A SEARCH of a pet cemetery above Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, for the body of the missing American student, Ms Annie McCarrick, was called off last night and is to resume today.
Gardai are understood to have been following up a report that tied in with other information gathered from inquiries made after Ms McCarrick disappeared in March 1993.
Ms McCarrick, from Blue Point, New York, is believed to have been murdered and there are suspicions that her body may have been buried somewhere in the Dublin or Wicklow Mountains.
It is understood that the reports that prompted the Garda search of the pet cemetery dated from the early stages of the investigation, which has come under a recent review.
The information the gardai received concerned a large box, possibly constructed from chip board, being transported in the Enniskerry area at the time of the student's disappearance.
This report, it is understood, was crosschecked with another report referring to burials in the pet cemetery, which is about a mile above Enniskerry on the road to Glencullen.
It is believed that on the night she disappeared, Ms McCarrick, who was 26 and was working part time in a restaurant in Dublin, had gone to Enniskerry and may have walked to Johnny Fox's pub in Glencullen.
Gardai visited the pet cemetery, in a field above a garden centre, and decided to carry out a dig. The pets' graves are in lines and are mostly covered with loose soil. It is believed the gardai are excavating an area where a trench would have been opened for the burial of pets at about the time of the disappearance.
Ms McCarrick regularly walked in the Wicklow mountains around Enniskerry. She was seen walking a number of times and was known at Johnny Fox's pub in Glencullen. In her curriculum vitae she described strand and hill walking, as her most savoured activities.
The Garda investigation into her disappearance became one of the most extensive missing persons cases in the history of the State after the US Vice President wrote to the then Taoiseach, Mr Reynolds, on behalf of her family. Gardai rejected and resented public accusations that they had not done enough to find her.
A number of erroneous reports soon after her disappearance suggested that she had been seen in the south east or midlands. Gardai say there was no conclusive evidence that she was killed in the Enniskerry area.
The search centred on two locations - around her flat in Sandymount and in the Enniskerry, Glencullen area. Gardai carried out searches of roadside ditches, forest, lakes and bogland in the Wicklow Mountains after reports that she had been in Johnny' Fox's on the night she disappeared.
Around 200 statements were taken and hundreds of leads followed up. The case attracted a considerable amount of attention and gardai received hundreds of reports and leads which were all followed up.