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

You assert that the volume of circumstantial evidence suggests Bailey. There may be something in that but I would contend that the volume was driven, in the main, by the level of constant scrutiny on him compared to any other potential suspects compounded by the Gardai manipulation of "witnesses"

However, I would suggest that the quality of the circumstantial evidence points elsewhere.

This is your opinion.

Bridget Chappuis, a forensics liaison officer in the UK.

Further to her article last weekend in the Independent, this interview on spotify is along the same lines.

But there are a few omissions and some extra stuff.

In the article she said this, but doesn't mention it in the taped interview;

"When the gardaí attempted to access the house, they reported that both doors were locked. The front was locked with the keys on the inside. This meant that Sophie could only have left the house through the back door. This door was latched but not locked and there was a blood smear above the external handle as though someone had pulled it closed."

So were both doors locked or not? In the crime scene photos the front door- the one with the keys in the lock- is clearly on the latch, ie, latch is open, but the key could have been turned to lock it. But why would anyone lock the door from the inside with the key and leave the latch open.

And also this, not in the interview;

"And the pattern of blood staining on the block does not support the view that it was used as a weapon. Rather, blood pattern analysis tends to indicate that it was in situ when she was bleeding and that her body was leaning or lying against it, causing voids on the surface which are free of blood."

How does it explain the fact that the block was on top of her nightclothes?

She also says on the tape that the items tested for DNA were only tested for a match to Bailey, in spite of there being samples from other suspects at the time

@chooseusername what other samples had they to compare? I dont remember reading that.

About Irish journalism perhaps.

It was in their interests to both stay in lockstep and onside with the Gardai and pander to the prevailing sentiment of the public.

Keys in the door but on the latch would maybe indicate the door was locked at night but she opened it to go out with the intention of coming back in soon after, possibly to walk down to the gate for example.

Ehhh chooseusername, would this not fall under the label you gave the same newspaper (in this very thread) last night?

Just in case you forgot, this is what you said last night at 7.11pm regarding an article in the same paper by the accomplished, award winning journalist Mark Tighe...

"Usual Indo rubbish. 27 years and counting".

One would be forgiven for thinking that for the last 27 years you've been reading the Independent and consistently think it's rubbish.

Now all of a sudden.....

LOL.

I return to this thread occasionally to remind posters that this case will never be solved because of the almighty cock-up in the first 48 hours. Listening to this, it seems these failures were even worse than I imagined. As a retired forensic liaison officer, Bridget Chappuis is careful to say she doesn't want to "take a pop at anyone" but she puts the issues in a nutshell - "local officers who never had to deal with anything like this ... not understanding what was required and the Pathologist not arriving for 24 hours" .

The most extraordinary claim she makes is that blood and hair samples were taken from various potential suspects but only Bailey's samples were tested and, when they didn't match up, no further tests were undertaken. If that is true, it would be a major scandal.

An elementary step in any murder investigation is to establish the time of death but that was not established with any certainty in this case. The State Pathologist arrived too late to do anything more than guess that it might have been in the early hours of the morning, possibly 2 - 2.30 am. Bridget Chappuis questions the basis for his tentative conclusion and points to evidence that Sophie had breakfast that morning. Furthermore, the lights in the house were all off which would be inexplicable if she was awoken in the middle of the night, put on her boots and made her way via the back door to the gate where she was murdered. (Bridget Chappuis doesn't mention it but a local doctor arrived on the scene within an hour of the body being found but he could provide no evidence whatever regarding time of death because - and I can't believe I am writing this - he didn't check for temperature and he didn't even check visually for rigor mortis.)

And why was the gate wide open? It was shut the previous evening and Sophie was "fanatical" about closing it every time she went in or out. Why would anyone walking into the property go to the trouble of opening the gate to its maximum extent?

Bailey was put in the frame immediately because an officer on duty at the scene that day noted his "suspicious behaviour" but Bailey was simply snooping around like any real journalist would if the police are stupid enough to give them access.

There is a dishonourable place in the annals of forensic science for this epic failure. The one thing the Gardai did to "preserve" the crime scene was to leave the body in situ for 48 hours, covered only with a tarpaulin. This was utterly disrespectful of the victim and it was also in defiance of instructions from the State Pathologist's Office who knew it was futile.

In relation to your issue with only testing and comparing samples to Bailey, there may have been a good reason for this. I am a Molecular biologist, but have never worked in forensics, but nevertheless have some insight into analytical techniques. An older technique for comparison of samples which used to be widely used in forensics was RFLP (restriction fragment length polymorphism). You amplify up DNA and then digest with restriction enzymes. Due to benign/neutral variations within populations the pattern can differ between people and profiles can be compared. The resulting samples are ran on a gel and imaged. This uses up the material. Imprudent testing could result in no material left for future comparisons and would be used only when necessary. It's very likely this was the method employed at the time.

Nowadays testing is done using STR analysis with capillary electrophoresis. The files generated can be stored and compared across an entire database at any point in time. It's possible that the new investigation has requested this is done.

A lot of the investigation was a shambles but some of the issues are a reflection of the limitations available at the time and not necessarily incompetence as presumed.

Good post, although I don't think this lady was a pathologist.

Nevertheless she is experienced in the field.

For me, the time of death is an absolutely critical element of the investigation.

An early morning timeline makes the case against Bailey even less credible. And may suggest that Michael O'Sullivan's experience with the dangerously driven fiesta is significant.

Regarding the gate being wide open, Sophie may have been having breakfast and saw/heard a car down at the gate. I think she went down to speak to them. In more ways than one I think that gate is important to finding out what happened.

I don't think she contributed much new except speculation

Mentioned the open gate and the digested food

She theorized that he murder took place morning and it may have been someone else except bailey

Said she was working off limited info .

A possible development is a proven link between Bailey and Sophie

His claim to have seen her once from a distance just doesn't ring true

There's at least 4 witnesses saying they met or 90% met

I'd be assuming the 3am level of familiarity was one way

Weren't they both into poetry

I can well see him infatuated but doubt she would have any interest in him

Well that's the Bailey theory

A confrontation at the door

Maloney alleged he grabbed the wine bottle and she struck out with the axe. May or may not be true.