Cold Case Review of Sophie Tuscan du Plantier murder to proceed. **Threadbans lifted - see OP**

The question would be how much usable DNA would they be able to recover? And why didn't they sooner?

If there was blood that was clearly dripping from standing above her, it'll be a rather straight matter. Who else would be standing above her, if not the murderer. This would also mean that the murderer was injured.

And suppose this turns out to be Bailey's blood? Even worse considering the legth the police went to try to pin it on him.

The possible singular mindset could only have been that some of the lower ranking Guards were possibly corrupt and into something illegal, like drugs and Sophie saw something or gotten wind of something into this direction. Not impossible to think so. Also point D and A are possibilities.

I don't think Harbison thought it was necessarily the perpetrators blood as such, more likely that the perpetrator got covered enough in Sophie's blood that it was dripping off them and onto her while she was laying flat. These days though that can be enough to capture some of their DNA (not necessarily their blood though) on a profile

That makes a lot more sense, thanks for the follow up.

As an aside do you know what she is referring to as "the caravan"?

There was a caravan parked halfway down the lane at the time. I don't know who, if anyone lived in it at the time. I don't know if the Gardai checked it out either.

It is shocking on many levels. Why did the Gardai move it down the lane at all? It should not have been touched until the forensics turned up. Alfie and Shirley should have immediately been put in a hotel somewhere and the whole area swept with a fingertip search.

Incidently the fact that Ian Bailey and Jules Thomas thought Shirley Foster drove past the body after the Gardai arrives proves that Bailey was not at the scene in the morning, as some have claimed. The detail that Shirley Foster drove past the body before she stopped was not made public until many years later.

Bailey always maintained this is one of the reasons the Gardai latched on to him, because he pointed out from the beginning how badly the Gardai were managing the scene, destroying the potential of forensic analysis.

Oh really? Where is the mention of the caravan in the statement from 1997, which as I pointed out was already six months later when memories were not? "Towards the intersection" suggests a lot closer to Kealfadda than her later statement. It is also possible to see a car on the lane 100m back from the junction. So it is possible both are right. Bailey could have seen her from the junction and passed her on the lane.

The point is moot. Bailey knew the victim was "possibly French", Eddie Cassidy, despite his protestations, must have known the victim was French. Read the DPP's report, he breaks this down in logical clarity. It was announced over the radio she was French 20 minutes before Ian Bailey and Jules Thomas arrived. Both Bailey and Thomas knew Alfie had a French neighbour and mentioned this in their early statements before the arrests.

Shirley Foster's 1999 statement was taken before the DPP demolished the Garda theory that Bailey drove to the scene before he could have known the victim was French. Bailey had also been given directions by Eddie Cassidy, enough to know it was on a turnoff from Kealfadda road. The first turnoff, coming from Bailey's takes you to the scene. It is all entirely plausible for Bailey to take that turn whether he saw Shirley Foster coming down the lane or not.

Didn't Bailey know Alfie Lyons' address quite well? He had done gardening work for Alfie, and seen Sophie pointed out at a garden party. He did know exactly where to go, quite naturally, nothing odd or sinister about that, at all.

But why was he saying he was on his way to Toormore Post Office to see if he could get information there?

Illogical conclusions drawn from your own suppositions that are contradicted by witness testimony. Just out of interest, who said Cassidy gave Bailey directions to the scene?

"The more pertinent question is why Bailey didn`t want to acknowledge that."

He does,

Bailey's statement says he met Shirley on the road into Drinane off the Dunmanus-Toormore road. The only road into Drinane is the boreen ( the cul de sac). The Dunmanus-Toormore road is Kealfada.

"It has been said" - yes that is the sum total of the evidence against Ian Bailey - rumour and speculation. 30 years of Garda investigation, thousands of witness statements, an estimated State expenditure exceeding €10 Million and all we have is rumour and speculation.

Witches have been burned on more evidence than this.

I think back then it's entirely possible that the local Garda didn't even know how to preserve a murder scene, not even knowing much about DNA. Also the Garda operated the way that they thought they could bring in a couple of suspects, interrogate them, sweat them, tempt them, have ways of making them talk, in hopes one confesses. Gestapo or Stasi methods, one would think, except violence wasn't used as a means.

