Missing by Barry Cummins

she was wearing have ever been found. There was no sign of a struggle along the roadside in Moone. Jo Jo Dullard’s lonely death is in total contrast to the warmth and
comfort of her extended family in Cos. Kildare and Kilkenny. In Co. Kildare her brother Tom and his family, including five of Jo Jo’s nieces and nephews, grieve for her. In Co. Kilkenny her
three sisters also grieve for their baby sister. Her sister Nora misses the little sister she nicknamed Jodie and often tells her other sisters that Jo Jo is with their Mam now and is safe. At the
Bergin home in Callan, Kathleen and Séamus showed me dozens of photographs of Jo Jo growing up: playing with her dog, Freeway, grinning with her three sisters on the porch, making her first
Holy Communion, lounging in a chair. This is where Jo Jo was safe; this is where she should be.
    Just up the road in Grange, Mary Phelan told me her special memory about the night Jo Jo went to her debs’ dance.
    I will never forget that night. Jo Jo had bought a lovely dress, and she was getting ready here. She had her hair all up in curls. I gave her a ring and a bracelet that had
     been given to me. I remember walking away from her for a moment and I looked back, and do you know, I’ll never forget how she looked. It was amazing: she looked just like Mum. I was
     looking at Mum. When Jo Jo was ready to head out she came and gave me a big hug, and she said to me, ‘I’ll never forget you for this.’
    On 26 May 2002 a National Monument for Missing People was unveiled in the grounds of Kilkenny Castle. The steel monument, featuring the hand-prints of members of the families of
missing people, is in a quiet part of the castle grounds, surrounded on three sides by flowers and bushes. A number of families did not attend the unveiling: they are not in a position to grieve
openly with others. But a large number of families did attend, including those of Jo Jo Dullard, Fiona Pender, Ciara Breen, and Fiona Sinnott. President Mary McAleese unveiled the monument and was
escorted around to meet the families by Mary Phelan. As Jo Jo’s sister made a speech thanking everyone who had made the day special, she broke down. Mary Phelan has been at the forefront of
the tireless campaign for the monument and the establishment of a Missing Persons Day. But she, and all Jo Jo Dullard’s family, would dearly love one thing: to have Jo Jo’s remains
returned to them.
    Mary Phelan also firmly believes that the person who murdered her sister will kill again.
     
    The person who killed Jo Jo will definitely strike again. Give him time and he will. This person has got to be caught and brought in. This person has to be caught to save the life of whoever
     the next victim is. And we have to find Jo Jo to put her with Mum and Dad. They’re buried together in Kilkenny city, and that’s where Jo Jo should be resting. We have to give her a
     Christian burial.

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Fiona Pender

    F iona Pender, a 25-year-old model and hairdresser, was seven months pregnant when she was abducted and murdered in August 1996. Her killer also set
in train a series of events that, four years later, would end in Fiona’s father taking his own life.
    The Pender family, from Connolly Park, Tullamore, has suffered unimaginable pain. Before Fiona’s abduction and murder they had already lost a loved one. Fiona’s younger brother Mark
was killed in June 1995 when his motorbike hit a lorry near Killeigh, just south of Tullamore. Today the surviving members of the family are Fiona’s mother, Josephine, and her other younger
brother, John. Josephine believes she knows the identity of the person who may have murdered her daughter.
    Josephine Pender does not believe that Fiona was the victim of a serial killer, a view shared by many of the gardaí who worked on the case. In April 1997 three women and two men were
arrested and questioned. All five were released without charge twelve hours later. The last person known to have seen