Gardaí have begun a fresh search for missing Offaly woman Fiona Pender on woodland at Capard, Rosenall is in Co Laois, a briefing in Portlaoise has been told.
Ms Pender (25) went missing from her flat at Church Street in Tullamore in August 1996. The hairdresser and part-time model was seven months pregnant at the time of her disappearance.
Chief Superintendent John Scanlan said the intelligence led search was taking place because “we have a line of enquiry, it takes us to this area.”
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He said “we have a primary objective of recovering Fiona and a secondary objective of a criminal investigation.”
“We are not doing it as a speculative thing or to create an event for today, this is something that is being done because we have developed a line of intelligence or information that needs to be pursued to its end,” he said.
Gardaí cordoned off the picturesque site at Capard in the Slieve Blooms on Thursday night. A number of gardai began a painstaking search of 200 metre sq area on Friday morning.
The search area is located on the quiet rural Green Road to Glenbarrow Waterfall from Rosenallis. A Garda Command and Control Unit and several Garda Vans were parked at the lay-by beside the wooded area. The site is a number of kilometres from a previous 2008 search for Fiona Pender in the Slieve Blooms and around 18 km from Tullamore.
Chief Supt Scanlan said “this will be a forensic search going from the least intrusive to an intrusive search. We will be employing the services of our own specially trained people who are trained in searching for cold case persons who have been missing for substantial periods of time. We will also bring in forensic archaeologists, cadaver dogs and others to search this specific area of approximately 200 metres.”
While the search area is 200 metres in size, Chief Supt Scanlan said it could be extended if needed. It is estimated that the search will continue for at least two weeks but no limit has been set.
Chief Supt Scanlan said the Pender family is anxious to have her home so that they can give her a Christian burial. “Fiona Pender’s family are hopeful and they always retain a hope that someday they will have the opportunity to get Fiona back. We have to be sensitive to their needs,” he remarked.
Acknowledging gardaí believed Fiona was murdered, Chief Supt Scanlan pointed out that over the course of the 18-year investigation five people had been arrested on suspicion of her murder.
He would not be drawn on the specific source of the information which led to this latest search but said, “our enquiries are both international and local and I don’t wish to confirm any source of information.”
Returning to the search, he said, “at some stages there will be as many as 20(gardaí) and at some stages there will be outside expertise as well and other resources we need to bring to the site. The clandestine grave search team are specifically attached to the Garda Technical Bureau, they will be supported by the State pathologist and other expertise in historic searches for human remains and equally there are other resources that we don’t retain within the Garda Siochana.”
He appealed to anyone who might have information regarding Fiona’s disappearance. “One would hope that there are people out there who have information who may have been more vulnerable in their status at the time and have now moved on with their lives and know something that they should tell us. That’s what we are hoping for,” he said.
Chief Supt Scanlan said “people must know things from time to time that they otherwise would not have been in a position to share with the world at that time, that they may be now and they should. Whatever way or means that they need to get this to us, I can assure them that it will be received in confidence.”
Tullamore Garda Inspector Kieran Keyes told the briefing that Fiona’s memory lived on in Tullamore. He said “her photograph still hangs in Clarke’s unisex hair salon in William Street. The community regularly remember her at meetings and events.”
Anyone with information in relation to Fiona’s disappearance can contact the Gardai in Tullamore on 057-9327600 or at the Garda Confidential Line on 1800666 111.