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Deirdre Jacob missing twenty years Today.

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Comments

  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 345 ✭✭Tea Shock


    Are Am Eye wrote: »
    It wasn't at her gate. It was somewhere in the region of fifty meters I think from what I remember. But it wasn't that she was right at her house or going in the gate.

    Not according to this......
    Deirdre's movements for the next few hours are well documented. She visited her grandmother in her shop in the middle of the town and then went to the bank and got a draft to pay for a deposit on new accommodation for her next year at college. CCTV footage captured her at AIB getting the draft and then in the post office sending it off. She then walked home along the shopfronts on the town's main street and back on a busy road toward her house. The last sighting was at around 3pm by a father and a daughter. Both saw Deirdre crossing the road to walk into her home and the young girl in the passenger seat watched her as she crossed the gateway to walk up the drive.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37 Sofi1


    Are Am Eye wrote: »
    It wasn't at her gate. It was somewhere in the region of fifty meters I think from what I remember. But it wasn't that she was right at her house or going in the gate.


    I thought the same but yesterday's Sunday Independent article and interview with Deirdre's parents says:

    "Deirdre's movements for the next few hours are well documented. She visited her grandmother in her shop in the middle of the town and then went to the bank and got a draft to pay for a deposit on new accommodation for her next year at college. CCTV footage captured her at AIB getting the draft and then in the post office sending it off. She then walked home along the shopfronts on the town's main street and back on a busy road toward her house. The last sighting was at around 3pm by a father and a daughter. Both saw Deirdre crossing the road to walk into her home and the young girl in the passenger seat watched her as she crossed the gateway to walk up the drive."

    https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/you-might-see-a-girl-who-looks-like-deirdre-and-you-have-to-look-again-jacob-family-describe-agony-of-living-life-while-their-daughter-is-missing-37229614.html


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,166 ✭✭✭Are Am Eye


    Tea Shock wrote: »
    Not according to this......

    Not my fault. Gardai releasing false information then in previous reconstructions and appeals.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,758 ✭✭✭Laois_Man


    Sofi1 wrote: »
    Well, we don't know if it's been discounted by the guards, but that's what her parents believe. I read a Sunday Independent article this morning, where Deirdre's mother says that again. She really was a very non-flaky sort of person, and not prone to doing random things, always kept her parents in the loop.

    The article in the independent yesterday quotes Mrs. Jacob as saying she knew straight away that Deirdre was not there - not that she never got home, which is entirely different. I don't know what Mrs. Jacob was working at but isn't it quite possible that she did arrive home and left again, possibly with somebody, possibly even attempted to phone her mother to inform her but her mother, busy at work, missed the call. Going out in the afternoon aged 18 without telling your parents, after possibly attempting to make contact, can hardly be regarded as "flakey"!

    Although I do think what happened to her was similar to what happened Justine Valdez


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37 Sofi1


    Laois_Man wrote: »
    The article in the independent yesterday quotes Mrs. Jacob as saying she knew straight away that Deirdre was not there - not that she never got home, which is entirely different. I don't know what Mrs. Jacob was working at but isn't it quite possible that she did arrive home and left again, possibly with somebody, possibly even attempted to phone her mother to inform her but her mother, busy at work, missed the call. Going out in the afternoon aged 18 without telling your parents, after possibly attempting to make contact, can hardly be regarded as "flakey"!

    Although I do think what happened to her was similar to what happened Justine Valdez

    It's possible that she returned and left again, but even if she called her mother and missed her, I think would have been the type to leave a note saying where she was going. She was just a really straight edge sort of person.

    This is what Mrs Jacob said in the interview:
    "What makes her disappearance even more devastating is that Deirdre was so conscientious about safety. She constantly kept in contact with her parents and let them know her whereabouts. It is the reason her mother felt instantly sick when she arrived home from work later that day.

    "I knew straightaway before I even opened the door. There was so many different locks on the door and when I tried to open it with the key it was locked all the way down. So straightaway I thought: 'Where is she? Why isn't she here?' Deirdre was the type to let you know where she was. Even if she was just going up to her friends she would tell me and maybe ask me to collect her at such a time. She hadn't let me know that she wasn't going to be there. So I knew straightaway. I was alarmed.

    "My mother was with me and I knew it wasn't like Deirdre. She didn't have a mobile phone. It was only the start of them coming in but she would still always phone."


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 446 ✭✭Ande1975


    According to the Independent yesterday, Deirdre left home at 12.50pm to walk into town. 25 mins or so. Did her jobs and visited her grandmother. She spent about 2 hours in town before walking back home.



    Why would she leave again and where would she go? No one came forward to say they were meeting her or had met her.



