Grief: Mum still missing 10 years on
:: 10 years on from young mum Esra’s disappearance, her sister is still seeking clues to mystery
It was supposed to be a five-minute trip to the shops, but Esra Uyrun (34) never returned after leaving her family home in Dublin 10 years ago. Despite a sighting that day and the discovery of her car and keys, no other trace has been found of the young mum, pictured above with son Emin. Her family are making a fresh appeal for help.
WEDNESDAY, February 23, 2011, seemed like an ordinary day for the Uyrun family in Collinstown Grove in the west Dublin suburb of Clondalkin, when mother-of-one Esra (37) nipped out to the shops, telling her husband Ozgur she would be home in a few minutes so he could use the car to go to work.
Esra has not been seen since. Now, nearly 10 years later, alarm bells still ring in her sister’s head about the timeline between Esra leaving home in Clondalkin, and where the car was found later in Bray, Co Wicklow.
The car, a Renault Twingo with the registration 08D23067, was spotted at the Power City roundabout in Clondalkin around half an hour after she is believed to have left her house. But it should have taken Esra only four or five minutes to get there.
This, Esra’s sister Berna, believes the is key to finding out what happened to her.
What gardaí have been told is that at around 7.15am that day Esra told Ozgur she was just nipping out to the shops for a short time.
Her husband raised the alarm when she did not return, and the car was found parked at Bray seafront at 11pm. Esra’s purse, with cash and credit cards, was found locked in the boot.
CCTV footage would show the car had been driven erratically to the spot where it was parked, nearly colliding with a silver Skoda Octavia.
None of the CCTV footage showed the driver, so gardaí do not know if it was a man or a woman behind the wheel.
The car was first picked up on CCTV at the Power City roundabout in Clondalkin at around 8am. Talking about her disappearance now,
Berna’s main suspicions are on the time it took for the car to be spotted there.
“Esra is supposed to have left the house around 7.15am to go to one of the two local shops that would have been open at the time, yet the car was spotted at the Power City roundabout around a half an hour later, even though it is just a four or five minute drive away from the house,” she said.
“And enquiries at the local shops, where everyone knew Esra, show she did not go to either of them,” Berna added.
“Did something happen before the roundabout?”
Another mystery to Berna is why Esra’s small purse, containing her bank cards and around €60 in cash, was found locked into the boot of the car.
“It’s a small purse. It seems odd that she would not put it into the glovebox or one of the storage areas in the doors,” she says.
Esra’s passport was left at home, and there has been no traffic on her bank account. She simply vanished.
“People ask me did Esra take her own life in the sea at Bray, but if she did we would expect her body to be found, or some clothing or footwear, but we have nothing,” said Berna.
“We have made numerous appeals for the driver of the Skoda Octavia that Esra’s car nearly collided with in Bray to come forward to tell us about it, and see if they can say who was driving the car. It could be a huge help to the investigation,” she added.
She also said that Esra had shown no signs of depression or plans to take her life or flee in the days before she vanished.
“If she is trapped somewhere and suffering, then one situation is as bad as the other. I just wish we knew one way or the other,” she said.
“I’d hate to think she has been taken and may be suffering all this time. If she is alive but being held against her will, she could never recover even if she was found today. If she is dead and we could find her ,then at least we could put her to rest,” Berna explained.
One other mystery plays on
Berna’s mind, and she can’t stop thinking about it. While posting flyers in Bray in the days before the first anniversary of Esra’s disappearance, Berna’s daughter Ayda went into a local retail business in Neilstown.
Ayda handed in a new poster of Esra. After she walked out, a staff member came running out and handed Berna a set of car keys, telling her they must have belonged to Esra.
There were photos on the keyring showing Esra, Ozgur and their little son Emin. The staff member said the bunch of keys were found on a counter in the shop a few months earlier, after she had disappeared.
No one had identified the Esra photo at the time the keys were found until weeks later, and by that time there was no CCTV of who left them on the counter.
“I remember I was shaking after being handed the keys. It was so disappointing that nothing came of it,” said Berna.
“Esra had lost one set of keys months before she disappeared, but if she had lost them in the shop surely she would have retraced her steps until she found them, because she could not use the car to get home,” she explained.
“Esra and Ozgur shared the last set of keys after that, and I think the keys found in the shop could be the keys used to take the car to Bray,” she added.
“Esra loved fashion and art. She was a talented and creative person who could make friends very quickly. I would describe her as a people-person,” she explained.
Gardaí say the file into Esra’s disappearance is still open and it is being investigated as a missing persons case.
As time passed after Esra’s disappearance, Ozgur moved back to London with Emin, who is now 12, to be closer to family.
“Back then Emin was told Mammy went to the shops and got lost. But he’s older now and will be asking questions of his own soon,” said Berna.
“We know somebody is out there who knows something, and we just need them to come forward,” she added.
Anyone with any information can contact Ronanstown garda station at 01 666 7700 or the Garda Confidential Line at 1800 666 111
‘I remember I was shaking after being handed the keys’