At the time of her disappearance Fiona Sinnott was living in the rural village of Ballyhit Co. Wexford some ninety miles south of Dublin City. Fiona was a young single mother, her daughter Emma was eleven months old at the time of her mother’s disappearance. 

19 year old Fiona Sinnott spent the night of Sunday February the 8th 1998 socialising with a group a friends in Butler’s Pub in Broadway Co. Wexford not far from her rented home. Fiona’s friends Nora, Joan and Martina described Fiona as being happy that night, and in good spirits. However, her friends would later tell Gardi that Fiona was also complaining of pain in one of her arms, unfortunately as Fiona had been the victim of domestic violence in the past the report of the pain in her arm raised the suspicions of Gardi.

Also in Butler’s Pub that Sunday night was Fiona’s ex-boyfriend and father of her child, he did not join Fiona or her friends and spent the night drinking at the bar alone. At roughly midnight Fiona left Butler’s Pub with her ex-boyfriend and nobody else. Her ex-boyfriend would later tell Gardi that he and Fiona walked the short distance to her home, where he spent the night on Fiona’s sofa whilst she slept upstairs in her bedroom. 

He would also tell Gardi on the following morning, Monday the 9th of February, Fiona was still complaining of pain in her arm and decided to visit a doctor, and would hitch a lift to the doctor’s office. Fiona’s ex-boyfriend then gave her five pounds and got picked up by his mother at 9:30am, who drove him back to his parents’ home, in nearby Coddstown, where his and Fiona’s child had spent the previous night.  Fiona never arrived at the doctor’s office, no sightings of her hitch hiking have ever been reported nor has anyone ever came forward to Gardi stating that they gave Fiona a lift that morning.

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In the days after Fiona’s disappearance neighbours reported seeing numerous black bin bags outside of her home in Ballyhit. When the Gardi searched Fiona’s home and forensically examined it, they discovered no evidence of foul play, however the investigators were struck by how clean the house was considering the fact that a single mother lived there with her eleven month old daughter. Fiona’s landlord would later tell Gardi that whenever he visited Fiona’s home there would be bits and pieces everywhere, as would be expected in any house with such a young baby.

A few weeks after Fiona vanished a local farmer approached Gardi with information that was relevant to the case. The farmer told Gardi, that whilst attending to his cattle, he found numerous black bin bags on his property he opened some of the bags and found some letters addressed to Fiona Sinnott. Unfortunately when the farmer found this evidence, he was unaware of Fiona’s disappearance. He presumed it to be just another case of illegal dumping, which is a wide spread problem in Ireland, and burnt the evidence. Tragically no trace or evidence relating to Fiona Sinnott has been found since.