Parents of missing Deirdre Jacob appeal for information

The parents of the missing teenager Deirdre Jacob have renewed their appeal for information almost 15 years to the day since she disappeared.

Ms Jacob (18) was last seen at around 3pm on Tuesday July 28th, 1998 near her home in Newbridge, Co Kildare.

She had gone to the AIB branch in Newbridge to get a bank draft to pay for student accommodation in St Mary's College, Twickenham, where she was training to be a teacher.

She then went to the post office to post the bank draft. A couple of hundred metres from her home, after a sharp bend, she crossed over to the other side of the road because the footpath had run out.

Approaching her house she crossed back from the right to the left-hand side of the road and that was the last sighting of her.

Despite disappearing in broad daylight, repeated appeals for information in the intervening years have not yielded a breakthrough.

Her mother Bernadette said they were “no wiser than on the day she went missing”.

Supt Joseph Prendergast of Naas Garda station said more than 2,000 statements had been taken and 2,500 different leads had been pursued without success.

He said: “It is never too late to come forward. You may initially, for whatever reason, decided not to make that phone call, but now is the time. That call might bring some closure to the pain and suffering experienced by Bernadette and Michael, her sister, extended family and wide circle of friends.”

He said people “don’t just disappear” as Deirdre had done and somebody knew something about her disappearance.

Michael Jacob said there was "never a moment" in the intervening years in which he and his wife had not thought about Deirdre.

He hoped that with the “passage of time” that if anybody had information they would come forward.

“We’re pretty confident that there are people out there who have that little bit of information. To advance the case further would be great,” he said at a press conference in Naas.

He said gardaí already had a large volume of information and it might only take a small detail to allow them to solve the case.

Those with information should contact Crimestoppers on 1800 25 00 25.