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

To you it’s less ridiculous! But to most people, Ian Bailey’s account of why he changed his story of his whereabouts on the night of Sophie’s murder and how he got the marks to his hands and forehead completely lacks credibility.

They both said he was in bed then Jules admitted he left the bed, then Ian admitted he left the bed to write an article

There was 3 different explanations for the scratches , a stick , christmas trees and turkeys

He confessed to the murder

Put that all together and you have a likely killer

I don't know how reliable all of it this is given how much rumour surrounds this case, but this guy on reddit seems to have read everything about the case, and has done up a list of points as to why "Bailey didn't do it":

After Bailey was released from custody, he could not go home and was driven to his friend Russell Barrett's house. While there he told Barrett he had no memory of the murder but if the Gardai said he did it, and had been seen by witnesses then maybe he had committed the murder but blacked out due to drink. Essentially Bailey was now questioning his own reality. He asked to fetch Irma Tullock, Barrett's sometime girlfriend, a counsellor and hypnotist. Bailey trusted Tullock, because she had helped him after he assaulted Jules Thomas in May 1996. He wanted Tullock to hypnotise him to see if what the Gardai said was possible, because he had no memory of it Tullock was interviewed by Gardai two weeks later. She wrote in her statement that Bailey talked in circles and appeared to have been subjected to "inappropriate interrogation techniques".

https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderAtTheCottage/comments/xf1kc4/bailey_didnt_do_it/

Hypnotists?

More west Cork, blow-in, hippy bulls**t.

Am about 10 minutes into this

Not sure who posted it think it was the other thread

Absolutely fascinating journalists have an ear for a story

The Nicola tallant interview is a revelation whoever posted it

You've got journalists who don't believe a word of what he's saying

The alibi the scratches and the confessions

Problem is it's all circumstantial

It was treated like an annex of the main house. Bailey using it as his office. It wasn't like he was going to an office in town and wouldn't be thought of as 'going out'. He was still at home.

No he wasn't still at home, if he was in the studio he was in a completely separate house 200 yards away.

There's a big difference between failing to remember you popped into another room of a warm house and failing to remember you had to walk 400 yards in the cold darkness of a December night in rural west Cork.

The point was he had left the bedroom and nobody could support his alibi after that, whether he was downstairs , at the studio or trekking over the roads to kill someone. (It's less thab 250 yds btw, not that it matters)

Okay, there's a reddit poster called PhilMathers and he goes into the travel agent story in detail:

'The next loose end is the travel agent. This man knew Sophie from previous occasions, when she was looking for a house in Ireland. He called the Gardai in January 1997 to say a dishevelled French man had been in the travel agency asking for phone numbers for West Cork Hotels, saying he had left without paying. In 2005 he was reinterviewed and gave a more detailed description:

"This man was 5'8" in height, he was small as some people go. He medium build, he was sallow more white than sallow in complexion. He had wavy hair, artie type, his hair came below the collar of his coat. His hair was mousey, darkish in colour. He had prominent jaw bones sharpish nose, bushy eyebrows,

continental type. His hair was straight enough but there was a wave in it, like what you would see in the picture of the sacred heart. He had a scarf, an ordinary woollen scarf I think it was brownie / yellowish. The coat he wore was a mustard type coloured coat, I thought it was herring bone but it could have been tweed. The coat was a long coat down to the shin. He had it closed at the time. I didn't see his footwear. When he came into the office he was taking to an acquaintance of mine who was in the shop, who was ... of Ballyausty or Cosmona Loughrea. I recall .. asking him where he was from. He said Barcelona Catalan and they started talking about different things, they talked about art amongst other things, which lead me to believe he was an artist. This man then approached me and said he wanted a place to stay near Dublin Airport that was reasonable. I offered him the address of the Skyline in Drumcondra Road Dublin, which now is a Mc Niff hotel. Then he asked for phone numbers of Hotels in West Cork, I gave him Skibbereen, Actons in Kinsale and I think I gave him another one in Kinsale, He seemed to know Actons in Kinsale. He then left the office."

