The following are eight approaches open to investigators as a cold-case review is announced:
1. DNA
Advances in DNA over the past quarter-century have been astounding, and even minute quantities can give rise to full genetic sequencing of the person concerned.
The killer of Sophie wielded a concrete block and a large rock on her skull as she fought for her life. Traces of blood on a five-bar gate (later disposed of with the consent of the family) were insufficient for identification when examined in 1997, but were outside the spatter zone, suggesting the gate was touched by the killer.
There was also a smear of Sophie’s blood on the back door of the Toormore holiday home after the killer retraced their steps and closed it from the outside. Flakes were retained in both cases.
Meanwhile, a relatively new technique can now ‘hoover’ blood/DNA traces from the recesses of rocks and porous rough materials.
It is regarded as probable that Sophie’s killer sustained blood or tissue loss, albeit to a small degree, from her fightback – as evidenced by her fingernail damage and bruising to her arms.
In 1996, hair found in the deceased woman’s grasp was believed to offer the prospect of identifying her killer, since hair is a DNA repository. Unfortunately, the clump tested proved to be from Sophie’s own head.
2. Missing pieces of the jigsaw
A small red hatchet was missing from Sophie’s house, likely picked up by her as a precaution when answering her back door after midnight.
She could have used it to inflict an injury on her attacker, then dropped it in panic before fleeing – a scenario that could bring the killer back to the rear door to retrieve it from the ground for disposal elsewhere.
Nothing else was believed to have been missing from the house until April 1997 brought the extraordinary discovery of a full wine bottle lying in a field, apparently thrown away.
It was not sold in Ireland, but in French duty-free shops, suggesting Sophie brought it over. She was known to keep wine by the back door.
Yet two months earlier, an identified man was claiming that a bottle of wine was missing from the house.
How did he know when the gardaí did not?
Meanwhile, trademark footwear typically worn daily by a male suspect also vanished. Coincidentally or not, gardaí recovered metal eyes for bootlaces from the ashes of a bonfire. There were questionable claims at the time of a man being seen “washing his boots” in a stream near the scene.
3. Bloodied clothes, bath and bleach
Corroboration is key to firming up many assertions in the 4,000-page Garda file.
In some instances, tiny pieces of individuals’ statements appear to cross-reference each other – such as the sale of bleach on Christmas Eve (an unusual festive requisite), along with items alleged to have been seen in the presence of bleach, although again this may be mere coincidence.
The Garda sifting inquiry indicates the investigation did not even tie up some leads, much less strengthen them through further inquiry. A woman separately alleges that there were dark clothes soaking in a bath.
Later, in interview footage, she refers to a ‘tub’ – leading to a claimed inconsistency between bath and bucket. However, she has been living many years in the US, where tub is a synonym for bath.
Meanwhile, as the Irish Independent exclusively revealed, an elderly man separately came forward last year to sensationally claim to gardaí that a woman had confessed to him in 2001 that she had helped to deal with a man’s bloodied clothes.
The claimant was not named, but a female subsequently dismissed his account, saying she “hardly knew” the man. Gardaí have achieved apparent corroboration here – but this may ultimately be a matter for the DPP’s judgment, long before any jury assessment.
4. Foreknowledge
This is a highly fraught area, but it may be that claims about “impossible” foreknowledge can be further established in what would amount to circumstantial, weight-of-probability evidence.
It appears that a man was confidentially asserting after the crime that Sophie had not been sexually assaulted.
In fact, gardaí did not know this at the time and were awaiting the result of lab swab tests which did not come until afterwards, and which confirmed that there had been no sexual assault.
Other areas of the post-mortem examination also appear to have been known about by an individual when the investigators themselves did not know – a broken finger, for instance, and an injury to the back of Sophie’s head that may have been the blow that first brought her down as she was fleeing down the field towards the gate at the end of her driveway.
5. Neighbourhood watch
Neighbours can always sniff the wind, then and now.
An example is the case of a blind woman living nearby who was suffering from insomnia that night.
At a particular time, a coughing car wheezed by her house. The blind woman, whether or not she had heightened other senses, associated the engine noise with a car she knew to be driven by a neighbour.
This woman is now dead, but a remarkable number of Sophie’s neighbours remain alive, albeit infirm.
Several have given new statements to gardaí
in recent months, some
confirming original statements and adding new details.
Various noises were heard that night, including screams, believed at the time to be from foxes, but which indicate a timeframe.
Similarly, there were movements reported by interlacing individuals, which contradict answers given by certain others.
Car movement is seen as particularly crucial, as senior officers (most now retired) believe a car was used (and sometimes parked) on the night Sophie died, as well as the morning afterwards.
6. Brief encounters
Did Sophie know her killer? There is increasing evidence that she did – after all, she opened her back door to the person.
Twice-arrested suspect Ian Bailey relies on his non-acquaintance with Sophie, insisting he was never introduced to her, although a now-deceased neighbour told a Cork libel case he was “90pc sure” he had done so.
Whether Mr Bailey met her or not, gardaí are convinced of prior interaction between Sophie and her slayer, with special focus on an arts festival on Cape Clear the previous summer when Sophie was seen talking to a man.
At least one individual has identified this man, but corroboration and video or photos are once more key.
There are four hours missing in Sophie’s last day alive. Her rental car had the passenger seat tracked back to its maximum extent, as if a tall man might have been present – while a garage man claims a man was with Sophie when buying fuel, although there are thought to be problems with this account.
Work has also been done on establishing whether Sophie was contacted in Paris by phone from Ireland, as allegedly told to her aunt, and whether someone knew before her own housekeeper that she was coming to Ireland that Christmas.
Meanwhile, a man in Ireland was spouting at that time about Indian mysticism, and Sophie simultaneously wrote of her awakened interest in Kali, Hindu goddess of death.
7. Self-incrimination
Much has been made of various claimed confessions, and suspect Ian Bailey has admitted that, in frustration at being wrongly linked to the crime, he occasionally resorted to black humour, suggesting that he could have committed the murder so as to have a story to write about. He did not think anyone would take him seriously.
There is at least one more claimed admission however, unrecorded until recently. It is stated a man gave detail of the killing before saying: “I will go down for mental, like that man in Sligo.”
Years earlier, in 1988, John Gallagher killed girlfriend Anne Gillespie, aged 22 like himself, as well as her mother of the same name, after discovering she intended to break up with him.
The double homicide took place in the parkland of Sligo General Hospital.
Gallagher was tried for murder and found insane.
He later absconded from the Central Mental Hospital, and is now free. Gardaí believe eccentricities were played up at the time and have many accounts of strange activity – along with substance abuse.
There is also incriminating writing from the period, which could contribute to a circumstantial case for an accused’s alleged guilt.
8. Persons freed of past obligation
Death has come, not just to Sophie, but to some gardaí, witnesses and suspects, including Sophie’s former husband Daniel, while one-time lover of Sophie, artist Bruno Carbonnet survives.
Mr Bailey, once a thriving journalist, says he believes Sophie’s killer is dead while a dozen new informants have come forward, never having spoken before.
Gardaí believe death or departure can sometimes loosen the tongue of a surviving spouse who lived around Toormore.
Circumstances change, even where death has not occurred.
Friends can fall out, and doubts may encroach. It is known gardaí are extremely anxious to offer immunity in exchange for assistance and have recently explored legal mechanisms for this.
