The mystery surrounding two long-standing disappearances and presumed murders of two women came to the fore once again on Monday as gardaí announced plans to conduct a new search.
It is the latest in a string of searches, excavations and appeals conducted since Josephine “Jo Jo” Dullard and Deirdre Jacob vanished without trace in Co Kildare in the 1990s.
Jo Jo Dullard, from Callan, Co Kilkenny missed the last direct bus home after socialising in Dublin on November 9th, 1995.
After travelling to Naas in Co Kildare by bus, the then 21-year-old managed to reach Moone by hitching lifts.
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In what was her last known contact, she used a public pay phone at 11.37pm in the south Co Kildare village and told her friend, Mary Cullinan, that a car had stopped and that she was going to get a lift home.
She was never seen again.
Some 30 years after reporting her younger sister missing, Kathleen Bergin said last November that all her family wanted was to be able to “lay her to rest” beside her parents.
Satisfied that “serious harm came to Jo Jo”, gardaí upgraded her case to a murder investigation in November 2020.
Four years later, a man in his 50s was arrested in connection with the case and searches were conducted at two houses and an area of open ground in Co Wicklow, near the Kildare border.
The man was released without charge shortly after his arrest.
The excavation near Grangecon, one of the biggest dig operations of its kind in a murder inquiry, failed to uncover Jo Jo’s remains or any new evidence that might explain her disappearance.
Almost three years after Jo Jo Dullard disappeared, Deirdre Jacob vanished on July 28th, 1998.
The 18-year-old was visiting home from London where she was studying to be a teacher. She had gone to a local bank in Newbridge to organise a rent deposit for her second year of college before she went to visit her grandmother’s shop.
The teenager was last seen shortly after 3pm at the gate of her family home just outside the town.
Some 20 years after her disappearance, gardaí upgraded the case to a murder investigation in 2018.
Deirdre’s parents, Michael and Bernie Jacob, told The Irish Times at the time they were “devastated” that day.
“It hit us. It was heart-wrenching,” her father said.
In 2021, gardaí began a large search operation near the Wicklow border in Co Kildare, hoping it would progress investigations into a spate of suspected murders of women in the area in the 1990s.
The search, about 15km from Newbridge, was brought about after a fresh assessment of intelligence around Deirdre Jacob’s disappearance.
Convicted rapist Larry Murphy has long been a suspect for her murder and a criminal file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in 2021.
However, the DPP decided not to bring criminal charges.
Originally from Baltinglass, Co Wicklow, Murphy was released from prison in 2010 after serving 10 years of a 15-year sentence for the kidnap, rape and attempted murder of a woman in the Wicklow Mountains in 2001.
Gardaí received information from a witness who claimed Murphy had told him he was responsible for the killing.
That man claimed Murphy told him he pulled into the roadside on the pretence of asking Deirdre Jacob for directions and when she leant into the vehicle to see what area he was pointing at on a map, he dragged her inside and drove off.
It is understood no prosecution was pursued by the DPP over concerns that the credibility of the key witness, a former prisoner, would be called into question during a murder trial.
