THE INVESTIGATION into the disappearance of Josephine ‘Jo Jo’ Dullard 25 years ago has been upgraded to a murder inquiry.
The 21-year-old disappeared on Thursday, November 9, 1995.
She was last seen making a phone call from a telephone box in the village of Moone in Co Kildare.
Jo Jo had been working in Callan, Kilkenny, and subsequently travelled to Dublin, where she spent time in Bruxelles Bar on Harry Street just off Grafton Street.
After missing the last direct bus home, she got a bus to Naas and hitched two lifts to Moone.
Jo Jo was last heard telling a friend on the phone that a car had just pulled up near to the phone box. She was never seen again, and no trace of Jo Jo has ever been found.
A review by the Serious Crime Review Team and the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation has concluded that Ms Dullard likely came to serious harm that night.
Gardaí are now appealing for anyone that met or saw her that night or has any other previously undisclosed information related to her murder to come forward.
Officers are particularly keen to know about the potential whereabouts of a Sanyo Stereo cassette player (model MGP21) which was with her at the time of her disappearance.
Gardaí are asking if anyone may have seen the cassette player after 9 November 1995, or received the same model from a friend or person who was unable to explain how they found it.
Anyone who may have come into contact with the cassette player is being asked to contact Gardaí.
They are also appealing for information from anyone who was hitch hiking in the immediate area around Moone at the end of October 1995 or the start of November 1995.
Alternatively, they would like to hear from anyone who may have given a lift to a hitchhiker around the same time in the Moone area.
The reclassification comes almost a year after an Irish priest revealed he had been sent an anonymous letter he believed could shed light on the disappearance of Jo Jo.
Father Willie Purcell from Kilkenny handed the note on to police.
“It stated that they had some information into – and now they didn’t mention Jo Jo by name – but in relation to missing persons,” he told KCLR News.
“What they did in the letter was they outlined various circumstances and situations that they knew of.”
