Deirdre Jacob | |
---|---|
Born | |
Disappeared | 28 July 1998 (aged 18) Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland |
Status | Missing for 26 years, 3 months and 26 days |
Nationality | Irish |
Parents |
|
Deirdre Jacob is an Irish woman who disappeared near her home in Newbridge, County Kildare on 28 July 1998 at the age of 18. [1] [2] In August 2018 the Garda Síochána announced that her disappearance was being treated as a murder case. [1] [3] [2]
Her parents are Michael and Bernadette Jacob and she was born on 14 October 1979. [4] [2]
At the time of her disappearance, she had completed her first year as a student teacher at St Mary's University, Twickenham, London. [1]
Deirdre was last seen about 3pm on 28 July 1998. [5] She had gone to the Newbridge branch of Allied Irish Banks to get a bank draft to pay for student accommodation at the university, then went to the post office to post the bank draft. [5] She also visited her grandmother, who owned a shop. [4]
The last sighting of her was close to her house on Barretstown Road. [6] [3]
At the time of her disappearance she wore a dark T-shirt with white shoes and was carrying a black bag with a yellow Caterpillar Inc logo. [1] The bag has never been found. [1] [7]
Deirdre's parents have never been able to move on and still hope that someone with information regarding their daughter's disappearance will come forward. [4] They have appealed to the public for information several times over the years. [5] [4] [7]
In 2016 her parents said that there was not as strong a link between their daughter's disappearance and convicted rapist Larry Murphy as was often supposed. [8] Gardaí were never able to place Murphy in Newbridge the day she disappeared. [8] The only connection found was a piece of paper with Larry Murphy's name and phone number among the belongings of Deirdre's maternal grandmother after the latter's death. [8] She had owned a shop in Newbridge and Murphy had left his contact details with her grandmother as he was making wooden children's toys, but this was years before Deirdre's disappearance. [8]
In July 2018, on the 20th anniversary of her disappearance, her father called for a dedicated missing-persons unit to be set up. [9] Her parents were satisfied that the Gardaí in Kildare were doing everything possible to locate their daughter, but that a dedicated unit would help investigations into missing persons cases. [9]
By 2018 Gardaí had conducted 3,200 lines of inquiry and taken 2,500 witness statements. [3]
In 2018 the case was reclassified as a murder enquiry because of new information and a review of the case. [1] Although Gardaí did not reveal the new information, they said there was a definite line of inquiry. [3] In October 2018 Gardaí stated that they had 'significant' new leads in the murder probe and identified Larry Murphy as 'a person of interest'. [10] Jacob’s family still live in Newbridge and although they knew the reclassification of her disappearance as murder was to happen they still found it heart-wrenching and shattering to hear the language of a murder investigation used about their daughter's disappearance. [3]
In October 2021 Gardaí began searching woodland near Usk Little on the Kildare/Wicklow border. [11] The search was begun after a review of evidence and involved as many as 15 people, from the Garda Technical Bureau as well as a forensic archaeologist. [11] The area is about three acres and the search took three weeks, but they did not find any remains; however, an ancient settlement from around 500 BC was unearthed. [11]
The Garda Síochána submitted a criminal file to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in 2021. However, on 16 July 2022 it was reported that the DPP had returned the file with a direction of "no prosecution". [12]
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