Missing (12 page)
Authors: Barry Cummins
Inspector John Dunleavy told me that the search for Fiona extended across acres of land in a number of counties.
The summer of 1996 had been very dry, which meant a vehicle might have travelled in further over what might be normally wet, marshy terrain. So we searched deep into remote
areas of woodland, and bogland. We used metal-detectors and spent weeks walking in the Slieve Blooms. We just put people in the mountains for days on end and gave them areas to search
thoroughly. We found bodies of animals. We searched large private estates in Offaly, and we did thorough searches of scrubland south of Tullamore. We also carried out searches in three other
counties, but there was no sign of Fiona.
At the back of the minds of many detectives as they began their intensive search was another murder in the midlands, three years before, in which a woman was abducted and
murdered. While the murder of 34-year-old Marie Kilmartin from Port Laoise is not connected to the disappearance of Fiona Pender, the Gardaí were conscious that her body lay hidden for six
months before it was discovered in June 1994 in a bog drain at Pim’s Lane, Borness, near Mountmellick. Detectives searching for Fiona were conscious, therefore, that one killer had previously
used bogland around the Laois-Offaly border to conceal a body.
The circumstances of Marie Kilmartin’s death are deeply disturbing. Her body had been placed in a secluded spot close to the Mountmellick–Portarlington road. It had been covered with
water at one point, but the water had subsided. She was still wearing the tweed coat and blue suit she had on when she disappeared in December 1993. A concrete block had been placed on her upper
body and head. The body had also been hidden by dense undergrowth. The state pathologist, Dr John Harbison, would later conclude that Marie Kilmartin probably died from manual strangulation.
Though her killer made attempts to conceal her body, it was found six months after her disappearance. One detective says the Gardaí initially hoped they could find Fiona as quickly.
We checked out as much an area of land as we could. We would love to bring some closure for Fiona’s family. We would dearly love to find Fiona. We’ve established
to our satisfaction that Fiona’s and Marie’s cases are not related. So there are two evil people out there. If we could at least find Fiona for her family, that would be
something.
Josephine Pender told me she knew a few months after Fiona disappeared that she had been murdered.
One date that stuck with us during that time was the twenty-second of October 1996. That was the date that Fiona’s baby was due. We had spoken about that date many
times. She was so much looking forward to the birth. After she disappeared, the Gardaí contacted the maternity hospitals all around the country, and they checked in England as well. That
day—the twenty-second—was very difficult. It still is. It’s a special day. But in the weeks and months after that, it began to hit us that Fiona wasn’t coming home.
The search for Fiona Pender was the largest Garda investigation ever undertaken in the Tullamore area. The Gardaí even considered the possibility that Fiona might have
been buried under the grave of her brother Mark at Durrow graveyard; but a preliminary search of the area ruled out that possibility. A search through Fiona’s belongings in the flat led the
Gardaí to establish that Fiona was probably wearing a blue T-shirt, white leggings and a knee-length pink-and-black waterproof jacket when she left her flat.
Hundreds of people were interviewed, and hundreds of questionnaires were completed—at the railway station, at bike rallies, at discos, and in shops and pubs. As people wanted to do
everything they could to help, the Gardaí were not short of reported sightings. Each of these was investigated, and ruled out. There were some reports that Fiona was seen around the town on
the Friday afternoon, but it was not her. One woman was adamant that she had seen Fiona in Dunne’s Stores that Friday afternoon, but when the supermarket receipt rolls were checked it was
established that the witness had seen her not on the Friday but on the Thursday afternoon. There was also a report of a man dressed in biker gear seen speaking to Fiona in the shopping centre that
Friday afternoon. Again, it wasn’t Fiona. But each possible lead had to be investigated.
This was a case in which the Gardaí were inundated but where that crucial piece of information was missing. Nobody could establish Fiona Pender coming out of her flat, either alone or
with one or more people. Retired Detective-Sergeant Mick Dalton, who worked in Tullamore for more than thirty years, remembers one occasion in late 1996 when the Gardaí thought Fiona might
have been found safe and well.
