Gardaí to start ‘significant’ search for Fiona Pender

Gardaí are preparing to start a "significant" search for missing Co Offaly woman Fiona Pender.

The search is due to begin tomorrow in the midlands and is expected to last for several days.

Garda sources said the development was the most significant in the case. Ms Pender was last seen alive in Tullamore where she lived almost 20 years ago.

She is presumed murdered and gardaí have always had a chief suspect in the case.

Her body has never been found and nobody has been charged with a criminal offence in relation to her disappearance. There have been a number of arrests over the years.

Recently a woman known to the chief suspect has supplied information which has led to the planned searches.

The new witness emerged during the investigation of a recent crime in another jurisdiction unrelated to Ms Pender’s disappearance and presumed murder.

The witness has made allegations to a police force abroad that a man known to her abroad subjected her to an assault in that country.

The man has since been charged with an offence.

Separately, he is a suspect for Ms Pender’s presumed murder. When the new witness made her allegations of assault to the police, she said information she had gleaned from the suspect over a period of time suggested to her he was involved in killing Ms Pender.

The foreign police force contacted the Garda, who sent a team to the other jurisdiction to interview the woman.

She explained to the gardaí­ why she believed the man was involved in Ms Pender’s murder.

She also suggested a specific location in the midlands, in Ireland, that she felt was significant in the case, perhaps because the remains were buried there.

Gardaí­ are satisfied the man against whom she has made the allegations was in Ireland at the time of Ms Pender’s disappearance and living in the midlands.

Ms Pender, a part-time model and hairdresser, was last seen at Church Street, Tullamore, Co Offaly, on the morning of August 23rd, 1996.

She was seven months’ pregnant at the time and had bought clothes for her baby. She had shown no signs of planning to leave the area.

Gardaí­ believe she was killed by somebody known to her and her remains hidden in order to conceal the crime.

There have been five arrests in the case, but no evidence has emerged on which to grounds criminal charges.