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

MonkieSocks · 23-08-2024 7:51pm

Sophie flew from Charles De Gaulle Airport to Ireland

She was due to fly back to Toulouse on Christmas Eve where she was meeting Daniel.

Daniel said later they had agreed to spend Christmas together at his chateau in Toulouse

In a telephone call with Mrs Hellen, who spoke to Sophie at 10 pm on 22 December and confirmed an appointment to call round to Monday.

Sophie said she planned to go back to France on Christmas Eve and spend New Year in Dakar with her husband and friends.

Mrs Hellen told detectives that Sophie's manner on the telephone seemed unrelaxed and hurried.

tinytobe · 23-08-2024 7:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122536690#Comment_122536690

That's all circumstantial and hearsay. That's the problem. It's about conversations which took place nearly 30 years ago. But good points nevertheless.

However what I would like to understand about the whole trip is, how long ahead did Sophie plan her flights? This would be important to know because first, she never visited around Christmas before and second, how did the killer know that she was at the cottage? The fact that she was murdered on the day she was due to leave also could give a bit of indication, as to the time frame the killer had to either confront her with something or to kill her. It's my guess the killer didn't have a lot of time in planning as well? That is if he planned at all?

If the Frenchman in the dark coat and the black beret is one of the possible suspects he would have had to book flights himself, for the same time Sophie was there. How did he get that information?

And did the Frenchman fly to Ireland just to confront Sophie or fly to Ireland with intent to kill? - that is if he did it? What would have been so important to justify the flight to Ireland to confront her with something? and even kill her?

All unanswered questions but worth examining.

chooseusername · 23-08-2024 8:39pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122536220#Comment_122536220

There’s a few would find their way to Sophie’s house.

Someone who had never been there before, but had directions, maps etc. like yourself.

Possible.

Someone who had never been there before and had no directions, maps etc. but happened upon Sophie’s house down a dead end lane off a boreen.

Possible

Someone local who knew the area as they had been there and knew Sophie’s house.

Possible.

I can see how O’Dwyer suspected it was someone local. I think his phrase was “The answer lies in the locality”

chooseusername · 23-08-2024 8:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122536171#Comment_122536171

Interesting, is this why Baby John in the Kerry Babies case had to be exhumed?

Evergreen_7 · 23-08-2024 10:39pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122536867#Comment_122536867

yes they got dna from exhuming his body, and took samples from (not sure the number) a few thousand maybe? Locals. Or at least the general area. They didn’t use a dna testing site but they were able to compare to samples and find a close relative through swab testing.

PolicemanFox · 23-08-2024 10:47pm

The argument about whether it is easy to find or hard to find is pointless. I am puzzled why people on this forum fixate on this detail. My opinion is that it is easy to find if you know where you are going and difficult if you do not. If you have a circle on the map you can find it. If all you know is "Sophie in Schull", then it's not so easy. I am not engaging in it anymore.

I also can't believe I am defending the Gardai & Dwyer here but they did investigate a French angle as well as several other locals. But at the end of January 1997 the French suspect had been eliminated and they had no evidence on any local suspects apart from Bailey. They fixated on him and despite the stupidity, I can see how it happened.

I've seen the statements, I have built a timeline, I can see day by day how they convinced themselves they found their man and I see how they botched it afterwards.

It wasn't just because Bailey was local. He was one of the very few who knew of the the victim and knew where she lived. He known to be violent. He was seen with scratches. They had a witness who saw him near the scene and identified him in Schull. They got a statement from Malachy Reed to say he had made an admission. So they arrested him, they got a statement from Jules Thomas which undermined his alibi. They searched his house and found bloodstained clothes and the remains of a recent fire outside. Another admission came in that Bailey had told the editor of the Tribune that he did it. Now there were problems with all of these things, but at the time the senior detectives didn't know that. They had to let Bailey go, but Dwyer had no doubts. He said "forensics will sort it out".

While they waited for forensics the case more quasi confessions and other suspicious reports came in about Bailey. They were more convinced than ever and there was no shifting them.

In March forensics came back negative and the case was stuffed. At this point they should have taken stock and considered if they making a mistake, but in reality groupthink and confirmation bias fixed their opinions. They worked on getting phone call evidence and building a timeline of when Bailey called people and what he said. But the phone evidence was unavailable in Schull and Eddie Cassidy's phone calls supported Bailey's account. They wrote up a file for the DPP, but it wasn't enough. The DPP had been burned by the Fred Flannery case in 1996 (look it up). Dwyer was involved in that one too, he had caught the right culprit, an actual serial killer. But the case collapsed because of the way the Gardai had suppressed evidence for the defense. So the DPP scrutinized everything carefully that they got from the Gardai.

And the Gardai knew it. Without forensics it was clear the case was "flimsy, just threads", their only hope now was a confession. So they spent the rest of 1997 trying putting Bailey under constant surveillance trying to sufficient grounds for another arrest under Section 10. The capers they got up to in 1997 completely ruined the case against Bailey. Eventually they did get a second warrant in January 1998 but they didn't get their confession. Finally in September 2000 they tried to break Jules and her daughter and get a confession from them, but that failed too. It never got any better after that. By 2001 the DPP wrote his report and basically all hope was lost.

FishOnABike · 23-08-2024 11:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122537244#Comment_122537244

and by all appearances seemed to have focused on their own flight of fantasy at the expense of finding and following any facts.

tinytobe · 23-08-2024 11:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122537244#Comment_122537244

I think you're giving us valuable insight but you're also overthinking this.

Overall the general public had a very negative impression on the work and the investigation of the Gardai in this case.

