Sophie: How a nightmare begins
In this extract from his new book, Ralph Riegel lifts the veil on the very start of a murder case that continues to confound
SHORTLY after 10am on Monday, December 23, 1996, Shirley Foster was setting off from her home at Toormore in order to do some last-minute Christmas shopping in Schull. It was a typical Irish winter morning – there was a hint of frost on the ground and, while the morning had been bright and clear, cloud cover threatened rain showers later in the day.
Ms Foster lived on a hillside that boasted dramatic views, with Roaringwater Bay in the distance. Behind the property were spectacular views west towards Dunmanus Bay. All around the house, gorsecovered hills – interspersed with rock-studded fields carved over generations – tumbled down towards the coast.
In summer, Toormore was beautiful and idyllic. In winter, it could be desolate and forbidding. West Cork communities are used to isolation, but even by local standards this tiny Toormore community was some distance removed from the hubbub of local habitation. At the base of the hill, at the side of the laneway leading from her home towards the main road, Ms Foster noticed what she thought was a bundle of clothes. It was unusual enough to catch her attention.
As she slowed to take the lefthand turn, something made her look again – and she realised that the object wasn’t a bundle of clothes. Rather, it appeared to be a human form lying prone by the gate.
Horrified, she looked again to make sure and was appalled to see that it was a body with obvious bloodstains. She raced back to her home to raise the alarm and notify the gardaí. She also informed her partner, Alfie Lyons, of the grim discovery. Together, they began a quick check of their neighbours to ensure that everyone was safe and accounted for.
Despite the fact that Clonakilty, Bantry and Skibbereen Garda stations were closer, the alert was handled by Bandon Garda Station, the divisional headquarters for west Cork. The sergeant on duty dispatched two uniformed gardaí to the scene while also alerting detectives and the local superintendent to the serious nature of the call that had just been received.
The first Garda patrol car arrived at the isolated scene shortly before 10.40am. The two officers in attendance, Sergeant Ger Prendeville and Garda Bill Byrne, were careful not to contaminate the scene, but they were able to confirm that the alert did involve a dead body. One look was enough to see what a post-mortem would later verify: the individual was female and had been subjected to a brutal and savage attack.
A careful inspection of the scene indicated that the woman involved had likely died after a desperate struggle. So horrific were the wounds to the body and head that it was not immediately apparent what type of weapon had been used. But a concrete block was lying just two metres away. Both gardaí noticed, to their horror, what looked like bloodstains on its edges.
The gardaí also came across apparent bloodstains on a nearby gate and a piece of clothing caught on a barbed-wire fence. They could see that the woman lying in front of them was wearing walking boots. However, she also appeared to be wearing a dressing gown, as if she had been preparing for bed – something that many people who later attended the scene thought highly unusual given the distance the body was found from the house.
Gardaí wondered whether the woman had been chased from her home by an intruder. She had probably been living locally because she could not have run or walked very far, dressed as she was on that cold December night.
A local GP, Dr Larry O’Connor, attended Toormore shortly after 11am and pronounced the woman dead at the scene. It was clear to Dr O’Connor, from his preliminary examination, that the woman had been dead for a number of hours. However, he could not speculate as to the time of death.
The Office of the State Pathologist had been contacted shortly before
IT WAS CLEAR TO THE GP THAT THE WOMAN HAD BEEN DEAD FOR SOME HOURS
11am that Monday. At the time, Ireland had just a single state pathologist, Professor John Harbison, who was based in Dublin. It was an almost five-hour drive from Dublin to Toormore, with the Dublin-Cork motorway a development still far in the future.
But it was hoped he might be able to attend the scene that evening in order to conduct a preliminary examination that would then allow the body to be transferred to Cork Regional Hospital.
A short time later, a local priest arrived and administered the last rites, with all gardaí present joining in the murmured prayers. Shocked neighbours gathered some distance from the gateway, warned to stay back by gardaí. Until Professor Harbison arrived and the forensic experts were able to complete their work, the scene would have to remain carefully cordoned off.
Locals were baffled about who the person could be, although rumours were already circulating that a house on the hill, thought to have been empty for Christmas, may have had a single occupant over recent days. For a time, a rumour spread that the deceased may have come from a New Age encampment 15 kilometres away. Neighbours checking with each other had already made sure that everyone permanently resident in the area was accounted for.
Gardaí making inquiries around Toormore became aware that Sophie Toscan du Plantier had arrived at her holiday home the previous Friday evening. This was confirmed by the presence outside the Toormore property of a 1996 Ford Fiesta bearing a sticker for the carhire company, Avis. Gardaí were informed that Josephine Hellen acted as a caretaker for the property of her French friend. Contact was made with the Hellen family, and it was confirmed that the French woman had indeed arrived MR BAILEY DROVE DOWN WITH HIS PARTNER TO SEE WHAT HE COULD DISCOVER three days earlier for a pre-Christmas break and had been due to depart from Cork Airport that very day.
