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slash hypergig for details. It was

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March 2022, and Leona Tai was in Dublin

0:32

airport,

0:39

waiting

0:44

to board a flight to Lisbon. Her

0:47

bag was packed, her boarding pass

0:49

ready, and her husband by

0:51

her side. But she didn't

0:53

have any of the usual pre-holiday jitters.

0:56

The idea of a week without work and admin,

0:59

the prospect of a 10.30am cocktail, or

1:02

a regrettable airport purchase. And

1:04

once she touches down in Portugal, the

1:07

beach will be the furthest thing from her mind.

1:09

Because Leona

1:11

wasn't going on holiday. She was

1:13

heading to Lisbon with one objective

1:16

only,

1:17

to find her missing sister. I'm

1:20

Pandora Sykes, and you're listening to

1:22

The Missing, a Podomo podcast

1:25

series produced by What's The Story Sounds,

1:27

and brought to you with help from the charities

1:30

Missing People and Locate International.

1:33

They believe that all of the cases in

1:35

this series could still be solved.

1:39

This

1:39

is The Missing, Jean

1:41

Tai. Jean

1:48

had always been a keen traveller. Over

1:52

the years, she'd crisscrossed the globe,

1:54

ticking off a laundry list of destinations

1:56

on both sides of the equator.

1:59

A quick flick through. her passport would reveal

2:01

stamps from India, Australia and South

2:03

Africa to name but a few. More

2:06

recently she'd spent a lot of time on

2:08

mainland Europe,

2:09

eventually settling in Germany where

2:11

she lived for two years.

2:14

She left following a breakup and

2:16

by Christmas 2019 was back

2:19

home in County Cavan with

2:21

her sister, Leona and the rest

2:23

of the Thai family.

2:26

So I'm the eldest and there's my brother,

2:29

my sister Jean, another brother

2:31

and another sister. They say you can

2:33

learn a lot about someone by going travelling with

2:35

them. After trips to Spain

2:38

and France, Leona found out that

2:40

Jean wasn't fond of an itinerary. Very

2:43

relaxed, very spontaneous,

2:46

let's see what happens when we get out there. It

2:48

was very much let's take it easy. There

2:51

would always have to be a beach. There

2:54

was no way that we were going somewhere without a beach

2:57

and the sea

2:58

and Jean loved good climates,

3:00

warm climates. So

3:02

we always went to places like that and

3:05

you know walked around, took in

3:08

the area. That's how

3:10

Jean travelled. Jean was

3:12

a free spirit, one who was more

3:14

than happy to fly solo should she have to.

3:17

Jean did go travelling alone but Jean

3:20

is a good, you know, she's a good person.

3:22

She's well able to meet new people and

3:24

to converse and Jean

3:28

is quite street smart and is

3:31

street wise and

3:33

has a good idea of

3:35

people and has a good idea of

3:37

how to communicate and work with people

3:40

because that's just something we

3:43

learned from a very young age. Jean's

3:46

ease around strangers stemmed from a long

3:48

career in hospitality, one that

3:50

started in her teenage years back in

3:53

Cavan.

3:54

We grew up in the hospitality business ourselves

3:57

as a family in rural Ireland

3:59

with... a pub, a shop and a post office.

4:02

So Jean was an expert at that type of work because

4:04

we had grown up in that type of a business and

4:07

we knew it like the back of our hand.

4:09

When you grow up in a family business, whatever

4:11

it is, it's all hands on deck all the time.

4:14

There was never an idle moment,

4:16

you know? So, you know,

4:18

she was well able to waitress,

4:21

work in bars, coffee shops, things

4:23

like that. I mean, none of us

4:26

are asked for

4:28

want of a better word, desk jobs, Monday

4:31

to Friday, 9 to 5. Jean

4:33

handled her fair share of problem customers

4:36

in those days. Jean would have been

4:38

well able to gauge people

4:40

and suss out

4:41

dangerous situations and things like that.

