Stunning breakthrough in infamous case of eight woman missing for 28 years raises hopes that one of Ireland's biggest mysteries could finally be solved

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

One of Ireland's biggest unsolved cases may finally find a resolution after three decades thanks to a new witness.
Between the late eighties and early nineties, eight women went missing from across the Emerald Isle - in what's became known as 'Ireland's Vanishing Triangle.
One of the women, Fiona Pender, was 25 and seven months pregnant when she went missing from her flat in Tullamore in August 1996.
The cases have baffled police from years, but in a major update the Gardia have upgraded Fiona's disappearance to murder.
This week they searched a new area of land at Graigue, close to the village of Killeigh, around 8 km from Tullamore, County Offaly, in the middle of Ireland.
It is understood gardaí received new information deemed credible enough to warrant the latest search and the upgrading of the investigation.
The search of a remote area of bogland started on Tuesday as gardaí hoped for a breakthrough in the nearly 30-year investigation.
However it quickly moved to a second location on Wednesday and continued well into the night.
The force told The Irish Independent: 'Gardaí investigating the disappearance and murder of Fiona Pender in August 1996 have today, Wednesday 28th May 2025, commenced another search operation on open ground at a location in Co. Laois.
Fiona was last seen leaving home by her boyfriend John Thomson.
In 2008 a small cross bearing her name was found along the The Slieve Bloom Way, but her body has never been recovered.
She was just one of a string of disappearances that haunted Ireland in the 1990s commonly referred to as the Vanishing Triangle, none of the women have ever been found so investigators have very little evidence to link the disappearances.
In a major update on the case, police have upgraded Fiona's disappearance to murder and have decided to search a new area of land at Graigue, close to the village of Killeigh, around 8 km from Tullamore, Co Offaly.
'This area of land will be searched and subject to excavation, technical and forensic examinations.
'This search forms part of a sustained investigation carried out by Gardaí in Laois/ Offaly Garda Division over the last 28-years to establish Fiona's whereabouts and to investigate the circumstances in which Fiona disappeared.'
Gardaí have since concluded the search operation in Co Offaly, however the results are not being released for operational reasons.
It has been reported that gardaí are keen to talk to a man they have long classified as the chief suspect but he has been abroad for more than a decade now.
He was one of five people detained for questioning in 1997, but there have been no arrests since.
Fiona was dating her partner for three years before she vanished, she was living in the UK with him when she became pregnant and the pair decided to move home to Ireland to raise the baby.
The day before her disappearance she went shopping for baby clothes with her mother.
Her partner John said she was feeling unwell on the day of her disappearance and he suggested she go to see the GP while he went to work.
Police took her disappearance seriously and immediately began working to determine what happened to the expectant mother.
In early 1997, five people, who were all from the same family were arrested and questioned by police
One of the five arrested was the chief suspect, while the others were detained for withholding information. However they were all released without charged.
Since then, there has been no other arrests or leads in the case and it went cold for decades.
Speaking with In The News podcast for the Irish Times, Security and Crime Editor, Conor Lally said: 'Gardai has received fresh information which has obviously pinpointed the location for the investigation.
'The new information that the gardai investigation team has suggested Fiona's remains are there, whether it will be accurate or not we just don't know.
'We don't know where it came from and we don't know why it surfacing now but we believe it was only relayed to gardai recently.'
Conor said the prime suspect in the case now lives abroad, however he claimed police would need to find Fiona's remains to be able to link anyone to the case.
He added: 'We have never had one other case where a murder conviction has been secured in Ireland without the victim's body been found, these are very difficult cases.'
Between 1993 and 1998, six women disappeared: Fiona, Annie McCarrick, Jo Jo Dullard, Fiona Sinnott, Ciara Breen and Deidre Jacob. Eva Brennan and Imelda Keenan are also often referred to in the case.
What is Ireland's 'Vanishing Triangle' and who were the eight women who disappeared?
In 1993, America-born Annie McCarrick disappeared while living in Dublin. Her case was the first of several that would become known as the Vanishing Triangle disappearances.
In each case, a young or middle-aged woman vanished suddenly from the eastern part of Ireland and no trace of them was ever found.
Police officially linked six of the disappearances and launched a joint investigation called Operation Trace in 1998, before the crimes stopped.
