Podcast Corner: Digging deep into the case of a missing Icelander in Ireland
Members of Jón Jónsson family, sister Anna and brother David appeal for information. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins
There’s a shocking claim made during the third episode of Where Is Jón, the latest series from the RTÉ Documentary on One team. Iceland’s chief superintendent says: “In this we need to be of course very diplomatic… In Iceland we have very short distance to decision making. We can make quite a big decision very quickly. Ireland is small, it’s more bureaucratic, they are not as quick. We maybe would have acted differently quicker than they.”
He’s talking about the Garda investigation into the disappearance of Icelander Jón Jónsson in Dublin in February 2019. The Garda’s first missing persons alert was not made until more than 48 hours after Jónsson had gone missing from the Bonnington Hotel, formerly the Regency - the location of a gangland shooting in 2016 - where he was attending a poker tournament. Those 48 hours, as we hear repeatedly during the series, are crucial in such a search.
The family say they didn’t feel a sense of urgency from the gardaí. “Slowly you see, OK nothing’s going to happen,” says his brother. Some four days after the disappearance, the family undertake their own search and rescue operation, walking the city. The Garda didn’t take a formal statement from Jónsson’s partner, also a poker player who was due to fly home with him after 10 days in Ireland, until that flight came and went without him onboard.
“They just believed that he would come back,” says Kristjana. His sister adds: “So I think the initial days, the first days after, is where they messed up the most.” The family spoke about the case, appealing for information, on the Late Late Show, the incident appeared on Crime Call, and their search widened to include members of the public from Ireland and Iceland. Their sense of anger at the Garda probe is palpable throughout the third episode of the series in particular.
Where Is Jón is the latest in the sterling line of RTÉ Documentary on One’s podcast series, following The Real Carrie Jade and Runaway Joe in 2024. RTÉ have partnered with Icelandic national broadcaster Rúv to tell the story - and like those series, it is stressed that this is a ‘live’ investigation; members of the public are urged to contact the producers if they have any information relating to the disappearance of Jónsson.
Recorded in Ireland and Iceland over the last 18 months, the series talks to Jónsson’s children, parents, and siblings as well as the man he was sitting beside as he was drinking and losing money - a lot of it - while playing poker late into the night before he went missing. Where is Jón co-producer, writer, and narrator Liam O’Brien says: “We’re all really hoping the podcast can bring some forward momentum to Jón’s case and answer some questions. The ultimate goal is to help bring him home.”
