THE SISTER OF a woman who has been missing for 11 years has called for a review of the case as she says it has been “a cold case for too long”.
Esra Uyrun, a 32-year-old mother-of-one went missing on the morning of 23 February 2011 after leaving her home in Clondalkin. Her car was later found in a car park at Bray strand in Wicklow.
Speaking to The Journal, her sister Berna Fidan said she would like to see the case reviewed by the Garda Serious Crime Review Team.
“It’s still an open case but it’s a cold case and it’s been sitting there too long,” she said.
“It should really be looked at again because there is something out there, she’s out there – good or bad, dead or alive – she’s out there somewhere. So I’d like to see fresh eyes on the case to look at it from the very beginning.”
Esra left her home in Clondalkin between 7.20am and 7.30am to go buy some milk on 23 February 2011 and was due to return shortly because her husband needed their car to get to work.
Her number plate was recorded at the Power City roundabout in Clondalkin, which was just minutes from her house, just before 8am.
Fidan has always been troubled by that more than 30 minute time gap for a drive that would usually have taken less than five minutes.
She said she would like to see a greater focus on this time anomaly.
“We’re losing half an hour so something happened in that half an hour,” she said.
“When I came, I flew in the next day and there were no roadworks – we went up and down all of those roads. It was midterm week, all the schools were on holiday so there was none of that school traffic and the roads would have been quiet.”
She appealed to those living in Clondalkin at the time to think back and consider whether they may have seen anything unusual in that area.
Fidan also encouraged those who knew her sister, even casual acquaintances, who have not previously come forward to speak to gardaí or to contact her through the Missing Esra Uyrun Facebook page.
“We’d like to hear from people who knew her, especially in the last six months to a year before she went missing,” she said.
Did she mention anything to them? They might not have thought it was important but it could be.
CCTV captured Esra’s car coming down Bray strand, driving erratically and having a near collision with a silver Skoda Octavia before it parked up by 8.40am.
The missing woman’s car, a a silver Renault Twingo (08 D 23067), was found in a car park along the Bray promenade.
Footage that has been shared in previous appeals shows a woman moving up towards Bray Head. She stops a number of times, looking back, before walking on. Gardaí have said they have not found footage to show this woman walking back this way. The last signal from Esra’s phone was on Bray Head.
However, her sister does not think this woman is Esra because of her build and the way she walks.
She also said the family does not believe she took her own life as her mother was due to arrive in Dublin for a month-long visit, and they had made a number of plans for the trip before Esra went missing.
Fidan travels to Ireland from the UK every year for the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance but due to Covid restrictions last year she could not come for the tenth anniversary.
“That broke my heart,” she said. “We’re always here, always doing something and I just felt at a loss, I felt so helpless. I was just pacing around the house, because I had already booked the week off and I was at home.
“When I’m here I just feel close to her in a way because I come back to the last place she was. And I can do appeals and put up posters and it just makes me feel like I am doing something to find her.”
She said she would be grateful for any piece of information that would bring her closer to the truth.
“It would just mean that we’re getting that bit closer to finding out what happened or to finding her, good or bad,” she said.
“We just need some answers. If she is passed away we can mourn and get on with our lives and if she isn’t then let’s find her and bring her home.”
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