Gardai say it will be at least a year at the earliest before there are developments in the Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder enquiry.
Detectives are following up all the new leads arising from the two recent television documentaries on the case and interviewing each of the people individually involved. But they are also going through thousands of files containing every statement made in relation to the case.
It is understood this includes the several people who claimed that initial Garda suspect Ian Bailey confessed to them in different ways that he killed Sophie. Among them are a local man Richie Shelly and his wife Rosie.
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During a court case taken by Ian Bailey against the Garda Commissioner, Shelly claimed that during a New Year’s Eve 1998 dinner at his home, an emotional Bailey told them he “went too far”.
There is also a statement from Malachi Reed, a then 14-year-old, who is now 38 years old and still living in the area.
A previous Circuit Court libel case against newspapers brought by Bailey in 2003 heard how Bailey told him “he bashed Sophie’s f....... brains in” with a rock“ when he gave him a lift home from Schull village, a year after the French beauty’s 1996 death.
The teenager said he went home and told his mother and they were terrified for days afterwards.. Bailey denies that he made these comments or that he ever admitted to killing Sophie.
A number of witnesses including Sophie’s neighbour in west Cork, Alfie Lyons are dead. He claimed he introduced Bailey to the beautiful French film producer 18 months before she was killed in Christmas, 1996. Ian Bailey again denies this and always maintains he never knew Sophie.
The Garda source said: "There is a serious amount of digging to be done and statements to be checked and clarified. We have a number of new leads from the TV programmes which we will be pursuing.
"But in all honesty it is going to take a year before we know what direction the investigation is going and if there are developments in the hunt for the killer.”
Anyone who was arrested before cannot be lifted again unless there is new evidence. But the Gardai would also have to get permission from a Judge to arrest that person.
Ian Bailey was arrested twice over the murder but never charged. He has always denied killing Sophie and has offered to fully cooperate with the new cold case investigation.
Bailey, 64, was convicted by a French court of the murder in absentia in 2019 and given a 25 year jail sentence.
Most of the evidence was based on hearsay which would never be admissible in an Irish court. The Irish courts in turn have refused to extradite him to France to do the time.
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