Search for Fiona Pender stood down for the night

The fresh search for missing Offaly woman Fiona Pender on woodland at Capard, Rosenall, Co Laois, has been stood down for the night and will resume again tomorrow morning.

Ms Pender (25) went missing from her flat at Church Street in Tullamore in August 1996. The hairdresser and part-time model was seven months pregnant at the time of her disappearance.

Gardaí cordoned off the picturesque site at Capard in the Slieve Blooms on Thursday night. A number of gardaí began a painstaking search of 200 metre sq area on Friday morning.

Chief Superintendent John Scanlan said the fresh search is taking place due to new intelligence which “takes us to this area”.

The search area is located on the quiet rural Green Road to Glenbarrow Waterfall from Rosenallis. A Garda Command and Control Unit and several Garda vans were parked at the lay-by beside the wooded area.

The site is a number of kilometres from a previous 2008 search for Fiona Pender in the Slieve Blooms and around 18 km from Tullamore.

At a briefing for journalists during the week, Chief Supt Scanlan said the search would be “forensic” in nature.

“This will be a forensic search going from the least intrusive to an intrusive search,” he said. “We will be employing the services of our own specially trained people who are trained in searching for cold case persons who have been missing for substantial periods of time.

“We will also bring in forensic archaeologists, cadaver dogs and others to search this specific area of approximately 200 metres.”