A man arrested on suspicion of murdering Jo Jo Dullard was one of the last people known to have interacted with her before she went missing.
The man, in his 50s, has long been a person of significant interest to detectives and made a statement to gardaí shortly after Ms Dullard disappeared.
He was detained yesterday morning and is being questioned at a garda station in Kildare on suspicion of Ms Dullard’s murder.
The first arrest in the cold-case investigation came after gardaí issued a detailed appeal over the weekend.
A source said the appeal was part of a strategy to “spook” the suspect prior to his arrest.
Ms Dullard was 21 when she disappeared on November 9, 1995.
In 2019, the garda’s cold-case unit began a review into her disappearance. This was upgraded to a murder investigation the following year.
Since then, the Serious Crime Review Team has generated almost 800 recommendations for detectives in Kildare to follow up on. They relate to new avenues of investigation and old lines of inquiry to be revisited.
This includes evaluating telephone traffic, CCTV evidence, witness statements and intelligence related to the investigation.
Man arrested in connection with murder of Jo Jo Dullard
As part of the review, gardaí also assessed statements made during the original investigation by the man who is now the murder suspect. This subsequently led to him being classified as a suspect in the murder inquiry.
He comes from a highly respectable and well-known family
The man had previously given a statement to gardaí after it emerged he was one of the last people to interact with Ms Dullard on the night she was last seen alive.
A source told the Irish Independent: “This individual has long been on the radar for gardaí investigating the case. The lines of inquiry generated in recent years have cemented garda suspicions in relation to him.
Jo Jo Dullard
“He comes from a highly respectable and well-known family.”
Gardaí yesterday began carrying out searches of a site on the Kildare-Wicklow border. A significant amount of machinery was brought in to excavate the land. Two residential properties connected to the suspect were also searched by gardaí.
A forensic anthropologist is assisting in the hope that gardaí can locate Ms Dullard’s remains at the site.
In a media briefing, Superintendent Paul Burke said the investigation is being led by detectives in Kildare and the Serious Crime Review Team.
“An Garda Síochána have been and continue to keep the family of Jo Jo Dullard fully updated in relation to this investigation and they have been fully appraised of all of today’s developments,” he said.
A plaque in Moone where Jo Jo was last seen
Ms Dullard’s father, John, died before she was born and her mother, Nora, died from cancer in 1983. Ms Dullard was the youngest of five children.
On the night she disappeared, she had been socialising in Bruxelles Bar in Dublin city centre. She missed her last bus home to Kilkenny and instead boarded a bus to Naas, Co Kildare, intending to hitch-hike the rest of the way home.
She hitched a lift from Naas to the slip road on the M9 motorway at Kilcullen, and at around 11.15pm hitched another lift to Moone, Co Kildare.
She then called her friend, Mary Cullinan, from a telephone box in Moone at 11.37pm.
During the call she told her friend that a car had stopped for her and that she would take a lift.