4:44

And in some respects, maybe Jean

4:47

was a bit too confident

4:49

in traveling.

4:51

Jean was no shrinking violet. If

4:53

a situation turned hairy, she

4:55

was more than capable of holding her own, something

4:58

she learned about herself one night in 2013.

5:03

It was the early hours of the morning and Jean

5:05

was in Dublin, walking home from

5:08

a Gowan's pub on Fibsborough Road.

5:11

As she made her way over the Crossguns bridge,

5:14

a man emerged from the shadows and grabbed her,

5:16

threatening to throw her into the freezing waters

5:18

of the River Liffey, unless she gave

5:20

him her phone and her purse. Jean

5:23

had no intention of giving up either and she fought

5:25

the mugger off.

5:27

He fled the scene, but not without

5:29

leaving behind several chunks of his skin

5:32

under Jean's

5:33

fingernails. I mean,

5:34

my sister is well able to manage herself.

5:38

After finishing secondary school, Jean

5:40

headed off to college. So

5:42

my sister did her degree

5:44

in the University of Ulster, in Belfast

5:47

campus, in

5:49

fine art and art history. And then

5:52

later on in about 2013, Jean did

5:55

a business certificate in NCI

5:57

Dublin. Jean did a lot of projects

5:59

for a student. on her artwork.

6:02

Obviously it's

6:05

not a very stable income. So

6:07

Jean worked in a lot of temporary

6:10

positions. She had a good

6:13

work ethic. Leona

6:15

remembers the last time she saw her sister in person.

6:22

Jean arrived in Cavan on Christmas

6:25

Eve 2019.

6:27

The two of them spoke about Jean's plans

6:29

for the future. I knew she was

6:31

finished with Germany because she had said, I

6:33

won't be going back to Germany. We were

6:35

just talking about Germany and the

6:38

break-up of that relationship.

6:41

And you know what

6:43

was next. That

6:45

conversation was the first time Jean

6:47

brought up the idea of heading to Portugal. So

6:51

Jean always travelled around with

6:54

her friend called Tasha. And

6:56

they've been friends for the best part

6:58

of ten years. And she

7:00

was explaining that well, my

7:03

friend, you know, her parents

7:05

are from Portugal. And Tasha's

7:07

parents have

7:10

a home house in Portugal. And

7:13

they'll probably go out there in the new year.

7:16

Herself and Tasha. The

7:20

place where Tasha's from and that

7:23

they were staying in was along the coastline

7:25

from Lisbon to Cascais.

7:28

And Tasha's parents' place was in Carcavellas.

7:31

So that's how they came to

7:33

be in Carcavellas. Jean

7:36

and Tasha touched down in the West

7:38

Lisbon suburb in March 2020. Just

7:42

weeks after their arrival, the coronavirus

7:45

pandemic saw countries all over the world

7:47

start closing down

7:48

their borders. And then Tasha

7:50

had to go back to the United

7:52

States because of the lockdown. And

7:55

you know, she had to move

7:58

back to the United States in case you might want to.

8:00

and get back into the United States with the COVID.

8:03

After three months in Carcovellis, Jean

8:06

returned to Ireland in June. But

8:09

after witnessing the shuttered pubs and restaurants

8:11

firsthand, as well as the strict

8:13

social distancing measures, it

8:16

ended up being a rather short visit.

8:18

Jean came back to Dublin and stayed

8:22

for a couple of weeks and then decided,

8:25

well, if this is the way the lockdown is going to be, I'm

8:27

going to head back out to Lisbon.

8:29

At least we're beside the beach in Lisbon.

8:31

This time,

8:33

Jean set up camp in Parada,

8:36

the next suburb over from Carcovellis,

8:39

and got herself a room in the Help

8:41

Yourself hostel, the same chain

8:43

she'd used during her previous trip.

