Ian Bailey's ex to open up on who she thinks murdered Sophie Toscan du Plantier
Jules Thomas, whose ex was long considered a suspect in the brutal killing in December 1996, is writing her autobiography as she battles a life-threatening blood disease.
While she and Mr Bailey were no longer a couple when he died last year, she told how the crime ruined their lives and she will never forgive the gardai for how they treated them.
Although Ms Thomas, who is a painter, didn't name names, she said the killer is someone well connected with the forces of law and order.
She also believes the culprit was involved in a relationship with the tragic French film producer who was battered to death, just 100 yards from her holiday home in Schull, Co Cork. Ms Thomas said: "I will tell my side of the story in this book. I want to get the truth out there while I am alive.
"Ian Bailey may have been a lot of things but he did not kill Sophie.
"He didn't have it in him to kill anyone – he couldn't kill a turkey for God's sake." Ian Bailey arrives at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin with his partner Jules Thomas (Image: Collins Courts)
The artist was Mr Bailey's alibi on the night Sophie was killed and detectives were hoping she would change her story after they split up three years ago.
But she was having none of it. She recalled: "When gardai brought me in for questioning all those years ago they kept telling me my life was in danger and Ian would eventually kill me. Well here we are all these years later and guess what? Ian didn't kill me.
"He has passed on and I am still here. He was never a danger to me or anyone else. Gardai, as far as I am concerned, tried to frame Ian for the murder and in doing so ruined our lives.
"They never seriously looked at any other suspects.
"In this book I will tell what actually went on and put the record straight.
"Gardai did everything to get me to change my story but the truth is the truth. I kept telling them Ian did not kill Sophie but they wouldn't listen." Sophie Toscan du Plantier (Image: PATRICK ZIMMERMANN/AFP via Getty Images)
Mr Bailey was arrested twice over the murder but never charged. He was then convicted in absentia by a French court of murder and sentenced to 25 years jail.
But Irish authorities refused to extradite him because much of the evidence was based on hearsay and would never have been admissible in an Irish court.
Ms Thomas' comments come as US forensic experts are using new technology to try and identify DNA from a blood sample found on the block used to kill Sophie.
Her family in Paris are hoping for a breakthrough and are adamant the biological material will be that of Mr Bailey, who died of a heart attack.
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