Award-winning film director Jim Sheridan has given the Gardai new information relating to the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier which he hopes will help catch the killer.
He spent several hours speaking to a detective and another Garda at his Dublin home a few weeks ago.
Gardai were keen to speak to him as part of their cold case review of the French beauty's brutal killing and to see what information he discovered while making his smash-hit Sky documentary - Murder at the Cottage: The Search for Justice for Sophie.
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Mr Sheridan confirmed last night that he told the officers everything he knew about a foreign man who was seen following Sophie around Schull on the evening before she died.
The film director who is out in the US for the Oscars said: "I spoke to the Gardai for several hours and told them everything I know. I hope they will treat this new information seriously and follow it up.
"The French end of this murder enquiry was never properly investigated and the Irish detectives at the time never got to sit down and speak with Sophie's husband.
Daniel never came to Ireland to recover her body and died a couple of years later at the age of 61 from a heart attack.
Sophie also brought a couple of suitcases with her on her final trip to Ireland which suggested that she planned to stay here for a long time before she was then murdered on December 24, 1986.
Sheridan and his team of investigators also got a second pathologist, Professor Jason Payne from London, to review all the evidence and pictures of the deceased from the initial post mortem carried out by the late State pathologist Dr John Harbison.
Prof Payne came to the conclusion that Sophie was strangled and was dead before she was battered over 50 times with rock on the lane outside her house.
Dr Harbison told her Inquest in April, 1997 that she died from multiple injuries including lacerations of the brain and a fracture of the skull caused by a blunt instrument.
However, there wasn't a single mark on her face.
Jim Sheridan added: "We never got to use the review of the Post Mortem in the documentary because the results came in too late.
"Based on all the evidence, the second opinion is Sophie was choked to death.
"I have passed every piece of information we have onto the Gardai and it is now up to them. I believe there are a lot of answers to be found in France."
The director believes the long time person of interest, English journalist Ian Bailey, is innocent and that the answer to the mystery lies in France.
He added: " I hope the Gardai take the information I have given them seriously."
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