Search ends for now at site linked to missing women 

The scene at an area of open ground in Co Wicklow, near the border with Co Kildare, where Gardai investigating the murders of Jo Jo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob in the 1990s are conducting a search. Picture date: Thursday February 19, 2026. PA Photo. Josephine "Jo Jo" Dullard went missing on November 9 1995 while on her way home to Callan in Co Kilkenny from Bruxelles bar in Dublin. 18-year-old Deirdre Jacob was last seen near her home at Roseberry, Newbridge in Co Kildare on July 28 1998. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Gardaí investigating the separate disappearances and murders of Jo Jo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob have concluded the current search phase at a location near the Wicklow/Kildare border.

The location is an old quarry outside the town of Dunlavin, which is just inside the Co Wicklow border, adjacent to Co Kildare.

The latest information - which prompted the search - was received from an anonymous source by the Garda Serious Crime Review Team (SCRT), which is leading the investigation into the disappearance and murder of Ms Dullard.

A spokesperson said: “An Garda Síochána has provided an update to the families of Jo Jo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob in relation to this phase of the search, and they have been fully apprised of these developments.

“An Garda Síochána also acknowledges the ongoing cooperation and support of the landowner.” 

The family of Jo Jo Dullard appealed amidst the search to anyone with information about her case to come forward.

They urged anyone with information "no matter how small" to come forward.

The 21-year-old was last heard from when she made a phone call to her friend, Mary Cullinan, from a phone box in Moone, Co Kildare, at 11.37pm on November 9, 1995.

She was on her way home from Dublin, where she had enjoyed socialising in Bruxelles Bar, Harry Street, Dublin 2.

She had left home in Callan at 8.30am that morning and had hoped to get a bus back home to Kilkenny that night, but missed it.

She managed to get another lift to Moone, Co Kildare, at around 11.15pm, from where she made the last phone call to Mary Cullinan.

She cut the phone call short and told Mary that a car had stopped, and she was going to take the lift.

No further sighting was made of Jo Jo after that.

Gardai have been searching a location between Dunlavin and Baltinglass in Wicklow since last Monday and are using an excavator in the operation aimed at locating the missing women.

Both are the subject of murder investigations.

Deirdre Jacob disappeared from near the front gates of her parents’ home in Roseberry, Newbridge, Co Kildare on the afternoon of July 28 1998.

She was 18 at the time.

Separate information in relation to this site is thought to have been provided some 10 years ago, but no search has been carried out on it until now. That information claimed that Larry Murphy, a convicted rapist and key suspect for the murder of Ms Jacob, used to go to the sand pit and that he may have buried vehicles there.

Murphy, who was living in Baltinglass at the time, travelled a lot around Wicklow and Kildare working as a carpenter.

Murphy was released from jail in 2010, after he served 10 years for the kidnapping, rape and attempted murder of a woman in the Wicklow mountains in 2001. Only for he was disturbed during the attack, gardaí suspect Murphy would have killed the woman and buried her remains.