One time, in the Garda station, we got a call from an Irishman who was over in London. He told us that he had been in a pub in London and had got talking to a woman. This
woman said she was from Tullamore. She said she was just after having a baby. He described her as a young woman with blond hair. Initially it sounded like Fiona. We asked this fellow if he
could tell us anything more about the woman. He remembered that she had sung a Patsy Cline song in the pub. Suddenly one garda in the station said that that sounded like a different young woman
from the area who hadn’t been seen around. And sure enough, we checked it out and it wasn’t Fiona but another young Tullamore woman who had left the town to have her baby in
England. Her baby had been born around the same time, and she looked fairly like Fiona. It was certainly quite a coincidence. Sadly, it wasn’t Fiona.
One area the Gardaí investigated thoroughly was the possibility that Fiona might have travelled to London, to the area in which she and John Thompson had lived for four
months in late 1995 and early 1996. They had decided to go to England in the wake of Mark Pender’s death. It was a quiet time on the farm for John, and Fiona’s aunt Bernie could put
them up in London.
London was a totally new experience for Fiona. She had never been out of Ireland before. The couple got jobs in the Hilton Hotel in Croydon, and during their free time they went to all the
tourist attractions. It was a carefree and exciting time. They even thought of settling in London, but they didn’t have enough money, and after four months they came home to Tullamore. They
first moved into a small flat in Clonminch Road; a short time later they found the flat in Church Street. Fiona sold all her bike gear and bought a young bull to be reared for her on the Thompson
farm in Killeigh. Coming from the town, she didn’t know much about farming, but she wanted to learn more from John.
In the early part of 1997 the Gardaí continued a detailed study of the hundreds of statements and questionnaires that had been completed by members of the public. They
outlined the movements of hundreds of people and vehicles in the days during which Fiona Pender was believed to have been abducted and murdered. When the statements of a number of people were
cross-checked an issue arose about the movements of a particular vehicle around the time of Fiona’s disappearance. A conference was held, and a decision to question a number of people again
was taken.
Early on the morning of Thursday 24 April 1997 three women and two men were arrested at a number of places in Cos. Laois and Offaly. Each was told they were being held under section 4 of the
Criminal Justice Act, which allowed for their detention for a maximum of twelve hours. The five people were taken to Tullamore Garda station, where they were held in separate rooms, to be
questioned by specialist detectives who had arrived from Dublin. The five people under arrest were asked probing questions about their knowledge of the movements of people and vehicles around the
time of Fiona Pender’s disappearance. Throughout the day there was no word from the Gardaí about whether anyone was going to be charged or not; then at seven o’clock that evening
it was announced that all five people had been released without charge. Gardaí drove the five people, who were described as being shaken by the events of the previous twelve hours, back to
their homes.
In Connolly Park a phone call was received from a garda telling the Penders that all five people had been released without charge. Josephine Pender’s voice broke as she remembered that
day.
When those people were arrested I answered the phone that morning and took the call from the Gardaí. I remember telling Seán. He was sitting on the couch when
I told him that they had arrested five people. Seán just aged in front of me. A friend of Fiona’s, Emer Condron, came around and stayed with us the whole day. That day was so long!
We were just waiting, hoping something positive was going to happen. And then we get the call to say they’re all being released. I told Seán. He just went downhill from there.
Seán Pender took his own life on 31 March 2000. He had become unwell in the wake of his daughter’s disappearance. He died a short time after reading a newspaper
article about a claim made in relation to a number of missing women. The Gardaí have confirmed that the claims made in the article are untrue. Josephine Pender told me the story was
horrible.
Even people who read the story who are not directly involved said they were reduced to tears by it. It was just terrible. Seán read it. My husband cried for his
children every night. From the time Fiona went missing he was hurting. He looked like a man with cancer: he was fading away, he looked so weak. We looked for help for him, but back then we
didn’t know the people that I know now. Seán just became so sick as a result of what happened to our family. He went so low he couldn’t take any more. I felt like killing
myself sometimes too. I’ll never know how Seán got the strength to do it. We had a wake here in the house, and Seán looked so much younger when he was laid out. He’s
at peace now. He was not at peace when he was alive. I’ve no doubt he’s in Heaven. He suffered too much hell on earth.
