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

I haven't seen cereal mentioned though, just the fruit and nuts. But as I noted, some types of fruits and nuts are often consumed as a snack with wine at night. Without knowing which kind it could indicate either breakfast or such a supper.

Unless there is significant new evidence I can't see the cold case review concluding anything different to the last two times the DPP examined the case, that there is not evidence to support any prosecution.

If you start with the evidence and try to build a case on it, it scarcely gets off the ground.

If you start with some and try to arrange the unknowns around them you could fit practically anyone to the murder.

I was living in Dublin at the time, but in theory I could have driven to west cork and most if not all the way back in the unknown time window the murder occurred in - just in case any of the cold case team is reading this, it wasn't me.

The most significant factor indicating an early morning event was the fact that no alcohol was found in her blood or urine at the post mortem.

It was known she drank some wine with the Ungerers, leaving just before 6pm, and there were two wine glasses on the draining board in the kitchen.

There was also an uncovered cut loaf on the kitchen table, yet an opened bottle of wine and some cheese had been properly put away in the pantry.

A small axe for kindling was reported missing from Sophie's house.

Might she have put on boots to go outside to chop some kindling for a fire that morning when she encountered whoever it was? Does anyone know what her fire situation was at the time of her death i.e. was there already plenty of kindling for a fire?

What I can't understand is why the murderer would go all the way up to the house when every instinct in your body would be screaming at you to get the hell out of there. (Unless you're Alfie/Shirley and your house is further up the road.)

I do wonder whether it was on their way back from the house and passed Sophie that they realised she was still alive. They had already passed the shed with the breezeblocks on their way down from her house, so returned that way to find something to kill her with.

I genuinely believe based on the nature of the crime that this was not an attempted robbery gone wrong or anything like that, or her confronting someone skulking around her property. Someone in the moment very much wanted her not just dead but destroyed. People do get killed in the course of robberies, but usually in some sort of panic. Not the passionate frenzy in evidence here.

Is there a chance that Sophie was attacked somewhere between 12 and 2 a.m. (dogs reported barking) and the murderer for some reason lingered on the scene until morning, when the speeding ford fiesta was seen? Going up to the house and maybe taking the bottle of wine that was later found as if it was flung from a car (as a sort of trophy) is a type of behaviour not unheard of. For example the Hinterkaifeck murders in 1922, which were extremely violent (a whole family bludgeoned to death on a similarly isolated farm, the parallels with Sophie's death are creepy) and afterwards the murderer lingered in their home for three days, eating food and lighting fires.

But if the murderer really had lingered in Sophie's house and was the one who possibly took out the loaf of bread etc you'd expect there to be some evidence. Then again, given the Gardai's conduct in this whole mess maybe any evidence was destroyed. I know there was a rumour that one of the guards 'tidied up' before forensics came in but that might have been debunked.

What a bizarre story... as if this case wasn't GUBU enough as it is.

In a second police statement, which has not previously been published, Mr Carbonnet described an "odd meeting" between Ms du Plantier and a "man from Marseilles" in Schull.

Mr Carbonnet recalled: "One day, when on a visit to west Cork, we went to a restaurant in Goleen . . . There was a Frenchman at the neighbouring table and somebody called him the man from Marseilles. I cannot remember his name." He said he had a Marseilles accent and was a "Mediterranean type", with an athletic body and between 40 to 50 years of age. "He was dressed "like a gentleman farmer", he said.

"He came over to our table and introduced himself. He talked to us and asked where Sophie lived. When she told him he said he had tried to buy the same house. He asked me was I a hunting man and I said no."

He then said to Carbonnet: "But you're interested in women?" According to Carbonnet, Sophie didn't like this remark. The man from Marseilles went on to talk about fishing and good bathing spots, and Sophie tried to find out where his house was. "The meeting was odd," concluded Carbonnet.

A fisherman, originally from Marseilles, but who lived in West Cork, took his own life three months after Ms du Plantier's murder. It is understood that this man did not feature as a suspect in the garda's original investigation file.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/film-director-is-key-sophie-du-plantier-witness-say-french-authorities/30242064.html

Stomach Contents

State Pathologist John Harbison wrote:

“The stomach contained a recently ingested meal apparently mostly fruit including yellow skins and possibly nuts*.”*

“The trachea contained a mixture of a small amount of blood with food particles.”

There were foodstuffs found in the kitchen which possibly match the stomach contents.

The “yellow skins” matches the basket of oranges, clementines and apples which is visible under the table on which the bread board is placed. There is a bag of "Jordan’s Crunchy" breakfast cereal is on the shelf above the sink and this is a possible explanation of the nuts.

Harbison commented that she would have died within two to three hours of ingesting that meal.

