Gardaí investigating the suspected murder of Fiona Pender in Co Offaly in 1996 are set to continue a second search and excavation operation overnight into Thursday morning in a bid to find her remains.
The search in a remote part of Co Laois is the second such operation of the week after a two-day search at another location, near Tullamore, Co Offaly, concluded on Tuesday afternoon.
They believe Ms Pender’s remains were buried in the Laois-Offaly region to cover up the killing but have not ruled out the possibility the body was later moved and that evidence could be found at more than one search site.
The decision to continue the search in Co Laois overnight is unusual. However, a main road was closed on Tuesday to facilitate the operation, and it appears gardaí were keen to minimise traffic disruption by completing the operation as quickly as possible.
Who is Michael Kelley, the man questioned over the murder of Michael Gaine?
The Macron shove is not a sign of a very French love story, but something more disturbing
Ruby Eastwood: Why would anyone choose to live in a city as ridiculous as Dublin?
An ‘arch-manipulator’ who isolated his ‘trophy’ wife: The full story of the Richard Satchwell murder trial
A lighting system was in place to aid the search party as the excavations continued in the hours of darkness at the remote location, covered in thick undergrowth, close to Clonaslee, Co Laois, in the Slieve Bloom mountains.
A search was conducted in that general area in 2008, though nothing of evidential value was found.
Detectives have always believed Ms Pender, a 25-year-old who was seven months pregnant when she vanished, was murdered on the day she was last seen alive in August 1996. They suspect her remains were disposed of, likely by burial, before she was reported missing two days later.
The Garda announced on Monday the case has been upgraded from a missing person’s inquiry to a murder investigation and that a search and excavation operation was under way at Graigue near Killeigh village, Co Offaly.
On Wednesday they confirmed the second site was being searched in Co Louth.
“To facilitate this, the Ross Road at Clonaslee, Co Laois will remain closed from the R422 entrance to the R440 entrance,” a Garda statement said of the plan to continue the search overnight.
“No through traffic will be allowed onto this road until further notice, with local access available to residents via the R422 entrance only.
“This area of land will be searched and subject to excavation, technical and forensic examinations. This search forms part of a sustained investigation carried out by gardaí in Laois-Offaly Garda Division over the last 28 years to establish Fiona’s whereabouts and to investigate the circumstances in which Fiona disappeared.”
Gardaí have also encouraged anyone with information about Ms Pender’s disappearance, especially those who may have felt unable to come forward since 1996, to contact the investigation team in Tullamore Garda station.
Ms Pender, a hairdresser, was last seen at her flat on Church Street early in the morning of Friday, August 23rd, 1996. She spent the previous day shopping with her mother and bought clothes for her baby. Gardaí do not believe she had any plans to leave the area and suspected foul play from the outset.
In 1996, vast tracts of land were searched and sections of the Grand Canal were drained during the first wave of investigations in Co Offaly. However, no trace of Ms Pender has been found and nobody has been charged, despite five arrests in 1997.
In 2008, another search operation was carried out in woods near Mountrath, Co Laois, when a cross with Ms Pender’s name was found there.
Six years later, another search took place in the Slieve Bloom mountains in Co Laois, after a woman known to the suspect nominated it as potentially Ms Pender’s burial site, though nothing was found.