Annie McCarrick. Born in New York in 1966, she lived there until relocating to Ireland in 1987. At the time she vanished she was living in the Dublin area.
The last confirmed sighting of her was in Enniskerry in 1993. McCarrick was later reported drinking at a pub in Glencullen with a man who has never been identified. She has not been heard from since.
Jo Jo Dullard. Born in 1974 in Callan, Jo Jo was also living in Dublin around the time of her disappearance. She was travelling from Dublin to Callan in July 1995 when she vanished.
Jo Jo made a phone call from a payphone in Moone and witnesses said she was later seen leaning on the back of a dark coloured Toyota, talking to someone inside. The car and driver were never traced. She remains missing.
Fiona Pender. A life-long resident of Tullamore, where she was born in 1971, Fiona went missing in August 1996 while seven months pregnant.
She was last seen leaving home by her boyfriend. In 2008 a small cross bearing her name was found along the The Slieve Bloom Way, but her body has never been recovered.
Fiona Sinnott. Born in Rosslare, Fiona was living in nearby Broadway when she vanished in 1998 at the age of 19. She was the mother of an 11-month-old.
The last confirmed sighting of her was at a pub with friends, which she left around midnight accompanied by ex-partner Sean Carroll, the father of her daughter. He says he slept on her sofa, and when he left the next morning she was in bed planning a trip to the doctor.
Ciara Breen. She was living with her mother in Dundalk when she vanished in 1998, aged 17. Her mother recalls the pair going to bed around midnight before she got up to use the bathroom around 2am and found Ciara gone.
Ciara's window was open and left on the latch, suggesting she planned to return, but she never did.
Deidre Jacob. The Newbridge native was studying in Twickenham, London, but had returned home for the summer before vanishing in 1998.
She was spotted within just yards of her parents' house by multiple witnesses, but never made it home.
A seventh case, not included in Operation Trace but often referenced alongside the disappearances, is that of Eva Brennan.
Eva vanished in July 1993 shortly after a family lunch in Terenure, Dublin. She was depressed prior to her disappearance.
She was known to visit her parents every day but failed to show on the next two occasions, so her father went to her home and found her gone. She has not been seen since.
Similarly, Imelda Keenan vanished from Waterford city, where she had been studying. She was reported missing on the morning of January 3, 1994 last seen in a pair of leopard-skin trousers and a denim jacket.
She told her fiancée that she was going out to the post office and was last seen walking past a bridge walked past the William Street Bridge in Waterford city.
SUSPECTS
None of the Vanishing Triangle women have ever been found so investigators have very little evidence to link the crimes, save geographical area and the suddenness of their disappearance.
One potential suspect touted in the past was Larry Murphy, who was jailed for the rape and attempted murder of a young woman in Carlow in 2001.
Murphy had kidnapped the woman, put her in the boot of his car and taken her to the Wicklow Mountains where she was repeatedly raped.
He then tried to strangle the victim to death but two hunters happened upon the scene, saved the woman, and helped identify Murphy as the attacker, leading to his arrest.
Murphy has been questioned over the Vanishing Triangle cases but has always denied being connected with any of them.
In November 2024, police arrested a man on suspicion of JoJo's murder.
They became known as the 'Vanishing Triangle' eight due to the shape made by the disappearances when plotted on the map, forming a triangle in a roughly 80-mile area outside of Dublin.
None of the Vanishing Triangle women have ever been found so investigators have very little evidence to link the disappearances, save geographical area and the suddenness of their disappearance, but many have speculated that a serial killer could have been at work.
No one has ever been convicted of their disappearances or deaths and they remain missing in the area to this day.
Josephine Dullard, known as Jo Jo, went missing on November 9, 1995, after spending an evening on Harry Street in Dublin.
The then 21-year-old had been socialising in Bruxelles bar and was travelling back to her home in Callan when she vanished.
Last year, police arrested an unnamed man on suspicion of Jo Jo's murder - with searches for her body taking place in Wicklow, near the Kildare border.
On the night of her disappearance, Josephine had missed her bus home to Kilkenny and instead bordered a 10pm bus to Naas, from where she then intended to hitchhike home.
She hitched a lift from Naas to the slip road on the M9 motorway at Kilcullen and at 11.15pm got another lift to Moone in the county.
Detectives discovered that she had made a phone call from a payphone in Moone.
