Authors: Barry Cummins
Missing (9 page)
In June 1997, arising out of crossed wires and inexperience, it was reported that the body of Jo Jo Dullard had been found in the River Shannon. These untrue reports were broadcast only once on
radio before being dropped, but they caused distress and confusion to Jo Jo’s family and the community. The mistake arose after a body was discovered in the Shannon at Bush Island, near
Ennis. The body, which was later identified as that of a man who had gone missing in the west, could not be identified for a number of days. An initial examination suggested that a pair of Wrangler
jeans and trainers might offer a good indication of the identity of the person. One senior garda told another that it could be Jo Jo Dullard, and as the information was passed on, somebody wrongly
picked up the idea that it actually was her, and this was reported on radio. One broadcaster who read the misleading report later sent a letter of apology to Jo Jo Dullard’s family.
In the weeks immediately after Jo Jo Dullard’s disappearance the Gardaí had to sift through thousands of questionnaires and investigate hundreds of reported sightings. One senior
garda says the search for the missing woman was extensive.
A Garda sub-aqua team searched thirty-six miles of the River Barrow, which is just a few miles west of Castledermot and Moone. All the roads from Moone to Carlow were
searched inch by inch for clues. Woodland and forests were searched. For twelve months, forest, woods and bogs were searched every weekend. Over two thousand witness statements were taken, and
detectives made inquiries as far as America and Australia. This investigation is very much still open.
Shortly after Jo Jo Dullard’s disappearance, the Gardaí established one particular line of inquiry that they first thought might lead them to her. Gardaí in
Kilkenny remembered that the night after her disappearance, and before the alarm was raised, two English men had been arrested for breaking into a phone box in the town, apparently looking for
money. The two men were released, and they left the country. But detectives would later be alerted to the incident at Kilmacow, outside Waterford, where two men in a car with English number-plates
were seen in the company of a woman who was barefoot and in obvious distress. They tracked the men down to Portsmouth. At first neither man could account for his movements. One detective told me
that the Gardaí thought they had two serious suspects.
These two men used to travel over by ferry from Fishguard to Rosslare and then travel around the country breaking into coin boxes in small villages. Although it was fairly
minor-scale crime, they could make up to seven or eight thousand pounds over a week, and then head home on the ferry. We finally caught up with these fellows, and they couldn’t tell us
where they had been on the night of Jo Jo’s disappearance. We took their car and we pulled it apart, checking it for any evidence of Jo Jo having been in it, or any crime having been
committed. We knew they had been travelling around the country and were involved in petty crime, and of course that can often be a precursor to much more serious, violent crime. For three
months we thought we might have our men, but then we found that they were effectively in the clear. We established that on the night Jo Jo disappeared they had checked in to a bed and breakfast
in Cork under the alias of Cunningham. An extensive check of phone records showed that they had actually called home to England at 12:20 a.m. on 10 November 1995. So these two could not have
been in Moone or Castledermot only half an hour before, and were not the two men seen bundling an unidentified woman into a car outside Waterford city later that night. They weren’t able
to clear themselves; it was actually gardaí who eventually established their alibi for them.
From the time Jo Jo Dullard was dropped off in Moone, and once she left the phone box only minutes later, a sinister mystery began. The closely knit community
in Moone has suffered in the knowledge that some person who drove through their village that night was a murderer, a person out looking for a woman to kill. It is a distressing thought for local
people, who know that the killer could very well have picked on any woman out on the road by the phone box that night.
A lasting memory to Jo Jo Dullard, in the form of a memorial stone, now lies by the phone box from where she told her friend Mary that she’d ‘just got a lift.’ However, the
installing of the stone was not an easy task. There were objections from some local people, who thought the village was being unfairly characterised in relation to Jo Jo Dullard’s
disappearance. Jo Jo’s family and friends decided to take matters into their own hands. One of those involved was John McGuinness TD, who campaigns in Dáil Éireann for more
action to be taken to find missing people. He described to me the covert operation that saw the memorial stone erected in Moone.
