Criminology - Ireland's Vanishing Triangle

Episode Date: January 4, 2020

For this first episode of 2020, we're headed to Ireland to talk about an area around Dublin that has been called The Vanishing Triangle. Between 1993 and 1998, eight young women disappeared in this area. The police investigation resulted in a number of possible suspects but to date, none of the women have been found and no one has been held responsible. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Ireland's Vanishing Triangle. Are these cases connected? Some people believe they are but many do not. In a couple of the disappearances, there are persons of interest that were known to the victims. There is one thing that is not in doubt. Eight families are still grieving for their loved ones and continue to search for answers. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology   An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Work comes in many forms. Commonwealth Charter Academy works to perfect K to 12 virtual learning and in-person experiences. To us, it's all in a day's work. CCA, how schools should work. Visit cca educate.me. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 93 of criminology.

I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how are you? I'm doing good. How's your new year going so far? So far, so good. The holidays were good. How about yours? Good. Nothing to complain about. So that's always good. Nothing to complain about. No, everything was really good. It was really nice for us to have last week off to spend with family.

You know, we just haven't had that much this year. So it was nice. Yeah, going 50-something episodes a year without a break, sort of you need that down. time. Yeah, recharge. And then you and I talked about it before we started the episode, right? Feel a little refreshed, recharge, ready for a very, very good 2020. I'm still struggling with that. I have a problem with saying 2020 because it sounds like the television show. I can't believe it's 2000. I was telling my wife the other day that it's been 20 years since Y2K. And I know you remember that you and I are similar ages 20 years. I'm still wondering how long it's going to take me to start writing 2020 on all my paperwork and checks that I fell out. Yeah, that kind of happens every year,

right, where you just automatically go back to 2019. There'll be some checks that are just ripped up throughout the world, a lot of them. Definitely. All right, buddy. So we had some new Patreon supporters. So let's go ahead and give our shoutouts. We had Denise de la Valle. Melanie Smith, Shannon Victoria Moise, Ida Nirmie, and Danielle Hawk. So a lot of great new support. We really appreciate that. Yeah. Thanks so much for that support, old support and new support. It really helps us. And if anyone out there listening would like to help support criminology on Patreon, they can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, Morph. So speaking of 2019, one of the things that you and I talk,

talked about was wanting to get outside of the USA and North America a little bit more. We've done a lot of cases in the United States. We've done a large number of cases in Canada as well. In our Halloween episode, we covered a case in Germany. But outside of that, we haven't ventured too far outside of North America. And that's something that you and I have wanted to do. So in this episode, we're heading to Ireland. And it was there. And it was there between 1993 and 1998 that eight young women disappeared within an area that spans out from Dublin, Ireland, that's been dubbed the Vanishing Triangle. The Vanishing Triangle itself is a geographical triangle that stretches from Wexford in the

south to Laoth in the north and awfully in the west. The bodies of these eight women have never been found. A lack of surveillance cameras back then made it hard to track some. of the women's whereabouts on the days they disappeared. When these eight women started to vanish, the people who resided in the triangle feared a serial killer was walking their streets, and police haven't ruled that out. But many believe it's possible there was more than one killer, and that only a few of the cases are actually related to one another. There have been several suspects over the years, but no one has ever been charged in any of the disappear.

The first woman to disappear was 26-year-old American Annie Bridget McKearrett. She was born on March 21, 1966 in Long Island, New York to John and Nancy McCarrick. In late March, 1993, Annie was attending college in Dublin and living with two female roommates in Sandy Mount, a residential suburb. Annie also worked a part-time job. While in Ireland, she wanted to learn more of. about her Irish roots. Prior to her disappearance, Annie was preparing for a visit from her mother Nancy. This was something that she was really looking forward to. Unfortunately, she disappeared before her mom ever left the United States. Early in the day on Friday, March 26, 1993,

Annie ran to the bank to a grocery store, and then later left to go do some walking in the town of Aniskerry, which is about 24 miles were 40 kilometers southeast of Dublin. Later that day, Annie was supposed to pick up her paycheck, but she never did. On Saturday, Annie didn't show up for work. Later that evening, friends of Annie has arrived at her home for a pre-arranged dinner party, but Annie wasn't there. Her roommates called her father, John McCarrick, in New York when she failed to show up. And more if I think you can call it a gut feeling, you can call it intuition, you can call it

whatever you like. But the minute John got the phone call, he knew something was wrong. Annie was really good at staying in touch with friends and family. She wasn't the type of person to just take off and she wasn't the type of person to not call. When she wasn't going to be able to make it, John and Nancy immediately made arrangements to get a flight to Ireland. The first flight they could get. When they arrived in Dublin, the McCarricks went to the Irish police. They also contacted a private investigator named Brian McCarthy.

