Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s family say her father died before he ever learned “the truth” of how his daughter died.
Georges Bouniol, 98, died in hospital in Paris just days after the 28th anniversary of Sophie’s death near Schull, West Cork.
He had wanted to hear Ian Bailey confess to the crime.
Speaking to the Irish Mirror, Sophie’s uncle Jean-Pierre Gazeau said the family are in mourning over the loss – and told how Georges died peacefully after getting to say goodbye to his adored wife and his two sons.
Sophie Toscan du Plantier
(Image: PATRICK ZIMMERMANN/AFP via Getty Images)
Mr Gazeau said: “Of course it’s a loss. We were expecting the loss for some days because his health was decreasing more and more. It was natural, he was 98 and he was weaker and weaker in the last few weeks.
“He left us in a peaceful way. Fortunately his child Stefan who lives in the United States was able to come home before. He was able to see his two sons and Marguerite of course before the end. He left in a peaceful and quiet way.”
Mr Gazeau said his brother-in-law died without ever getting to know the full truth about how Sophie died and he had hoped prime suspect Bailey would have confessed before he died last year.
Ian Bailey, the man who was considered the only named suspect in the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier, died after collapsing in Bantry town centre in January 2024.
Pictured Ian Bailey (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
Mr Gazeau said: “He [George] left without essentially having the truth about what happened during the night of the December 22 to 23, 1996.
“There is a kind of a black hole and we don’t know anything about the exact circumstances of the murder. We have the name of the killer. Ian Bailey was judged as the killer in France in 2019. But we don’t know the circumstances of the murder because Ian Bailey died at the beginning of 2024.
“We hoped before the very end that we would get the truth from Ian Bailey but unfortunately we didn’t get the truth.”
He described Georges as a “modest” man and Mr Gazeau said the grieving father did not speak of Sophie before he died: “I think he was someone who was an extremely modest person.”
His funeral is set to take place in Paris tomorrow with a burial on Tuesday. In a death notice, the family said the Mass dedicated to him will be held at 10.30am in the Saint-Eustache church in Paris. The burial will take place in the family vault in Combret (Lozere) on Tuesday at 11.30am.
The Garda Serious Crime Review Team continues to investigate the murder of Sophie. The cold case unit is understood to still be in the middle of a lengthy and exhaustive new investigation into the murder.
Picture taken on December 24, 1996, of a garda standing in a road leading to the house that belonged to French movie producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier, near Schull, in the county of Cork, Ireland, where Du Plantier’s wife Sophie, 38, was found dead.
(Image: STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Last year officers even seized an unedited copy of the Irish Daily Star’s Shattered Lives podcast interview with Ian Bailey. It is understood gardai, who are now over two years into the new investigation, are interested in some comments he made in the interview conducted months before his death.
Investigators are particularly interested in parts of the podcast where Bailey was confronted about claims he knew Ms Toscan du Plantier, about information he knew about her murder from early on, and about the difficulty of finding her isolated home in West Cork in December of 1996.
In the podcast Bailey said: “All I know is that I didn’t know her, I wasn’t introduced to her, I had no knowledge of her, other than she was a French citizen and I think maybe Alf Lyons told me that she worked in television or film, I’m not quite sure.”
To his death, Bailey denied any involvement in the murder. Bailey added: “Of course it was horrendous and I pray for her. I pray for her in particular on the anniversary date of the crime.
“Once again I’m just going to reiterate this, I have nothing to do with this, I have nothing on my conscience and I do hope it is solved before I’m dead and gone.”