Fresh hope that case which chilled a nation could finally be solved

SHORTLY after he was promoted to chief superintendent and appointed to take charge of the Kildare division last February, Brian Sutton began a study of the file on the disappearance of Deirdre Jacob.

The university student was just 18 when she vanished 20 years ago close to her family home at Roseberry, on the outskirts of Newbridge, Co Kildare.

Chief Supt Sutton had spent much of his career up to then involved in serious crime investigations, heading up the detective branch in Dublin south division where those featuring on his daily agenda included many of the key players in the deadly Kinahan-Hutch feud as well as those involved in previous gang warfare that centred on Crumlin and Drimnagh.

He had also been a senior officer with the then-Garda National Drugs Unit and, earlier in his career, was involved in training young gardaí at the Garda College.

Upon taking up the post he consulted with divisional officers and decided they should dissect the file on the Jacob case and take a fresh look at the disappearance that had chilled the nation.

Those involved in the review of the file included many local gardaí who had been deployed in the investigation since Deirdre went missing and were keenly aware that this was the 20th anniversary of her disappearance.

From early on in the investigation, the signs were ominous and, in terms of resources dedicated to the case, the girl’s disappearance was treated like a murder inquiry although everybody shared the Jacob family’s hopes that she could turn up alive.

Speculation was rife that her case could be linked to the disappearances of other women, whose inquiries were revisited under Operation Trace. Trace was focused specifically on the cases of six women who had gone missing in the eastern region.

There was no evidence to connect

Deirdre’s disappearance to any of those cases, though, and investigators continued to pursue each line of inquiry, backed up by appeals for help every summer from Deirdre’s parents.

Like the families of others on the Garda missing persons list, the Jacobs had to endure the emotional ups and downs that followed fresh theories emerging in the investigation.

These included the disclosure that convicted rapist

Larry Murphy had visited the shop owned by Deirdre’s grandmother, Bridget O’Grady, in Newbridge. Deirdre was a regular visitor to the shop and had called in there on the day she disappeared. Murphy served 10 years of a 15-year sentence in prison after he was convicted in 2001of abduction, rape and the attempted murder of a woman, who was found in the boot of his car in the Wicklow mountains.

He was interviewed in prison by officers in the Jacob case but denied any involvement in her disappearance.

With the assistance of members of the Garda serious crime review team, also known as the cold case unit, Chief Supt Sutton and Supt Martin Walker, who had taken over in the district headquarters in Kildare town, led local Garda personnel as they reexamined all of the evidence compiled over the past two decades.

This included interviews with witnesses and potential witnesses and CCTV footage.

Fresh lines of inquiry began to open up, including one which provided gardaí with significant new information that led to yesterday’s announcement that the Jacob case was now formally a murder investigation. However, a lot of work remains to be done before a file can be completed to convince the Director of Public Prosecutions to bring criminal charges against a suspect.

At this stage, gardaí cannot go further than acknowledge there are a number of persons of interest that require further inquiries. They are expecting to make significant progress with some of those inquiries but they are not yet at a stage where they can confidently say they will be able to go to court.

But the developments do show that despite a 20-year gap, gardaí can and do make progress with unsolved cases and that those files are never closed.

This, at least, provides some hope to the loved ones of the victims. And also sends a message to those responsible, and others who continue to shield them from justice, that they cannot rest comfortably in their beds.