    A mother's gut instinct is rarely wrong.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37 Sofi1


    Something you have to think about too, is that there'd been a couple of horrific murders in Kildare in the years before Deirdre's disappearance, both of them about 5 km from Newbridge in different directions. It created a sense of unease and worry about safety in a lot of people, especially women. We were all a little more paranoid about personal safety. Of course, that was compounded after Deirdre disappeared.

    In 1995, in Caragh, Jerome Kavanagh entered his neighbour, Mary Malone's house with the intention of raping and killing her. She was home with her sister and children. He ended up killing her five year old son, Ciaran.

    In 1996, in Milltown, Joyce Quinn, who ran the local shop, gave a lift to a young man she knew from the village, Kenneth O'Reilly. He raped and murdered her and dumped her body on the Curragh.

    So, a lot of young women in that area at the were constantly warned by their parents to let them know where they were and to watch our backs.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,758 ✭✭✭Laois_Man


    Ande1975 wrote: »
    Why would she leave again and where would she go? No one came forward to say they were meeting her or had met her

    Maybe she didn't go to meet anyone - maybe she was collected. Possibly by someone who soon did her harm, in which case of course they're not going to come forward!


    One of the articles said Deirdre was in her bedroom the previous night writing letters to friend(s). I assume they were part of the things she posted away while at the post office and I assume they were retrieved and studied? Never seen that mentioned before.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,268 ✭✭✭✭freshpopcorn


    Are Am Eye wrote: »
    It wasn't at her gate. It was somewhere in the region of fifty meters I think from what I remember. But it wasn't that she was right at her house or going in the gate.

    I followed this on Crimecall from when I was a child and I was 100% certain they always said she crossed the road to her gate and was spotted by a school friend.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 446 ✭✭Ande1975


    The below paragraphs from yesterday's Independent article reads to me that after the Carlow crime, investigators started to focus on LM as a possible suspect but couldn't find any direct evidence

    "Detectives removed boxes of records from Murphy's family home, hoping that his invoices and work dockets would pinpoint his movements on key dates in Operation Trace.

    One invoice showed that Murphy had been hired to do some carpentry work for a disco bar in the town that was being renovated when Deirdre disappeared in July 1998.

    On making further inquiries, gardai were told that Murphy didn't start his work at the site until late August or September. Although Murphy had visited the bar some time before he started the job, to give a quote for his work, gardai could not pinpoint the date.

    Some witnesses said Murphy was one of several men working on a building in Newbridge on the day Deirdre disappeared. But gardai accounted for all of the workmen present and Murphy was not among them. To this day, gardai have never established where Murphy was or where he was working the day Deirdre disappeared.

    There was a suggestion Murphy may have been in Deirdre Jacob's grandmother's shop at some point.

    Deirdre's grandmother died in December 1999, more than a year after Deirdre disappeared. When clearing out the sweetshop, in among the various documents, her family found a leaflet from a carpenter advertising his availability for work.

    It bore the name Larry Murphy and a telephone number. But it has never been established how the leaflet came to be in Deirdre's granny's sweetshop, or whether Murphy had handed it in himself."

    Then came the prisoner who gave the statement in 2011 about LM drunkenly admitting he abducted Deirdre. Once LM was out, prisoner could talk freely. Then the new evidence 5 weeks ago.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,758 ✭✭✭Laois_Man


    Sofi1 wrote: »
    It's possible that she returned and left again, but even if she called her mother and missed her, I think would have been the type to leave a note saying where she was going. She was just a really straight edge sort of person.

    You wouldn't leave a note for somebody though - if you were expecting to be back before them!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 446 ✭✭Ande1975


    Laois_Man wrote: »
    Maybe she didn't go to meet anyone - maybe she was collected. Possibly by someone who soon did her harm, in which case of course they're not going to come forward!


    One of the articles said Deirdre was in her bedroom the previous night writing letters to friend(s). I assume they were part of the things she posted away while at the post office and I assume they were retrieved and studied? Never seen that mentioned before.


    I hear you but I still think she would have told her parents. I know myself, I would have told my parents my whereabouts all the time at that age. As Sofi says, girls were warned. I remember being told to be vigilant.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37 Sofi1


    Laois_Man wrote: »
    You wouldn't leave a note for somebody though - if you were expecting to be back before them!

    Perhaps, but nobody saw her leaving the house again or walking on the road, and nobody reported picking her up to go somewhere else. If she entered and left again, she left in a car with a stranger? Very much not her style.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,758 ✭✭✭Laois_Man


    Sofi1 wrote: »
    Perhaps, but nobody saw her leaving the house again or walking on the road, and nobody reported picking her up to go somewhere else. If she entered and left again, she left in a car with a stranger? Very much not her style.

    It may not have been a stranger at all


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 446 ✭✭Ande1975


    Does anyone put any stock in the prisoners statement about the drunken fuelled suggested admission?

