Sophie: The Deceased Witnesses
Time is a funny thing. It has a habit of marching on, for some reason. Time flies too. It marches sometimes and flies at others. Time. A conundrum.
We know what time does to memory. It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s not like a lettuce, memory. Some parts fade immediately and some hardly at all. Some moments will remain burned into your brain forever, whether you want them there or not.
What time does to a cold case can be very strange indeed. For those who were in West Cork at the time, 23 December 1996 was a low ebb. Very many people will remember many things about the week that followed. Some people are bound to know a few things they have not shared.
What time does to a cold case, very often, is loosen tongues. Some secrets die with their keeper but sometimes people feel a need to share, to unburden. How would I feel if this case was solved by someone who knew all along? Foolish? Angry? I hope not. I would feel contentment. The notion that all cases are solvable is almost a maxim of true crime. How they are solved varies, but sometimes we just sit and wait, and the answer pops up out of the blue. One day, another witness will come close to death and will speak. Some hoped that the suspect would squawk before he croaked. He didn’t. What does that tell us about the man who couldn’t stop talking?
I wanted to choose an image for this post that was not the victim or the suspect or any of the witnesses. I hovered for a moment over Marie Farrell but she is still with us and anyway, did she really see anything relevant? Eventually I chose the Fastnet lighthouse, a potent symbol to Sophie Toscan du Plantier.