During that call, Ms Dullard told her friend Mary Cullinan that a car had stopped for her and she was going to take the lift.
Witnesses said she was later seen leaning on the back of a dark coloured Toyota, talking to someone inside. But the car and driver were never traced.
Her disappearance was confirmed to be classified as murder in November 2020, with investigators believing that serious harm came to her around the time of her disappearance.
Speaking about the latest development, superintendent Paul Burke said: 'This area of land will be searched and subject to excavation, technical and forensic examinations over the coming days.
'The arrest and search operation is being led by the investigation team from Kildare Division Serious Crime Unit and the Serious Crime Review Team, Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
'The search is being carried out by the Kildare Divisional Search Team supported by the Garda National Technical Bureau and local Divisional Scenes of Crime Unit.
'The search operation has the support of other state expertise, if required, including the attendance of a Forensic Archaeologist on site.'
The first of the 'Triangle' disappearances was Annie McCarrick, 26, from New York, who was last seen taking a bus to Enniskerry on March 26, 1993 after telling a friend she planned to go to the Wicklow Mountains for the day.
The same year Eva Brennan vanished shortly after a family lunch in Terenure, Dublin followed by student Imelda Keenan, who was last seen in Waterford city in 1994.
Two years later Fiona Sinnott (left) vanished in Rosslare while Ciara Breen (centre) disappeared later that year in Dundalk and Deidre Jacob (right) vanished in 1998 in Kildare
In November 1995, Jo Jo disappeared while hitching home at night in Co Kildare while Fiona Pender was last seen leaving home by her boyfriend in 1996 while seven months pregnant.
Two years later Fiona Sinnott vanished in Rosslare after leaving a pub with accompanied by ex-partner Sean Carroll, the father of her daughter while Ciara Breen disappeared later that year in Dundalk.
Deidre Jacob vanished in 1998 and was spotted by multiple witnesses within just yards of her parents' house before disappearing in Kildare.
Eva Brennan is also referenced alongside the disappearances, vanishing in July 1993 shortly after a family lunch in Terenure, Dublin.
Similarly, Imelda Keenan vanished from Waterford city, where she had been studying. She was reported missing on the morning of January 3, 1994.
Speaking with In The News podcast for the Irish Times, Security and Crime Editor, Conor Lally said:' In 1999 gardai set up Operation Trace to compare all of these cases and to see if any of these cases were actually linked.
'No links were found and when you look back at these cases again there are chiefs suspects in nearly all of the cases and gardai suspect that a lot of these women are killed by men who were known to them.
'The common theme with all of these cases was no bodies were found, in policing back in the 90's was if you didn't have a body, you didn't have a murder.'
However one potential suspect touted in the past was Larry Murphy, who was jailed for the rape and attempted murder of a young woman in Carlow in 2001.
Could these cases be linked to the Vanishing Triangle?
1979 - Phyllis Murphy, 23, from Newbridge, went missing while out shopping in December. Her possessions were found scattered around nearby area and her clothes had been set on fire by the side of the road. Her body was found almost month later in a forest in Wicklow, she had been raped and strangled. Former Army sergeant John Crerar was convicted of her murder in 2002.
1982 - Patricia Furlong, 20, was strangled at music festival near Dublin. Her body was found near Johnny Fox's pub, in Glencullen. Chief suspect was Vincent Connell - he was convicted of Patricia's murder in 1991 but the verdict was quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1995.
1987 - Mother-of-two Antoinette Smith, 27, went missing after a night out to David Bowie concert. Her body was found almost a year later in the Wicklow mountains. There are no suspects in her murder but a Dublin taxi driver told police he picked up woman with two men and took them out of town.
1988 - Inga Maria Hauser, 18, was a German backpacker in Northern Ireland, Her Body found in Ballypatrick Forest, Ballycastle two weeks later. She had been raped, hit over the head, and her neck broken. In 2018 an unnamed man arrested but no one has ever been convicted of her killing.
1991 - Patricia Doherty, 30, was last seen waiting at a bus stop having gone for Christmas presents. Her body was found six months later in the bog less from a mile from where Antoinette Smith's body was found. Nobody has ever Been convicted of the murder. Pathologists thought she had been strangled, but didn't know for sure.
