LAST UPDATE
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12 hrs ago
GARDAÍ HAVE BEGUN a search operation on open ground at a location in Co Wicklow as part of the investigation into the disappearance and murders of Jo Jo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob.
The search is taking place near the Wicklow/Kildare border and this area of land will be subject to excavation, technical and forensic examinations over the coming days.
Deirdre Jacob was last seen on 28 July 1998 near her home in Newbridge, Co Kildare. She is one of at least six women who vanished in the east of the country in the 1990s.
Jo Jo Dullard (21) disappeared in 1995 from Moone in Kildare and this case was upgraded to murder in 2021.
Her disappearance was just a ten-minute journey from where Deirdre Jacob was last seen.
Deirdre Jacob (left) and Jo Jo Dullard (right)
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’s story
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 through 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.
RollingNews.ie
RollingNews.ie
She was last seen at around 3pm within yards of the driveway to her parents’ house on the Barrettstown Road, Roseberry.
Deirdre 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’s story
Jo Jo left her home in Callan at 8.30am on Thursday, 9 November 1995 to travel by bus to Dublin.
Jo Jo 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.
She then intended to hitch hike 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, Jo Jo 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.
Jo Jo Dullard Garda Press Office
Garda Press Office
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.