    I find it difficult to dismiss


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,166 ✭✭✭Are Am Eye


    I followed this on Crimecall from when I was a child and I was 100% certain they always said she crossed the road to her gate and was spotted by a school friend.

    I know that's not true.
    I can't magic up those crimecalls as links here - but a cursory google gives me this example : -
    "Deirdre Jacob was an independent 19-year-old student teacher who, say friends, would not take a lift from a stranger. She was last seen walking some 400 yards from her home in Newbridge at 3.20pm on Tuesday, July 28, 1998. From that point onwards, there has been no positive sighting of Deirdre."


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37 Sofi1


    Laois_Man wrote: »
    It may not have been a stranger at all

    My thinking is that the guards would have interviewed all her friends and people she was in contact with and concluded nobody she knew had a motive to harm her.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,268 ✭✭✭✭freshpopcorn


    Are Am Eye wrote: »
    I know that's not true.
    I can't magic up those crimecalls as links here - but a cursory google gives me this example : -
    "Deirdre Jacob was an independent 19-year-old student teacher who, say friends, would not take a lift from a stranger. She was last seen walking some 400 yards from her home in Newbridge at 3.20pm on Tuesday, July 28, 1998. From that point onwards, there has been no positive sighting of Deirdre."


    I'm just going on what I remember at the time.
    It was always talked about how she got so the ways to her front gate and then vanished.
    When she got to the front gate she kind of stopped.
    It was unsure whether she was talking to somebody or calling her dogs. They had big Labrador/Golden Retriever style dogs which she loved.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,166 ✭✭✭Are Am Eye


    I'm just going on what I remember

    That's a little different from I've seen every report from when I was child all the way to now and I'm 100% sure I'm right.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,758 ✭✭✭Laois_Man


    Sofi1 wrote: »
    My thinking is that the guards would have interviewed all her friends and people she was in contact with and concluded nobody she knew had a motive to harm her.

    Whoever took her didn't have a real motive either...But unfortunately, some people have a motive to attack any attractive young girl, which she was. Even DJ's father has said in the last few days that he constantly wonders if some neighbor he meets on the road every day knows something, or did something to her. So it's not out of the question. The fact that someone says they seen her crossing her gateway makes that scenario much more likely.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37 Sofi1


    Ande1975 wrote: »
    Does anyone put any stock in the prisoners statement about the drunken fuelled suggested admission?

    I find it difficult to dismiss

    I want to believe it, as at least it promises some sort of answer, albeit a terrible one. The prisoner probably didn't have much to gain by saying it, but still, there's a skepticism there for me.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 446 ✭✭Ande1975


    There is a report from August 1998 that says that Deirdre might have taken a lift into town here
    Its the Irish Times and I haven't subscribed so I can't read it but other reports


    From the Irish Examiner


    'She had been seen at around 3pm on what was a bright and sunny summer day, near the gate to her home on Barrettstown Road, Roseberry.
    There were no signs of any struggle, nor any sighting of her getting into a car or being snatched off the road and bundled into one.
    Deirdre literally vanished in broad daylight and was not seen again.'


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 446 ✭✭Ande1975


    Sofi1 wrote: »
    I want to believe it, as at least it promises some sort of answer, albeit a terrible one. The prisoner probably didn't have much to gain by saying it, but still, there's a skepticism there for me.




    Absolutely, it would be a horrific end to the story.

    We don't know the details of when this drunken binge happened and this prisoner kept it to himself until LM left prisoner obviously for fear of a reprisal.

    Of all the missing cases, DJ seems to be the only one that is closest to LM.



    Hopefully the Jacob family will get answers sooner rather than later


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37 Sofi1


    Laois_Man wrote: »
    Whoever took her didn't have a real motive either...But unfortunately, some people have a motive to attack any attractive young girl, which she was. Even DJ's father has said in the last few days that he constantly wonders if some neighbor he meets on the road every day knows something, or did something to her. So it's not out of the question. The fact that someone says they seen her crossing her gateway makes that scenario much more likely.

    Yes, but Deirdre would have had to know them well to get in a car with them. I think her circle of friends was almost all female. Maybe she would have gotten in a car with a male relative or neighbour, but for what reason? If, as you're suggesting, she went into her house, would she not have dropped her bag in the house, or changed her shoes, or created some trace of being there? Anything is possible of course, but not probable.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,166 ✭✭✭Are Am Eye


    Ande1975 wrote: »
    There is a report from August 1998 that says that Deirdre might have taken a lift into town here
    Its the Irish Times and I haven't subscribed so I can't read it but other reports


    From the Irish Examiner


    'She had been seen at around 3pm on what was a bright and sunny summer day, near the gate to her home on Barrettstown Road, Roseberry.
    There were no signs of any struggle, nor any sighting of her getting into a car or being snatched off the road and bundled into one.
    Deirdre literally vanished in broad daylight and was not seen again.'


