Ros Purcell

The Gardaí we have spoken to for this series are all retired about 20 years.

These Gardaí didn't have to go looking for notes to jog their memories.

Some of them, when we knocked on their door that day, recalled it instantly.

These events were just so out of the ordinary in the Ireland of 1976.

Thursday evening, the 23rd of September 1976, Mary Duffy's family were beginning to go through a similar experience to the one Elizabeth's family had been going through for almost a month now.

I'm Ros Purcell from RTE Documentary on One.

This is Stolen Sister, Episode 4, Confessions.

While the whole Castlebar community in Mayo went into shock and a huge search began, Mary was being held captive in a forest 80 kilometres away by John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans.

The statements and words of Sean Evans are recreated here using the voice of actors.

The names of these two young women from opposite ends of the country, Elizabeth Plunkett and Mary Duffy, were now linked.

When Gardaí were alerted by Mary's family, the similarities between her case and Elizabeth's were very obvious.

This was a big news story.

And on Friday the 24th of September, two strange men with English accents went into a pub in the west of Ireland.

Garda PJ Corcoran.

On that same day, Garda Denis O'Shea dealt with a reported break-in at a boathouse out at Lough Ina, about an hour's drive from where Mary Duffy was last seen alive.

The next day, in the nearby seaside village of Roundstone, a man saw two men on the bridge throwing things into the river.

You'll remember in our last episode, Sean Evans were spotted at Joe Keane's petrol station at Mam Cross in Connemara.

And when news broke that Mary Duffy was missing, Joe phoned Gardaí.

It fitted with the car that some of the witnesses in Castlebar had seen.

The Gardaí now knew who they were looking for and the exact car Sean Evans were driving.