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LAST UPDATE | 2 hrs ago
A SEARCH IS resuming in Co Wicklow today as part of the investigation into the disappearance and murders of Jo Jo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob in the 1990s.
An excavation is taking place at the area of land near the Wicklow/Kildare border, which will also be technically and forensically examined.
A digger was seen yesterday on the quarry in Castleruddery Upper, a townland less than 10km north of the town of Baltinglass.
The search is expected to last for a number of days.
Deirdre Jacob was 18 years old when she disappeared on 28 July 1998 in Newbridge, Co Kildare. Her disappearance was upgraded to a murder investigation in 2018.
Jo Jo Dullard was 21 years old when she disappeared from Moone in Co Kildare on 9 November 1995.
Her disappearance was just a ten-minute journey from where Deirdre Jacob was last seen. The case was upgraded to murder in 2021.
Deirdre and Jo Jo are two of at least six women who vanished in the east of the country in the 1990s. The other four were Fiona Sinnott, Ciara Breen, Fiona Pender and Annie McCarrick. None of the women have ever been found.
Operation Trace was set up in 1998 to investigate the cases of the six missing women.
Alan Bailey, the former national coordinator of Operation Trace, told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that to find Deirdre and Jo Jo’s bodies would bring “huge closure” to their families.
“They’ve had a lot of false dawns in relation to various garda searches over the years that, unfortunately, didn’t work out. I’d be hopeful something will come up which will help the families on this occasion.”
Speaking to RTÉ’s David McCullagh this morning, Kilkenny priest Fr Willie Purcell said there is “an immense sense of hope” in Jo Jo Dullard’s family.
“Every piece of information that is revealed and every search that continues gives them more hope. Even though, in the past perhaps, their hopes have been dashed, this again just renews the hope that Jo Jo will be found,” he said.
Fr Purcell, who knows the Dullard family, said they appreciate the work of An Garda Síochána and stressed the importance of “even the smallest piece of information” that could help in finding Jo Jo or Deirdre Jacob.
“There are people, perhaps, who are listening to you and me this morning, who maybe just even have the smallest piece of information that could complete the puzzle.”
He said Jo Jo is remembered “every single day” by her family.
“They light a candle for Jo Jo every day. They’re waiting for that one phone call, or maybe the guard who arrives at the door and says ‘look, we think we found her’.
It really is just to bring closure to a story that has been going for 31 years, and for them just to lay Jo Jo to rest.
An Garda Síochána said it continues to “keep an open mind into these investigations”.
A spokesperson added that gardaí will follow up any information that is brought to the investigation team based at the Serious Crime Review Team.
The search operation is being led by the Serious Crime Review Team, Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, supported by the Garda National Technical Bureau and local resources from Kildare Division as required.
The search operation also has the support of other state expertise, if required.
A temporary ban on drones has been put in place in the area for the next three weeks.
Deirdre Jacob had finished her first year of study at St Mary’s University in Twickenham, London, where she was training to become a teacher. She had returned for the summer and was staying with her parents at the family home in Newbridge.
On 28 July 1998, she left the house at around 12.50pm and went to Newbridge town to visit her grandmother in her shop.
Deirdre left the shop and went to the local AIB bank and then the Post Office. She needed a bank draft to send a rent deposit to her friend as she was due to start her second year of teacher training in Twickenham after the summer.
After this, she went back to her grandmother’s shop before heading for home, which was a 25-minute walk from the town. Footage released by gardaí showed the young woman walking down the Main Street at 2.35pm.
She was wearing a navy, v-neck t-shirt and dark-coloured jeans with blue Nike runners. She was also carrying a black satchel bag with the Caterpillar logo (CAT) in large yellow letters.
Deirdre was last seen at around 3pm within yards of the driveway to her parents’ house on the Barrettstown Road, Roseberry.
She never made it inside.
Her mother Bernadette told RTÉ’s Crimecall in October that they constantly wonder what happened near the driveway.
“Our children were the centre of our lives. And now we don’t know where one of them is. We don’t know what happened to her,” she said.
“It would mean so much for us to know where she is and what happened to her. We hope and we pray for that.”
Jo Jo left her home in Callan at 8.30am on Thursday, 9 November 1995 to travel by bus to Dublin.
She met friends in Bruxelles Pub on Harry Street, just off Grafton Street, and stayed with them for the afternoon. She missed the last bus home to Kilkenny that evening and instead at 10pm boarded a bus to Naas, Co Kildare.
Jo Jo then intended to hitchhike the rest of the way home to Callan, in Co Kilkenny. She hitched a lift from Naas to the slip road on the M9 motorway at Kilcullen, Co Kildare.
At approximately 11.15pm, Jo Jo hitched another lift to Moone, Co Kildare. In Moone, she made a telephone call in a phone box to her friend Mary Cullinan at 11.37pm.
During that call, Jo Jo told Mary that a car had stopped for her and she was going to take the lift. This was the last known interaction with Jo Jo.
The following morning, Friday 10 November 1995, Jo Jo’s sister Kathleen reported her missing and gardaí launched an investigation.
Speaking to the Kildare Today programme on Kfm in November, Jo Jo’s sister Kathleen Bergin said that they had thought searches conducted last year would lead to her being found.
“Our hearts were in our mouths every time the phone rang. It was extremely difficult for our family,” she said.
They are trying to “keep the hope alive” and continue to appeal to anyone with information.
“No matter how small it is, it’s so important that they come forward… because we do really believe people still have information out there,” she said.
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