Gardaí searching for missing Icelandic man focus in on part of Santry Demesne

Gardaí carrying out searches at a park in north Dublin for a missing Icelandic man have cordoned off a small area for closer examination.

The area was identified on Wednesday during a second day of searches at Santry Demense by uniformed gardaí, members of the Garda Water Unit and officers with cadaver dogs for Jon Jonsson.

The searches began after anonymous correspondence was received by gardaí investigating the disappearance of Mr Jonsson five years ago. It is understood the correspondence claims Mr Jonsson met foul play and identified Santry as a location of interest, though the notes are believed to have been vague.

Gardaí are fearful that Mr Jonsson, a father of four who had come to Dublin to play poker when he vanished, died on the day he was last seen alive. While detectives have never ruled out foul play in his assumed death, the case remains a missing persons inquiry.

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A Garda team carried out a search in a section of Santry Demesne, which includes a lake and wooded area, on Monday. When the search team resumed its work on Tuesday, a specific section of the park soon became their focus, though it remained unclear if anything of evidential value had been found.

Relatives of Mr Jonsson travelled from Iceland to Dublin last week to appeal for information on the fifth anniversary of his disappearance. The Irish Times understands they have remained in Dublin and were being briefed about the planned searches in Santry.

Mr Jonsson, a taxi driver, vanished on the morning of Saturday February 9th, 2019 after leaving the Bonnington Hotel on the Swords Road, where he had been staying. He had come to Ireland the previous day for a poker tournament as part of a 10-day holiday.

His fiancee flew into Dublin the following morning and spoke to Mr Jonsson briefly in their hotel room. She went to get coffee downstairs and when she returned to the room Mr Jonsson and left and no trace of him has been found since.

He had started playing poker immediately after arriving in Dublin on February 8th and lost several thousand euro. Gardaí are trying to determine if those losses, or any efforts to secure more money, may have been the reason he left the hotel without telling his partner and may have drawn him into danger.

Mr Jonsson, who was aged 41 when he disappeared, left the hotel on foot at about 11am and was recorded by a security camera walking north on a footpath about 200m away as he passed the entrance to a nursing home near the hotel.

Beyond those images, which were released at the time as part of a public appeal, gardaí have no information about where he went or evidence of any further movements. Mr Jonsson had never been to Ireland and had no friends or family based here. He had never gone missing before and had no known history of depression or self-harm.

Last week, on the fifth anniversary of his disappearance, it was revealed in a fresh Garda appeal that more than 270 lines of inquiry had been generated by the investigation team in Ballymun.

He is described as being 1.8m (6ft) in height, of medium build, with short brown hair. When he was last recorded on CCTV he was wearing a black padded jacket.

Supt Darren McCarthy last week confirmed gardaí had received two pieces of anonymous correspondence about the case and he appealed to the author or authors to contact his team in confidence.

Mr Jonsson left the Bonnington Hotel on the day he disappeared with only the clothes he was wearing and his bank cards. His passport, suitcase and other clothes were left in his hotel room and his bank accounts have remained untouched since his disappearance.

He came out of the hotel and on to the Swords Road and walked in a northerly direction; towards the junction with Collins Avenue close to Whitehall church.

He was recorded on CCTV at the entrance to Highfield Nursing home, which is immediately adjacent to the Bonnington Hotel. There are no further confirmed recordings or sightings of him.

While a number of people have called the Garda and reported that they have seen people matching the missing man’s description, none of these possible sightings has been confirmed.

In reply to queries, Garda headquarters confirmed gardaí were “currently conducting searches in relation to an ongoing missing persons investigation” in a park in Santry.

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