8:45

On July the 13th,

8:48

a few days after she'd arrived in Portugal,

8:51

she phoned her sister. Leona

8:53

missed the call, but texted Jean back,

8:55

asking if everything was okay.

8:58

Yes, fine, Jean replied.

9:01

That was the last time Leona heard from

9:03

her sister.

9:07

Much has been made of the fact that almost

9:10

half a year past between Jean's

9:12

last exchange with her family and

9:14

them reporting her missing to the

9:17

Irish authorities. But

9:19

there are several factors at play

9:21

to consider.

9:23

For one thing, Jean was no stranger

9:25

to dropping everything at a moment's notice

9:28

and heading to some far-flung corner

9:30

of the globe. Nothing was planned

9:32

to a tee

9:33

with Jean. You know,

9:35

Jean could arrive home or she could go again.

9:38

You know, so she was always on

9:40

the move, but her plans weren't

9:42

set

9:42

in stone, and that's how

9:44

she lived. Secondly,

9:47

there was still activity on her bank

9:49

and social media accounts. We

9:51

knew that she was in communication

9:53

with her friends on social media because

9:57

they told us, so we weren't

9:59

alarmed. We didn't, you

10:01

know, there was nothing unusual about this. Jean

10:05

also wasn't one for keeping her family abreast

10:07

of her travel plans. There was no

10:10

big conversations. It was, it's

10:12

always short and brief

10:14

with Jean, you know. Like

10:17

you could never say to Jean, make

10:20

sure you ring every Sunday or things

10:23

like that because Jean would be turned on

10:25

and she'd be horrified and she'd be like, excuse

10:27

me, you can't tell me how to live

10:30

my life. And

10:32

like I said, Jean is a young adult,

10:34

young woman and very capable.

10:37

You know, Jean

10:39

is very capable person and very

10:41

resourceful. Leona had

10:43

a lot on her plate during this time. In 2020,

10:46

she was a nurse living in New York City on

10:48

the front lines of one of the worst COVID

10:51

epicenters in the world.

10:54

I mean, it's a bit of a blur now. I think we were

10:56

doing 80 hour weeks. I'm

10:58

not too sure. I know we didn't work any week, less

11:00

than 60 hours. We just

11:02

went from bed to work, bed to work. I

11:05

mean, work was a nightmare because

11:07

you were top to toe and PPE

11:10

and you could barely get through

11:12

the day. You know, the sweat would be just pouring

11:16

off you. So taking

11:18

out a mobile phone and all the rest of it was

11:20

a no-no.

11:21

Due to travel restrictions, Leona

11:23

wouldn't be able to return home to cabin

11:25

for Christmas that year as normal.

11:28

As the festive season approached, she

11:30

wondered if Jean would be similarly stranded.

11:33

I spoke to her friends in

11:35

December because there was no talk

11:37

or no sign of, you know, Jean saying, oh,

11:39

well, I'll be in Dublin on this day and I'm coming for

11:41

this. And then when I was trying

11:44

to contact other friends

11:46

belonging to Jean, nobody

11:48

was getting back to me straight away. And even

11:50

if there were, I still couldn't pick up those messages

11:52

until I was on a day off or I had a breather.

11:54

We couldn't get in touch with everyone.

11:55

We certainly couldn't get proper

11:58

information from Jean. no

12:01

text messages phone us and then there was

12:03

no sign of her coming for Christmas in New Year.

12:06

Eventually, after months without

12:08

contact, the family,

12:10

now gravely concerned,

12:12

made the decision to involve the authorities.

12:17

We reported Jean missing to the guards. My

12:20

sister went to the guard station in Navin. That

12:23

report then was transferred up to Fitzgibbon

12:26

Street because Jean lives in Glaston Evan and

12:28

that was where the report went to and

12:30

that's how we ended up dealing with

12:32

the guards on Fitzgibbon Street. And

12:35

they then sent a report to

12:37

Interpol and to the police over

12:39

in Kážkáis, the Portuguese police.

