EARLY LEADS NOT TAKEN SERIOUSLY AS GARDAI FOCUSED ON IAN BAILEY
A KNOWN “Peeping Tom” and a German musician were two of the early Garda suspects in the Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder, we can reveal.
But detectives never took either seriously after interviewing them and instead turned their attention to Ian Bailey.
The Peeping Tom made a statement and denied knowing
Sophie or being near her house.
However, the man, who is still alive, had a reputation for going around people’s houses and looking in the windows, and was regarded a s a
“Peeping Tom”.
The second suspect Karl Heinz Wolney came to West Cork, a mile from Sophie’s home, with his then wife from East Germany after the fall of the Berlin wall. He lived a mile from Sophie’s home. It is understood his marriage didn’t last long and the wife returned home. He was a musician and was playing in Crookhaven on the evening that the French film producer was killed. Wolney returned home later that night. He was on his own and had no alibi. Shortly before he committed suicide he had told a friend he had “done a terrible thing” and couldn’t live with himself. Nevertheless he didn’t specify what this was.
A short time after Ian Bailey was arrested for the first time in February 1997 over the murder, Wolney sadly took his own life.
The friend who he confessed to is now seriously ill and passed on the information to authorities.
Wolney made a statement to the gardai at the time but always denied ever seeing or knowing Sophie.
Crime
Jim Sheridan’s new documentary, Murder at the Cottage, aired for the first time last night on Sky Crime.
Sophie’s family were interviewed for the series but then pulled out after watching it as they wouldn’t accept there were other possible suspects except Bailey, who denies the crime.
One of Sophie’s relatives is also involved as a producer in a rival documentary to be screened by Netflix next weekend.