Some things were simply mishandled or not very elegantly expressed and stated. Regarding Dwyer, he isn't exactly the lowest rank, he was Chief Superintendent of West Cork, so he had responsibility of the men working for him and the mistakes they made, - at least in the eyes of most.

Either Dwyer is the boss or he isn't, and if he's the boss he's got responsability and others reporting to him, and him directing others. However by the sounds of it he wasn't much in control for whatever reason. The case must have had his top priority, murders in West Cork are very rare.

Stating that the killer must have been local, just because the house is remote and "difficult to find" was a bad joke for many, or a lame excuse to zoom in on Bailey and forget everyone else. It may not have been but it sounded very much like it.

Bailey had scratches, but he must have gotten them somewhere. If his DNA wasn't to be found at the scene, he couldn't have gotten them there, thus it won't hold up in court, that's the logic most people would think of. Also Bailey volunteered his DNA early on.

Losing evidence, the size of a gate? Giving drugs to transients to get close to Bailey or coercing a witness to tell lies under oath in a court of law because the investigation goes nowhere? This all under Dwyer doesn't really go down lightly for the general population and the taxpayer, thus a certain level of discontent. Nobody get's fired, or get's disciplined?

Other than that, it's entirely possible that back in the days the Gardai didn't get everything they asked for by the French police, financial statements, phone records, etc… So in the end, the information the Irish side was rather limited at a certain point. The Gardai probably did a lot of investigating into a lot of other directions which the public wasn't aware of before zooming in on Bailey as the pressure grew and they didn't deliver any results.

Mannesmann · 23-08-2024 11:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122526082#Comment_122526082

Perhaps something like this with the top broken off? A pit axe.

jesuisjuste · 24-08-2024 5:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122537422#Comment_122537422

That's an interesting tool, it does have that sort of shape. Whatever it is, it does seem to have disappeared from the after-photos as far as I can tell. Speculating of course but perhaps the perpetrator got it to try and hack Sophie out of the briars after she got trapped, if those pictures of the cut briars from earlier were accurate.

chooseusername · 24-08-2024 7:28pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122539569#Comment_122539569

Josie Hellen said a poker was missing from the fireplace. In an interview with Paris Match it translated as a flame snuffer or something. Her son John was taken around the house in the days after the murder and he said a small kindling axe was missing from the back kitchen, which was odd as the kindling and firewood was in the front porch nearer the fireplace that she used.

FishOnABike · 24-08-2024 7:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122539569#Comment_122539569

With the time difference between the two pictures it's difficult to attach any significance to what is in one picture and no in the other. e.g. the board shovel in the second is not in the first.

An axe type implement would not make as clean a cut of brambles as was visible in the picture of the cut bramble near the gate.

Mannesmann · 25-08-2024 3:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122540081#Comment_122540081

It was missing whatever it was called. Saw it refered to as a 'poker axe' a cross between the two perhaps?

tinytobe · 25-08-2024 8:52pm

Was it ever proven or known, what the real murder weapon was? Was she hit with the poker axe/hatchet and later on finished off with the cavity block? I think this was one possibility often mentioned.

chooseusername · 25-08-2024 9:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122543623#Comment_122543623

This is Professor Harbison's report;

The deceased's injuries were largely those caused by one or more blunt objects. One of these was fairly light in view of the minor injuries in such places as the arms. Another at least was heavy in view of the depressed fractures of the skull and fractured skull base, which normally requires considerable force.

The cavity block and the fairly large stone which I saw beside the body could each have been used to cause the skull injuries. They were fairly consistent superficial abrasions of parallel nature. The most likely cause of these is some surface with an irregular or regular rough edge sliding along the skin giving the effect of parallel lines. I did suggest, though I think it less possible, that they could have been caused by impact from footwear with linear markings such as a Doc Marten boot.

I have been asked by Gardai about the stone as opposed to the concrete block, being the weapon causing the crushed head injuries. My recollection of examining it at the scene, and I have not seen it since, is that it had smooth edges and was therefore was less likely to give rise to the parallel linear markings on the skin of the head, arms and neck.

Obviously he couldn't say for certain what weapon was used.

tinytobe · 25-08-2024 10:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122543670#Comment_122543670

That's what I understood.

As far as I know the axe / hatched / poke is still missing, and never turned up.

Thus it is suspected that the murderer took it with him. This could be an indication that this was also used in the murder and could implicate him? It's probably easier to carry than a cavity block?

If the axe could implicate the murderer he must have disposed of it at some point somewhere? ( if the Gardai found that at Bailey's studio or Jule's or Alfie and Shirley's it'll be a bit of a problem and a good amount of explaining for them…)

jesuisjuste · 25-08-2024 11:36pm

In the quote per @chooseusername Harbison says:

"I have been asked by Gardai about the stone as opposed to the concrete block, being the weapon causing the crushed head injuries. My recollection of examining it at the scene, and I have not seen it since……"

Pretty incredible that here we have the pathologist talking about a potential weapon, asked about by the investigators no less, and he hadn't seen it since the day he was on-site. As luck would have it he didn't think it was the main weapon, but again another example of extreme negligence/incompetence in the case in that they either didn't take it into evidence, or didn't provide it for examination. Similar to the tyre marks.

chooseusername · 26-08-2024 9:52am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122535678#Comment_122535678

“The Gardai asked for various phone records from France and didn't get them, presumably because it is not so easy to gather such information without a warrant, and a warrant needs a judge etc.”

Do you know if the Irish phone records they got showed any correspondence with Sophie before she phoned Josie Hellen about her trip? Maybe Sophie was tipped off about someone abusing her property, someone other than Alfie using her lane along the back of her house by her back door, or the lawn in front of her house to access Alfie’s shed and field?

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

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