Peer review being carried out into disappearance of Imelda Keenan
Imelda Keenan from Mountmellick, Co Laois, disappeared without trace from Waterford city where she had been living with her boyfriend.
The family of a woman missing from Waterford for over 30 years has been told that a peer review is being carried out into the disappearance.
Imelda Keenan’s family met with gardaí in recent days, during which they were told that there were no plans to upgrade the missing person’s investigation to a murder probe.
However, they were told that a peer review is taking place.
The last reported sighting of the 22-year-old was on Lombard Street in Waterford city at around 1.30pm on January 3, 1994.
She was unemployed and had been doing a computer course at the then Central Technical Institute at the time of her disappearance.
She had been living in a flat on William Street with her boyfriend, Mark Wall.
She took no belongings with her when she left the flat and her credit union account was left untouched.
Among the items she left behind were her glasses and her cigarettes, and unopened Christmas presents.
After she disappeared, searches of the river and local areas were conducted but there is still no indication of what happened to Imelda.
However, her family believes that a circle of friends which Imelda had at the time of her disappearance have not been spoken to by gardaí as part of the investigation.
They brought fresh information to gardaí late last year.
Her niece, Gina Kerry, said the family was very disappointed to be told that gardaí have no plan to upgrade their probe.
But she said: “We will let gardaí do what they have to do but we will keep doing what we are doing too.”
She said the family has set up a petition to seek the public’s help in pressing for a murder investigation.
Although the last reported sighting of Imelda was on January 3, 1994, her family wonder why unopened Christmas presents remained in the flat early in the new year, particularly as some were for nephews who lived in Waterford city, sons of her brother, Ned.
A plaque in honour of Imelda has been installed on a bridge over John’s River, near where she was last seen.
In 2009, the family offered a €10,000 reward for new information on the disappearance.
Last January, the family marked the 30th anniversary of her disappearance with a vigil in Waterford.
A garda spokesman said the case remains an “open and active Missing Persons” investigation and that meetings are engagements regularly take place with her family.
He added: “An Garda Síochána continues to appeal to any person with information on the disappearance of Imelda Keenan, who has not previously spoken with the investigation team, or who may have spoken but not provided all of the information that they possess for any particular reason, or who may, with the passage of time, now be in a position to provide information to An Garda Síochána to contact the investigation team at Waterford Garda Station, the Garda Confidential Line, or any Garda Station.”
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