Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder: A discarded, unopened bottle of wine re-examined

The operation is based in Macroom and has been active for months. Among those reinterviewed has been a former neighbour of Sophie’s amid claims a prowler was in the vicinity of that house too on the night the French filmmaker died —  December 23, 1996.

Detailed work has also been carried out into the claims of an elderly man that a person confessed their role to him in dealing with bloodstained clothes in the wake of the murder.

The prospect of obtaining DNA from rock crevices under a new technique, pioneered in the United States and leading to convictions in battery killings, is also under consideration. It would require purchase of special equipment.

And there has been a reassessment of the importance of a wine bottle found four months after the murder at Toormore, near Schull, that was still sealed and full of an expensive high-quality vintage.

It was found in grass off the road leading to Sophie’s house, apparently thrown there, by someone unknown. For many years the existence of the bottle was kept secret. It was believed to have been bought by Sophie at duty-free before she flew to Ireland, intended as a present or a treat to herself in her cosy getaway.

Last week there was  a claim on Twitter by a British journalist that the wine bottle was the initial source of conflict between Sophie and an assailant.

The Sunday Independent understands the information stems from lurid allegations by a former prisoner about how the row began that led to her death. Gardaí are treating the claims with extreme caution, although it is understood a male informant has twice been interviewed and made formal statements. His reliability, however, is in question.

The author of a book on the case, Nick Foster, wrote on Twitter last week: “Sophie’s assailant knocked on her door in the early hours of [December 23, 1996]. She opened it, and he saw a bottle in her porch. He picked it up, and
refused to give it back. She called out ‘Monsieur, Monsieur!’ after the man. This is not a way a French person would address a prowler or indeed a “hitman”. It rather suggests Sophie knew her attacker. She was angry with the man for taking the bottle. He then struck her with it.”

The bottle’s existence was disclosed in a recent book, A Dream of Death, by Irish Independent journalist Ralph Riegel. He wrote: “It was a French vintage not stocked by any pub or off-licence in the West Cork area.”

He suggested that subsequent forensic tests were unable to throw any light on the matter for gardaí. The bottle of wine was worth around IR£70 at the time, and would fetch well over €100 today.

Checks with French police showed it was stocked at airport duty free. It was claimed in the book the wine had vanished, but it is believed the bottle, with its distinctive label, may be retained.

In a statement made in April 1997 — three and a half months after the murder — a then-teenage boy told gardaí: “As I was going in across the fence about 20 yards on the coast road side of the junction leading to Sophie Du Plantier’s house, I noticed a bottle partially covered by withered rough grass. It was about 3.30pm at the time.

“I found it at a place that I pointed out to Detective Sergeant Walsh at 3.50pm on Wednesday, April 9. I picked up the bottle and I saw that it was a full bottle of wine. I left it where I found it and told my parents about it when I got home.”

The next day he went with his father to the spot. “I collected the bottle and showed it to my father. He examined it, and decided to take it home with us. My mother rang the gardaí at Bandon and told Garda Kevin Kelleher about it.

“This is the same bottle of wine that I now hand over to Detective Sergeant Walsh. My fingerprints, and that of my father, may be on the bottle. My mother's fingerprints may also be on this bottle.

“The point where it was found is about three feet in off the road.”

Five years later the now young man made statements to gardaí, in April and June 2002, in Co Cork indicating the wine bottle had suddenly come back into the equation.

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