Sophie Toscan du Plantier Dossier, Part 2
My own timeline, based on all the public sources of information, plus some unanswered questions that I believe any theory will have to answer. There will be no more Sophie articles.
Welcome to the second and final part of the Sophie Toscan du Plantier dossier that I created last summer and autumn. I am proudest of this one, which is mainly the timeline plus some open questions that I believe any comprehensive theory must resolve. I am proudest of the timeline because this case, possibly more than any other (Suzy Lamplugh is a little similar) depends absolutely on which event happened at what time, and in what sequence.
The older books are very good, such as Michael Sheridan, but they had access to less information than the newer books, and there are some inconsistencies. The newer books, on the other hand, are either a little thin, or they are written by people with a very fixed view on what happened. Crime Guy has always stayed on the fence, although at times it has been difficult. The Netflix documentary was one-sided, but then many people say the same about Murder at the Cottage, which is my original source on this case and in my eyes the best TV documentary. The best documentary by far, however, is the West Cork podcast, now available in places beyond Audible.
Moving over to Substack this winter has given me a chance to review many aspects of this case, the unsolved killing of French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier. She has occupied my waking thoughts for over half a year, and very often crept into my dreams as well. It is a compelling mystery. But a site that finds so many hundreds of unsolved murders to solve, nearly all of them involving lone women, must pick a moment to move on. Part of the reason for moving to Substack was to create more of a two-way community of voices. I have tried hard to discourage the fringe element, the lunatic bystanders, of which there are many on Twitter. I believe sites like Medium and Substack offer a brighter future for writers and researchers, and I no longer use Twitter. This site is, I suppose, implicitly developed for the obsessive amateur and curious professional. If you just wanted entertainment, you can see all of this stuff on Netflix. But if you want more than that, if you want to think there is one little fact buried somewhere that will resolve everything, then you are in the right place. Apart from the brilliant Koude Kaas website in the Netherlands, I have not seen another site with as much original information as Crime Guy.
This is a very long way to say that I am retiring from public writing about this case. There is nothing more to write at this time. I do plan to record some of these articles with audio, and I am happy to appear on other people’s podcasts, but there will not be a formal Crime Guy podcast. I have made a Sophie section on the homepage which is your comprehensive list of all the Sophie articles on this site. It is over to you, the engaged public. I have made available all of the tools I made in this dossier. There is nothing else.
I continue to receive tips and information from others, and I promise to share anything that is genuinely new or plausible that might crack the case. Apart from that, it is over and out. I have Keith Bennett in my mind once again, a young boy who was never found. Suzy Lamplugh, a young estate agent, snatched from the street on her lunch break, was never found. And Penny Bell, stabbed to death in her own car in broad daylight outside a leafy swimming pool. Nobody was ever charged. These cases need another look too.
