Larry Murphy as he is released from prison in August 2010. Rolling News
An Irish farmer has called on Irish police to investigate a site on the Wicklow-Kildare border after a trained cadaver dog potentially detected human remains in an area known as Ireland's "Vanishing Triangle", where six women disappeared between 1993 and 1998.
The site is located near the former home of convicted rapist Larry Murphy, who was the chief suspect in the murder of Deirdre Jacob. The 19-year-old went missing in Newbridge, County Kildare, in 1998 and has never been seen since.
The DPP decided in 2022 not to prosecute Murphy for Jacob's murder due to concerns about the credibility of a key witness.
A farmer living close to the Wicklow-Kildare border brought in cadaver dogs last July after noticing a disturbed site in a rarely-visited area.
Speaking on behalf of the farmer, retired detective inspector Pat Marry told the Irish Independent that the dogs indicated the presence of human remains on three separate visits to the site in July, including on one occasion when gardaí were present.
Marry told the Irish Independent that he believes that there is merit to searching the site "as soon as possible", pointing to the fact that it is located near the former house of a well-known suspect.
"As an investigator, sometimes you have to take things with a pinch of salt and sometimes you have to ask if there is something in this," Marry told the Irish Independent.
Paul Murphy, a cadaver dog trainer who visited the site on three occasions in July, told the publication that his dogs indicated the presence of human remains on all three visits to the site.
"My dogs only indicate on human remains. I use a probe to vent the ground to give the dogs a better chance of getting a scent," Murphy said.
Murphy said he is making no assumptions about the three visits and said his dogs may have identified a bone that "disintegrated into the ground over many years".
Deirdre Jacob was one of six women who disappeared in Ireland's Vanishing Triangle between 1993 and 1998.
Annie McCarrick, Josephine ‘JoJo’ Dullard, Fiona Pender, Ciara Breen, and Fiona Sinnott all disappeared in the same area over the same period. None of their bodies have ever been discovered.
The disappearances were the subject of a recent two-part true-crime documentary "Six Silent Killings", which premiered on Sky on Sunday night.
The documentary features interviews with Garda detectives who worked on the six high-profile cases in addition to interviews with friends and families of the six victims.
Crime journalist Geraldine Niland takes viewers through each of the cases, while Irish forensic scientist David Kenny reveals a location where he believes some of the bodies are buried.