Cold Case Review of Sophie Tuscan du Plantier murder to proceed. **Threadbans in OP**

I know if an attacker was chasing me at that house I would scream my lungs out and run towards the neighbours house. In running towards the neighbours house I would hope scare off the attacker. It puzzles me why she didnt run towards Alfies. There was no chance of running towards any form of help or safety by running towards the gate.

However I know she may not have been thinking straight and just ran in what ever direction she could.

Easy to say decades later from behind a keyboard.

When you are running for your life you are running for your life, decisions on which way to run are not always available and obvious when being chased.

The blood was found on a stone at the bottom of Sophie's lawn about a yard in from the gate that led in from the lane, not the gate with the blood on it.

My thinking is the initial confrontation started there, whoever it was may have come into Sophie’s lawn through that gate. It was wide open on the morning of the murder which was unusual as Sophie wanted the gates kept closed.

A stone, I don’t how big or small ,

I believe it was taken by forensics

Down by this gate here;

Over to the left you can see the other gate to the lane with the blood indicators still on it. Photos take before forensics took the gate.

He had just driven from Dublin that morning, at least a 5 hour journey then. He would had to have left before 5am.

He was meticulous in his work, so I would be doubtful as well.

“By helicopter”? Where did you see that?

He didn’t even have a driver.

Did he ever use a helicopter?

I think it's unfair all the flak that Dr. Harbison got. It's unrealistic to expect someone to be on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yes, I fully acknowledge that the body being left exposed for so long reduced the likelihood of getting good DNA evidence etc, but everyone is entitled to a day off. It's not realistic to expect someone to be on call all year and not have days off where they can 'let their hair down'.

It's the State's fault that they didn't have enough cover to account for his days off, illnesses etc.

Given the body was out in the open, even with Harbinson getting there sooner it may have been difficult to establish time of death to a narrower range

Probably the most important missing data point but, yeah, the Gardai in Bandon ploughed on regardless.

Sophie spoke to her husband by phone at 11 pm and was found dead at 10 am the following morning. That 11 hour window leaves open all kinds of scenarios for the investigation. Any trained observer should have been able to narrow that window i.e. rigor mortis begins to set in about 2 hours after death, affecting first the small muscles (notably the face) and gradually spreading to the larger muscles (e.g. limbs) until the whole body is stiff after 6 - 8 hours. Then the body stays stiff for another 12 hours before rigor mortis disappears ie 20 - 24 hours after death.

If the Gardai had observed the process of rigor mortis setting in and leaving the body, they should have been able to narrow the 11 hour window down to a couple of hours which would have eliminated a number of possible lines of enquiry (including e.g. Ian Bailey, if the murder was before 2am)

After all these years and court appearances (and murder conviction in France!), the Gardai have never given any indication regarding the actual time of death. My guess is that when the State Pathologist arrived (long after rigor mortis left the body), he would have asked the Gardai for their observations of the body and he just got slack-jawed bewilderment from Gardai who had never dealt with a murder before and who just left her body lying where they found it.

With the benefit of new information that Harbison didn't have at the time, we know Sophie was killed sometime between midnight Sun and 10am Mon. Ian Bailey had no alibi other than Jules from when he left the pub around midnight until around 2 pm Mon. So no matter what Harbison estimated the time of death to be between midnight and 10am Bailey's alibi was going to be busted.