Skip to main content

MISSING OR MURDERED? DEAN ROCHE CASE - Radio Espial EP48


On Sunday, March 22nd, 2015, 31-year-old Dean Roche set out from his home at Hebron Park, County Kilkenny, Ireland by taxi to travel to Ballyfoyle, a journey north through the county of about 20 mins plus. Dean Roche had travelled there to purchase a cheap car he had spotted for sale on social media.

He reached the car seller’s private property and after about an hour completed the sale and received the car logbook. After leaving the seller, he crashed the car a short distance away and headed back on foot in the direction he had come.

The events of the rest of that evening remain clouded in mystery as to what did and what specifically occurred. What is certain is that several incidents of trespassing and attempted house burglary were reported to local gardai that night, and an incident of a car stolen from the premises of a resident.

Dean Roche was reported by witnesses to have been in the general Ballyfoyle area that night after 9 pm. Later, a woollen Manchester United hat and a pair of runners (sneakers) were found in searched fields. It has never been established if the runners belonged to Dean. Dean Roche was formally reported missing by his family two days later when he still had not returned home to Hebron Park.

Despite extensive searches of the area over the next three years by skilled members of the gardai forces aided by search and rescue teams, as well as the army, also private searches by his family and friends, Dean was never found.

Nine years have passed and the case remains shrouded in limited information released by gardai and consistent local rumours and innuendo. The mystery of what happened to Dean Roche on March 22nd, 2015 lie embedded in the Ballyfoyle locale he visited that evening.

This is one of the most complex and bizarre cases Radio Espial has every covered with a Timeline Analysis. The timeline will be short for a reason. We want to keep basic facts, and while respecting the views of family members—we must try to decipher what was most probable and what was least likely to have happened.

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Radio Espial: Episode 23: Missing - The Annie McCarrick Case

Annie Bridget McCarrick (born March 27th, 1966), an American woman from Long Island, New York, went missing under suspicious circumstances in 1993 while she was residing in Ireland. Radio Espial's Mick Rooney explores the timeline and events surrounding her disappearance. McCarrick was born on Long Island, New York and she grew up and lived in Bayport until her move to Ireland in January 1987, aged 19, to study at St Patrick’s College for Teacher Training in Drumcondra. She later switched colleges and instead decided to study Irish Literature at Maynooth University for three years. For two years she was in a relationship with Dermot Ryan, a period when Annie was renting and sharing a small cottage with a female friend in Ballyboden, Dublin. In 1990, she returned to New York and after a four-month period, the relationship with Ryan petered out. He returned to Ireland and later decided to move to Italy. Annie instead remained in New York and spent two years in the US studying for a m...

MOSS MOORE: The Unsolved Irish Murder COLD CASE

Dan Foley and Maurice ‘Moss’ Moore were neighbours and friends in Reamore, about 26 kilometres from Listowel Town, County Kerry, Ireland. Moore was 12 years younger, a bachelor living alone with two dogs for company; Foley lived with his wife and her brother. Their houses were separated by just 90 metres. As farmers with small holdings in a tight-knit community, they worked together cutting turf and harvesting hay. The pair would meet daily at the local creamery and also played cards with each other in the evenings with other friends. Dan Foley worried his cattle were wandering away from his house towards the bog, and concerned about welfare of his livestock on such ground, he put down a boundary fence along the sliver of land between his land and Moore’s. However, Moore felt the fence was encroaching on his land so he decided to moved it. Foley, likewise, moved it straight back to where he had first placed it. Moore eventually took a court action so the fence would be moved back indef...

ÁINE SPEAKS OUT: MARIE KILMARTIN CASE UPDATE - Radio Espial EP50

Since we recorded our original Timeline on the Marie Kilmartin case, we have been in contact with her daughter Áine once again and would like to bring you the following update that sheds a great deal more background on the case. However, we felt the information provided stretched far beyond just a short few minutes of update. So much, that we have decided on an unplanned Radio Espial Episode 50. I want to state that what follows is not one of our normal case Timelines and Analysis. It is testimony and an account of the tireless work and research Áine has carried out into her mother’s initial disappearance in 1993, the later discover of her body at Pim’s Lane, a bogland, six months later. Marie Kilmartin’s case is classified as a murder case by An Garda Siochana and included a series of arrests between 1994 and 2008. No one has yet been charged with her murder as of 2024. Following our broadcast of the Marie Kilmartin Case Timeline, Áine, her daughter posted a very lengthy comment on th...