who was recommended by officials at the U.S. Embassy to aid in the search for their daughter. And I think that tells you right away how concerned they were. Not only were they going to go to police, they had already contacted a private investigator pretty much as soon as they got to Ireland and they were right to because the resulting search for Annie would become one of the largest searches in. Ireland's history. Police were able to verify that there was a confirmed citing of Annie on bus number 44 at approximately 3.40 p.m. headed to Eniscarry from Renala. Authorities don't know if she actually arrived in Enis Carey, but they do believe her journey took her

beyond the town of Milltown, a 12-minute bus ride from Renola. There was a possible citing of Annie several hours later at 9 p.m. when she was spotted at Johnny Fox's pub in Glen Cullen, although the sighting was never confirmed. Witnesses there reported seeing a woman matching Annie's description with an unidentified man. Annie did not have a boyfriend at the time. A composite sketch of the man was distributed around Ireland with the hopes that someone might recognize the mystery man, or perhaps he himself might come forward with information. Although the sighting of Annie wasn't a confirmed sighting, authorities began an exhaustive search of the area surrounding Johnny Fox's pub, but nothing was found. The only CCTV footage authorities have of Annie on the day she vanished

was her at the bank. Despite the large search and investigation, Annie McCarrick was never found. And obviously the McCarricks were heartbroken, but they never wavered in their dedication in their search for Annie. And it was this dedication that generated respect and compassion from people all over Ireland, including some of the other victims' families. families from women that would later go missing. The McCarrick's were determined to find her daughter, and they were also determined to never give up hope, but the strain from losing Annie was too much on their marriage. John and Nancy divorced five years after Annie's disappearance. John later passed away on April 1st, 2009. Not long after Annie McCarrick vanished without a trace, another woman disappeared.

On July 25, 1993, 39-year-old Eva Brennan arrived at 2.30 p.m. at her parents' home on Rathdown Park in Terranur. Almost four miles were six kilometers from the center of Dublin City. She became annoyed when she saw there was a lamb roasting in the oven. It's unclear why that upset her, but she left the home in a huff and was never seen again. Authorities know that Eva returned back to her apartment because the jacket she was wearing when she went out was there. there was no evidence of foul play inside the residence, or that her apartment had been disturbed in any way.

Eva was described as 5'7-with-blue eyes, short brown hair, and a slim build. She was wearing a pink track suit with tight-fitting leggings and was carrying a red shoulder bag containing keys, along with personal items and documents. Additionally, she wore a man's gold watch with a leather strap. Eva was extremely close with her family. She wasn't dating anyone at the time, and most days of the week, she had lunch at her parents' home. She did spend a lot of time with friends as well. Eva suffered from depression at the time of her disappearance, but her family never believed

that she would take her own life. Shortly after Eva vanished, her sister Colette was quoted as telling the local media, let's put it this way. Eva didn't kill herself and bury herself never to be found. And more if you hear that quote from Eva's sister, it's pretty hard to argue with that logic. Most people that take their own life are found. Obviously, there are ways that a person could take their own life and never be found, but it's not common. Yeah, I think barring going to some far-up destination away from everybody and finding a secluded spot and taking your life there could ensure that.

but short of that, I agree with you. I think it would be hard to do. Yeah, the only other things that I was kind of thinking about were bodies of water. And even that, right, is not easy. It would take a lot of preparation to make sure that somebody was never found. But along with the fact that Eva's family doesn't believe she would harm herself, they also do not believe that she would just leave on her own. Like we mentioned, she was very close with her family.

She didn't have any reason to leave. Her family has pointed out that Eva was very careful to avoid putting herself at risk when she was out. And she always paid attention to her surroundings and the people around her. At first, the police didn't see a possible connection between Annie McCarrick's case and Eva's, even though they disappeared within months of one another. But they soon realized how similar Eva was to Anne. Annie. She was close to her family and frequently made contact. Both women lived in Dublin suburbs. And just like in Annie's case, police had no evidence regarding Eva's fate.

Initially, the Brennan family was unhappy with how police handled the investigation. But when more women started disappearing, investigators changed their approach, and the family became more satisfied with the direction they were heading in. The third woman to vanish was 22-year-old Imelda Keenan. There's not a ton of information out there about Amelda. But what we do know about her is that she was last seen on January 3rd, 1994, while walking on Lomarard Street in Waterford. This is a town just a little bit over 100 miles or about 170 kilometers south of Dublin.

