New evidence of Larry Murphy’s link to killing

12 years after Deirdre Jacobs disappearance evidence conclusively links Murphy to her case

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Deirdre Jacobs has been missing since 1998

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Larry Murphy has been linked to the disappearance of Deirdre Jacob, a college student who disappeared in 1998.

Last Thursday Murphy was released early and without treatment after serving 10 years for the repeated rape and attempted murder of a Carlow woman. Murphy is also the prime suspect in six other women’s disappearances in Leinster during the 1990s, including that of New Yorker, Annie McCarrick.

While in prison a police task force, called Operation Trace, asked him to help with their investigations and he repeatedly refused.

Deirdre Jacob, an 18-year-old college student, went missing from her hometown of Newbridge, County Kildare. Murphy, a professional carpenter, had been doing work from Deirdre’s grandmother in her sweetshop.

Deirdre visited the shop, where Murphy was working, just hours before she went missing. Murphy was also very familiar with the area when Deirdre lived and disappeared.

He had worked in the stables just a half a mile from Deirdre’s home. He had also visited Newbridge in the weeks before her disappearance planning to do some work on a local pub. He returned to the village two months after her disappearance to carry out this work.

This discovery, revealed by the Irish Mail, has caused the Irish public to ask for more thorough monitoring of Murphy now he has been released.

A police officer who had been involved in the rape and attempted murder case, that finally put Murphy in prison, and Deirdre Jacob’s case said “It requires a certain type of callous person to do what he did. He refused to take part in any treatment in prison and he will probably re-offend.”

Deirdre Jacobs was last seen walking towards the gate of her Newbridge home on July 28, 1998. Earlier that day she had visited her grandmother at the sweetshop she ran. She went missing between the shop and her home, which is only a 25-minute walk.

It was only after her grandmother died that he family found Larry Murphy’s name on a check stub in her grandmother’s shop.

A senior policeman involved in the investigation said “Deirdre’s grandmother had a shop on Newbridge Main Street and after she died, when the family was going through her things, they found a check book stub with Murphy’s name on it. He did carpentry work for her but the family knew nothing about it. The grandmother hadn’t told them and the first they knew was when they found the receipt for the work at the shop.’

The questioned policeman said that they now believe Murphy was involved in Deirdre’s disappearance. “No-one has gone missing since Murphy was jailed,” he said. “It all points to him.”

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