Because of the gruesome nature of the discovery, it was agreed that Josephine’s husband, Finbarr, rather than his wife, would attend the scene. He knew Sophie by sight and would be able to identify her. Minutes after his arrival, he confirmed that the bloodstained body lying by the roadside was that of the French mother of one. Gardaí quickly realised that the international dimension of the case would make it particularly challenging.
A forensics team from the Garda Technical Bureau in Dublin were dispatched to west Cork as soon as it was confirmed that the death was being treated as suspicious. But they wouldn’t arrive until late that Monday evening. Until then, uniformed gardaí were tasked with preserving the scene and any evidence that might be spotted.
By lunchtime, word had spread across west Cork about the discovery of a body and a possible murder investigation being launched by gardaí. The Examiner’s west Cork correspondent, Eddie Cassidy, was the first journalist to be alerted to the grim news.
Not long afterwards, other members of the Cork media would begin trying to determine precisely what was involved in the grim Toormore discovery and whether, as feared, the death might prove suspicious.
Eddie Cassidy immediately began to make calls to local ‘stringers’, or news contacts, to determine if anyone had heard anything about developments in Toormore. At around 1.40 pm, he made contact with a Schull-based freelance journalist named Ian Bailey. The exact details of that conversation would prove to be of enormous importance over the years to come.
The net result of the conversation was that Mr Bailey – accompanied by his partner, the Welsh artist Jules Thomas – decided to drive to the nearby scene to see what they could discover. The couple lived in a house called The Prairie, at Liscaha, roughly on the other side of the mountain. Ms Thomas brought a 35mm camera in case there was an
opportunity to take photographs. These would be useful for any articles her partner might submit.
Mr Bailey later said he arrived at Toormore around 2.20pm He approached the scene and was met by two gardaí, who immediately asked him who he was and what he was doing there. When informed that Mr Bailey was a journalist, one garda asked the couple to step back from the scene and to contact the Garda Press Office with any specific queries they might have.
The journalist said he left the scene but returned sometime between 3.30pm and 4pm, by which time other members of the media, most from Cork city, had started to appear.
Later, television crews would arrive to broadcast the first images of the scene to a national audience, who were horrified that something so appalling could happen just 48 hours before Christmas.
By mid-afternoon gardaí had learned that the earliest Professor Harbison could attend the Toormore scene was Tuesday morning – Christmas Eve. An officer would have to be on duty throughout the night to secure the scene pending the arrival of the state pathologist. Only then could the remains be transferred to Cork for a post-mortem examination. This delay meant that the body, now covered with a protective plastic sheet, would remain outdoors for a second night.
Having confirmed the identity of the deceased, west Cork gardaí notified their Dublin superiors who, in turn, used diplomatic and police channels to pass the information to their French counterparts so that family members could be notified. That took time and, inevitably, the media, particularly the broadcast journalists, moved faster.
Bulletins about the discovery of a body in west Cork were on national radio by midday.
Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s extended family in Paris heard a news bulletin that Monday evening about a French national having been the victim of a suspected murder in west Cork – before they had been alerted through official police channels. The news of the discovery of the body in west Cork prompted alarm within the family. Many relatives knew that Sophie was in Ireland, but they thought she had been due to leave west Cork and return to France for the Christmas festivities. If Sophie had already left Ireland, surely it could not be her?
But Sophie’s mother, Marguerite Bouniol, instinctively feared the worst. It proved to be a tragic example of accurate maternal intuition. Although she hadn’t received any official confirmation that her daughter was indeed the victim, Marguerite was absolutely convinced that something terrible had happened to her beloved Sophie. Her husband, Georges, tried to console her, but Marguerite was adamant that something awful was about to engulf their family. Incredibly, the French liaison officers had not yet managed to contact the Bouniols or du Plantiers. The family were forced to resort to getting relatives and friends who spoke English to contact every person they knew in west Cork by telephone to try to confirm Sophie’s safety and whereabouts. But the family’s fears were mounting by the minute. Sophie had not arrived in France on her scheduled flight, no one in the family had heard anything from her since 10pm on the evening of 22 December and all attempts to contact Sophie in west Cork had proved fruitless. By this time, the family were desperate for news, and everyone had been enlisted to ring every number they could possibly locate in west Cork for any piece of information. Finally, late on Monday evening, the family learned from one heartbreaking call to west Cork that the body found on the Toormore laneway was indeed that of their beloved Sophie.
The heartbreak for Marguerite and Georges was compounded by the realisation that someone would have to tell Sophie’s son, PierreLouis Baudey, who was only 15, that his mother had been found dead in the most violent of circumstances.
THE DELAY MEANT THAT THE BODY WOULD REMAIN OUTDOORS FOR A SECOND NIGHT
The tight-knit French family were devastated by their grief, made all the worse by the inability of officials to answer their question of what exactly had happened to Sophie.
In west Cork, gardaí were about to launch a murder probe that would utterly transform lives, make Irish judicial history, test Franco-Irish political and policing links – and would remain unsolved over two
SOMEONE WOULD HAVE TO TELL SOPHIE’S SON, WHO WAS ONLY 15-YEARS-OLD
decades later.
■ A Dream Of Death by Ralph Riegel will be published by Gill Books on June 5, priced €16.99.