Unsolved Irish Mysteries.

If you talking about Fiona Pender. She went missing in 1996. It would have been one of big missing women caes from the 1990's.

They've a walkway for her in Tullamore called Fionas Way. It's the same walkway Ashling Murphy was killed on.

It was Canada he was in , whether he's still there or not I don't know, but he's not married anymore, his wife had her own serious issues with him and was/is in fear for her own life.

There is some info about the suspect being in Canada in this article from 2014 in the Irish Independent

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/fiona-pender-suspect-misled-witness-about-burial-site/30865528.html

In August the suspect was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and charged with one count of sexual assault. Last month three further charges were brought against him in the same case.

Someone buried a body in the home and it took years before it was discovered!

Well in that particular case, the killer is "that" stupid!

Couldn't tell you about the long term car park issue, I suspect probably yes there was only one and it was probably not even close to full mostly. The cars in it would have been mostly Fords/Nissans/Toyotas with the odd Merc or BMW for the well-connected (friends and associates of Charlie Haughey or if not that at least people that wouldn't cross him). Very few people or companies had the resources to frequently fly in and out of the country even just to London. 1987 was I think peak year of unemployment, highest % ever in our history, plus high(ish) inflation and high taxes on even average income earners AND the price of flights high. Not a triple whammy but a quadruple whammy as regards disposable income. Small business owners that were staying afloat were mostly cheating on their taxes. The governments later bought in two tax amnesties. Aer Lingus were the monopoly operator and charged what they wanted. For those emigrating, and there were a lot, most were getting the ferry and then train from Holyhead to London and staying in a kip of a hostel at least initially. Or squatting. an Irish property developer who made good in London, I forget his name, it'll come to me, would help fellas out by making available flats he owned for very cheap or no rent initially. I read an interview with the comedian Steve Coogan and he was saying his dad, a IBM engineer who would have been on good money by the standards of the time, was doing similar in Manchester at the time, putting up recently arrived Irish emigrants in the family home for a short period.

AI OverviewLearn moreIt's impossible to give an exact flight price for Aer Lingus from Dublin to London in 1987. Flight costs fluctuate based on demand, time of booking, and other factors. However, we can estimate that a one-way Economy flight might have cost somewhere between $150-$300 in 1987 currency. 

As a doctor, i.e. essentially sole trader, without the benefit of the expense account of a senior executive in a large company, and large companies back then were minnows compared to now, I am not surprised he was in financial difficulties.

Anyway I'm rambling, did someone know he was coming off a flight at a certain time and intercept him on his walk to the Long Term Car Park? Let's assume there was no shuttle bus at the time, probably wouldn't have been a need for one if only one LTCP it would have been close to exiting airport one assumes.Threaten him at gun point using concealed weapon, make him drive to the hotel. Fantasy land stuff in 2025, in 1987 potentially plausible. Then some kind of discussion takes place and the doctor is invited into another car and conveyed somewhere else. Sure, David, bring the presents and medical bag with you, we just want to chat to you that's all, sort things out, you can collect your car later. How strange that as a smoker the pack of smokes and lighter were left behind, the presents and medical bag not. Yes, this was the 80s, plenty of doctors smoked back then. Odd detail that, as a nicotine addict myself in times of stress that's the first thing I'd be begging to hold onto.

Spot on. There never was a serial killer. Deirdre Jacob is literally the only one where you know who is possible perp. Now granted, you know who may have fitted the profile of a serial killer, so I can kind of understand why he was targetted by some elements in media and cops. People need to stop thinking of AGS as single entity, like the Borg, there may be and almost certainly are strong differences of opinion within the force and case teams on various cases.

There may have been a very cynical PR agenda to keep piling the pressure on Larry and hopefully he would crack, get him on Deirdre Jacob and then most of the public would think "we all know it was him that did in those other poor women too, fair play to the guards for putting manners on the b***d ". So it looks, to most citizens, like 7 or 8 cases are solved but it is only one. Makes the force look good and very few have the time, energy or inclination to research matters for themselves. Profoundly cynical of course, but that's the real world. Fortunately for the ethical and moral cops and unfortunately for the corrupt ones and their media lackies and toadies, the sick strategy hasn't worked out very well, has it.

Drew Harris is leading a reform agenda to shake some trees and rattle some cages and see what falls down and so far is doing a great job. I understand now why he insisted on keeping his personal driver and car from up north. Bit more protection and accidents less likely that way.

It can't be a coincidence that a lot of this stuff is being looked into again in recent years, in the full spotlight of media, and in the wake of the various scandals which forced the resignations of the then head of AGS along with Ireland's biggest Israel defender , and I'm no Unionist, I can assure you of that.

in the artivle the boyfriend is named. Is/was he also the suspect?

I always thought the Annie McCarrick case at the time didn't add up. I was perplexed as to why she would go to Quinnsworth and buy items for a dinner, some of them perishable I believe and just leave them in a bag on the table and go on a hike in the Dublin mountains. Nobody does that. I always thought at the time, that somebody called to the door after or just as she arrived back with the shopping. It seems to allude to my thought strand here in the Irish times:

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/people/2025/03/29/annie-mccarrick-murder-garda-cold-case-team-hope-new-timeline-will-lead-to-breakthrough/

In my view, a lot of Garda investigations carried out in the 1990s would have been by detectives who were 'schooled' by the likes of Gerry O'Carroll, John Courtney and others in the 70s and 80s. Not the best of training.

The issue of the CCTV from the Bank is concerning. I would have thought that transactions on her bank a/c would have been checked against the CCTV, particularly in branch where possible. If her bank a/c showed no 'in-branch' transactions on the Friday and the CCTV showed her in the branch on the Friday and, presumably, at the counter, to me that looks like an inconsistency that should have been spotted at the time and followed up.

Even back then the Bank's computers would surely have been recording, dates, times, amounts and related information.

The article is silent on why media didn't blow the whistle at the time regarding the blatant inconsistencies between the Garda narrative, based on eye witness from an honest source who just happened to be mistaken, and what her friends and family thought. Surely you'd think one of them would have reached out directly to Annie's family/friends? They will criticise the Guards - justifiably, in this case, for sure - but in relation to their own, circle the wagons.

It’s one thing to disapprove of a child’s partner, another thing entirely to engineer their disappearance. Allegedly.

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/crime/i-remember-the-posters-tullamore-community-recall-the-disppearance-as-new-search-for-fiona-pender-concludes-after-24-hours/a120349518.html

Search in Offally has concluded after 24 hours. Investigation was upgraded to murder yesterday. Gardai are issuing no statement for operational reasons. The search was expected to take a week. The tender family have bern updated regarding to An Gardai. Have they discovered the remains of a body? Hopefully a result for the families sake.

I do not think the Gardai every considered that Fiona Pender case was a serial murder case. They had there suspicions in a certain direction from the start. Deidre Jacob, Annie McCarrick and Jo Jo Dollard were the ones that were the ones aligned with that theory.

Without pointing in any direction, there were certainly a few cases of “disappeared” where persons known to the alleged victims were “known” as suspects - so again, no cause at all to generate a “disappearing triangle” - more like a triangle of unsolved Garda investigations.