The Garda investigation set up to check if there were any connections between the disappearances of young women in the midlands in recent years has turned up no significant links between any of the cases, it has been learned.
The investigation, known as "Operation Trace" was reviewed at a conference of detectives and senior officers last week.
The outcome was that the investigation had not furthered any of the findings of the previous individual investigations. There also remain strong suspicions that in three of the six cases under investigation the women were murdered by people known to them and their bodies buried secretly.
Yesterday, the Garda Press Office released a tape recording of a man who has telephoned and written to a midlands newspaper about Ms Deirdre Jacob (19) who disappeared from near her home in Newbridge, Co Kildare, on July 28th last year.
The man first made contact with the Leinster Leader in September and has written and telephoned on several occasions since. He once made a brief telephone call to Ms Jacob's parents' home.
His persistence and the fact that he appeared to know that Ms Jacob had attended a disco in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, some weeks before her disappearance have caused her parents considerable distress.
Ms Jacob had stayed with friends in Kingscourt, Co Cavan, 15 days before she disappeared and attended a disco in Carrickmacross with them.
The man who has made the anonymous calls claims he gave her a lift to Carrickmacross on the day she disappeared.
Gardai point out that the man has also made a number of other claims that were clearly false. He said she had just returned from a visit to Donegal and that she wanted to be a vet. She had never visited Donegal and was studying teaching and had no particular interest in veterinary matters.
It is understood gardai think the man, who has a Border accent, might have heard from people in the Cavan or Monaghan area talk about Ms Jacob's visit to the disco in Carrickmacross.
Gardai close to the investigation said yesterday there have been "hundreds" of letters and contacts from people describing themselves as psychics, diviners or claiming to have had revelations about the missing women. As is normal in such investigations, there have been many letters and calls from people who are mentally unstable.
A number of these people have also contacted local and national newspapers.
In an attempt to discover the identity of the anonymous caller and to try and reduce the distress to Ms Jacob's parents, gardai decided yesterday to release a tape of one of the man's calls. They again appealed to him to come forward.
The "Operation Trace" investigation has concentrated on the disappearances of Ms Jacob; Ms Fiona Sinnott (19), from Wexford, who disappeared in February last year; Ms Ciara Breen (17), who disappeared from Dundalk in February 1997; Ms Fiona Pender (25), who disappeared from her flat in Tullamore, Co Offaly in August, 1996; Ms Josephine Dullard (20) who disappeared in Co Kildare in 1995; and Ms Annie McCarrick (26) the American student who disappeared from the south Dublin area in March, 1993.
While gardai have not ruled out the possibility of a connection between some of these cases, it is understood that in at least three cases - those of Ms Sinnott, Ms Breen and Ms Pender - there is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest their killer was known to them.