Imelda Keenan: A Search for the Truth.

0:00 [Clock ticking] Ireland, Crimes and Mysteries, with Nules. Hey guys and welcome to another episode of Ireland Crimes and Mysteries. I want to thank you for joining me today, and if you're a returning listener, I want to say a big thank you for your continued support. If this is your first time listening to my podcast, welcome. It's great to have you on board. So what I'd further do, let's get started on today's story. We'll never take that. We'll be standing here, talk about my sister who had missing for a few years ago. Please come forward with that little bit of information. We needed, we needed now.

0:41 We're not looking for events. We never, the king of family never spoke about events for the 30 years that I have come to have come here. All is we wanted was to bring our sister home. Home to rest with my parents. Home to rest with my brother that's in Ballybeg, in the Graveyard in Ballybeg. Today's case takes us to Waterford City, located in the south east of Ireland, Waterford, with a population of over 60,000 people is a medieval city which records dating back as far as 853. It is experienced Viking invasions and Norman invasions and was declared a Royal City in 1171 by Henry II and the second city of Ireland after Dublin, the capital.

1:33 To this day, Waterford still retains a lot of its historical sites, including Reginald Tower, which was built in the 13th century after the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. The river sure flows to Waterford City and the city boosts a fine harbor. Famous for its Waterford crystal, Waterford is also known for its culture and events, like the Waterford Film Festival, the Spraoi Festival and at Christmas time, the Winterville Festival. All these are annual events which attract a lot of people from near and far. And as I said, our story today brings us to Waterford City and to the year 1994.

2:16 It was here that Imelda Keenan lived in her own rented flat on William Street in the middle of the city. A Imelda who was born on the 24th of March 1971 was 22 years of age in January of 1994. She was originally from Manor Rd, Mountmellick in County Laois and came from a large family, having eight siblings, and she was the youngest daughter and a country girl at heart. Her brothers, Ned and Jerry, were living in Waterford and worked on the trains for CIE, which was part of the Public Transport System Service of Ireland. A Imelda was a regular visitor to Waterford and fell in love with the city.

2:57 She'd been going to Waterford since she was a young child and loved going out to Tramore with her brothers to have fun at the amusement park. Having grown up in a landlocked county, she loved being near the ocean and said that when she was old enough, she wanted to move to Waterford. True to her words, she moved down to live with her brother, Jerry, when she was 15 years old and finished her education in the Mercy Convent. After finishing school, she moved to Cork for a while and lived with her brother, Michael, but her heart remained washed for it. By the time 1994 rolled around, a Imelda had her own flash, her pet cat, and was doing a college course in computing in the Central Technical Institute in Waterford, and engaged to Mark.

3:44 He lived with his parents, but would sometimes stay over with a Imelda. They had no date set for the wedding. Life appeared to the outside world to be good for a imelda, but was everything really as it seemed? When Imelda was reported missing on the 3rd of January 1994 by her brother to the Gardai, after he was made aware that she was missing by Mark. A lot of stuff just didn't end up. A Imelda's disappearance was some 10 months after Annie McCarricks, and nearly two years before Jojo Dullard went missing, and a lot of the media reports had tried to like an Imelda's case to theirs and include her in the missing triangle group of young women who went missing around this time period.

4:30 But as we delve deeper into a Imelda story, it just doesn't appear to be the same. The gut feeling with a lot of people is that the answer to a Imelda's disappearance lies a lot closer to home. According to her brother Ned, Mark made him aware a Imelda was missing on the evening of Monday the 3rd of January, saying that he had not seen a Imelda since she left the flash at around 1pm that day. Telling him she was going to collect her social welfare or dole payment at the GPO post office. This was the first red flag. The 3rd of January 1994 was the bank holiday Monday of the New Year's weekend, as the New Year's Day had fallen on the Saturday, so the post office was not open that day.