Whoever murdered Fiona and her baby is also responsible for my husband’s death. And they denied my grandson, Dean, a granddad, and an aunt, and a cousin.
Josephine Pender and her remaining son, John, have a large extended family who comfort them. Josephine has one sister and two brothers, while her late husband is survived by
five sisters and a brother. Josephine and Seán Pender were married in Durrow, where Seán and Mark are now buried.
Seán and I were married for thirty years. Our son Mark was to be married in the same church. Maybe Fiona would have been wed there too. Now John and I visit the
graveyard at the church to visit Seán and Mark and to think of Fiona and the baby.
There is one man, living in the midlands, who is a prime suspect for the abduction and murder of Fiona Pender. Detectives are aware of an incident some years before Fiona Pender
disappeared in which this man attacked a woman by putting his hands around her neck and choking her during an argument. The woman never made a complaint to the Gardaí. The man who carried
out that attack was spoken to at length by gardaí about his movements at the time Fiona Pender disappeared. But they know that one previous attack on someone is merely an indication of the
potential for violence, not proof of responsibility for murder. One detective thought they might have caught their man.
We had this man in for questioning. He wasn’t under arrest; he was there voluntarily. And we were talking, and we had our suspicions about him. I said something to him
about it being terrible that there was no closure for the family, that Fiona was out there somewhere. This man put his face in his hands. He began to sob. I looked at the other garda with me.
We were both thinking the same thing: we thought we were about to crack this thing. Then this man wiped his eyes with his arm and suddenly sat up straight and said, ‘I can’t tell
you anything. You won’t get me.’ Who knows if he had any information? We would still have our suspicions, but that’s all they are: suspicions.
Josephine Pender says she is 99 per cent sure she knows who is responsible for Fiona’s disappearance.
I never believed there was a serial killer involved in Fiona’s case. The circumstances of Fiona’s disappearance are different from some of the other missing
women. I went out to see the person I believe is responsible a few times, and I asked him directly, ‘Where is Fiona?’ I bumped into him at a shop in Tullamore town, and he just came
down and sat beside me. Fiona’s murder is not linked to the other missing women.
In April 1997, nine months after Fiona’s disappearance, another unrelated murder was uncovered close to Fiona Pender’s flat in Church Street. Seán Brennan,
who was also living in Church Street, shot dead his former partner Bernie Sherry near Portarlington and put her body in the boot of his car. The body was found close to Brennan’s flat in
Tullamore. The disappearance of Fiona Pender and the murder of Bernie Sherry affected many people in a town that has witnessed relatively few murders.
In 1994, five or six young women in Tullamore who were around Fiona’s age decided to head to the United States. They are still there, having settled in the general New
York area. These are the women who were home on a visit to Tullamore in August 1996. At first Josephine Pender thought Fiona might have been out socialising with them; but Fiona never got a chance
to meet them. The women still keep in contact with Josephine. Many of Fiona Pender’s friends from her work as a hairdresser and model are now married or in relationships and have children.
Many still live in the Tullamore area and keep in regular contact.
Fiona’s best friend, apart from her mother, was Emer Condron, who ran a modelling agency in Tullamore for ten years. She first got to know Fiona when she approached her to ask if she was
interested in modelling work. Fiona was delighted to be asked.
I always thought that Fiona was beautiful, and she was very confident; and when I asked her to do some work for me she was thrilled. She entered into the Miss Offaly
competition to qualify for Miss Ireland, but she didn’t reach the height requirement. Fiona had an openness to care for people, and she didn’t want a big fancy life-style, just a
secure home for herself and her baby. She stopped modelling after Mark died in June 1995. She and Mark were very close, and she just loved her little brother John to pieces. I sold my modelling
business in the summer of 1996, when Fiona was pregnant and looking forward to a happier life. We were planning to set up a mobile wedding unit to cater for hair and beauty at the bride’s
home.