    That could be to do with an anonymous guy who was making calls from a phone box to gardai claiming to have given her a lift. He wrote to her parents as well. He was believed to be a hoaxer/crazy.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 446 ✭✭Ande1975


    Are Am Eye wrote: »
    That could be to do with an anonymous guy who was making calls from a phone box to gardai claiming to have given her a lift. He wrote to her parents as well. He was believed to be a hoaxer/crazy.




    Ah yes... sorry. I'd forgotten about the hoaxer.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37 Sofi1


    Ande1975 wrote: »
    There is a report from August 1998 that says that Deirdre might have taken a lift into town here
    Its the Irish Times and I haven't subscribed so I can't read it but other reports


    From the Irish Examiner


    'She had been seen at around 3pm on what was a bright and sunny summer day, near the gate to her home on Barrettstown Road, Roseberry.
    There were no signs of any struggle, nor any sighting of her getting into a car or being snatched off the road and bundled into one.
    Deirdre literally vanished in broad daylight and was not seen again.'

    The Times article is talking about how she got into the town initially. Nobody reported seeing her walking in around noon. I wonder if she showed up on CCTV subsequently? She was recorded walking home down the main street past Irish Permanent. Was she recorded going up the street earlier? But then again, maybe she went up College Park or Eyre Street and crossed into Main Street.


    Text of the Irish Times article linked above:
    Gardai think missing woman may have taken lift into town
    Fri, Aug 14, 1998, 01:00
    Catherine Cleary

    Gardai in Newbridge, Co Kildare, are investigating the possibility that the missing student teacher Deirdre Jacob may have taken a lift shortly before she disappeared.
    Supt Sean Lavin said gardai have had no reports of sightings of Deirdre (18) walking the 1 1/2 miles into Newbridge, Co Kildare, on Tuesday, July 28th. This has led them to believe she might have been driven into the town, although so far there is no evidence that she was given a lift. Deirdre was seen by a number of people returning from Newbridge later that afternoon, and was last seen about 300 yards from her home in the townland of Roseberry on the Barretstown Road around 3 p.m.
    Supt Lavin said gardai had taken 300 statements and were anxious to talk to anyone who may have given her a lift or seen her walking into Newbridge. Gardai also want to speak to anyone in any part of the country who may have seen anything unusual or been approached by anyone on the roads.
    Deirdre's father, Mr Michael Jacob, appealed again last night for anyone with the "slightest shred of information" to contact gardai. "The phone is going all the time with offers of help, and my wife Bernie, Deirdre's sister Ciara and myself, we've been carried along with that."
    Mr Jacob said he believed it was "very, very unlikely" that his daughter would take lifts from strangers. "She'd certainly have to know the people very, very well. She was always quite happy to walk into town. It only took half an hour. "We feel so hopeless in the whole situation. We feel so inadequate and we feel there must be something we should be doing, somehow to reach her in someway," he said. Deirdre was wearing navy jeans and white Nike runners with blue trim, a navy polo shirt with white trim and short sleeves. She was carrying a black bag with a distinctive yellow CAT logo. "From Bernie, Ciara and myself we would send out the appeal to anyone that might have the slightest shred of information," Mr Jacob said. "It might be vital and it might be the piece of information that would get Deirdre back safe and sound." Any information can be passed to Newbridge Garda station on 045-431212.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 446 ✭✭Ande1975


    Sofi1 wrote: »
    Yes, but Deirdre would have had to know them well to get in a car with them. I think her circle of friends was almost all female. Maybe she would have gotten in a car with a male relative or neighbour, but for what reason? If, as you're suggesting, she went into her house, would she not have dropped her bag in the house, or changed her shoes, or created some trace of being there? Anything is possible of course, but not probable.


    Also, since Deirdre walked in and out of town and spent the better part of 2 hours there. I'm sure she would have (to your point), changed shoes/clothes, used the bathroom as it was July, warm and she would freshen up before heading out again.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,758 ✭✭✭Laois_Man


    Ande1975 wrote: »
    Of all the missing cases, DJ seems to be the only one that is closest to LM

    Well Jojo Dullard was certainly closer to LM, but the Gardai seemed to have their own ideas on who harmed her before they became aware of LM. Unlike in the DJ case where they never had a clue.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 446 ✭✭Ande1975


    Laois_Man wrote: »
    Well Jojo Dullard was certainly closer to LM, but the Gardai seemed to have their own ideas on who harmed her before they became aware of LM. Unlike in the DJ case where they never had a clue.


    Sorry, in what way? In that LM was living nearby?

    I read somewhere that LM had access to an illegal quarry where he could dump perfectly fine cars. Not sure how true that is.


    I must say I do feel for the survivor, having all this in the news again mustn't be easy.


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