12:43

Missing persons cases are complicated

12:45

things at the best of times, but

12:48

trying to get information from a police force

12:50

in a different country when you don't

12:53

speak each other's language was an

12:55

even more challenging prospect. It

12:57

was impossible. It was impossible.

13:01

And on the rare occasions when Leona did

13:03

manage to make contact with someone, she

13:05

felt she wasn't getting the answers she needed.

13:08

You know, we sent a litany of emails, phone

13:10

calls, we would get terrible

13:13

responses. I would speak to them

13:15

on the phone, I sent through the information

13:18

to verify I was who I was and I gave

13:20

permission and we went through

13:22

all of that, that everything was above board

13:24

for me to speak to them on the phone. And

13:27

they would say, oh, your sister has gone off to start her

13:29

own life. Leona didn't

13:31

feel that they were asking too much. Most

13:34

of the information they were looking for was basic

13:37

access to Jean's phone and bank records, her

13:39

social media accounts, anything

13:42

that would help to paint a picture of her movements.

13:45

What you do is you submit a request

13:48

for information with the case number and your

13:50

police stamp and meta

13:52

Facebook, Google, Instagram. They will release

13:54

the information because I've asked them myself.

13:56

I met people

13:58

who were in

13:59

similar situations.

13:59

and they said, you don't have to go to

14:02

court or anything like that. You get that information,

14:04

you have to submit a request. I can't

14:06

do it and you can't do it, but the police can do it. So

14:09

I asked for that to

14:11

be done and

14:12

it hasn't been done.

14:14

That has not been done to date. I

14:17

can't give you any information about phone

14:19

records, bank records, social media accounts.

14:22

And my sister was on match.com. Now

14:25

I would have thought that that would have been the

14:28

biggest point of information

14:30

was match.com because people

14:33

meet other people through websites

14:36

like match.com, through Tinder,

14:38

through apps like this,

14:41

dating apps, and also meetups.

14:44

You know, you have the meetups to

14:46

meet new people. When people

14:49

are travelling and they're in a new area, that's how they

14:51

get involved with other people and they

14:53

meet new people. So the fact

14:55

that none of that information has been requested

14:57

is

14:58

terrible because I feel that that's

15:00

huge.

15:03

After months spent playing phone tag

15:05

with the Portuguese police, the Thai

15:08

family decided that they needed to take control

15:10

of the situation and they made the

15:12

decision to hire a private investigator.

15:16

We gave him all the information. Tasha spoke

15:18

to him because Tasha has the language,

15:21

I don't. And he

15:23

went and did a good

15:26

thorough investigation. He was

15:28

able to tell me that my

15:30

sister left the hostel on the

15:33

afternoon of Monday, July

15:35

13th, with her handbag on

15:37

her person. A

15:40

hostel worker who,

15:42

I

15:42

can't mention his name now, a hostel

15:45

worker

15:46

told the private investigator that he

15:48

saw my sister, Jean Thai,

15:51

leave the hostel on the afternoon of

15:53

July 13th, 2020,

15:55

and that

15:57

Jean left the hostel early. with

16:01

a Brazilian man. Now

16:05

I think that's huge information

16:08

and she was never seen after that

16:10

again. Who

16:15

was this man?

16:17

Was he a friend? Was he

16:19

someone Jean had arranged a date with?

16:22

Either

16:22

way there's a strong chance he's

16:24

the last man to have seen Jean alive.

16:26

The day

16:29

before Jean had booked a flight back to

16:31

Dublin due to leave Lisbon a week

16:33

later. Jean had

16:35

booked to stay another night in

16:37

the hostel. She had paid for it that day,

16:40

paid to stay the night of the 13th

16:43

in that hostel and she went

16:45

off that afternoon with her handbag.

16:48

She left all her belongings in the rest

16:50

of her belongings in the hostel which would be natural

16:52

her passport and everything like that so

16:54

it's safe to say that Jean had in her handbag a

16:57

mobile phone, wallet, makeup, these

17:00

things and she

17:02

was never seen again. She never came back to the hostel.

