Gardai are hoping advancements in forensic technology and the FBI will help them solve the riddle of Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s murder.
The head of the cold case review team, Supt Des McTiernan said the investigation remains "active" despite the death over a year ago of long-time prime suspect Ian Bailey.
Speaking in an interview on the April Garda Podcast he said: "It is a very sad, high-profile case. The investigation into that is very much alive and well and that’s thanks to the Detective Inspector, down in west Cork, Eamonn Brady.
"Running parallel to that is our review. We are reviewing all the old evidence and exhibits and everything that compiles an investigation. We are feeding into the ongoing investigation that is current at the moment."
He told how they are trying to develop new leads and that it is going well.
He stated: "We are being extremely comprehensive, that case happened on the 23 Dec, 1996 so it’s 29 years old.
"A lot of work was done with it over the years by various senior management in An Garda Siochana, and by the French as well.
"From a forensic perspective, we are trying to develop it more because there is new advancements out there on a worldwide scale.
"We just don’t confine ourselves to Ireland and our ability and our capacity here.
"We have gone abroad, we have close links to the FBI and it is working quite well."
Supt McTiernan revealed that their witnesses in the case are also extremely helpful and very supportive during the course of the investigation.
He said: "People want to help, they want to get to the bottom of what happened to Sophie."
The Cold Case boss said although a French court had found Ian Bailey guilty of Sophie’s murder in absentia a few years ago, Gardai were absolutely keeping an open and impartial approach in relation to his involvement.
He said: "Like any other review, if I was to focus on a particular individual because everybody says he has done it, I wouldn’t be doing the family, the suspect or potentially other suspects - or the public in general - a favour.
"Serious crime review by its nature means we have to have an open mind, and we have to be independent and impartial, that’s the key to it."
Ian Bailey, who died of a heart attack in January last year, always denied that he either knew or killed Sophie.
But no other real suspect has emerged apart from a mysterious man spotted following the French film producer in Schull, West Cork on the day she died.
The 39-year-old mother of one was battered to death on a lane 100 yards from the front door of her remote holiday home.
Her heartbroken family, including her son Pierre, have always been convinced Bailey did it.
Much of the evidence permitted in the French trial was based on hearsay evidence which would never have been permitted in an Irish court of law.
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