Parents of missing Deirdre tell of hope 15 years on
THE parents of missing Deirdre Jacob told yesterday how they still search for her – and say they hold out hope she could be found alive 15 years after she disappeared.
Ms Jacob, 18, was last seen around 3pm on July 28, 1998, at the gate of her home in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, after walking home from running errands.
Michael Jacob, the missing woman’s father, said he and wife Bernadette still look f or their daughter whenever driving through Newbridge, and at airports and railway stations.
And they said they still hold out hope she could be found alive.
Mr Jacob said: ‘Morning, noon and night, she crosses your mind. Even when driving through town, I’m wondering if I’ll see her in the crowd. It never goes away.
‘I think of her first thing in the morning and last thing at night. If I wake up in the middle of the night, she’s what I’m thinking of then too.
‘No matter where I am, at an airport or a train station, you find yourself l ooking t hrough t he crowds.’
Crimestoppers yesterday made a fresh appeal over her disappearance and put up a reward in the hope to get vital information.
Her parents posed with a CATbranded bag similar to the one their daughter was carrying when she was last seen.
On the day she disappeared, Ms Jacob had gone to AIB in Newbridge to get a bank draft to pay for student accommodation in St Mary’s College, Twickenham, west London, where she was training to be a primary teacher.
She went to the post office to send off the draft. She also called into her grandmother’s small grocery store twice while in town before heading home.
A couple of hundred metres from her home, after a sharp bend, she crossed over to the other side of
‘We never stop thinking of her’
the road because the footpath had run out.
Approaching home she went back across the road. That was the last sighting of her.
Repeated appeals for information have yet to yield a breakthrough. Her mother Bernadette said they were ‘no wiser now than on the day she went missing’.
Mrs Jacob recalled she tried to call her daughter at 5pm at home but there was no answer. Mrs Jacob arrived home at 6.30pm and there was no sign of her daughter.
‘I was immediately alarmed. I was in a panic inside from then on. I had a gut feeling and from then on I got more anxious,’ said the mother.
The parents believe someone must have information that could lead to answers about Deirdre’s disappearance.
Mr Jacob said: ‘We’re pretty confident that there are people out there who have that little bit of information. To advance the case further would be great.’
He said gardaí already had a large volume of information and it might only take a small detail to allow them to solve the case.
Garda Superintendent Joseph Prendergast, of Naas garda station, said more than 2,000 statements had been taken and 2,500 different leads had been followed up.
He said in a public appeal: ‘It is never too late to come forward. You may initially, for whatever reason, decided not to make that phone call, but now is the time.
‘That call might bring some closure to the pain and suffering experienced by Bernadette and Michael, her sister, extended family and wide circle of friends.’
Superintendent Prendergast said that people ‘don’t just disappear’ and somebody knew something about her disappearance.
Members of the public are asked to jog their memory about a black canvas CAT bag Ms Jacob was carrying when she disappeared. This has never been found. Anyone with information is asked to contact Crimestoppers on 1800 25 00 25.