Free Missing by Barry Cummins Page B

women, were formally arrested for questioning by detectives from Operation Trace investigating a number of crimes, including the murder of Jo Jo
Dullard. Two of the men who were questioned are members of a criminal gang from the Waterford area. They are believed to have been socialising in Dublin on the Thursday afternoon and evening.
Detectives suspect they were travelling through Moone and Castledermot later that night. One garda explained that it is very difficult to bring this any further right now.
    Basically, these two fellows are travelling criminals. Many of the answers they gave us are evasive, but that could be because they don’t want to reveal a totally
     separate crime they may have been involved in. But we received certain information that outlined in very clear detail an allegation that these two men had abducted Jo Jo and had killed her. The
     two men deny any knowledge of Jo Jo. We need a witness, or we need a confession, or we need a body. We are definitely watching these men.
    In the days and weeks immediately after Jo Jo vanished, her family made many appeals for information. Jo Jo’s disappearance was reported extensively by both the national
and local media. Over time, as Mary and Martin Phelan would continue their campaign, constantly urging Gardaí to do more to search for Jo Jo, they found that there were many other families
also suffering the loss of a missing loved one. They met with families of men and woman who had vanished from other parts of the country, and indeed from other parts of the world. The Phelans
started looking at how things were done in other countries, how other police forces investigated such disappearances. Through their public campaign for more to be done, Mary and Martin were also
providing a voice and a support network for other families. They recognised that the circumstances of every person’s disappearance were different, but what united all families was the need to
know what had happened to their loved ones. The Phelans have consistently called for the establishment of a National Missing Persons Remembrance Day to publicly remember every person who has
vanished.
    At the Phelan home, Mary showed me a collage of photos of Jo Jo. The images record Jo Jo as a young girl, as a teenager and as a young woman. At the top of the collage she is pictured as a baby
in the arms of her mother, Nora. Another image records Jo Jo on the day of her First Holy Communion. Another photo shows Jo Jo in her school uniform, and the bottom of the collage shows images of
Jo Jo as an adult. In each of the photographs, Jo Jo is smiling. The standard Garda missing person’s report which was filled in for Jo Jo recorded her height and weight, hair and eye colour,
and facial features. Such forms are important in terms of Garda investigations, but it is only through studying photographs that a person’s various expressions including their smile become
apparent. In the months after Jo Jo vanished in Co. Kildare her image would become known throughout the country, with treasured family photos becoming a means to highlight the family’s
ongoing appeal for information. As we sat at the kitchen table Mary showed me more photographs.
    Back in Callan, Kathleen Bergin told me that Jo Jo had been thinking of not going to Dublin at all that fateful Thursday.
    Jo Jo had to get to Harold’s Cross at some stage to get her last dole payment. She had just got a new job in Callan and so had to get to Dublin to tie up loose ends
     whenever she got a chance. She was actually meant to go earlier in the week, but she had to cover in work for a girl who was sick. The day before she went I told her that if she didn’t go
     to Dublin next day we could meet for a coffee in Callan town. But Jo Jo went to Dublin, and I never saw her before she went.
    Jo Jo Dullard lived in Dublin for two years. She and her friend Mary Cullinane both arrived in Dublin from Co. Kilkenny with dreams of becoming beauticians. Both