Missing Northern Ireland teenager Brendan Rushe may have tried to get into a bed and breakfast on the night that he disappeared, it emerged tonight.
As a fourth day of searches came to an end, gardaí said a boy knocked at the door of the hotel in Donegal town around the time that the 15-year-old went missing.
He has not been seen since he left his friends in the town, telling them that he was going to get a bus back to his home in Castlederg, Co Tyrone.
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Brendan Rushe (15) who was reported missing last Monday night.
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Brendan's mother Collette said tonight that the boy who knocked at the door of the B&B at 4.30 am on Monday could have been her son. The owner did not open the door but saw him jogging away.
Gardaí tonight appealed for the driver of a car to come forward, who may have passed Brendan as he ran along Donegal town quay about half an hour later.
They also revealed that a pair of shoes found on a roadside near to where he disappeared did not belong to Brendan, despite his parents earlier mistakenly believing they were his.
The search for the youngster was set to be intensified in the morning with an extra 100 Gardaí officers being drafted in from neighbouring counties.
The operation was extended today with 100 British troops searching along a main road and combing the countryside on the Northern side of the border.
Gardaí and coastguard teams joined dozens of volunteers to search bogland and waterways near to Donegal town. Many of the searchers had travelled from Brendan's home town of Castlederg.
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Local people and Gardai searching for Brendan Rushe.
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Two British army helicopters were brought in to offer aerial surveillance for the 100 troops from the Prince of Wales Own Regiment and the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment.
Items of the boy's clothing were brought to the scene to assist sniffer dogs while sub aqua units searched Lough Mourne and Donegal quay.
Brendan is 5ft 8in tall, of slim build and has dark brown short hair and brown eyes.
He has braces on his teeth. He was wearing a cream shirt, grey trousers and black shoes and had a black jumper with him when he went missing.
He was last seen by two Garda officers, who described him as "courteous", at around 4 am on the Monday morning.