Mary and Martin Phelan came to me one day in 1998 and told me they wanted to put up some kind of memorial to Jo Jo in Moone. I had known them for about two years before,
since they first came and basically demanded that I do something to help find Jo Jo. One thing that we could at least do was put up a memorial in Moone. The vast majority of people in Moone
were supportive of the idea, but one or two people were not so keen. There was a real fear that there might be an objection if planning permission was sought. A memorial stone had been carved
in Co. Kerry and was brought up to my office in Kilkenny, and we decided we would erect it ourselves. At around five o’clock one morning, myself, my brother Declan, Martin Phelan and his
brother Gerard loaded the stone up into a jeep and we headed off for Moone with the cement mixed in the back. Before it was bright we had cemented the stone against the wall beside the phone
box. To this day, that memorial stone has not been touched. It is a fitting tribute to Jo Jo, which has been accepted by the people of Moone.
The memorial stone reads:
Jo Jo Dullard, missing since 9 November 1995. What happened to her? Where is Jo Jo now?
Local people, and motorists passing through the
village, often stop, lay flowers, and reflect on the enormity of the unexplained death of Jo Jo Dullard.
On 22 November 1998, Moone became the scene of the first Mass for missing people. Members of the families of many missing people attended the service at the Church of the Blessed Trinity. It was
an emotional evening, with many families who thought they suffered alone meeting other families who suffer the same loss. The Mass was organised by the Jo Jo Dullard Memorial Trust, which was set
up by Mary Phelan. In May 2002, in another landmark in Mary Phelan’s campaign for missing people, President Mary McAleese unveiled the National Monument to Missing People in the grounds of
Kilkenny Castle.
Martin Phelan has watched his wife campaign on behalf of her sister from the day Jo Jo was reported missing. He has supported her every step of the way. Sometimes he has taken matters into his
own hands. It was through his impassioned initiative that John McGuinness became a close associate of the Jo Jo Dullard Memorial Trust. It happened one day, about a year after Jo Jo’s
disappearance, when John McGuinness was Mayor of Kilkenny and Martin Phelan thought to himself, ‘Enough is enough.’ He marched into the mayor’s office and got McGuinness’s
undivided attention by standing up on a glass table. For fifteen precarious minutes he spoke frantically at McGuinness from the top of the table and told him why the people of Kilkenny and the
representatives of Kilkenny should be outraged that one of their own could go missing, be murdered and not be found. John McGuinness had heard enough. He committed himself to fighting for the
Phelans. This promise has culminated in a trip to the United States by John McGuinness and Mary and Martin Phelan as part of their campaign for the establishment of a specialist Missing Persons
Unit. They hope to learn from the FBI what types of investigative tools are available, be they psychological profiling techniques or advanced equipment that could aid the Gardaí by detecting
soil movements. Martin Phelan says that they have to keep fighting for Jo Jo, whatever way they can.
It’s just not right that someone can go missing like that and not be found. Irish people are going missing, are being murdered. And we have none of them solved. After
all, Ireland is only an island. More has to be done. We think a Missing Persons Unit has to be put in place, where young police officers know exactly what to do when someone goes missing, where
time isn’t wasted, where dogs and helicopters are sent out immediately.
Operation Trace examined a number of possible explanations for who may have murdered Jo Jo Dullard. One that is still being investigated is a report that two members of a
criminal gang from the south-east of the country were responsible. Despite searches in a number of locations in Leinster and Munster, nothing was found.
Another report from a member of the public led to a search of woodland near Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, in April 1999. A couple out collecting holly in November 1995 said they had seen two men and a
woman in the forest. The woman appeared to be unwell or under duress. The couple did not report the sighting at the time and forgot about it, but more recent publicity about missing women brought
it back to them. Detectives believed they might be on to something. The woodland is about fifteen miles from the reported sighting of two men and a distressed woman at Kilmacow on the night of Jo
Jo Dullard’s abduction. The witnesses were able to point out a specific area where they saw the two men and the distressed woman. However, an extensive search revealed nothing.
