Where is the West Cork house where Sophie Toscan du Plantier was murdered?
SOPHIE Toscan du Plantier was found murdered at a cottage in Cork in December 1996. The 39-year-old was bludgeoned to death at her holiday home in Ireland, with her body discovered near the remote cottage with her skull crushed. Sophie Toscan du Plantier was killed at her holiday home in rural west Cork. Mum-of-one Sophie, 38, had bought her holiday home near idyllic Toormore on Irelands rocky West Cork coast in 1993. Three miles up the road in Lissacaha, Ian Bailey - a prime suspect in the murder - lived with Welsh artist Jules Thomas after they moved in together in 1991. In December 1996 Sophie went to Toormore alone, intending to spend a few days there before returning to Paris for Christmas. Today there is a Celtic cross with her name engraved on its base at the spot where her battered body was found in the lane snaking down from her cottage. A woman living nearby had found her body there on the morning of December 23. Sophie was wearing walking boots with no socks, a white T-shirt and long johns which were snagged on some nearby barbed wire. It appeared she had been trying to run away from her attacker the previous night. The French woman was killed at her holiday home in West Cork two days before Christmas in 1996. The Garda file on the case remains open and unsolved. The body of the glamorous 39-year-old TV producer was discovered near her remote Irish cottage with her skull crushed. Journalist Ian Bailey was arrested twice and convicted in absentia in relation to the murder, but maintains his innocence and has never been convicted in Ireland. He was tried in absentia in France after winning a legal battle against extradition on May 31, 2019 and convicted of murder by the Cour d'Assises de Paris and sentenced to 25 years prison. France was hoping to secure an extradition from Ireland on the basis of this sentence but on October 12, 2020, Ireland's High Court ruled that Bailey could not be extradited. Later that same month, the Irish State decided not to appeal the High Court's finding ending the attempt to extradite Bailey.