance at night) Who would be so much in rage in the middle of the night or early morning to kill somebody in an unplanned fashion and get away with it so clean?
All questions leading to further speculations.
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Poor Shirley. One can only imagine the life she must have had with a man who had such destructive anger that he would destroy a woman to the point where her own parents were unable to identify her body...and all because she closed a gate. He must have been in some foul humour that day. No wonder she wanted to get away for a while, even if it was only to the dump.
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The thing is, we can't judge Shirley. Did she live a moral life, or an immoral one? Did she abuse drugs on occasions, influenced by her husband? What was her background in these aspects? We don't know.
We know that Bailey was on occasions violent and drunk.
We know that Alfie abused drugs on occasions.
We know that Sophie slept around and so did her husband.
We know that one Guard from Bantry as sexually overactive and had a complicated personality.
But we know nothing of that sort of Shirley, nothing at all.
And the odd thing is, she only discovered the body while looking in the rear view mirror? How many people are glued to their rear view mirror driving down a country lane? I mean, she must have noticed something driving by, or when she was approaching Sophie's body? After all, it was a narrow country lane, and she wouldn't have driven over Sophie's feet, she must have seen something ahead, and driven by extra carefully?
Something about this is also not really right in Shirley's story come to think of it.
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The last 20 pages of this thread :
'Now I don't actually think Alfie and Shirley did it but here's a long winded post speculating that Alfie and Shirley did it.'
Has anyone actually got the balls to stand up and say Alfie and Shirley did it?
If not maybe you should stop slyly insinuating that they were involved in a murder on a very public message forum.
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They did it
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They could have done it.
Also Bailey could have done it, the former lover Bruno, same as that Guard from Bantry, or a hit-man hired by her husband, or maybe even the housekeeper.
And what about that musician from Germany who committed suicide upon return to Germany stating having done "something terrible".
We have nothing on anybody.
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Haven't visited this thread in ages but the above sums up the **** that is being repeated.
Full of waffle and lies.
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Yeah.....no.... I`m still considering the local guy who put his partner in hospital after one of a number of assaults. Apparently he had the potential to fly into rages with little provocation, especially after he`d had a few drinks. He had been drinking on the night of the murder, coming off an all night bender the previous night and couldn`t just go straight home, but had to take a detour that allowed him to look longingly across at Sophie`s place and speculate that there might a gathering at her neighbours house. At least that is how he expressed it to his partner because he could hardly tell her what he was really thinking, although he did predict that something was about to happen.
So we have this drunken violent character, showing a clear process of thought that would see him going in that lonely lane that night. It wouldn`t be so bad if he`d gone home and slept it off, but no...he got out of his bed an hour or so later, left the house and wasn`t seen again (I`m even going to exclude the bould Marie) for several hours. Wouldn`t you know it, somebody actually did go in that lonely lane that very night and beat that nice lady to death. Yes indeedy.
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If he had the potential to fly into rages with little provocation, why does he have no other record for violent behaviour other than domestic abuse incident? And even then, his previous wife reported no such issues.
Do you have the whereabouts of all people in the area with a record for violent conduct accounted for???
In this drunken state, he is supposed to have gotten up - then on a cold winter night either he treks across country to Sophie's; or drives but parks the car elsewhere. Then carries out this rage assault and leaves no trace. Doesn't sound like drunken behaviour to me.
Pull the other one.
"To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)
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"If he had the potential to fly into rages with little provocation, why does he have no other record for violent behaviour other than domestic abuse incident? And even then, his previous wife reported no such issues."
A `93 entry in his diary read out at the libel trial..."I never had a history of violence towards women, yet of late...I have on a number of occasions struck and abused my lover."
A`96 entry...."One act of whiskey induced madness, coupled and cracked, and in an awful act of violence I severely damaged you and made you feel that death was near.".....but of course being the classic narcissist, it all turns back to himself..."I have damaged my own destiny and future to the point where I am seeing, in destroying you, I destroyed me."
Two weeks after he assaulted Jules in May`96 he wrote...."I actually tried to kill her. I feel a sense of sickness at seeing my own account of the attack that night....I am an animal on two feet."
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"Do you have the whereabouts of all the people in the area with a record for violent conduct accounted for???"
Jeez no. And there are a few headcases in every parish for sure. Maybe we could draw up a list of these characters and compare them...see if they knew Sophie, where were they that night, had they been drinking, had they shown any thought processes that might have had them go in that particular lonely lane on the night in question, did they show any behaviour in the following days that might display a desire to destroy incriminating evidence (the old reliables being the purchase of bleach and failing that working you can`t beat a good old bonfire), did they confess what they had done to anyone?