Nine people were arrested by the Gardaí investigating the disappearance of Jo Jo Dullard. A number of those were also questioned about other crimes in the Leinster area. Those arrested
included two men who were living in the Waterford area at the time of Jo Jo Dullard’s disappearance and who were living in the Co. Louth area when seventeen-year-old Ciara Breen disappeared
from her home in Dundalk in February 1997. No charges were brought, but a number of individuals are still suspects in relation to the abduction and murder of Jo Jo Dullard.
The Gardaí conducted an extensive trawl through Jo Jo Dullard’s life in an effort to establish whether the person who gave her a lift had, by fluke, actually known her. One line of
inquiry that was eventually ruled out as a coincidence was that Jo Jo was known to socialise in a particular pub where a now convicted murderer also drank. David Lawler is serving a life sentence
for the rape and murder of Marilyn Rynn, who he attacked as she walked home along an isolated pathway in Blanchardstown, Co. Dublin, in December 1995, just over a month after Jo Jo Dullard’s
disappearance. Lawler worked for Telecom Éireann as a van driver and would have had the opportunity to travel around the country alone. Detectives established that Lawlor and Jo Jo Dullard
had frequented the same pub. One detective told me that further investigations revealed that it was just a coincidence.
We established that David Lawler had never met with or spoken to Jo Jo in the pub. It was purely a coincidence that they drank in the same pub. They had been there at
different times. I suppose if Jo Jo disappeared in Dublin, close to or near her home, we would have been even more suspicious initially. But a receipt from an ATM machine put David Lawler in
Dublin that night, and he didn’t have access to a vehicle at that time. Certainly he was looked at purely because of his murderous activity only a month after Jo Jo’s disappearance,
and the fact they had been in the same pub fuelled our initial speculation, but Jo Jo’s abduction and murder was different from Marilyn Rynn’s. Jo Jo was standing on a lonely road
in Moone, miles and miles from Dublin and miles and miles from home. Whoever the killer is, it was a chance encounter.
On Christmas Day in 1995 Mary and Martin Phelan rose early. Despite the trauma of Jo Jo’s disappearance six weeks before, Santa had to arrive in some way for Imelda and
Melvin, then eight and five years old. The Phelans sat at the kitchen table and ate tea and toast. The four of them then put on their coats and went to meet Martin’s brother Gerard. They
travelled towards Moone, where they spent all day searching for Jo Jo. They continued searching hedges, drains and roadsides until it got dark, but they found nothing. Mary will never forget that
Christmas Day.
We set off early for Moone; we couldn’t just sit at home while Jo Jo was still out there. We started from the phone box once again and searched wherever we could. I
remember thinking as we searched the roadside that the man who is responsible for murdering my sister would be sitting down having his Christmas turkey, sitting with his family, maybe sitting
by a cosy fire. And here we were continuing to search for Jo Jo. It’s just not right.
Shortly after Jo Jo Dullard went missing, Mary and Kathleen searched her flat at Green Street, Callan. They found a list that Jo Jo had made of people she would be buying
Christmas presents for. There was her only brother, Tom, and his family in Kildare, and closer to home in Co. Kilkenny her sister Nora, her sister Kathleen and her family, and Mary and her family.
Then there were her many friends in Callan.
Kathleen Bergin told me of many fond memories she has of her little sister.
Jo Jo was sometimes a little tom-boy when she was growing up. She’d play in the fields and swim in the river; she’d climb trees, and play soccer. Then she became
a teenager, and she was into music. She loved George Michael, Michael Jackson and A-Ha and had posters of them all in her bedroom. Jo Jo loved animals, and she had a cocker spaniel; she called
him Freeway, after the dog in the TV show ‘Hart to Hart’. She got the dog just six months after Mam died, and she really loved him. When she grew up Jo Jo was still deciding what to
do with her life. She was only twenty-one when she disappeared. She was working in a restaurant and a pub. She said she might go back to the beautician’s course some day, but she was also
talking about being an air stewardess. She had so much ahead of her.