Missing women: Cabin search ends

GARDAÍ investigating the crimes of convicted rapist Larry Murphy have found nothing of value from their search of a hunter’s cabin near his former home in west Wicklow.

The two-day search at Kilranelagh ended last night, as separate searches began less than 10 miles away in Manor Kilbride.

The search at the lodge followed a report by a criminologist who believed it could have been used by Murphy, had he succeeded in his attempt to kill a woman near there 12 years ago.

In February 2000, Murphy, from Baltinglass, Co Wicklow, abducted a young woman in Co Carlow and drove her to the Wicklow mountains, where he repeatedly raped her. Murphy had bundled her into the boot of his car and was intending to kill her when two hunters came across him and saved the woman’s life.

He was convicted of rape and attempted murder and served 10-and-a- half years of a 15-year sentence. He was released in August 2010.

Gardaí had always suspected Murphy had a remote location where he had intended to bring his victim and bury her. The cabin is just 800 metres from where he carried out the rape and about four miles from his home.

Murphy has in the past been questioned by Gardaí in relation to Jo Jo Dullard, Deirdre Jacob and Annie McCarrick — three of six women who went missing in Leinster between 1993 and 1998.

A Garda source said the search was routine. “We do a lot of searches you never hear about. They are low-key and there will be searches in the future.”