Gardaí carrying out a cold-case review of the investigation into the murder of French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork 28 years ago remain hopeful of finding forensic evidence which will enable them to identify her killer.
The Garda serious crime review team under Det Supt Des McTiernan in Dublin and Det Supt Joe Moore in west Cork has spent the past 30 months examining the original investigation and subsequent reviews, leading to it checking more than 1,600 witness statements.
The team has also been liaising closely with Forensic Science Ireland (FSI) regarding the latest advances in forensic DNA science with a view to using the most advanced DNA testing to try to identify Ms Toscan du Plantier’s killer from samples taken in the original investigation.
A mother of one from Paris, Ms Toscan du Plantier (39) was battered to death and her badly beaten body was found by a gate at the entrance to her isolated holiday home at Dreenane in Toormore outside Schull on the morning of December 23rd, 1996.
Garda technical experts collected items from the scene including a bloodstained rock and a breeze block used in the murder as well as blood samples from a gate and a door frame, while samples were also taken from Ms Toscan du Plantier’s body and clothing at postmortem.
Gardaí identified a suspect in the case, English journalist Ian Bailey and he was subsequently arrested in February 1997 and although he was released and never charged in connection with the case, gardaí seized Mr Bailey’s clothing, which was also forensically examined.
[ Toscan du Plantier murder was ‘very solvable’ case but for Garda errorsOpens in new window ]
According to a source close to the cold-case review, gardaí remain hopeful that with advances in forensic DNA testing techniques, these samples taken at both at the scene and at postmortem, which have all been properly retained, will help identify Ms Toscan du Plantier’s killer.
“With advances in DNA technology, scientists don’t need as large a sample to get a match – for example, low copy number DNA, which was used in the recent Nora Sheehan murder case in west Cork 40 years ago, was a huge advance but that’s almost obsolete now with new technologies.”
According to the source, forensics is particularly important in the Toscan du Plantier murder investigation because of the history of the case where a number of key witnesses retracted statements, claiming they had made them under duress from gardaí.
Mr Bailey’s partner, Jules Thomas, told gardaí following her arrest in 1997 said she was sure Mr Bailey had got up in the early hours of December 23rd at their home at the Prairie, Liscaha, Schull, but she later withdrew the statement and said it was not an accurate account of her Garda interview.
Another witness in the case, Marie Farrell, initially told gardaí that she saw a man, whom she later identified as Ian Bailey, at Kealfadda bridge near Ms Toscan du Plantier’s home on the night of the murder but she also retracted the statement and said gardaí had coerced her into making it.
“Given the history of this investigation with people making statements and then withdrawing them, forensics provide the best independent objective evidence to present to the DPP in the file that the cold-case team will send,” said the source.
According to the source, the serious crime review team believes from its discussions with FSI that the State agency is willing to send the samples to wherever the most advanced testing technologies have been developed, in the hope of getting a match.
Meanwhile a team of seven detectives operating out of Bantry Garda station has so far interviewed more than 300 witnesses as they re-examine original statements and in some cases this has led it to identifying new witnesses whom it has also interviewed.
“The team have literally gone to the four corners of the world – they have obviously taken statements in west Cork and in Ireland and in Europe but also in North America, Central America and South America as well as in Australia,” said the source.
“They are planning to travel to France to take statements from a number of people there but some French witnesses such as Sophie’s friends Agnes Thomas and Frederique More came to Bantry earlier this month to make statements to the team.”
Ian Bailey, who died on January 21st last at the age of 66, was twice arrested but never charged with the murder and he repeatedly denied any involvement in the killing. He was convicted in absentia in Paris in 2019 but the High Court ruled he could not be extradited to France.
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