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

Sophie was known in West Cork as Buniol but not Toscan du Plantier. This was apparently already at the time when she bought the house, even though her husband paid for it.

Probably the marriage wasn't in order back then, or she didn't want to get any attention of fame, as Toscan du Plantier was as a name more known, and Buniol is not. I suspect it was the latter.

There were many rumors about her trip to Ireland around Christmas. Some say she took more suitcases than usual, to prepare for some separation, or even divorce, some say the time of the year was unusual and repairs at the house were just an excuse. We will never know.

It seems that the marriage wasn't in order for more than a while before Christmas. Both Sophie and her husband were having affairs. Most likely tounges wagged more than a bit in West Cork, if a foreign woman buys a house in rural Ireland and has various men over during her stays there. In small villages people always talk and somebody always "knows something" even though he or she knows acutally nothing at all.

I often suspect that maybe the Ungerers knew more which could have helped the investigation. Tomi Ungerer seemed a good friend Sophie may have confided in, and apparently she visited the Ungerers every time she was there? Any concernes Sophie might have had about neighbours, or the police, or something in her marriage.

I don't think that wanting to write a strory would be a motive for murder, but who knows what Bailey thought. Or what he thought under the influence of alcohol? But again, we can't prove any of this.

This murder will never be solved.

This case was totally different. Long raped her, and his DNA was pretty much found on her. The condition Nora Sheehan was found in doesn't suggest that it was consentual, and that's a very diplomatic description. (We don't need to go into any gruesome details)

It can therefore be established beyond reasonable doubt, that is was Long.

However in the case of Sophie there was no DNA, she also wasn't raped, both things we do know with certainty.

Thus I often tend to think that any sexual motive is less likely, if it was sexual the murderer would first have attempted rape and if she wasn't complicit, bashed her head in. Thus I find the hitman-hired-by-husband theory or the drug-trafficking-and-seen-something theory a wee bit more likely. Whoever killed her, wanted her either simply dead or prevent her from doing something against somebody's interest, but not f*** her. But this is again speculation.

The time passed also doesn't count, there is no statute of limitations for murder. This is clearly no speculation.

What also keeps me guessing about this case is if the local Gards were in some kind of pressure to solve this crime?

I mean, hypothetical situation, suppose somebody commits the "perfect murder", leaves no DNA, no fingerprints, no traces, has no witnesses and even less of a motive, and the police in all their diligence and collecting all the evidence, interviewing everybody, still can't solve it? It's not that the police is automatically seen as incompetent if they can't solve the "perfect murder".

Suppose they really collected all the evidence with prudence and diligence, but still couldn't come up with anything, why the pressure to pin it on someobody? And who precisely would put the pressure on them to frame somebody? I mean, if I was an investigating poilce investigator, investigating a murder and told my superiors that I've done everything I could, went backwards, went forwards, done this and that, still no results, - it's not that I would get disciplined or fired.

And suppose Bailey wouldn't have been there, whom else would they have pinned it on?

All questions not beyond reason to ask....

It was what he chose to write and why that was suspicious - many of the claims he made about the murder victim in the articles were untrue and were made to discredit her. That was suspicious in that you’d wonder why he chose to make up those things about her.

You don’t know how skilled people are - there are lawyers more skilled than Robert Sheehan that have looked at the evidence too. Another outcome may well be reached under the current DPP.

To disregard Bailey as a suspect in this case, you have to ignore all the history of violence, his lies, injuries, fires, confessions etc but also conclude that multiple people are either lying, mistaken or involved in a conspiracy involving the Gardaí. There's just too much to dismiss.

And despite the efforts of Bailey and many of his defenders. Any other theory hasn't come close to the level of suspicion against him. Unfortunately, we'll probably need a confession or possibly some people close to the murderer to come clean with information in order to get a conviction at this stage.

The only way Bailey is ever going to be convicted is if he walks into a garda station with his solicitor and makes a written confession.....dont hold your breath.

Unless new evidence comes up, there's zero chance that the DPP will press charges because there's zero chance Bailey would be convicted given the lack of evidence against him.

I'll ask you again. Have you read the DPP report?

If you haven't, I recommend that you read it in detail. It goes through each piece of evidence, analyses it and either accepts it or discounts it. And the DPP gives reasons why it's either accepted or discounted. I've read it and it seems pretty sensible to me.

Most of the evidence you mention repeatedly has been discounted, with an explanation of why it's discounted. You seem to be adding together a pile of discounted evidence and in your mind a lot of flimsy evidence can be stuck together to create stronger evidence. It doesn't work like that. Each piece of evidence needs to be able to stand up to scrutiny on its own. The evidence against Bailey doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny.

I'm not discounting the possibility that Bailey did it by any means. I can see why he'd be the chief suspect but there's no real evidence to say that he committed the murder.

But you could argue the same about the people here who claim that there are better suspects than Bailey.

They retrofit far weaker circumstantial evidence for their narrative.

With regards to going over the 'evidence' again, that route has been worn to death. what's in the public domain has been chopped, sliced and diced a million times over - It's going nowhere at this stage.

It's bewildering, that such a vicious, brutal murder took place, and not one iota of forensics collected from the scene... That is so bizzare.

Like most of my fellow armchair detectives, Ive gone over it a zillion times, could blame the Gards for lazy workmanship standards, the press for not looking passed Bailey, and even Bailey himself for courting all the attention he brought on himself.

But one piece of the jigsaw still puzzles me - And it has to be connected...

The unopened bottle of expensive wine found slung in a field not far from the murder scene.

This wine was not available for purchase in Ireland at the time, and could only be bought in airports or abroad. In today's money, it would be valued at £80 - £100 a pop... That's expensive wine.

So who would buy such up market wine? It could have been Sophie, she was known to have a tipple with a meal at her cottage, she would have been used to more finer wines than most, no Dunnes stores plonk for her..

So, if it was Sophie that purchased it (from the airport?), that would indicate, somebody removed it from her house. If somebody removed / stolen it from her house, why would they dump it..? The reason can only be to dis-associate themselves from it, why would they want to do that?

Maybe the wine would link them to the cottage?

Or.... Did somebody fly in especially to meet Sophie over the Christmas period? Either expected, or unexpected?? Was the wine a gift or a peace offering?? Was the peace offering rebuffed?

It would appear to me, that the most logical scenario here, is that the wine was thrown out of a moving car as it left Sophies cottage.. If the person had come from the murder scene, he obviously didn't want that item in his car, or if he was returning to the airport, he couldn't bring it with him.

We have one piece of critical information that begs for intense investigation, it's a smoking gun in some respects.. The location of where it was dumped, it being unopened, it being expensive, it not being available in Ireland, it being within close proximity to the murder scene......

Is there only me that see's this as a huge pointer...???

I don't believe that's necessarily correct either ,following evidence as an investigation strategy.

Nonsense. Of course an investigation is led by evidence.