Amelda was wearing leopard skin pants and a denim jacket. But there were no other sightings of her. and no one has ever come forward with any additional information. In 2009, Amelda's parents offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts. Despite the reward and efforts to find her, Amelda has never been found. On the 25th anniversary of her disappearance, police once again asked for people to come forward if they had any information about Amelda's disappearance, but nothing new can. came out. No new leads were developed. Amelda's case took a toll on her family. Her mother, Elizabeth,

passed away in 2008. Her brother Gerard is still actively searching for his sister, and he's haunted by the fact that he still doesn't have a clue what happened to her. Well over a year after Amelda vanished, a 21-year-old woman named Josephine Dullard, who was known as Jojo, disappeared. Joe Joe attended beauty school in Dublin, but lived with one of her sisters in a small town in Kilkenny County. On Thursday, November 9, 1995, Jojo met with some friends in Dublin, but was supposed to catch a bus to return home later that evening. She got sidetracked with her friends and missed the last bus from Dublin to Kilkenny. She did manage to catch a bus that took her as far as a town named Neese, and from there planned to hitchhike the rest of the way home. She never made it home. Although hitching was

once very popular here in the U.S. It's very much frowned upon now and with good reason. But in Ireland, Hitching still is one of the easiest and fastest ways to travel the Irish countryside. Many people still do so today. And it's legal in Ireland, except

on the highways. But just because it's legal doesn't mean that the person picking you up will be someone trustworthy. A man later came forward saying he had given Jojo a ride to Kilcullen. Now, this guy was never considered a suspect, he cooperated with police. Another driver said he dropped Jojo off at a phone

box in Moon. Police were able to piece together Jojo's next steps. She called one of her friends, a woman named Mary Cullinan, and told her that she would call her from her next stop. But right before Jojo hung up, she told Mary that a car was pulling up and she had to go. Jojo never made that call back to Mary and she's never been seen or heard from since. Jojo was raised by her older sisters. They worked tirelessly to try to find her and they often pressured the authorities to keep her case alive. And as it happens a lot of times, Morph, in these types of unsolved disappearance cases,

things between Jojo's family and the police were rocky. The family later accused police of a smear campaign against Jojo. Police claimed a witness they dubbed the 9-99 girl, came forward saying she had traveled with Jojo in a car with two men, as far as the town of Carlo. Before she got out at a set of traffic lights, Jojo continued riding in the car with the two men. Two years later, Jojo's family was preparing to erect a small stone monument

near the phone box and moon in Jojo's honor, when the 9-99 girl approached Jojo's sister, Mary Phelan, and told her that she had lied about everything. She said police told her to make the false claim. Mary believed the police did this to take the focus of the investigation out of the area where Jojo's body is believed to be buried. In the South Kildare Wicklow area, the monument wasn't erected that day, because when they started to dig the foundation, two council members showed up and stopped it. Eventually, the family was able to erect it in 19. So morph, this whole 999 girl thing to me is very interesting. The mere fact that police call this person, 999 girl, we don't know why.

That part's fascinating. And then you have Jojo's sister Mary Phelan making the claim that this girl approached her and said she made everything up, made her entire story up. Yeah, if this claim is true, you can understand. why her family would be so distrusting of police. Jojo's family did everything they could to get police to search the Kildare-Wicklow area. They contacted government officials to bring in the army, but a government minister replied, quote, where shall I send them to? Cork, we have to have a specific area.

So the family suggested the Wicklow Mountains, but the minister claimed the army men could get lost. because the area was too boggy, too wet, too muddy. Eventually, a search was sanctioned, but the Dullard family was not told about it beforehand. According to the Irish Mirror, the family has said that they would have objected to the search because the focus was on the wrong area. The family has insisted that farmland in Wicklow was given just a cursory glance. Mary Phelan, Jojo's sister, campaigned endlessly and vigorously for information and brought Jojo's case to the Irish government. She met many people, including Hillary Clinton and the FBI,

during a visit to the States. In March 2017, the family retained human rights experts from a Belfast firm called KRW Law to represent them an illegal challenge, to get a fresh look into Jojo's disappearance and the handling of the police investigation into the case. They also met with member of parliament, Lynn Boylan, who vowed to support their campaign. Boylan held that position from July 1st, 2014 to May 24, 2019. In late March 2017, Mary Phelan called for a major excavation at a Wicklow farm. She wanted police to dig underneath a cottage for Jojo's remains, but it's unclear. whether or not the dig actually took place. In April 2018, Mary Phelan passed away after a brief

illness. Then in 2019, it was revealed that a priest in Kilkenny received an anonymous letter. Friar Willie Purcell believes that this letter may contain crucial information on Jojo's disappearance. He told KCLR News that he was handed the note after an appeal to the report after an appeal for information in 2018 related to JoJo's disappearance. The letter reportedly stated that the author had some information