5:17 A Imelda would have received a double payment of her dulled week before Christmas, because over this period the post office was not open. A Imelda would have been aware of that fact, so this does raise a few questions. And if she did happen to make the mistake and think that it was the date collector payment, the post office was closed from 1 to 2 for launch, so 1pm was an odd time for a Imelda to decide to take the 6-minute journey there. She would have known it was closed at launch time as she collected her dull weekly. As it was a bank holiday, all other shops were closed too. So to her family, this just doesn't make sense. Another factor that perplexes the family is the fact that Mark would often go all day without seeing a Melda.

6:03 How then, after just 3 hours did he actually decide to jump to the conclusion she was missing? And alert Imelda's brother. The next red flag was the fact that a Imelda apparently left the flat without her gold rim glasses. Imelda wore these glasses at all times as she literally couldn't see without them. The only time she would take them off was when she was getting her photograph taken. She also left behind her cigarettes, her purse, her identification which she would have needed to collect her dull, and of course her cat, whom she adored. A Imelda was described by her niece Gina, who coincidentally was only 7 years younger than her aunt, as being so ladylike.

6:49 She loved her makeup, was into music, the bangles being her favorite band. And a Imelda was also known to be able to hold a tune. After all, this was not surprising as she came from a very musical family. Gina also said a Melda kept a diary and would regularly write her feelings into this diary. She said she treated her nieces and nephews like they were her own children. She was very kind to them and loved them all dearly. The family, despite being large, was a tight-knit family and despite all living in different places around Ireland and some even living in England, they would make the effort to meet up after Christmas or during the summer holidays.

7:32 She said a Imelda always kept in touch, writing letters and sending on photographs. Her family meant the world to her. So for her to just vanish, was very much out of character. That Christmas of 1993, none of the family had heard from a Imelda, which they could not understand. There'd be no reason for her not to be in touch. Gina said she was with a Imelda's mother, her own grandmother, that evening on the third of January, when two guardiane arrived at her door. This was around 11pm to tell her that a Imelda was missing. When they left, a Imelda's mother sat down, shocked by what she had just been told.

8:13 Gina, only 15 at the time, tried to reassure her grandmother, saying she was probably at a party or something, and that she would turn up. A ledge sightings of Imelda on the day she went missing were reported to the guardian. The first was from Mark, who alleged a Imelda left the house at 1pm after washing her hair, putting on her makeup and making him a cup of tea. Saying she was heading out to collect her social welfare and wouldn't belong. The second was from a lady who worked in the local medical centre and knew a Imelda. She said she saw a Imelda crossing the road. This witness said she saw a Imelda walking across William Street as she drove from the key into William Street near the tower hotel.

8:59 She stated that a Imelda stopped in the middle of the road to let her car pass. Imelda's niece Gina has said that the family dispute this last sighting, not that they're saying it never happened, but the question if the lady in question got her dates mixed up, or maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. As they surmise, along with a lot of people, that a Imelda was actually already missing before the third of January. Why they think this will become clear as the story unfolds? The last time any of her family saw a Imelda was approximately three weeks before Christmas, when a Imelda met her brother Ned in the three ships pub for a chat.

9:44 He said a Imelda had told him that she had presents for his two sons, and Ned also gave a Imelda her Christmas presents that day too. All these presents were still under the Christmas tree in her flash when she was reported missing on January 3rd. Why hadn't she opened her presents on Christmas morning? As Gina said, "No one waits until January to open their Christmas presents." A statement I think we can all agree on. Ned had also called to the flat twice over the two-week Christmas period. He had been hoping to see her before Christmas day, but when he knocked on the door to her flash, he was met with silence.

10:24 He said both times he called the light was on in the flash, but he got no answer. He hung around and waited for an hour in case a Imelda would return. Despite finding it odd at the time, Ned wasn't too concerned. So you can imagine Ned's shock when he received the phone call from Mark on January 3rd saying a Melda was missing. Imelda had sent all the family Christmas cards before the Christmas, and said in one of the cards that she would come home to mount Imelda can January to place a wreath on her father's grave. This wreath was found in the house after her disappearance. The family didn't find it odd that she had decided to stay in water over the Christmas and knock them home.

