Gardaí investigating the disappearance of Fiona Pender have finished their excavations at a wood in the midlands and plan to resume work tomorrow.
Ms Pender (25) was seven months pregnant when she went missing from the flat she shared with her partner, John Thompson, on August 22nd, 1996.
About 12 gardaí are digging a 10-by-10ft area at Monicknew, a forest recreation area in the Slieve Bloom mountains on the Laois/Offaly border.
Garda sources said this afternoon they were “not hugely hopeful” of making a significant find.
A phone call from a member of the public sparked today's search after the walker found a small makeshift wooden cross with “Fiona Pender” scrawled on it on the road between Mountrath and the village of Clonaslee, on Sunday.
The walker contacted gardaí, and local officers called in the Garda Technical Bureau, crime scene investigators and the dog unit.
Gardaí conducted a second dig of the woodland site today after an initial dig this morning proved inconclusive.
The cross, made from two pieces of a wood and a nail, has been sent to the Garda Technical Bureau’s main laboratory in Dublin for forensic examination.
Fiona Pender was seven months pregnant when she went missing nearly 12 years ago
It is understood that gardaí are digging up to three feet below the topsoil, and two sniffer dogs have also been used in the search.
In 2000, a woman was murdered at a car park in the same area, gardaí confirmed.
The Pender family have been updated with all developments, said Supt Kevin Donohoe of the Garda Press Office.
Gardaí would not comment on whether the discovery of the cross was part of an elaborate hoax.
A hairdresser and part-time model, Ms Pender was 5ft 5in, with long blond hair. She was wearing a pink and black raincoat with a hood, a navy T-shirt, white leggings and blue and white runners at the time of her disappearance. A small brown shoulder bag was missing from her belongings.
Shortly after her disappearance, a Garda sub-aqua unit searched Ballyfin lake and river near Mountmellick.
All maternity hospitals in Ireland and Britain were also checked for a record of Ms Pender giving birth to the baby she was pregnant with when she disappeared.
The investigation was then extended to Croydon where Ms Pender and her partner once worked, and Interpol spoke to Ms Pender's friends in Britain, Germany, Italy and the United States.
In 1999 the-then Garda commissioner Pat Byrne set up Operation Trace to review the files of six missing women - Ms Pender, Fiona Sinnott, Josephine Dullard, Deirdre Jacob, Ciara Breen, and Annie McCarrick.