in relation to missing person cases. It didn't mention Jojo Dullard specifically. Whoever wrote the note outlined various circumstances and situations that they knew about, but morph again, this is one of those

mysterious things about this case, because it's pretty recent. And there really haven't been much in the way of updates on this letter. Or the police's investigation into it, whether or not they figured out who the author was. We really just don't know. Less than a year after Jojo Dullard's disappearance, 25-year-old Fiona Pender also vanished. Fiona left her apartment in Tullamor on August 23rd, 1996,

and was never seen again. She was seven months pregnant at the time. Her mother, Josephine, and brother John, last saw her two days before when they visited Fiona at her apartment. When they hadn't heard from Fiona after her... In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had

Once Been Impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. After a few days, Josephine called police. But police didn't search for Fiona for several days because, and we hear this in so many cases we cover, as an adult, she could go missing if she wanted to.

But her mother knew Fiona wouldn't leave on her own. This podcast is sponsored by Monarch Money. Are you saving to reach your financial? goals. Reaching those goals isn't just about getting more money, but by managing what you have. And the best way to manage your money? Monarch Money is a new kind of finance app that's intuitive, powerful, ad-free, and takes the headaches out of budgeting. Try it free when you go to Monarchmoney.com slash podcast. Monarch puts all your accounts, investments, transactions, and finances at your fingertips. With a complete view of your finances, you'll gain insights

on your spending and find new ways to save. Plus, Monarch lets you. customize your dashboard, collaborate with your partner, set custom budgets and goals, and track your progress toward them. See why Mint users are turning to Monarch Money and loving it, and why the Wall Street Journal named Monarch Money the best budgeting app overall. Get a 30-day free trial when you go to Monarchmoney.com slash podcast. That's M-O-N-A-R-C-H money.com slash podcast for your free trial. Monarchmoney.com slash podcast. Police did begin the search for Fiona after a few days, but they found no evidence regarding her disappearance. In December 2014, they conducted a search in a forest in Port Lois, but nothing was found.

And Morph, this is a family that had already experienced some tragedy. Before Fiona went missing, her brother Mark passed away. Fiona's family has talked with various news outlets about just how much they were looking forward to Fiona having her baby. This was going to be new life in the family. Fiona's father suffered greatly after the loss of his children and his grandchild. And in 2000, he took his own life. To this day, Fiona's remaining family and friends still wonder what happened to. to the mother to be. Several months after Fiona Pender disappeared, 17-year-old Sierra Breen vanished without a trace. Sierra and her mother, Bernadette, had talked into the early

hours of February 13, 1997, in their home at Bachelors Walk in Dundalk. This is a town about an hour's drive south of Dublin. After giving her mom a hugging kiss at night, Sarah went to bed. At around 2 a.m., Bernadette went into use the bathroom and looked into Sierra's room. She was surprised to find Sierra's bed empty. She checked the rest of the house, but Sierra wasn't there. But all of Sierra's money and belongings were. Bernadette immediately phoned the police. Police don't believe that Sierra was taken from her bed.

They believe that she left her home on her own to meet with someone. The latch on her bedroom window was open from the inside. Now, Bernadette believes that Sierra went out to front door, and left her window latch open so that she could get back in. And more of I think a lot of us, going back to our teenage days, can remember probably sneaking in and out of our homes at times that we weren't supposed to. So when you look at Bernadette's theory, it makes a lot of sense. An intensive investigation into Sierra's disappearance was conducted.

And many of her friends and acquaintances were questioned. but she was never found. It wouldn't be until 2014 that two different witnesses came forward, one in July and the other in November, to share potential sightings of Sierra. Detectives considered both sightings significant, but police didn't elaborate on these sightings. Shortly after these witnesses came forward,

police received two anonymous letters with information about the case. The authorities have never revealed the contents of the letters, saying only that the letters were interesting to them. and they wish to explore the content further with the author. They made a public appeal for the author to come forward, but he or she never did. And I do think this is one of those things that's frustrating in an unsolved case. You would love to know more about the possible sightings. You would love to know what was in these anonymous letters.

In a solved case, we would probably know all of those details. but here we just don't know. And I think one thing that's frustrating for the police is you've got these letters coming in and they make a public appeal saying, hey, we want to talk to you, we want to hear more. And then that person just vanishes, doesn't respond to them. So that must have been frustrating from their standpoint. I would say very frustrating. But also, what does it mean?

