This episode is the first in a series about Ireland's so-called Vanishing Triangle of missing women. This part specifically deals with the media and reported misinformation on the cases and provides an introduction into the following parts of the Radio Espial mini-series. Misinformation, be it mainstream media, social media or simple casual talk among friends, can be very damaging to missing persons cases, particularly to the victims’ families who graft interminably on the behalf of their loved ones. It can stall investigations, inhibit those who may have information coming forward, reduce interest both in the cases and the victims, and worse, create confusion and needless speculation when a lack of information creates a vacuum. Someone out there will always be only willing to fill that vacuum, even when they have limited facts and have their own editorial agenda for grabbing headlines and delivering opinions based on nothing.  

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...

Marie Kilmartin, 35, of Beladd, County Laois, Ireland attended work at a local day-care nursing home (Portlaoise Area Social Services – P.A.S.S.) at 11 am on 16th December 1993. At 3.45 pm, two of Marie's female co-workers dropped her home and watched her walk to her front door. When Marie's housemate arrived home from her job at 6 pm, she found that Marie was not there and none of the lights in their house had been switched on. The housemate also found the house alarm was set and Marie's groceries were still unpacked hanging on a kitchen chair. A later forensic examination of Marie's home uncovered no evidence of a break-in, nor what may have led to her sudden disappearance. Gardaí did discover that around 4:20 pm on the same day, 16th December, a phone call was made to Marie's landline phone which lasted for two and a half minutes. The call was traced to a payphone in Portlaoise near St. Fintan's Hospital. A witness would later come forward stating that she sa...

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 ...

On Tuesday 3rd May, 1988, two people were sighted on horses around the area of Powerscourt, County Wicklow, Ireland. One was recognised as Lynda Kavanagh, the other person was not immediately identified, but believed to be Priscilla Clarke, the Kavanaghs live-in nanny. Two days later, Lynda Kavanagh’s body was recovered from the local River Dargle. Priscilla’s body was never recovered and her family were never able to bring closure and finality to her disappearance. She was aged 25 at that time and the mystery of her disappearance has lasted for 36 years.  

Patricia Furlong (21) from Dundrum, Dublin spent the night of Friday, July 23rd, 1982 with friends at her local pub, the Nine Arches. Just before midnight, some of the group of friends decided to head to the late night Fraughan Festival held at Johnnie Fox’s pub, Glencullen, in the Dublin Mountains. In the early hours of the morning she was witnessed leaving the venue to go on a walk with a man described as dressed in an ‘all-white-suit’. Patricia never returned to her friends at the venue. Around 8 am on Saturday July 24th, two teenage girls out for a morning walk discovered Patricia’s dishevelled body lying in a field. She was dead following a brutal strangulation with her own upper clothing. Within weeks, a man emerged as a prime suspect, but it would be many years later before he was finally charged with the murder of Patricia Furlong. Nothing proved straightforward in this case… a case 42 years later that still remains unresolved. It will be a lesson to police, families and the g...

In this episode of Radio Espial, we have news and updates on three murder cases and one missing person case in Ireland. This episode was recorded on March 28th, 2024. The cases Ciaran and I cover are: Annie McCarrick Tina Satchwell Emer O'Loughlin Brian Kinsella