Unsigned letter to newspaper leads to appeal on missing daughter

The Leinster Leader's exclusive lead had all the tension and enigma of a good thriller

The Leinster Leader's exclusive lead had all the tension and enigma of a good thriller. Except that it was real and it exposed the suffering of parents who have been going through torture for the past five months, since their daughter disappeared.

Michael and Bernadette Jacob, the distraught parents of missing Newbridge woman Deirdre Jacob (19), appealed to a "mystery man" who may have vital information to come forward after a tantalising unsigned letter was sent to the newspaper last week. The man first contacted the Leinster Leader newsroom by phone on September 8th, 1998, and since then has made several more phone calls to media and gardai, and one short call to the Jacobs themselves, the newspaper said. In the latest letter, which was posted in Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh, on Monday, January 4th, he repeats his claim that he gave a woman matching Ms Jacob's description a lift from Clane to Carrick macross in Co Monaghan on July 28th, the day she disappeared. "I ask the people of Carrickmacross to take it from here and help you. Someone in Carrick knows something," said the anonymous letter-writer. "We are a family in grave difficulties," said Michael Jacob. "We have lost our daughter. There is this man, a family man, in Co Fermanagh who seems to have some information about a girl.

"There were a number of calls and now the letter and we're still no nearer to knowing one way or the other whether it was Deirdre or another girl.

"What we want this man to do, one family to another, is to meet us anytime, anywhere on his own terms, just to sit down and talk," said Mr Jacob.

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