Right? You get two anonymous letters. Did police really think that whoever wrote them was just going to come. in and say, okay, I'm the author. Let's talk. They have to make the appeal. They would love nothing more than to talk with whoever wrote these letters. My thinking is that they were written anonymously for a reason, right? Whoever wrote them, depending on what's in the letters, doesn't want police to know who they are. So not a huge chance that they're just going to walk through the front door of the police station one day and say, okay, let's have that conversation.

In April 2015, a man in his 50s was arrested, but later released without charge in connection with Sierra's disappearance. Police didn't reveal his name. Later that same year in August and September, authorities searched in an area known as Balmer's Bog. This is a marshland just off R.D. Road in Dundalk. They did this after receiving a tip. They found nothing relating to Sierra's disappearance. What they did find were bomb components. So they had to be intrigued by that morph, just by itself.

But as it relates to the search for Sierra, nothing. Police do believe there are people in Dundalk who know what happened to Sierra Breen. Again, they have made public appeals for anyone to come forward with information, but no one ever has. In July of 2017, a 55-year-old man named Liam Mullen was arrested for suspicion of drinking and driving. Sometime before his arrest, he swallowed a substance believed to be some sort of drug. He fell ill at around 10 p.m. and died a short while later.

As it turned out, Liam was the man authorities arrested in 2015. Police confirmed that he had also been arrested in connection with Sears' disappearance in 1999, when he was 34 years old. At the time Sierra went missing, witnesses told authorities that she had snuck out of her house to meet Liam. He became the chief suspect in Sierra's disappearance and possible murder. Before Liam's death, Sierra's mom, Bernadette begged him to tell her where Sierra was buried. But Liam Mullin always maintained his innocence and claimed that he did not have a relationship with Sierra other than an occasional hello to her on the street. After Liam Mullen's death, police once again appealed to the

author of the letters to come forward. But no one ever did. A few months later, human remains were found at the back of a house on Mary Street north in Louth County. Police later confirmed that they did not belong to Sierra Breen. In late June 2018, Bernadette Breen passed away without ever finding out what happened to her daughter. And more of I think that is a refrain that we hear a lot of as well. In these unsolved cases that stretch out over many years, family members pass away. And especially parents who have spent countless years looking for their child, they die without ever knowing what happened.

That's heartbreaking. That's got to be an ordeal. to go through something like that for so long. The next woman to disappear was Fiona Sinnott, an independent 19-year-old and mother of an 11-month-old daughter named Emma. In 1997, she broke up with Emma's father, Sean Carroll, and by February 1998, her and Emma were living in a rental home, in Ballyhit, a small town in the southeastern corner of Wexford,

not far from the family's home in Bridgetown. This is about a two-hour drive south of Dublin. Fiona stayed in regular contact with her parents, Pat and Mary, and her four older siblings. But in 1998, not many people had cell phones like they do today, so sometimes a week would go by before she called her parents. On Sunday, February 8, 1998, Fiona went out with three female friends to a local pub called Butler's. This was only about a 20-minute walk from her home. The group had a good time. They sat around, they chatted, they'd, they'd,

joked. Fiona called one of her brothers from Butlers and asked him to come to the pub, but he turned her down because he had work to do. Fiona left Butler's just after closing time, and she planned to walk the short distance home. She never made it and has never been seen or heard from since. Fiona had a ritual. Every Friday, she met with her family for coffee in Wexford. When she failed to show up for two Fridays in a row, her family became extremely worried. Her father, Pat, called police on February 18, 1998. During the investigation, police learned that her ex-boyfriend and father of her child, Sean Carroll, was also at Butler's at the time Fiona and her friends were there

and had left her on the same time Fiona did. When police questioned him, he told them he had walked Fiona home and that when they arrived, she went straight to bed. She had complained about not feeling well, saying she had pain in her arm and upper body. Sean said he slept on the couch downstairs. At around 9 a.m. Monday morning, Sean went to check on Fiona in her bedroom.

She was awake, but said she was still in pain and planned to go to the doctor later that morning. He claimed she had no money and intended to hitchhike there. He gave her three pounds to go towards a cab, and then left when his mother arrived to pick him up. Sean and his mother drove back to their home in Codstown, where Emily was staying. Police began their investigation. They followed up on leads.

