A search is continuing in west Cork today for a 60-year-old widow who has not been heard from for over a week and whose car was found abandoned five miles from her home.
Gardaí said say that are treating her disappearance as suspicious. Officers in Bandon have set up an incident room to investigate the disappearance of Anne Corcoran who lived alone at her farmhouse at Maulnaskimlehane, Kilbrittain, some four miles from Bandon town since the death of her husband, Jerry in autumn 2007.
Gardaí have a confirmed sighting of Mrs Corcoran doing her shopping in Bandon on January 15th and they have established that she spoke to a friend by phone on January 19th, but they have no report of anyone seeing her or speaking to her since then.
They have established that Mrs Corcoran has a mobile phone and they believe that she used it to call her friend from her home on January 19th. They established her phone has not been active since then.
Detectives have confirmed that Mrs Corcoran was not at home on January 22nd when a workman came to carry out some repair work at her farmhouse and found her two dogs locked in the house. There was no sign of a break-in or disturbance at the house.
Mrs Corcoran’s green Peugeot 206 (registration number 01 C4479) was found parked and locked at Oldchapel on the outskirts of Bandon on the road to Timoleague on January 28th and gardaí believe it may have been parked there since January 24th.
The car was removed yesterday and it has been sent for forensic examination by members of the Garda Technical Bureau in the hope that it may shed some light as to what happened to her, or if anyone else used the car recently.
Gardaí from Bandon were yesterday carrying out door-to-door inquiries near Mrs Corcoran’s home and near where her car was found, while they have also searched the fields around both her home and the general Oldchapel area.
Officers have also begun checking CCTV footage from shops and garages around Bandon and they have appealed to anyone who may have seen Mrs Corcoran at any time in the past fortnight to contact them at 023-52200.
Mrs Corcoran is described as being about 5ft in height, of slim build, weighing about eight stone with brown wavy hair and slimline glasses, while gardaí say that she is known to be always smartly dressed.
While they have declined for operational reasons to say why they are treating Mrs Corcoran’s disappearance as suspicions, The Irish Times has established that Garda suspicions are well-founded and have given rise to serious concern for her wellbeing.