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The narrative above posted by tibruit is why Bailey was in the spot light.
The list of potential red flags, would obviously raise the eyebrow of an investigator.
Do I personally think Bailey had anything to do with this murder - No.
Would I be 100% sure of that - No
The litany of circumstantial evidence against him mounts up the more you study it... I then believe, some of the more innocent movements he made were magnified and twisted (buying a bottle of bleach, killing turkeys, cutting down Christmas Trees etc..)
I also truly believe that Bailey wanted to be in the eye of the storm.. He may have had ambitions of catapulting his reporting career on the back of this investigation... Or may have been eyeing a nice compensation cheque further down the road, or may have just enjoyed the moment of being the hottest property in Ireland at that time, albeit on a criminal scale...??
However, once you put all the circumstantial evidence against Bailey into a box, and compare it to the crime scene evidence, other potential suspects, police corruption, local bias, motives, reasoning...... It pales into insignificance... Logically, there is no reason why Bailey should commit such a crime, and furthermore, to not leave one strand of evidence anywhere after him, either at the scene, upon himself, or at his residence, would be remarkable beyond the boundaries of belief.
The logic posters like tibruit use to condemn Bailey is quite reasonable and rational. What are the chances of so many red flags being associated to one person in a small village in West Cork, and only a skip and a jump away from the murder scene...?
You really have to cut through the BS to get to the facts - And the facts are more bizarre than the BS.
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When you look at things in this simplistic manner, this is when you get miscarriages of justice. On the surface, you could understand why some people look at Bailey but when you start to scratch underneath the surface against him, thats when it doesnt add up & thankfully this is why there is a legal process instead of just mob mentality.
So lets look at the argument for Bailey committing this crime.
1) Heavily drank at the time
2) Had two instances of domestic violence against his partner previously while under the influence of spirits.
3) Didnt have an alibi for a number of hours that night
4) Had scratches on his arms & one scratch on his head.
5) Strange writings in his notebooks
6) Arrogant to a point, possibly arrogant enough to think he could pull the wool over everyone's eyes.
7) Marie Farrell initially pointing the finger at him as the man she saw on Kealfadda bridge.
8) Knew the area & even knew the area well where STDP lived.
9) Alfie Lyons said he was 90% sure he had introduced him to STDP.
10) Looked over from a vantage point that night in the direction of Alfie Lyons house, thought there was a possibly a party going on there & possibly saw that STDP was home.
11) Is an odd guy in general, a fish out of water in the locality and courts the media & the attention surrounding this case.
12) A friend of STDP in France said she spoke to her previously about a strange poet in Cork who was bothering her or something along these lines.
13) A young woman saw a jacket being washed in a bucket after the murder.
Now, lets look at the argument against Bailey
1) Drank heavily at the time, so did half the country especially in more rural locations. Id imagine there was many borderline alcoholics in the area & country.
2) DV is a very different crime to a murder or even attacking a random woman in public. Completely different psychological profiles of the perpetrators.
3) He was writing an article for a newspaper at the time, has always stuck to this story and this was verified at the time by said paper.
4) If the scratches on his arms came from STDP then why was there zero DNA evidence of him found under her fingernails or anywhere. Are we really expected to believe in that time that it took the state pathologist to arrive at the scene, any DNA evidence simply dissapeared.
5) Hes a writer, find me a writer who doesnt write random things that come into their brain and ill show you a liar.
6) There's arrogance and then there's going back to the scene of a murder you supposedly committed a few hours after the event to report on it as a journalist. You'd want to have some big liathroidi to do that.
7) MF, nothing can be taken seriously in terms of what she said. Known perjurer, pointing finger at the Gards now for coercing a false statement out of her.
8) Knew the area but so did most of West Cork, in fact, it wouldnt take long for a non local to get to know it. Id imagine it would take a few days tops.
9) Alfie Lyons, why 90%, why not 100%, 50%, why that figure, its almost like someone wanting to point the finger at someone but they dont want to be caught out in case its not true. Was he really on that much weed that he couldnt remember a fairly straightforward introduction in the middle of the day.
10) So what if he looked over at Alfies place, I doubt it was the first time he'd gone over there for a party before either, they seemed to be on friendly terms. Not unusual back then to go for spin after a few pints especially in more isolated settings.