They interviewed people, but they kept running into dead end. They contacted Fiona's doctor and found out that she had never visited the doctor. On February 9th, like Sean said she was going to, there were just no sightings of Fiona at all. Police searched her home, but found no signs of. foul play. What they did find odd was that there was no clothing and there were no personal items indicating Fiona and her daughter had even been living there at all. And more if I think you can see why police would find that odd. I mean, you walk into anyone's home. Not too hard to find personal items, clothing, all sorts of things that show that they live there. To not find any of that

type of stuff? Very odd. Around that same time, a local farmer contacted authorities and told them that he had found some black trash bags on his land. But it doesn't appear as though this is what more if you and I would be used to as far as garbage bags. It seems like these were more like sacks that were reusable. So this farmer looked in the sacks. He was looking for, you know, some type of identification, and he found the name Fiona Senate on the bags with a previous address. But because the address didn't match what was reported in the missing person's appeals, the farmer dismissed the bags as being illegally dumped and he burned them. There was one strong line of inquiry that was followed up on. It involved an English truck driver who Fiona had met

at the Tusker House Hotel in Rossler on Friday, February 6th, 1998. The man said he and Fiona had spent the night together in the cab of his truck, and he caught the first ferry from Rossler the following morning. A male acquaintance of Fiona suggested to police that Fiona may have gone to England with the driver. Authorities tracked down the truck driver, and he agreed to meet with him. He admitted to spending the night with Fiona, but he was rolled out as a suspect when he was able to prove where he was when Fiona disappeared. No one really believed Fiona went to England because she would never have left Emma. Not to mention her older sister, Diane's 21st birthday party was scheduled for February 27th, and Fiona would never have missed it. In 2005,

Fiona Senate was legally declared dead. Later that year on September 16th, police arrested three men and three women in connection with Fiona's disappearance. The six people ranged in age between 30 and 60 years old. Police announced at a press conference that same morning that they were treating Fiona's case as a homicide investigation. But these six people were later released without ever being charged. By February 2017, detectives had conducted 459 inquiries and had taken 355 statements in Fiona. They also announced plans to forensically examine Fiona's home using modern DNA technology that wasn't around in 1998.

Documentary filmmaker, Shauna Keo, spent 18 months working with Fiona's family and the local community in Wexford. The TV documentary in missing Fiona Senate aired in April 2019. Shauna's work led to the discovery that Fiona had been the victim of physical abuse, up to six months into her pregnancy with Emma. Fiona's medical records were shown in the documentary. One document stated that she was bitten by someone known to her when she was six months pregnant.

The person's name was redacted. The abuse went back as far as 1994 when Fiona was 15 years old. In 1995, just after her 17th birthday, she was kicked and punched in her head. Police brought her to the hospital at 4.40 a.m. But she didn't want to give police a statement. She told them she would inform her family of what happened, but she never did. The family only learned of her abuse during the filming of the documentary.

Her abuser's name was never mentioned. Back in 2006, Sean Carroll was sentenced to three months in jail for threatening to kill another man. He appealed his sentence in 2007 and won. A judge gave him two years probation instead. During the summer of 2018, Fiona Senate's family announced that, they knew who killed Fiona, but they have never publicly named her killer. So I think a general thought morph is that the family most likely believes that Sean Carroll was

involved. They haven't said that. But it is interesting for them to make this big announcement that they know who killed Fiona, but to never publicly name that person. And maybe that's smart. on their part, right? They don't have the evidence, most likely, that would prove it. So how can they call someone a murderer? And it's not like Sean Carroll wouldn't be looked at or considered as a suspect, since he was so close to Fiona and the father of her child. As we all know, in these cases,

where there's disappearances or murders, the people closest to the victims are considered first. And I think most people will probably put together that Sean Carroll could possibly be the person who is thought to have abused Fiona, at least during her pregnancy. After all, he was the father of the baby. But we don't know that. Fiona's daughter is now 22 years old. Fiona's father, Pat, died in 2004. And her sister Caroline passed in June of 2017. The last known victim commonly linked to the vanishing triangle was 18-year-old Deirdre Jacob,

who disappeared in front of her family home in Newbridge on Tuesday, July 28, 1998. Newbridge is a town that's a 45-minute ride from Dublin to the southwest. Deirdre was last seen around 3 p.m. Earlier on the day that Deirdre had disappeared. She had walked from Newbridge's town center to her home in the Roseberry area of Newbridge. It took her about 25 minutes. Deirdre was home from college in London for the summer. On the day she vanished, she went to Allied Irish Bank on Main Street and got a bank draft. She mailed it from the post office across the street to a friend in London to secure housing for her second year of college. She also visited her grandmother in town. Deirdre was seen several times on CCTV. The last footage caught her as she passed by the Irish Parliament. Several witnesses, some who knew Deirdre, saw her while she was running errands.

