Some with username PhilMathers did a brilliant point by point demolition of certain evidence against Bailey.
It shows that many of the endlessly repeated assertions that have created a general smell around Bailey (eg he was the first reporter on the scene, or that he wrote that Sophie hadn't been sexually assaulted before that was shared publicly) are completely baseless.
For me an intriguing question is, why didn't anyone hear anything? One neighbouring cottage was unoccupied at the time but Alfie Lyons' house was only 80-100 yards away (albeit he said the glass conservatory covering the front of the house blocks all sound from that direction). So perhaps it's not surprising - it just seems horrific to die so violently that close to a neighbour in such a quiet place.
Sophie was due to leave on the day her body was found (potentially anyway - she bought two tickets, one for 23rd and one for 24th Dec).
In 1997, her husband told a journalist that she'd been pregnant and they'd discussed this in their last phone call (source probably Paul Webster, Guardian's Paris correspondent).
She'd finished a previous affair, with Bruno Carbonnet, very abruptly, just before Christmas a few years prior. He said "
My affair with Sophie finished in Christmas 1993, a date on which she finished it without any warning. This end was very difficult for me." It is said when Sophie was ready to drop people, she moved on very quickly.
I wonder if the purpose of this brief holiday was to tidy her affairs (literally). With the mysterious sallow-faced beret man witnessed by Marie Farrell in her original statement perhaps.
She was ready to make a fresh go of her marriage, with a new baby, but the ending came as a shock to her lover who didn't accept it.
I wonder if the first stone was thrown from a distance, in anger and almost petulantly, to stop her walking away from him, and stunned her to the extent that she never cried out. The rest of the attack, including the final breezeblock, was to ensure she was dead. All complete speculation of course, but the apparent lack of commotion in the silence of the night bothers me.
I'm looking forward to the results of the cold case review by the Serious Crime Review Team, although sounds like it will take a few years. The original crime scene, and the house, appear to be have been so compromised, it would be great if advances in DNA technology might throw new light on the case.