Makers of Netflix’s West Cork documentary on their biggest revelations while making the series

Rory Cashin

The new Netflix documentary on the death of Sophie Toscan du Plantier arrives this week.

Over the past quarter of a century, facts and information about the death of Sophie Toscan du Plantier is still being released to the public, with almost every person in Ireland able to give a broad strokes retelling of the murder.

However, even those who have done extensive research and might be more versed of the events than most, they still might find out some information that has managed to surprise them.

That is exactly what happened with the makers of Netflix’s new documentary series Sophie: A Murder in West Cork.

Ahead of the release of the documentary, we spoke to Sophie’s cousin Frederic Gazeau (who is also an executive producer of the documentary), as well as Suzanne Lavery and Sarah Lambert, producers from Lightbox, the production company behind the series.

During our conversation, we wanted to know if there was any one piece of information or moment during their investigations that stood out as a bit of a revelatory moment for them?

Lambert answered first, telling us: “I didn’t know about the bonfire. I wasn’t aware of that part of the story. And I also wasn’t aware of the changes in Ian and Jules’ statements over those initial weeks. That was new information for me.”

Lavery then said: “Arianna [Boarina]’s testimony about staying the house at the time of the murder, or just after the murder, that was new and quite shocking to me. I think as you go through the process of making a series like this, there is always new news, and it always depends on which report you’ve read or which person’s testimony you’ve read or which interviewee has been most recently spoken to.

“They all kind of pull you in different directions, and I think we wanted to bring a lot of that to the viewer as well, because it is a really complicated case, and it is very blurry. As Sarah often says, there is no black and white, there is always shades of grey, so I think, as a viewer, you’re going through much the same process as we went through as producers, with one revelation after another just pulling you and pushing you in different directions.”

All three episodes of Sophie: A Murder in West Cork arrives on Netflix on Wednesday, 30 June.