Search commences near Kildare/Wicklow border for JoJo
Superintendent Liam Geraghty of the Garda Press Office talks to the media at Naas Garda Station on Monday after they confirmed a search was being carried out at open land near the Kildare/Wicklow border in connection to the murder of Jo Jo Dollard Photo: Jimmy Fullam
A 55-YEAR-OLD man with a Kildare address was arrested on Monday morning (11 November) in connection with the murder of Kilkenny woman Josephine ‘JoJo’ Dullard 29 years ago.
Under the command of Superintendent Paul Burke gardaí from Naas are leading the search of two houses and grounds around Grangecon on the Kildare-Wicklow border, only three kilometres from the village of Moone where she was last seen.
A cordon has been put in place, and a forensic pathologist is on standby.
It is understood the arrested man has been interviewed in relation to this offence on a number of occasions in the last 29 years.
His detention has already been extended to 12 hours, and he can be held for 24 hours in Garda custody, before a court appeal can be made to extend that custody further.
This is the first arrest made in this case in 29 years, a case which was upgraded from a missing person to murder four years ago.
Saturday (9 November) was the anniversary of JoJo’s disappearance.
On the 9 November 1995 Jo Jo travelled to Dublin where she spent the evening socialising in Bruxelles Bar, Harry Street, Dublin 2, but missed her last bus home to Kilkenny that evening and instead at 10pm boarded a bus to Naas.
She intended to hitch hike the rest of the way home to Callan, in Co. Kilkenny, and got a lift from Naas to the slip road on the M9 motorway at Kilcullen.
At approximately 11.15pm Jo Jo hitched another lift to Moone where she made a telephone call to her friend Mary Cullinan at 11.37pm.
During that call, Jo Jo told Mary that a car had stopped for her and she was going to take the lift.
This was the last known interaction with Jo Jo Dullard, and the following morning, Friday 10 November 1995, Jo Jo’s sister, Kathleen, reported her missing and an investigation commenced.
Jo Jo was 21 years old when she disappeared.
Her father, John, died before she was born and her mother Nora died from cancer in 1983.
Jo Jo was the youngest of five siblings, her sisters Mary, Nora and Kathleen and brother Thomas.