Murphy had kidnapped the woman, put her in the boot of his car and taken her to the Wicklow Mountains where she was repeatedly raped.
He then tried to strangle the victim to death but two hunters happened upon the scene, saved the woman, and helped identify Murphy as the attacker, leading to his arrest.
Murphy has been questioned over the Vanishing Triangle cases but has always denied being connected with any of them.
In 2005, Larry Murphy emerged as a 'person of interest' in the investigation into the murder of Deirdre Jacob.
The 20-year-old, who had been studying in Twickenham, London, vanished outside of a post office - just yards from her parents house in Newbridge in 1998.
In 2010, the Irish Mail on Sunday revealed that Larry had been doing work for Deirdre's grandmother in her sweetshop at the time the 18-year-old vanished from Newbridge, Co. Kildare.
Garda sources revealed Murphy was carrying out carpentry work at the shop, which Deirdre visited just hours before she went missing.
In August 2010, Larry Murphy was released from prison after serving 10 of his 15 year jail sentence.
Gardaí have carried out extensive investigations into the disappearances over the years but so far have had no breakthrough in solving them.
In 2008, the Garda brought a team of FBI agents to Ireland to review the evidence they had accumulated.
These experienced profilers, who specialise in investigating serial killers in the United States, concluded that the unknown killers matched the Murphy profile.
Meanwhile in 2014, retired detective sergeant Alan Bailey claimed that a member of the Provisional IRA may have killed her.
At the time, he told RTÉ's Today with Sean O'Rourke programme that the American student met the IRA man, to whom he gave a fictional name Manus Dunne, at Johnnie Fox's pub in Glencullen in the Dublin mountains.
Mr Bailey said that he 'started bragging about different exploits', naming colleagues before 'realising the enormity of what he had done.'
The retired detective sergeant wrote that Manus offered a lift into town but 'drove her up the mountains where he killed her and concealed her body behind some bushes'.
He said the information from a 'very reliable source', was a story that 'needs to be checked out'.
In 2018, police in Ireland began investigating whether a married father-of-two shot dead after murdering a student had been involved in Annie's killing.
Mark Hennessy, 40, was killed by officers hunting for missing Jastine Valdez, 24, near Dublin on Sunday before her body was discovered.
Garda sources told the Irish Times that Hennessy's DNA profile would be checked against historic and recent disappearances to see if he is a serial killer.
As part of that review, officers reexamined the infamous Vanishing Triangle cases to see if Hennnessy could be responsible.
He would have been just 16 when Annie disappeared in 1993, but her case was still included in the review.
Last year, the case gained prominence once again with the release of a new documentary Six Silent Killings on Sky, delving into the mystery of the Vanishing Triangle.
The cases were explored by the journalist Geraldine Niland and the forensic scientist David Kenny, featuring moving reflections from the family and friends of those missing.
The two-part documentary sought to bring the women's stories to light once more, and reignite the search for justice on their behalf.
In March 2023, the Gardai also upgraded the Annie's case into a murder inquiry from a missing person's investigation in an incredible turn of events.
It emerged that a man who lives in Annie's neighbourhood of Sandymount had been identified as a suspect, according to the Irish Mirror.
On March 26, 1993, the 27-year-old, who was originally from New York, was last seen taking a bus to Enniskerry after telling a friend she planned to go to the Wicklow Mountains for the day.
Speaking to the Irish Mirror, former detective Alan Bailey said Annie's brown leather satchel would be a 'gold mine' if found - as it may have traces of DNA.
The last known CCTV footage of Annie shows the missing woman queuing in the Allied Irish Bank on Sandymount Road shortly before 11am on the morning of her disappearance.
In the clip, Annie - who was the first of the eight to vanish - is wearing a longline coat and her leather bag is seen hanging off one shoulder.
As the bag has never been found, retired officer Bailey - who led the Garda Cold Case Unit that was investigating Annie's disappearance in the 90s - thinks it is likely that the unknown assailant will have chosen to keep the item.
He explained: 'The fact that the bag still remains missing would suggest that if she was taken and the bag wasn't disposed of, it was kept as a souvenir by her assailant.'
At the time he was investigating, Bailey says Annie's bag would 'probably not yield anything of any evidential value'.
But if it was discovered as part of the new murder enquiry, he said the advances in technology means it would be a key piece of the puzzle that could potentially shed light on the seven other disappearances which happened in the five years that followed.