His daughter was also in the office and gave a description in 2005:

"I remember that my father was in the office at the time as well as a

Mediterranean looking man. I didn't delay going through the office but I took notice of the strange man because he was foreign looking. I would describe the man as being in his 40's or 50's in age; average height - about 5 ft 6ins. He had dark brown hair which was thick and curly. I thought he had a moustache as well but I am not sure. His complexion was dark and sallow. I believe he was wearing a lot of brown clothing. He had a brownish coat that went just to above his knee. I hadn't seen this man before or since. I can't recall if there was anyone else in the office at the time."

The travel agent was quite critical of the Gardai that they didn't follow this up at the time. But the Gardai insisted that all this detail was not given to the in 1997. So this description is recalled 8 years after the events. Loughrea is a long way from West Cork, about 5 hours drive. The travel agent also gave specific details about the friends that Sophie was supposed to have visited nearby in Galway. These people were also interviewed but they said they had never met Sophie, though they were acquainted with Daniel. Therefore the accuracy of his recollection has to be questioned.'

Doesn't explain it satisfactorily merely excuses it

Reddit user PhilMathers goes into a lot of detail about much of what has been discussed here. For some reason I can't link his account but you can search for it. Very informative posts and casts doubt on a lot of theories inc. Ian Bailey, the Bantry guard, the Frenchman seen in the travel agent's in Galway.

He even has more information on things like Alfie Lyon's injury (it was not from a dog bite it was from an old skating accident that played up sometimes) and the dogs barking (there were only two dogs barking that night although one barked for hours and hours to the extent where one of the owners went to check on the cattle) as well as the bottle of wine (it hasn't ever been confirmed that it was only available in France.)

The speeding car in the morning wasn't reported until months after the fact apparently.

I found this interesting:

'There is loads known about them. There is a feature length documentary about Tomi Ungerer, his life and works. "Far out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story", you can watch it online, though it is gone from Youtube it is on a few pay-streaming platforms. He was a very well known artist. He didn't live full time in West Cork, he spent most of his time in Strasbourg where he had a job with the EU as a cultural ambassador of some sort. Bis wife Yvonne stayed at home looking after the farm. He started writing and illustrating childrens books but got blacklisted in the 1960s when he produced a book of erotic drawings. Sophie may have been trying to make contact with him because of his fame as an artist. She met him briefly in April when her car got a puncture outside his farm (Daniel said this was a ruse, because Yvonne was a jealous woman, but we only have Daniel's word on this). This wasn't successful as there was some family row going on. Yvonne said Tomi was "agitated or high" at the time. She sent a fax to him in July when a mutual friend died of cancer. However Tomi wasn't really aware of her existence until the day before she died, when she spent an hour or so chatting about art and literature. Tomi said she may have been anxious or had something on her mind, but it was difficult to tell as he didn't know her well. The Gardai took several statements from him and Yvonne and their children. He would be an unlikely suspect. He lived quite a distance away and didn't drive.'

Something I keep coming back to is the fact that Daniel was the last one to speak to Sophie.

Was it a clear night? I looked up any celestial events that night and the Ursid meteor shower was peeking.

Could Daniel have asked her to step outside and look up at the sky, perhaps with a personal significance attached?

It was also the solstice, which seems significant but probably isn't. Then again it could have been significant to Sophie, enough to be persuaded to step outside. I'm a bit like Sophie, I've spent time alone or otherwise in remote parts of Ireland, including west Cork, and I mark things like the solstice.

I know people sometimes say the wine bottle is a red herring but I can't imagine how.

There was a third murder weapon that investigators think was used but was never recovered, and that it was supposed to be lighter than the flat rock and the cinderblock. PhilMathers: 'Yes, it was the opinion of the pathologist that one of the weapons was "fairly light" because she had minor injuries in places such as her arms.'

Corkscrew?