This yields two possible time-windows during which death may have occurred. Sophie was already in bed according to Daniel who spoke to her on the phone. The call was made at 11pm so we can assume she finished eating at the latest around 10:30, giving a time of death between 12:30 & 1:30. The second possible time death could have been anytime from 7am-10:00am.

Her husband Daniel said that her habit was to have a glass of wine with cheese. There were partly consumed cheeses covered with glass on top of the fridge in the pantry and a stoppered half consumed bottle of red wine, which matches Daniel’s observations. The half full bottle of wine in the pantry indicates about 3 glasses have been drunk. This would allow a single glass of wine each night of her stay, Friday 20th, Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd. This would also match the 2 empty glasses on the draining board and one with dregs on the mantlepiece. One glass per night.

It doesn’t make sense, especially for a French person, to eat fruit like oranges together with wine and cheese.

No alcohol detected in blood or urine

According to her friend Tomi Ungerer, Sophie had two glasses of wine with him but refused a third and left his house at 5:45pm. It is also suspected she had at least one glass of wine at home in the evening. A wine glass with dregs of red wine was found on the mantlepiece above the fire which was lit the night before the murder. However there was no alcohol detected in her system, either in her blood or urine. Arguably, alcohol in her bloodstream could have been all metabolized, however alcohol is detectable in urine for much longer than in blood. If she consumed one or more units of wine before bedtime and died no more than 2-3 hours afterwards alcohol should be detected in urine. Typically a drugs screen can detect alcohol in urine 12-48 hours after drinking.

only if the dogs barking is linked.

Dogs bark for lots of reasons.

Was the pump house part of the property in 1993 i.e. when it was on the market? Or a later addition by Sophie?

If the mysterious 'man from Marseille' viewed the property, it is the sort of thing you notice.

Lights could have been off for a variety of reasons, even the killer could have turned them off after because its highly likely he went back to the house.

She could have been wearing that attire if she was woken up unexpectedly at night as well.

That ford fiesta comment is unsubstantiated and not from the most reliable of sources, Gemma O'Doherty. Even if someone in the locality did say that, the area is full of crackpots, attention seekers and nutters so I would take it with a grain of salt.

If the murder was committed in the morning, it largely removes the sexual motive aspect of the case as I dont know of anyone who'd rock up to a house at 8 or 9 in the moring looking for a shag off a randomer. (Even a Psycho). It would also completely rule out Ian Bailey.

I think a sexual motive was the reason she was murdered. Approached by a randomer or someone known to her at around 2 or 3 in the morning, spurned in a cutting away as she was known to do. Over reaction with drink involved (assault) then needed to finish her off or risk going to prison for a couple of years.

For the record, I dont think it was Bailey, I think it was a local Gard potentially known to her or another local.

yes, for sure.

It may well have been the attack that set the mutts off. But if they were barking between 12 & 02:00, it seems a little early for the Bailey theory....he was in the pub 'til quite late and then would have had to drive home, get into bed, get up again, walk to Dreenane etc. I think that sounds a tight schedule.

However, I'm of the view that the attack happened in the morning - in daylight- and that also makes Bailey's involvement unlikely, imo.

I know who might come to the house in the morning though-- the reported 'jealous wife' that apparently is an area of interest to the guards.

Especially if her husband had failed to come home that night (whether he was in the house with Sophie or not, probably not given the lack of evidence.)

And this would be a reason for the murderer to go up to the house then, to check if her husband was there. (At this point the reason for the murderer going up to the house seems key.)

I don't rule out the sighting of the Fiesta just because Gemma O'Doherty ended up going off the rails. Her article was published in the Village, which would be responsible for fact checking and editorial standards. At the very least they would have confirmed that Martin O'Sullivan reported this sighting to the guards.

I forgot that the guard rumoured to have killed her drove a blue ford fiesta.

Tbh despite all the speculation it still seems most likely that the rumors are true that it was the Bantry guard who killed her, who would have been known to her after she complained about drug dealing in the area. Apparently he was very violent. And the guards' bungling in the case does seem to veer over the line from incompetence to malicious intent.

We do know of one person who was supposedly driving around the back roads of the peninsula in the middle of the night: Marie Farrell, and the male companion she refused to name. That the gardai never forced her to reveal his identity is insane.

Re: morning attack

Given the timings from stomach contents, for a morning murder, that would mean quite an early breakfast? Even accounting for Sophie still being on 'French' time perhaps.

And it would make Bailey unlikely, because he has an alibi of breakfast \ tea with Jules at 9am?

Yes, I thnk so.

Also, if he had walked back in daylight, the chances of him doing so unobserved, is remote. Not impossible, but unlikely.