Second dig to begin in search for missing woman

Detectives investigating the disappearance of a woman who went missing in the Republic of Ireland almost 30 years ago have begun a search at a second location.

Fiona Pender, 25, was seven months pregnant when she disappeared in Tullamore, County Offaly, in 1996.

Earlier this week, gardaí (Irish police) said they had reclassified their missing person investigation to a murder inquiry.

Having completed a search of land near Killeigh in County Offaly on Tuesday, the search moved to the Slieve Bloom mountains close to Clonaslee in County Laois on Wednesday. Killeigh and Clonaslee are about a 10-minute drive apart across the county boundary.

The new site is a piece of open ground which will be "subject to excavation, technical and forensic examinations," a garda statement said.

Ms Pender was last seen at about 06:00 local time 23 August 1996 at her flat on Church Street, Tullamore.

She was 5'5" in height, had long blonde hair and was said to be looking forward to the birth of her child.

She was wearing white leggings and bright coloured clothing when she went missing.

The previous search, on open ground about 5km (3 miles) from Tullamore, began on Monday and ended on Tuesday evening.

Irish broadcaster RTÉ reported that the operation was concentrated on bogland at Graigue, near the village of Killeigh.

Gardaí said the results of the searches were "not being released for operational reasons" but added that they had kept Ms Pender's family updated.

They repeated their appeal to "any person who may have previously come forward who felt they could not provide gardaí with all the information they had in relation to this matter, to contact the investigation team again".

Fiona Pender grew up in Tullamore, County Offaly, in a family that has suffered a number of bereavements.

She had two brothers, but just over a year before Fiona went missing her brother Mark died in motorcycle crash.

At the time of her disappearance in August 1996, Fiona was working as a hairdresser and living with her boyfriend in a flat in Church Street in her hometown.

She had spent the previous day "shopping for baby clothes with her mother in Tullamore," according to her missing person profile.

"She was in good form and was looking forward to the birth of her baby," the garda website states.

As soon as she went missing, the Pender family began a long campaign seeking the public's help to find Fiona, led by her mother Josephine.

In 2000, almost four years after Fiona went missing, her 50-year-old father Sean Pender was found dead in the family home.

His widow believes he took his own life, telling a Tullamore reporter: "He couldn't live without his children."

The investigation into Fiona's disappearance continued for 28 years without success, despite a number of searches and digs in different areas.

In May 2008, a hillwalker came across a makeshift cross which had been recently put up in Monicknew Woods in the Slieve Bloom mountains.

Two planks of wood had been hammered together and written on the cross were the words: "Fiona Pender. Buried here, August 22nd, 1996."

Gardaí began a search of a two-acre site in the area, assisted by soldiers and cadaver dogs, but there was no sign of Ms Pender's body.

Fiona's mother Josephine died aged 68 in 2017, having never discovered the fate of her only daughter and her unborn grandchild.

The Irish Times reported that a "candle of hope" was placed on the altar during her funeral "in memory of all missing people".

In tribute to her daughter, a section of walkway along the Grand Canal outside Tullamore is known as the Fiona Pender Way.

Analysis by BBC Dublin reporter Kevin Sharkey:

Can an area around the Slieve Bloom Mountains in the Irish midlands yield a clue about what happened to Fiona Pender in the summer of 1996?

That is a question being asked locally and around the country as gardaí begin a second search this week to try to locate the remains of the hairdresser and part-time model who was preparing for the birth of her baby when she disappeared.

The hope at the beginning of each search since the young woman went missing almost 29 years ago has been that it might finally end her family's long and agonising wait for a breakthrough.

To date, every search has ended in disappointment.

The latest search, in County Laois, is just across the county border from where another search concluded in County Offaly on Tuesday.

What is different about these two searches is that they are the first digs conducted by search teams since the investigation into the disappearance of Ms Pender was upgraded to murder at the beginning of this week.

To date there have been no convictions in relation to Ms Pender's disappearance nor her suspected murder.

However, over the course of the 28-year missing person investigation, five people have previously been arrested and detained.

The investigation team have also taken more than 300 statements and "discovered and collated thousands of documents".