Gardaí investigating the disappearance of a father of eight in Co Laois believe he was murdered and his remains dumped in a makeshift grave.
Three people who were being questioned about the 2019 killing of William Delaney (56) were released without charge on Tuesday.
The arrests of those suspects brought to six the number of people detained for questioning since the investigation into how Mr Delaney vanished was stepped up midway through 2019.
His death has been treated as a murder since mid-2019, as gardaí came into intelligence claiming the victim was tortured and murdered before his remains were disposed of.
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The latest suspects arrested – two women in their 30s and 50s and a man in his 30s – were detained on Monday under section four of the Criminal Justice Act 1984. They were questioned at Garda stations in the Midland and South Western regions before being released without charge pending further inquiries.
Another suspect, a man in his 20s, was arrested in April 2021 and released without charge. His detention came almost two years after the first arrests in the case were made. A man in his 30s and a teenage girl were arrested for questioning in June 2019, but were also released without charge.
The investigation was hampered at the outset by a delay in the reporting of Mr Delaney’s disappearance. He had just been released from a period in psychiatric treatment the day before he disappeared. He vanished in Portlaoise in January 2019, but was not reported missing for another six weeks. He had taken time away on his own in the past, meaning his absence did not cause concern initially.
The last confirmed sighting of Mr Delaney, who was originally from Co Tipperary but was living in Portlaoise at the time he disappeared, was in the Co Laois town on January 31st, 2019.
Although his case was treated as a missing persons inquiry for several months, it was subsequently upgraded to a murder investigation. Gardaí believe Mr Delaney was killed by a person known to him over a personal matter; a suspect has been identified.
After receiving information that he had been tortured, murdered and then buried in a shallow grave near the Rock of Dunamase, a ruined castle near Portlaoise, gardaí and the Defence Forces searched there in June 2019 but found nothing.
The information that search was based on came from a teenage girl who claimed a man known to her confessed to the murder. That information came to the attention of the missing man’s family, who passed it on to the Garda.
The searches carried out in June 2019 for the remains were followed up by further searches in March 2021, in the Fieldbrook area of Portlaoise, but those searches also yielded nothing.
“Gardaí continue to appeal to the community and would like to thank them for their assistance so far. However, gardaí believe that people in the community have information and have not yet come forward,” Garda Headquarters said in a statement on Tuesday that also confirmed the release without charge of the three people arrested on Monday.
Gardaí urged anyone with information on the murder of Mr Delaney to contact Portlaoise Garda station on 057 8674100, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any Garda station.
