Gardaí have concluded a search for the remains of Deirdre Jacob and Jo Jo Dullard, who were abducted and murdered in the 1990s, at a site in Co Wicklow.
The search began on June 15th in part of a disused quarry site at Castleruddery Upper near the Wicklow/Kildare border. Excavations were carried out at another location in the same area earlier this year.
An Garda Síochána said the results of these searches were not being released “for operational reasons”.
“The families of Jo Jo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob have been updated in relation to the outcome of these searches,” the force said in a statement.
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It appealed to anyone with information that could assist the investigation, “no matter how small or insignificant you might believe it to be”, to contact Kildare Garda station on 045 527 730, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda station.
Jacob was 18 when she disappeared shortly after 3pm on July 28th, 1998, near her family home at Roseberry, Newbridge. A student teacher based in London, she was home for the summer and was walking towards her home, having earlier been in Newbridge, when she vanished.
Dullard (21) was last seen on November 9th, 1995, while on her way home to Callan, Co Kilkenny, after socialising in Bruxelles bar, off Dublin’s Grafton Street. She called a friend from a phone box in Moone, Co Kildare, at 11.37pm, telling her a driver had stopped and she was going to take a lift. She was never seen again.
When the search began, the Garda team was acting on intelligence that murder suspect and convicted rapist Larry Murphy was involved in suspicious activity at the site around the time Jacob vanished in Co Kildare in July, 1998.
Returning to an area for a second excavation, especially just months after the first, was very unusual in Garda cold case murder investigations and reflected how seriously gardaí were treating the information the search was based on.
Murphy remains the prime suspect for the murder of Jacob, who was abducted close to her family home in Newbridge. Gardaí believe her abduction was spur-of-the-moment and sexually motivated.
