GARDAÍ INVESTIGATING the disappearance of 60-year-old west Cork widow Anne Corcoran were last night continuing to question a 49-year-old man arrested early yesterday morning on suspicion of her murder.
The man was arrested shortly after 8am at a house in Bandon under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, which allows gardaí to detain suspects for up to 24 hours, and he was brought to Bandon Garda station for questioning about Mrs Corcoran’s disappearance.
Mrs Corcoran, who lived alone at her farmhouse at Maulnaskimlehane, Kilbrittain, some four miles from Bandon town, has not been seen since she met a friend at the Speckled Door pub near the Old Head of Kinsale on the evening of January 18th.
Gardaí were notified of her disappearance and on January 28th they found her green Peugeot 206 car parked at Oldchapel, just outside Bandon town. Further inquiries led gardaí to establish that the car had been parked near Clancoole, closer to the town, on January 24th.
Although gardaí have officially treated Mrs Corcoran’s disappearance as that of a missing person, officers have feared for some time they may end up investigating a homicide and a full criminal investigation has been ongoing parallel to the search for Mrs Corcoran.
The Irish Timesunderstands that a number of critical pieces of information came together in the past few days which led them to arrest the suspect early yesterday morning after he had returned home following a sun holiday.
Gardaí investigating Mrs Corcoran’s disappearance quickly established that her bank card was being used at a number of ATMs around Bandon and they obtained security footage from the banks involved to try to identify who was using the card.
At least six withdrawals were made after Mrs Corcoran’s last confirmed sighting on January 18th, with the maximum withdrawal being made on each occasion and all the withdrawals being made shortly before or after midnight.
It is understood that although the culprit was difficult to identify on the CCTV footage at the ATM machines because he wore a hoodie, a similar van kept showing up on CCTV footage from surrounding premises about the time of each withdrawal.
Gardaí have stressed that a technical analysis of Mrs Corcoran’s car by forensic scientists in Dublin would prove crucial and it is understood that scientists found some DNA samples on clothing found in the car which gardaí are now seeking to identify.
Following yesterday’s arrest gardaí cordoned off a house in the Bandon area and seized a van and a car at separate locations for forensic analysis by technical experts.
Meanwhile, the parallel search operation for Mrs Corcoran continued, with about 120 civilian volunteers joining some 30 gardaí to comb woodland, quarries and fields as officers continued to broaden out the search from Maulnaskimlehane.
Garda divisional search teams comprising two groups of 12 specially trained searchers from both Cork West and Cork City Garda divisions carried out searches of landfill sites near Ballinspittle, while civilian volunteers searched fields close to roadways.
Officers have identified a broad strip of countryside either side of Mrs Corcoran’s home from close to Ballinadee on the east to the Bandon-Timoleague road to the west as the main focus.
Meanwhile, senior officers have appealed to anyone who may have a few hours to spare to join the search, which is being co-ordinated from Kilbrittain parish hall.