A search for the remains of missing Offaly woman Fiona Pender resumed in the Slieve Bloom mountains today.
Ms Pender (25) went missing on the morning of August 23rd, 1996. A part-time model and hairdresser, she was last seen at the apartment where she lived with her partner at Church Street, Tullamore, Co Offaly,
A Garda statement said gardaí in the Laois-Offaly division returned to a site at Monicknew Wood, between Mountrath and Clonaslee, this morning.
"This morning's operation involves further soil testing, utilising soil analysts from An Garda Siochána and the Irish Defence Forces, and further excavation of the site, if required."
The Garda Technical Bureau, which carries out forensic examinations of crime scenes, and the Garda Dog Unit also joined the search.
An excavation of a remote site on the Laois-Offaly border began in May after a cross bearing Ms Pender's name was found in a picnic area near Mountrath. The excavation ended without finding any trace of her remains.
The crude wooden cross, measuring about 0.76m (2.5ft) high and bearing the words "Fiona Pender RIP", was found by walkers in the Monicknew woods, in the parish of Camross, by the Slieve Bloom mountains.
Officially the case has remained a missing person's inquiry but since her disappearance no evidence has emerged to suggest she is still alive. Ms Pender 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.
Superintendent Kevin Donohoe today made a fresh appeal for anyone with information on Ms Pender’s disappearance to come forward.
"Fiona Pender didn't disappear on her own," he said. "There are people who know the facts in respect of it, who obviously haven't given us full stories or indeed any stories. For whatever reason that they couldn't do before now, to come and talk to us now."
In 1999 Ms Pender's case was included in a major new Garda inquiry, Operation Trace, which was set up to investigate any links between her disappearance and the cases of other women who went missing in the Leinster area in the 1990s. That operation has never been formally closed but no link between any of the cases was ever found.
They included: Annie McCarrick, the American student last seen at Johnny Fox's pub in Glencullen, Co Wicklow, in March 1993; Josephine Dullard, who went missing after phoning a friend from Moone, Co Kildare, in November 1995; Ciara Breen, who disappeared from her Dundalk home in February 1997; Fiona Sinnott, who went missing from Bridgetown, Co Wexford, in February, 1998; and Deirdre Jacob was last seen on July 28th, 1998, outside Newbridge, Co Kildare.