Update, March 15, 2014: Sadly, the body of Mark Casey was found in the Rhebogue area this morning at around 11.30am.
This is Mark Casey in a photograph taken on the night he disappeared. When last seen in the early hours of Friday morning, 7 March, he was wearing these clothes. Image: The Casey family.
AN OFFALY FAMILY has appealed for any scrap of information which might help reveal what happened to student Mark Casey who went missing in Limerick a week ago.
The 19-year-old attends NUI Galway but is from Ballyinasragh, Killeigh, Tullamore, Co Offaly. He went missing on a night out in Limerick city last week, where he had gone to celebrate a friend’s birthday.
He was last seen in the early hours of last Friday morning, 7 March.
His cousin Damien Casey told TheJournal.ie that Mark’s family and “hordes of volunteers” are travelling from Offaly and Galway to search Limerick every day and back home again every evening.
Damien said:
We have to hold out hope – we’re all trying to be as proactive as possible.It’s tough in the evenings when we are travelling back to Offaly and there have been no developments, no news.
Mark went out with friends in Limerick on Thursday, 6 March, ending up in Angel Lane nightclub on Robert Street. He left the club on his own at 1.30am, and was not wearing a jacket.
It was raining at the time and rained until around 4am that Friday morning, so the family hope that this fact – that Mark was a young man on his own, without a jacket or coat in the downpour – might trigger someone’s memory.
The family spent the days immediately after Mark went missing poring over CCTV footage from outside the nightclub and elsewhere in Limerick. By identifying him on footage at certain points across the city, they have started to piece together some of Mark’s route in those early hours of last Friday.
Mark Casey. Image: The Casey family.
Last-known movements
Damien said: “He left the nightclub itself, went upwards through the Cornmarket area to the cathedral. There is a hospital across from the (St John’s) cathedral and there was CCTV from there.
The last sighting we had was near Griffin’s funeral home – you come to a fork in the road and Lelia Street lies to the left there.
St Lelia Street leads towards an intersection on Clare Street. If you head left on Clare Street, you end up at a tributary that feeds into the main River Shannon; if you turn right, it leads to the Dublin Road. The family believe that Mark may have intended to head towards the University of Limerick campus, which lies in the direction of the Dublin Road.
Damien added:
He was down for a friend’s birthday and unfamiliar with his surroundings when he came out onto the street. He had no phone on him at the time so we do think he was trying to make his way to the campus. He would possibly have gone out onto Clare Street that night.
Mark’s parents, John and Catherine, brothers James and Derek, and sister Shirley are “so appreciative” of the time and effort local Limerick people and groups have given to the search as they try to retrace Mark’s steps every day.
“We’ve been searching everywhere, bins and laneways… People mightn’t think that the slightest piece of information they might have would be important but it could be,” said Damien.
“If they even think they have seen a single guy with no jacket on in that rain, it was raining until around 4am, that might be something. We are directing people to ring Henry Street Garda station or any Garda station.”
Henry Street Garda station is on 061 212400.
Mark Casey is 5ft 7in tall, with light brown to blonde-coloured hair, and was wearing a dark polo-style t-shirt and grey chinos when last seen. He’s of a slim but athletic build.
The red triangles mark various locations in Limerick city where there were confirmed sightings, or where it is thought he may have passed:
Can also view here.
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