Deirdre was last seen in her driveway around 3 p.m. by a passenger in a car. The person noticed Deirdre's distinctive black satchel bag with the word cat in large yellow capital letters on the front. That bag has never been found. After Deirdre had vanished, a task force called Operation Trace was formed by then police commissioner Pat Byrne. Jojo Dullard's family was instrumental in its creation for the first time since these disappearances began. Police now had one central place to gather the information from each case. New detectives were brought in to give the cases fresh eyes. In 2018, detectives said

Deirdre's case was now a murder investigation. They also revealed that they had digitally enhanced some of the CCTV footage from the day she disappeared. They hoped that it would bring new leads or progress to the case. It was after Diorger's disappearance when fears of a serial killer peaked. The victims were all young, attractive females, who vanished within the same geographical triangle, thus the naming of the vanishing triangle. Many of the women had a slight resemblance to each other or similar hair color. But not everyone is convinced. But not everyone is convinced. convinced that the disappearances are the work of a serial killer. Over the years, authorities have had several suspects. There are two men in particular who stand out the most. One of those suspects

is Larry Murphy. Around 8.30 p.m. on February 11, 2000, Murphy, who was then in his late 30s, abducted a 26-year-old woman after she closed her shop in Carlo and headed to her car in a secluded car park a few yards away. Murphy had been stalking this woman. The woman was carrying 700 pounds from the day's business in her bag. She saw Murphy, who appeared to be looking for something near her car. And as she opened the car door, Murphy suddenly came up behind her, trapping her between himself and the car. He demanded that she give him the money. Then he hit her hard in the face, breaking her nose. And she fell backwards into the car, dazed from this vicious blow. Murphy ordered the woman to move into the passenger seat and take off her brawl.

She complied with his demand. Murphy then tied her hands in order to take off her shoes, but she struggled to do it, so he unzipped them. He then shoved a gag into her mouth, drove across the road and part next to his car. He took the woman out of her car and forced her into the trunk of his. He then drove nine miles to a secluded spot. He stopped his car and forced the woman out of the trunk and put her in the passenger seat.

Murphy took off her clothes and raped the woman. When he was finished, Murphy told this woman that he would take her home. He also told her that he was married, even disclosing the name of his two young children. He dressed this woman, tied her hands with her bra, gagged her again, and put her back into the trunk. He drove towards his hometown, Balting Glass, in Wicklow County, part of the Vanishing Triangle, to an isolated area known as Beacons Town. Murphy knew the area well because he had hunting rights to about a thousand acres of farmland there.

Once he got his victim to the property, he raped her three more times. Then later, he tied her hands behind her back with her hair tie. after she complained that the other restraints had turned her hands blue. Murphy led his victim to the trunk, but as he did, the victim managed to free her hands. She found a spray canister as he opened the trunk. She grabbed the can and attempted to spray her attacker with its contents, but the release button was broken. Murphy overpowered the woman and placed a plastic bag over her head.

She struggled, and he pulled it tightly over her mouth. She began moving in and out of consciousness. Just then a set of headlights appeared and two men in a car approached them. This scared off Murphy and he got into his car and sped away. The victim managed to run toward a ditch. The two men eventually calmed the woman down and took her to the balt and glass police station. These two men that came to this woman's aide, they were locals who had been hunting foxes nearby. They recognized Larry Murphy from a previous incident in a pub.

And they told investigators just who it was that attacked a woman. And the very next day, Murphy was arrested and charged. He was later sentenced to 15 years in prison for the attack. What's interesting is that the vanishing triangle disappearances stopped after the imprisonment of Larry Murphy. Murphy's rape victim was the same age as Annie McCarrick. Police learned that he also lived. lived a few towns away from Jojo Duller.

And he was working as a carpenter near the area where Deirdre Jacob vanished. But police had no evidence tying him to any of the cases. And without evidence, under Irish law, detectives could not question him about the disappearances or any other crimes while he was in prison. Murphy was eventually released from prison in 2010, serving only. 10 years of his 15-year sentence, he spent several years in Spain, but is now believed to be living in Cork, Ireland today. The other suspect in the disappearances was Robert Howard, a. A.K.A. The Wolfman or the Werewolf. He received a life sentence in England for the 2001

rape and murder of 14-year-old Hannah Williams. According to reporter Jilly Beatty, He was reportedly connected in some way to Annie McCarrick in Jojo Dullard's cases, as well as other cases in Ireland and England. He was also from Laos County, where Amelda Keenan was from. Howard had a string of sexual convictions. His youngest victim was six years old, but he also raped a 58-year-old woman. While police have never said on record what their interest in Howard is, Beatty sources said clues linking him are his presence in the area, when the women vanished and his criminal history.

