'I know I will be with Fiona someday and I will get the answers': A mother's years of heartbreak

A Garda search for Fiona Pender in a forest area off Cut Road north of the village of Clonaslee, Co Laois, last week. Picture: Padraig O'Reilly

For the first time in more than a decade, gardaí have carried out a series of searches for the remains of Fiona Pender. 

The murder of the heavily pregnant 25-year-old in August 1996 caused immeasurable anguish to her family, with her heartbroken father Seán taking his own life a number of years later, and her mother Josephine dying in 2017 without being able to bury her "blonde-haired girl".