11:08 After all at 22 and having a partner, they just assumed she would be with him and meeting up with friends during the festivities and catch up with the family in January. What confuses her family is that if she was out on those nights that Ned called, why has no one come forward to say they were socializing with her? And if she was at home, why did she not answer the door to Ned? Ireland, crimes and mysteries. When a Imelda was reported missing to a guard as she economy on January 3rd, the response was slow to put it mildly.

11:49 Because of the two alleged sightings of a Imelda, the Gardai did not treat the disappearances suspicious. Her flash being the last place a Imelda allegedly was before she went out that day was never searched by the Gardai. The family claimed they didn't engage in many searches. The lines shared of the searches being carried out by the family and the civil defence. The fact that the Christmas presents were still under the tree unopened would suggest she was missing for longer than suggested. But according to the family, the guardie did not focus on that fact at all, focusing completely on the witness statements that she was indeed last seen on January 3rd.

12:30 The family were the ones to search her flat for any clues and they were the ones that discovered her glasses were still at the flat. Along with her purse and other items, she would not leave behind if she intended on disappearing. The one item they could not find at her flat was her diary. The diary that she would write all her thoughts in. This two had disappeared. The family find this very significant as according to them, she would write everything in this diary, her feelings, what she was going through at the time, her relationships. This diary could have revealed it all.

13:10 But it was nowhere to be seen. Her niece recalls a Imelda on a few occasions having either been walking with crutches or wearing a sling, suggesting some injury had befallen her. When she challenged her as to what had happened to her, a Melda responded by telling her she had brittle bones and shrugged it off. At the time none of the family questioned her answers, which according to Gina, they lived to regret in light of what ended up happening. What hindsight is 2020, and we all have stuff in our lives that on reflection we regret or would have done differently given a second chance. I'm sure at the time a Imelda sounded convincing enough that they didn't feel the need to question her further.

13:56 Gina did say that now the family believed that someone who knew a Imelda was hurting her in the run-up to her disappearance. The Guardian, as I said, were treating a Imelda as a missing person and relying on the witness statements to the extent that the flash was never even forensically searched, or searched at all for that matter. As regards questioning the last person who saw a Imelda and interacted with her, that being her fiancé Mark, he was never fully investigated either. No one is saying he did anything to a Imelda, but usually the partner or whoever is closest to the person that has disappeared is fully investigated in order to rule them out.

14:37 He seems to have been taken at his words when he said she left the house at 1pm to collect her dough. He was brought into the local guard station for questioning, but there was no immediate follow-up to that questioning, and he was never challenged on his timeline of the alleged events. He was asked a few years later to take a lie detector test but refused, and again this did not encourage the Guardian to probe a little deeper or make them suspicious as to why he did refuse. Mark was popular amongst his peers and a member of a local band, which in itself brought a lot of female attention. They were popular at the time around the city and a Melda was often seen at their gigs.

15:23 Mark had hinted that a Melda also suffered from depression, a fact vehemently disputed by her family. They said she was happy with her life and loved living in Worsford, loved her computer course and loved her flash. The family have spent years looking for a Imelda, 13 out to be precise. They have done countless media campaigns and searches, and every year they hold a vigil at a plaque that was erected for a Imelda on a bridge linking Lombard Street with William Street in Waterford City. They were there again this year, January 2024, to mark 30 years since a Melda went missing.

16:04 But Mark has never been vocal in trying to find his missing fiancé. He has never participated in any media campaigns or searches, and over the years has lost touch with her family. Imelda's mother Elizabeth died in 2008, her brother Ned in 2011, and her brother Donal in 2018. Her niece Gina has taken over the campaign on behalf of the family in the hopes of raising awareness and ultimately finding a Imelda and bringing her home. They don't believe she is alive, a feeling they've had since day one. Her bank account has never been touched since she went missing, and as Gina said, when the family got to her apartment on the fort of January, a Imelda was gone and her diary was gone.