He passed away in prison in 2015. In 2014, former detective sergeant Alan Beatty wrote a book on the Vanishing Triangle and other unsolved crimes in Ireland. Alan spent 39 years working as a police officer retiring in 2011. He also spent 13 years as the national coordinator for Operation Trace while he was a detective. sergeant, the book titled Missing Presumed, suggested that a former provisional IRA member killed Annie McCarrick. Bailey claimed that a reliable source told him Annie met the man at Johnny Fox's pub and that the man gave her a fictional name, Manus Dunn. Dunn was part of an

active service unit at the time. It was staying at a safe house in Dublin. He was responsible for shootings and punishment beatings in Belfast. According to Bailey, Dunn went to Johnny Foxes where he met Annie. Dunn started bragging about his different exploits and started naming names and colleagues, realizing the enormity of what he had done. He knew he had to silence her. Bailey alleges that Dunn then offered Annie a ride, but drove her up to the mountains, where he killed her, and concealed the body behind some bushes. Dunn then drove back to the safe house and told his colleagues that he thought Annie was a spy. The following morning, two cars went out, one to take her body, the other two run interference

in case the police were following. They concealed Annie's body in the Wicklow Mountains. Later that year, Manus Dunn was moved to the U.S. after he sexually abused the child of another IRA member. Bailey said he learned about all of this. In 2009, 2010, after Operation Trace had slowed down in 2002. The book also discusses Larry Murphy's possible involvement in some of the disappearances, with the exception of Fiona Senate and Fiona Pender.

Each of those cases had a prime suspect, both of which were known to the victims. There just wasn't enough evidence to get a conviction in either case. It is believed that Murphy is a suspect in the disappearances of Annie McCarrick, Jojo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob. Almost 27 years after the disappearances began, the people of Ireland have not forgotten these young women or the country's other missing people. A national monument to the missing was created.

The Missing Irish People website states, The National Monument was unveiled on Sunday 26 May 2002 on the grounds of Kilkenny Castle. The sculpture was designed. by Anne Mulroney, each hand on this sculpture was cast from the actual hand of a relative of a missing person. The sculpture is set in a quiet part of the grounds where people can come and reflect. It was commissioned by the Jojo Dullard Memorial Trust and funded by the National Millennium Committee project. There's an inscription stone which records the unveiling with the words. This sculpture and

area of reflection is dedicated to all missing persons. May all relatives and friends who visit find continuing strength and hope. So morph, as we wrap up this case, there are a lot of questions that I have. First of all, it's a very mysterious baffling case. There's no doubt about that. And it's also a very tragic case. You have a large number of missing women, their families. You have all of that. But you also have the question, are these all related? And I think, you know, a lot of people believe that they're not. When you look at the case of Fiona Senate and the case of Fiona Pender, you know, just like Bailey says in his book, there was a very good prime suspect or what police thought to be a very good suspect that were known to the victims. I got the sense that,

police felt very strongly in those two cases. Then you look at a guy like Larry Murphy. Obviously, he did something horrible. He did his time. And you can make the argument, was it enough time? Whatever. You can always make that argument. But when you look at his history and circumstantially, the fact that he was in and around the areas where these women disappeared from, I think that's why a lot of people think he could possibly be involved. Add in the Robert Howard angle, obviously another very, very bad guy. But I think, you know, for me, that's what makes these cases so frustrating. It's like the police are on the cusp of figuring it out, right?

At certain points throughout the years, they like this person. They like that person. They've got just a little bit on each of them. them, but not enough to put them away or to prove that any of them were responsible in these disappearances. That frustrates me. I'm not saying it's the police's fault. It's a frustration that comes with these types of missing person cases. We've covered a lot of ground in all these different areas and different towns in Ireland that makes up this triangle. And you have to wonder how many bad men might be in that, in those areas. So there could be other people that we haven't talked about

as suspects that might be responsible for some of these women disappearing. Oh, absolutely. It could be somebody that we never talked about. But no doubt. It's a lot of tragedy in this area around Dublin. And hopefully one day these families will somehow receive answers and find out the truth about what happen to all these victims. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Thanks goes out to Debbie Buck at TruecrimeDiva.com for writing and research assistance in this episode. As always, if you haven't done so and you love the show, take a minute. Go out, give us a five-star rating. It goes a long way. And if you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast. And you can join our Facebook

discussion group, which is called Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. All right, Morf, that is it for our very first episode in the new year, 2020. It's going to be a good year, man. We have a lot of excellent episodes lined up. I think people will be very happy with some of the cases that we have lined up already for this year. So stay tuned. I'm ready to start this marathon again for 2020.

It's awesome. It's awesome, man. But that's it for this one. And we will be back with you next Saturday night with an all new episode of criminology. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.