Ireland is reportedly set to have a particularly hot summer this year, so expect packed Ryanair flights, bursting beaches and men in shorts the second it tips towards 20C.
Well, in 1976, something similar happened. It was a record-breaking summer, people booked foreign holidays, consumed sunny pints with friends and hit the beach, but as summer was drawing to a close, something profoundly evil infected the Irish shores, and it came in the form of Ireland's first serial killers - John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans.
While evading the authorities in the UK, the pair decided to come to Ireland under false identities, and after a stint in prison for various burglaries across the country, they made a pact to abduct, rape and murder a woman a week until they were caught.
The pair murdered two women - Elizabeth Plunkett and Mary Duffy, before receiving life sentences for their crimes, and that was supposed to be the end of it.
But, a parole hearing for Shaw that began two years ago would unravel the case of Elizabeth’s murder and force her family to question everything about this case to date.
The team at RTÉ Documentary On One have joined forces with the Plunkett family and host Roz Purcell to create Stolen Sister, a six-part podcast dedicated to finally getting Elizabeth the justice she deserves.
To learn more about the second instalment of this series, keep reading or hit play on your nearest streaming device.
Witness
Gardaí were able to accurately calculate Elizabeth’s final movements in Brittas Bay Co Wicklow thanks to witnesses' testimonies gathered following her disappearance - many of which are recited by actors throughout this podcast.
The series reminds the listener that a simple decision like not turning your car around or not getting involved in a stranger's odd exchange can irrevocably alter the course of multiple lives.
We learn that a witness, Mary Anne Greene, saw Elizabeth on the street right before she was abducted wearing her white slacks, navy blue Saint Tropez sweater and sandals.
Greene later drove past Castletimon woods, where the two men had brought Elizabeth. She could see a vehicle parked on the right-hand side to the opening to the woods. It was lit up inside - this happened at roughly 12.45am, meaning Elizabeth was still alive.
Another witness, David James McDonald, witnessed Evans slow down, pull over and speak to Elizabeth; he later told investigators that he knew something felt off.
McDonald turned to his friend in the passenger seat and asked if they should turn back. The friend said no, so they drove on.
Despite what her killers would later claim, Elizbeth’s best friend Mella still maintains that she never would have willingly gotten into a car with a strange man.
"I know Liz, she would never have got into a car without knowing who they were. I know she wouldn't because she was my friend. And we used to talk about things like that. We were always terrified of anything like that."
I pulled in near the supermarket and said to my friend should I go back and see if everything is alright and my friend advised me to go home as we might be sticking our noses into something that didn’t concern us - David James McDonald, witness.
Elizabeth is missing
A few minutes after Elizabeth left McDaniel’s pub in Brittas Bay, her boyfriend Damien went looking for her.
He had his sister, Mella check the bathroom, and when Elizabeth was nowhere to be found, he frantically began to search.
The couple’s friend Joe McCoy and his girlfriend Annette McLoughlin drove around Wicklow trying to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth.
But it was too late because Shaw and Evans had already abducted Elizabeth and brought her to a nearby woodland to rape her and ultimately end her young life.
Kathleen Nolan née Plunkett remembers the morning after her sister went missing, the doorbell rang while the family prepared Sunday lunch.
Now, reader, this is private family information that has never before been made public - until now.
A young woman Kathleen did not recognise was at the door asking for Elizabeth, Kathleen told her that she was away for the weekend.
Elizabeth’s mother knew something was off, but by the time she raced after the woman, she had disappeared.
To hear what happened next, you really must stream.
They both came down to the house, and started to tell my mam and Damien came in.
He told her that they had a row and that Elizabeth said she was going home and we've searched for her and we cannot find her - Bernie Plunkett, sister.
The search
Damien checked the home of Elizabeth’s older sister Joan and her husband Jimmy, but she wasn’t there either. It was then he knew he had to tell the Plunkett family.
Once the family learned of Elizabeth’s disappearance, the search effort went into overdrive.
But there is nothing like a mother’s intuition, according to Kathleen and Bernie; their mother knew instantly that Elizabeth was dead.
The Plunkett family’s local garda station in Irishtown said they could not help until Elizabeth had been missing for 24 hours as she was over 21.
But they were not going to wait that long and returned to Wicklow to search till dark. After 36 hours, Elizabeth’s brothers Eddie and Thomas came from Cork to join the search.
During that first week of searches, the country became gripped by the case. The civil defence, the guards, friends, neighbours, colleagues, everyone joined the search for Elizabeth.
The podcast's proximity to the family allows the listener to fully come to grips with the terror and desperation they felt during the investigation as they recount the most traumatic moments of their lives.
God, I just, held it in my arms and I just said, oh, please, let her be alive or let her, you know, please let us find her - Mella Bushe, friend
Castletimon Woods
A week after Elizabeth went missing, the gardaí launched a large-scale methodical search that took place on rough land near Castletimon woods.
Down a laneway leading from the roadway into the forest Joe McCoy would make a discovery…
A discovery that would suggest his friend Elizabeth had faced an unimaginable fate and was quite possibly no longer alive.
I’ve left the tragic details out of this piece, so you’ll have to stream the episode to find out more.
It's desperation you feel. And you're confused. And you're like, no, who could, where could she have gone? You can't just disappear off the face of the earth. Somebody has to know…" - Bernie Plunkett, sister
Close encounters
While the Plunketts spent every waking hour looking for Elizabeth, her killers were still close by…
Garda Nicky Crennan speaks to the series creators about a call he received a few hours after Elizabeth went missing.
The owner of McDaniel’s pub at that time also owned the nearby caravan park. He reported that two men were acting strangely in the park, and Garda Crennan responded to that call.
He had no idea the men he was about to encounter had just murdered a young woman and were in the process of disposing of the evidence.
The men were standing by a fire when the authorities arrived and told Garda Crennan they were drying their clothes. They gave the names John and Geoffrey Murphy from Fethard when questioned, which Garda Crennan instinctively wrote down.
But, something did not add up for the officers, as despite looking completely different, the men said they were brothers. The second this bit of information was queried, the men suddenly decided they were "step-brothers".
Evans and Shaw burned Elizabeth’s white slacks and t-shirt in that field.
News of Elizabeth’s disappearance had not broken, so Garda Crennan told the men to stop trespassing and leave.
But not even this encounter spooked the killers. Instead, they stayed in that caravan park until the next day robbing a few caravans before they left.
They were doing bugger all, only trespassing and I suppose we told them they were on private property, you shouldn’t be here - Garda Nicky Crennan
If anyone has any information on John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans, the Plunkett family have asked that you contact the podcast makers through documentaries@rte.ie.
