The father of murdered French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier has died in hospital in Paris at the age of 98 after spending almost three decades campaigning to have his daughter’s killer brought to justice.
Georges Bouniol, who lived with his wife Marguerite (93) in Paris, had been in a critical condition in hospital over the Christmas period and he died on Monday with family members by his bedside.
“Georges passed away yesterday afternoon, but it was without any suffering or great pain – during the last few days, he had been getting weaker and weaker,” his brother-in-law, Jean Pierre Gazeau. “Marguerite is devastated because they were together 70 years – she is desolated.”
A native of Lozère in southern France, Mr Bouniol and his wife found themselves in the media spotlight on December 23rd, 1996 when they learned their only daughter had been murdered near her holiday home in West Cork.
They heard on a French TV news bulletin that a young Frenchwoman had been found murdered near Schull and their fears that the woman was their daughter was confirmed soon after and they travelled to Cork along with their eldest son Bertrand to identify her body.
Ms Bouniol later spoke of the sense of horror and unreality that she and her husband experienced when they went to O’Connor’s Funeral Home on Coburg Street in Cork, just days after the murder. Their son Bertrand advised them not to look at the body.
[ Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s parents on life without herOpens in new window ]
“I said, ‘We have to say goodbye to our daughter’. Her face was crushed to a pulp. They’d tried to fashion a sort of mask with make-up, but it didn’t look like Sophie. They had to cut her beautiful long hair, because it was matted and tangled with blood.
“I said, ‘That’s not my daughter.’ I couldn’t kiss her. I couldn’t even hold her hand. I try not to remember, so I put photographs of her everywhere, to chase away that dreadful image,” said Ms Bouniol in a 2013 interview with the Irish Times.
Ms Bouniol, who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, was the more outspoken of the couple about their daughter’s murder and its impact on them as a family, but in that same interview, Mr Bouniol revealed how he was hugely pained by the failure to see her killer brought to justice in Ireland.
“No one slept in Sophie’s house for a year after she was murdered. I went alone the second year. It was hard for me, but I wanted to show we weren’t afraid of the person who killed her,” said Mr Bouniol, who was 71 when he made the journey to the isolated holiday cottage at Toormore.
“We’re somewhere else. In the fog. This couldn’t possibly have happened to us. We’re not alive. One cannot accept such things. It is a nightmare that never ends. We’ve been in a black hole for 17 years. It’s even worse now, because we realise the guilty person will not be punished.”
[ Sophie Toscan du Plantier family still battling for justice in ParisOpens in new window ]
It was a rare public utterance from Mr Bouniol, who was happy to let his wife speak for the family – something she acknowledged in the same interview. “I can’t stop talking about Sophie. Georges has absorbed it in silence, so I don’t understand what he’s gone through. I’ve been selfish in my grief,” she said.
Mr Bouniol is survived by his wife, Marguerite, his sons, Bertrand and Stephane and his grandson, Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s son, Pierre Louis Baudey-Vignaud who was just 15 when his mother was murdered. Funeral arrangements have yet to be announced.
Mr Gazeau said funeral arrangements have yet to be finalised but he confirmed Mr Bouniol would be buried in the family plot in Combret in Lozère beside Sophie, who was re-interred there after being first buried in Ambax at the country estate of her husband, Daniel Toscan du Plantier
The chief suspect in the case, English journalist, Ian Bailey was twice arrested and questioned by gardaí about the killing but released without charge on each occasion and over the years, he repeatedly denied that had any involvement in the case.
Bailey was convicted in absentia in the Cour d’Assises in Paris in 2019 of the voluntary homicide of Ms Toscan du Plantier and sentenced to 25 years in jail. However, the Irish Supreme Court refused to extradite him to France to serve the sentence.
Bailey, who had been hospitalised a number of times because of a heart condition, collapsed on the street in Bantry where he lived on January 21st 2024. He was taken to Bantry General Hospital, but he never regained consciousness and died a week short of his 67th birthday.
Gardaí carrying out a cold-case review of the investigation into the murder remain hopeful of finding forensic evidence which will enable them to identify her killer.
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