Former British journalist Ian Bailey, who was long suspected and even convicted of the violent 1996 murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, has died.
Bailey’s lawyer Frank Buttimer said in a statement that while his client had a severe heart condition, Buttimer “didn’t know he was terminally unwell.” Bailey was 66.
The murder Bailey was suspected of committing attracted international attention because the victim was married to Daniel Toscan du Plantier, a well-known French film producer.
In 1996, Sophie Toscan du Plantier, 39, was found beaten to death at the gate of her vacation home in West Cork, Ireland. While Bailey initially reported on the crime for a national paper and was even the first journalist on the scene, he was twice arrested in connection with the murder. He maintained his innocence and no forensic evidence was ever found linking him to the scene of the crime.
In 2019 a French court convicted Bailey of murder in absentia and sentenced him to 25 years, but he never served that term because he lived in Ireland.
The murder was the subject of the 2021 Netflix documentary Sophie: A Murder in West Cork.