16:54 No one has ever come forward saying they saw a Imelda out over the Christmas period after that last meeting she had with her brother Ned. At 22 you would assume in the run-up to Christmas there would be plenty of social gatherings with friends, etc. If this was the case, surely people would have spoken with Guardian when a Imelda's disappearance was made public. The case has now been upgraded by the Guardian from a disappearance to missing, which to me sounds like the same thing. This is despite please from the family for it to be upgraded to murder. The family felt that they had been let down by the Gardai over the years, that they haven't taken her case seriously.

17:38 According to Gina, all they have done is taken a few statements from the family and a few other people in her life at the time of her disappearance. They never searched the flash, no interrogations took place. The family, believing that the Gardai were doing a thorough investigation at the time, did not put any undue pressure on the Gardai. They trusted they were doing their job to the best of their ability. But the fact they were treating the case as a missing person and not a potential murder case, meant that previous evidence that should have been collected at the time has more than lightly been lost forever. A few theories as to what might have happened to a Imelda have been put forward over the years, such as that she ran away.

18:23 But the family don't believe this. She had savings in the credit union which were never touched. Gina said a Imelda would not even go to England to visit her family that lived there, so she finds it highly unlikely that she would leave for destinations unknown on her own without telling anyone. She said despite being independent, a Imelda liked to be close to her family and friends. This was where she felt most of the ease, so the chances of her running away are nil. Imelda was a home bird. Also significant is the fact a Imelda did not own a passport, so she could not go abroad even if she wanted to.

19:04 She also stated that if a Imelda was alive, she would contact him. There is no way she would let her family suffer all these years and not let them know she was alive and well. Another theory which was touched upon was that a Imelda had ended her own life. This completely shocked the family when they heard it. They said there is no way a Imelda would do this, and they are very confident that this theory is rubbish. Another fact to which goes against it is the fact that there was no trace of a Imelda ever found, not even a night of uploading despite extensive searches on land and water by the family in civil defence. This also ruled out another theory that a Imelda had had some sort of an accident.

19:49 If she did, where is she? None of these theories carry any weight and the family are extremely confident that this is all their theories and not fact. The case went cold for a number of years then, and in 2009 the family put forward a reward for 10,000 for any information leading to the whereabouts of a Imelda. This yielded little results. Then in May of 2012 Melda was in the news again as a new search for her got underway in ferry bank, a suburb of Waterford City, in a derelict bungalow after a tip was received.

20:29 This search carried out by trace missing persons Ireland also searched a number of other locations in the area, but again to no avail. The tip turned out to be a false tip. All went quite for a number of years despite a fresh appeal by the family on each anniversary. The latest one this year on the 30th anniversary of her disappearance. Gina has now taken on the task of fronting the campaign for her family, along with other members, including Jerry. She has said in the past that she made this decision as her uncle Jerry who still lives in Waterford gets very anxious and stressed about the whole situation.

21:09 He has to pass the plaque every day dedicated to his sister and over the years it has understandably taken a toll on him. After discussing everything with Jerry Gina decided to take to social media with all the information they had gathered over the years and as she said, "it just blew up" which is fantastic. Gina said that after the 30th anniversary appeal a number of people have come forward and statements have been collected. This is the news the family have been waiting for. Maybe 2024 will be the year that they finally get answers. In 2023 a woman came forward to the Gardai with new information. She gave a formal statement.

21:56 This woman had known a melda in the early 1990s having first met her in 1990. She told Guardian about a number of disturbing incidents involving a young woman that had taken place in Waterford before a Imelda went missing. This witness had moved away from the area prior to a melda's disappearance and only became aware that she was missing after seeing a program on TV about missing women in Ireland last year. Despite this new information a recent meeting with the Gardai by a Imelda's family for an update on the case did not yield the outcome they were hoping for. The Gardai advised the family that they were still treating the cases that of a missing person and would not be upgrading it to murder but that the case was under review.

