What happened to Sophie Toscan du Plantier, the 39-year-old mother who was beaten to death with a rock outside her vacation home in County Cork in 1996?
With our correspondent in Dublin, Laura Taouchanov
For the first time, the French police will provide the elements of their investigation to the Irish police. It is a thick dossier: eight years of investigation, witness statements to the work of forensic doctors on the exhumed body of Sophie Toscan du Plantier. The French investigation had been requested by the family while in Ireland, the case had been closed for lack of evidence. And so no one has ever been charged with this murder despite one of the largest investigations in the country’s history.
The two countries are determined to work hand in hand, after the repeated refusal of the Irish authorities to hand over Ian Bailey, the main suspect, found guilty by France in 2019. Investigators are also counting on a new technology that makes it possible to collect DNA years later. It did not exist a quarter of a century ago and has helped solve several crimes in the United States. For his part, Ian Bailey had long claimed, convinced that she will finally exonerate him.
After a Netflix series the year, it must be said that the attention of the whole world on the failure of this affair embarrasses the Irish justice.
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