The problem is, that nobody talked, nobody confessed, and they had nothing on anyone. Then they were desperate, coercing a witness, giving drugs to transients, all more than unprofessional, - it's a crime of it's own.

This would be totally different today, in Ireland as every else in the Western world.

I don't know how often Shirley drove by the murder site. She drove to the garbage dump, she probably went shopping as well and came and went? Or did she have to park the car further down, and walk back and forth to her house via the fields? Alfie would have been also "boxed in" as there is only one way in and out to their house.

Shirley drove by the murder site once, when she discovered the body. She left the car where she stopped it and went back up via Sophie's front lawn and around the back of Sophie's house to her own house. Sometime around noon, when the cordon was moved further out the lane, a Garda drove Shirley's car out beyond the cordon and parked it by the iron gate in the picture below. Around 2:15 Shirley walked down to her car "through a nighbour's field" The bags for the dump, also in the photo below, were taken out of her car and she drove on into Schull for shopping. When she returned she had to leave her car outside the cordon and make her way back through the field to her house. The car remained there for several days. I believe from that point on both Alfie and Shirley were confined to their house until the Gardaí were finished. The photo was posted by @bjsc back in March which she says is a crime scene photo taken on Tue 24th Dec of Leo Bolger making his way up through the field to tend his horses. Probably the same route Shirley had to take. "The neighbour's field" in question was actually Sophie's own field, she owned land on both sides of the road down by that iron gate.

Thanks for posting this, I was quite mistaken in thinking that Shirley had driven over the crime scene more than once. Thanks for clarifying the point!

Maybe the Guards did manage to preserve what few traces there were, of tyre marks.

By the time the forensic techs got around to photographing Sophie's car, a garda car had already driven up and parked beside it. The stupidity of this is unbelieveable.

You can see where the garda car turned in the mud.

Those ruts behind Sophie's house were not present in one of the first photos. You can just see the blue car tail light on the left.

There are no clear photos from the muddy area behind the house, before the gardai ruined it turning their car.

Here is one taken possible on the evening of the 23rd, it's not great, but you can see the tyre tracks were not there:

Staggering incompetence.

." Alfie had a cut hand that was bandaged in the aftermath. Explained as a dog bite."

There is no statement, memo or news article, that I have seen where Alfie said he was bitten by a dog or was reported to have been bitten. As far as I can see it is a myth.

EDIT. Yes, Alfie and Shirley were given a dog a few days before but the dog wasn't settling and it was taken away on Saturday. There is a statement from the person who took the dog back.

What age was Alfie Lyons at this time?

Elderly, feeble and frail. Maybe 80 plus?

And anyone can curl up their hand, or hold it in a twisted position.

But the lack of recent wounding is persuasive, I think. Getting scratched by brambles or clawed by a victim would probably leave long, deep scrapes.

Alfie was only in his early 60s not 80s at the time of the murder. He appeared in a french documentary on the murder and didn't look frail or feeble to me. I understand though that he was supposed to suffer with chest issues.

Perhaps your comprehension is poor but you are coming across as a very disingenuous individual. Anyway, you have provided nothing to suggest that Cassidy gave Bailey directions. That is all supposition on your part because Cassidy`s accounts of when he rang people on the day is all muddled. Furthermore as far as I`m aware, Bailey never said that he went to the scene because Cassidy told him where to go. It was because Cassidy had told him the woman was French and he knew that a French woman had a holiday home next door to Alf Lyons.

looks like it was photographing along the line of where the arrow is looking back toward the scene. Is the white barrier tape presumably the cordon area? If so the cordon was placed beyond where the photo is taken. Although I’m not sure if I have seen any evidence spoken about from outside the gate itself?

New information to me! Thanks for sharing. I don't think Alfie had anything to do with it personally, was trying to make the point that the Gardai didn't exactly do a stellar job preserving the crime scene. Another poster had pointed out where they rutted they area turning their own car. Surely approaching on foot would have made it easier not to disturb evidence?

Or she was in total shock.