11) Odd doesnt make him a killer, many people have been wrongly accused in the past because their profile fits. Courting the media has also actually helped him, at time of the murder, id say 80/90% people thought he did it, now 50/50 I think & hes able been to expose the corruption of the gards.
12) Strange she took many years to come out with this statement, around the time of the phony French trial & Netflix documentary. You'd think the logical behavior of someone in her position would be to mention this to the gards at the time of the murder so they could include it the report they sent to the DPP.
13) The same young woman who took another what was it, 10/12 years to come out with this statement or even longer. Someones murdered in a locality, you're staying with the person whos suspected of it, you see a big jacket of the suspect washing in a bucket & you decide to stay quiet about it until many years later when Netflix come knocking.
So all in all, the people who think Bailey did it, have feck all, the DPP at the time knew it & the gards knew it hence why they engaged in a campaign of intimidation, co-coercion of witnesses, bribery amongst many other things.
Now, this is before we even get to the main reasons why it looks highly unlikely that Bailey did of which they're many.
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I've always had a rather positive opinion of French authorities and the judicial system, however in this case, my opinion of these matters in France are sadly negative.
What I don't understand is why did Bailey never challenge the conviction by the courts in France with the European Court of Justice.
I'd say they would have overturned the French ruling with ease, considering they had no evidence linking him to the crime. Or was that a financial matter and Bailey not able to afford a lawyer?
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"Logically, there is no reason why Bailey should commit such a crime"
Well if he did go up there and was met by Sophie either at the gate or at her door, then there could be only one of two possible outcomes....acceptance or rejection. Narcissists do not handle rejection well. In fact it drives them batshit crazy. It fcuks with their world view and undermines their otherwise unyielding belief in their own wonderfulness. Look at the undoubted narcissist Trumps reaction to being rejected by the US electorate. To this day he refuses to accept the reality and even stood idly by as the lunatic fringe of his supporters tore up Washington. Bailey isn`t just your common garden narcissist. He is, or at least was at that time, a narcissist with a propensity for violence.
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He was supposed to be so drunk he couldn't control his rage.
And yet he trekked in winter across country at night to the cottage?
Or drove there yet had there wherewithal not to drive up to the property so as to leave traces of the vehicle there?
Your story doesn't add up and never has.
"To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)
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Bailey was drinking that night and we know hes a big clumsy fool when drunk, if he managed to murder Sophie as you say he did - How did he manage to leave no trace whatsover in his drunken state. Thats what I cannot understand - How did he leave no trace?
He then found his way home to a house full of people who noticed nothing unusual about him - in Jules house there were Jules, her 3 daughters, the spanish friend and Jules mother ( correction the spanish friend remembered 25 years later seeing a coat soaking in a bath eh um or bucket she thinks - she cant even remember what she seen - at the time though she told the gardai nothing - even though she didnt have any loyalty or links to the household really and had nothing to lose by speaking up). Next morning he turns up at the murder scene - how stupid would that be if he had murdered her. I dont think Bailey would even have been so stupid to put himself in the limelight if he had done it. By all accounts the Thomas/ Bailey household then all had a jolly old normal Christmas.
Just because he is an unlikable character is no reason to convict him of murder. Your basing your theory on no evidence or no motive.
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Some of those red flags were of Bailey's own doing.
Why else would he have gone into the Garda station 4 days after the murder on the pretext of telling them about a party arranged on the Sat before the murder. The Garda writing the report actually wrote "(Suspect?)" on the 27th Dec. report.
Then there was the alibi, he would have to destroy Jules' alibi;
'I got up and went to the (freezing, dark) studio to write a report', He couldn't say he stayed downstairs in the house as Jules daughter was out and may have returned home and not corroborated his story
Jules' statement then became this;
The chances are he never left the house that night, he got up early enough to work on his report which Jules saw on the kitchen table when she got up later. Unfortunately he misjudged the Gardai, thinking he would be just another suspect and could get close to the action. Instead they fixated on him and went all out to nail him.
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"And yet he trekked in winter across country at night to the cottage?"
There was a full moon. Here`s what neighbour Brian Jackson said about him at the libel trial...
"He had a reputation for walking at night with his thinking stick. It was a big branch of a stick. He would mostly go out at night or in the early morning."
I wonder what became of the thinking stick?
What traces of a vehicle are you expecting to be left behind exactly and why would it matter whether he might have driven up to the house or stopped down at the gate? Anyway I seem to remember Shirley saying in her statement that Sophie kept the gate closed when she came to stay.
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