22:42 The family are disappointed that the case has not been upgraded. What hold out hope that it soon will be. The Gardai have told them that if any significant new information came forward that could change. Nevertheless the family have expressed confidence in the Gardai who are now fronting the case. Having been assured by them at recent meetings that no stone would be left unturned and if any new information arises the keynans would be the first to know. And they said that they are happy with that. As the family gathered by a melda's plaque in Washerd at the beginning of January to commemorate the 30th anniversary of her disappearance it was a sombre day indeed for them.

23:24 Jerry spoke on WL or radio saying today is a very very emotional day for the keen and family and for Imelda's friends and the people here in Waterford who may have known a melda. He described her as quiet, loyal and full of life. He said that they all still kept a melda in their hearts and minds saying, Imelda was a very quiet shy girl from Mountmellick County Laois who came down here in the late 1980s. She was very shy and she had very few friends. If you got to know a Imelda she was a dainty little young and innocent girl. She kept to herself and kind of went about her business in her own way.

24:08 She didn't have many friends but the friends that she had she kept them close to her. She regarded them as family. Once you got to know a Imelda what a beautiful young girl she was. Jerry went on to say that two of his brothers have gone to their graves with broken hearts not knowing what happened to Imelda. A melda's mother passed away in 2008 not knowing what happened to her beloved daughter. Jerry said she always believed that someday we would get an answer, that there would be words that she was found safe and well. It never happened. Jerry said addressing the crowd gathered for the vigil that the family is not looking for revenge.

24:51 All they want is to bring their sister home and give her a Christian burial. Despite all the setbacks the keen and family have faced over the years they remain defiant in their determination to get to the truth. They will never give up hope of finding a Imelda until they get the closure they saw rightfully deserve. This close-knit family will keep going, fighting for one of their own who is out there somewhere. It may only take one missing piece to solve this case. One person with some small but vital piece of information to bring this family piece. Despite having received lots of false information over the years this does not derail them.

25:33 Every bit of information they receive is looked into. Gina has said that 2023 was when the real investigation into a melda's disappearance started. Unfortunately she said we are now aware that the sweet, kind, loving, beautiful young lady that we called mel was living a life we were not aware of. I know a melda wanted to have a life in Waterford. She wanted to find love and be happy. She reiterated her desire for the guardian to upgrade the case to murder and question every person. A very fair request I think of this juncture. I would like for anyone to come forward. If they saw Imelda at Christmas if they saw her on St. Stephen's Day or New Year's Day just to comment on it because we don't know where she was for two weeks for Christmas.

26:20 If she was not out and she was in her flat why did she not open the door to her brother? That is just to make sense to me. We all know when the post office is going to be open at Christmas. We all know when our next payment is, you know, people, anyone that is on social welfare. It was the bank holiday. Why would she go there? And how would you know by half or someone is a missing person if they leave between one and half one? I just don't feel like it's the truth. And I just want to trope the family want to trope. So, I implore you my listeners.

27:00 If you do have any information on a melda's disappearance, if you knew Imelda back in the early 90s or in the run-up to her disappearance, and you remember something you thought meant nothing at the time but now, unreflection or after having listened to her story, feel it could be important. Give this information up. It might be that piece they are so desperately looking for. At the time of her disappearance, a melda was described as been approximately five foot tree to five foot four in height of thin build with long brown hair. Please do the right thing and contact Waterford Garda station on 051 305 300.

27:46 Are the Garda confidential line on 1-800-666-111 or the National Missing Persons helpline on 1-800-442-552? So guys, that's it for today's episode of The Ireland Crimes and Mysteries Podcast. Again, thanks for your listenership and don't forget to subscribe to the show and hit that auto-download so you never miss an episode. Until the next time, keep your eyes open and your mind curious. This podcast has been compiled from information gathered in the public sphere, like news articles, documentaries and open source material that can be found on the web.

28:35 Everything in this podcast is alleged unless a conviction has taken place. You've been listening to Ireland Crimes and Mysteries with news. Join us for another episode coming real soon. [MUSIC]