Sophie murder gets everyone talking again
Podcast creators tell of mission over 1996 unsolved case
A PODCAST about the unsolved murder of French film-maker Sophie Toscan du Plantier has topped the bestseller list since its release last week.
The killing of the 39-year-old in West Cork more than 20 years ago shocked the nation – and no one has ever been charged here over the death.
Earlier this month English investigators Sam Bungey and Jennifer Forde released a 13-part series called West Cork.
Audible.com spokesman Thomas Curry told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “Unfortunately we don’t release download numbers for any of our products, but I can tell you West Cork has been at the top of our bestseller list ever since it was released.”
The series is similar in style to Serial or S.town and delves into the extensive probe by gardai into the brutal slaying of the mum of one in 1996.
It features interviews with locals, detectives, Sophie’s family, Ian Bailey – who has acknowledged he was the chief suspect – and his partner and alibi Jules Thomas.
RAGE
Retired Garda Chief Superintendent Dermot Dwyer tells how he was convinced whoever bludgeoned her to death did so in a fit of rage.
Pretty Sophie, the wife of renowned French film producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier, was found lying in a pool of blood by neighbours with up to 50 horrific injuries.
Mr Dwyer said: “If you saw the damage done to that poor lady, the way her face was destroyed, you’d have come to the conclusion even if you were never a policeman that this murder was carried out by someone who lost it completely.
“I’ve been at the scene of a lot of murders and so have my colleagues. Sometimes there’s cruelty and viciousness. Her face was badly beaten, it looked dreadful to be honest.”
The same theory sits with Detective Eugene Gilligan from the Garda Technical Bureau who tells the podcast he believes a “red mist” descended on the killer.
He said: “The brain gets into a vicious cycle and literally there’s no reasoning outside doing what you’re doing.
“A lot of times, they’ll have no recollection because the brain has fire-stormed into this violence. The perpetrator can’t have what they think they’re entitled to have… it could be sex, drugs, a debt. They see only one way out. Did [the murderer] entice her down and try to have sex and she said no?” The podcast has received mostly five-star reviews online but some critics raised questions over whether the co-creators got too friendly with Bailey.
He features briefly early on but does not emerge as a person of interest until later in the series after shopkeeper Marie Farrell reports spotting him around town in the days leading up to the murder. Bungey and Forde first met Bailey in Dublin in 2014 during his High Court civil damages case against the State and Garda Commissioner which he later lost.
He agreed to give his account of the criminal investigation – and even brought them on a trip around the countryside outside Schull.
Bungey said: “I found myself in his car going down the narrow laneways of West Cork. Afterwards we were fascinated by him. It was the first hook for us.”
Having spent three years researching the case before visiting the town where the murder happened, they found it to be a “captivating” place.
Forde revealed: “Definitely a lot of people we spoke to thought we would have our work cut out because it was such a sensitive story… that people would be anxious about speaking, or have fatigue about it.
“Because we were doing something for audio, we were able to spend a lot of time there, and managed to get around to so many people. I feel like we got pretty close to what we always hoped we could do.”
She said they never set out to solve
I found myself in his car going down laneways in West Cork. It was the first hook for us
SAM BUNGEY CO-CREATOR OF PODCAST WEST CORK
the case, adding: “If that was our only mission that would be misplaced. It would leave our listeners shortchanged. We’re not investigators. I don’t think we went in thinking we could find the smoking gun.”
In a podcast contribution Bailey acknowledged that reporting on the case as a journalist in national newspapers while under investigation may not have been a good idea.
He said: “I was becoming increasingly aware, this would be during January 1997 I guess, I was hearing these stories I was supposed to be responsible for the crime. From the tone of the interviews from the guards I was becoming increasingly suspicious they were trying to put me in the frame. “You don’t particularly worry because you’ve nothing to hide.” He added: “All the time, you’re trying to come up with new angles no one else has come up with to keep the story alive.
“It might seem quite bizarre at this particular point I’m reporting on the crime… and at the same time I’m being increasingly focused on as the culprit. The whole thing is crazy when you look at it… I may have been illadvised by myself to do it [reporting] but I did.”
Bailey blames scratches to his hands and face which were subject to inquiry on a turkey he slaughtered for Christmas dinner and a tree he cut down.
He said: “When the guards came out here I met the guard who noticed the scratches in the yard. I had my sleeves rolled up. You’d think if I had anything to do with this and knew the scratches had come, I might have covered them up. I made no attempt to do that.” French investigators exhumed Sophie’s body in 2008 and although no forensic evidence was ever found linking Bailey, the case against him is proceeding.
A Paris court ruled last month there were “sufficient grounds” to try him in absentia for the murder.
■ All 13 episodes of the series are available on audible.com/westcork. You can listen for free by signing up to a 30-day trial.
It’s such a sensitive case, they thought people would be anxious about speaking
JENNIFER FORDE CO-CREATOR OF PODCAST WEST CORK