Reflecting on his career, Alan Bailey said that his 'one regret' is that he was never able to find out what happened to Annie and the other 'Vanishing Triangle' victims.
In her audio book released in 2021, author Claire McGowan explores why these cases remain unsolved and highlights a series of other murders she believes could be linked to the eight missing people.
She believes a culture of secrecy and victim blaming all had a role to play during the initial investigations - with retired officers admitting to her there was a 'certain amount of judgment' about the sexual behaviour of the women who disappeared.
Speaking to FEMAIL previously, Claire speculated that while it's likely a serial killer was responsible in these cases, prime suspects within the women's own lives could also have been involved in some cases.
She said: 'In some cases there is an obvious suspect. Three of the cases there was a man in their life who became a suspect, nothing was ever proved.
'What I've tried to do in the book is say - when you look into it, probably not all of those women were killed by the same person.
'But that's also an interesting story. Why if there is an obvious suspect and a history of domestic violence, why was that person never charged?
'Why would the police then be like, "Oh she's just disappeared" rather than 'Her violent ex partner possibly killed her?'
Despite all disappearing in such a short space of time, Claire only discovered the cases while researching for a new crime fiction book ten years ago.
'I think partly the news was really dominated by the Troubles', she said. 'Growing up in the 90s, I think a lot of what you might call ordinary murders, non-political murders, we didn't hear about them.
'I think that kind of fed into a perception that they didn't really happen in Ireland, it was a safe place to be as a woman, if you were lucky enough not to get caught in the Troubles.
'I don't think that was true based on what I've learned from my research.'
She said that one of the women, 17-year-old Ciara Breen, would cross the Irish border and go to the same discos as she did as a teen, but that she never heard of the case despite it taking place 20 miles from her own home.
'Because it was across the border I don't think I ever heard about it,' said Claire. 'But she went to the same discos as I went to, because it's really easy to cross the border, there was no border at that point. I found that quite shocking that nobody ever said, "This is happening".'
Claire explained she felt safe growing up in Northern Ireland, but admitted that there was still 'a lot of oppression and shame' about sex, with harassment such as groping not taken seriously 'at all'.
She said: 'It was a dangerous place to live because you could get shot at any moment and we definitely felt that as kids, there were always soldiers around with guns. We just didn't feel anything sexual could happen to us, as such.'
She said: 'Eight women went missing in the area around Dublin within about five years, none of them have ever been found.
'Even before that, there were quite a few murders of women in the same area where they did find the bodies, but they haven't always been able to solve the cases, it's possible some of those are connected.
'Because the areas sometimes, are so, so close to each other, we're talking about the same little towns and villages and because they were buried in the mountains, it's probably that's the same thing that happened to some of these women.
'Because they were unsolved it seems implausible there were so many different murderers operating in this area.'
She says there were 'a lot of parallels' between the cases, admitting it's difficult to know why police never connected the disappearances.
'You'd think it would be obvious to think, maybe some of these are connected when there are so many disappearances. We're talking about Dublin which is a biggish city, but in the 90s the whole population of Ireland was only three and a half million. It's a small country so those are a lot of disappearances.
'I think one big reason was the Irish police just weren't used to working with this kind of crime, sexually motivated, so just really didn't think to consider that might have happened.
'So it took a very long time to get to that point to think they were connected, even when some of the families were saying they could be.'
She said family members had questioned police about links between Annie McCarrick and Eva Brennan, who disappeared nearby each other in the same year, they were told 'don't be ridiculous'.
'They weren't willing to consider it', said Claire, 'They were looking for other reasons like, maybe a woman had gone off with a boyfriend, maybe she killed herself.
'I think once people got to the point of thinking "Oh she probably was abducted", They were looking for reasons like, did she talk to someone in a pub? Did she go off with someone willingly? Did she she get into a car? Why was she walking home?'
The author believes that there's still a chance of finding out what happened to the women, but that there are several ways to improve the way in which missing cases are investigated.
'Listening to the families and not making an assumption about what might have happened,' she said. 'Not victim blaming, listening to what people's family and friends have to say about them.'
Speaking of the unsolved cases she added: 'I think the only thing that could happen would be either some bodies could be found, and they have to be somewhere so that can always happen, or somebody would come forward and talk.'