17:05

Now he has that information. He got that

17:07

information. He said that taxi drivers,

17:09

there's a taxi rank right outside the hostel

17:13

and he said he spoke to taxi drivers

17:16

and showed the picture of Jean and taxi drivers

17:18

did did recognize her

17:21

and a couple of people in local shops recognized

17:23

her. So he found out that

17:26

information and he did a lot of work and

17:28

he submitted that information to the Portuguese police.

17:30

Emboldened

17:32

by these findings, Leona

17:34

kept digging and managed to enlist the

17:36

help of a Portuguese journalist Michael

17:39

Pereira who wrote for the Expresso,

17:42

a national weekly newspaper.

17:46

So

17:46

I was cold calling if you like cold

17:49

emailing all the journalists in Ireland or Portugal

17:52

to take up the story and he was

17:54

the only one that came back to me.

17:59

was down to the fact

18:02

that Jean had never been placed on an official

18:04

missing persons list in Portugal. So

18:07

any journalist doing their due diligence wouldn't

18:10

be able to find any records of

18:12

a missing person in Lisbon by

18:14

her name.

18:18

I needed to get the story out there and

18:20

I needed to overcome a couple

18:22

of, let's say for want of a better word, rumours

18:25

that were out there. So

18:27

there was one

18:29

belief in Portugal by the police that,

18:31

you know, Jean had gone

18:33

off to start her own life.

18:35

And my thinking was, not just my thinking,

18:38

when I say me, it's really the whole family and friends. People

18:41

said to me, well, that's not possible

18:43

unless you have an awful lot of money because

18:46

who's going to give you a brand new

18:48

passport for nothing? I mean,

18:51

if you want to go and start off a new life, you

18:53

need a lot of planning, you need a lot of resources,

18:56

you need people to help you to set up bank accounts.

19:00

You know, it just doesn't happen overnight.

19:03

Now, I knew that my sister didn't go to

19:05

do that because she

19:07

wouldn't be bothered and there's no

19:10

two ways about it. She would be like, forget

19:12

about it.

19:14

Then there was a belief over here in

19:16

Ireland that my sister,

19:19

you know, had mental health difficulties. She was

19:21

anxious. She had anxiety

19:24

and that she had taken her own life and

19:26

that we as a family couldn't accept it.

19:28

So our thinking again was, well,

19:31

OK,

19:32

we can't rule in anything, we can't rule out anything. But

19:35

number one,

19:37

where's Jean then? Where's

19:39

the evidence of that theory? Number

19:42

two, would you go back to Portugal

19:45

to do something like that? Would somebody,

19:48

you know, it just didn't add up.

19:50

The family eventually came to learn that

19:52

the person who first reported Jean missing

19:55

was a

19:55

friend of hers.

19:59

in question was from Angola and

20:02

had been in regular contact with Jean

20:04

and Lisbon at the time of her disappearance.

20:08

Tasha knew him as well and he got

20:10

in touch with the police sometime

20:12

between July 15th and July 19th.

20:15

But Leona never managed to speak with

20:18

him directly. But I don't know whether

20:20

he said he didn't meet me because maybe he was afraid

20:22

to meet me or maybe he was

20:24

in the country illegally or something.

20:27

Sadly, he's since passed away.

20:30

I think he had an underlying condition like diabetes

20:32

or blood pressure and

20:34

he's the person that he shouldn't have been

20:35

drinking or smoking and he was doing both. So

20:38

I think that that's the story. There's

20:42

nothing suspicious about his death or anything like

20:44

that. Eventually, in

20:46

March 2022, after

20:48

countless emails and phone calls, Leona

20:51

and several other members of the Thai family made

20:54

their way to Portugal for a sit down

20:56

with the authorities.

20:59

Leona began the trip by taking a walk

21:01

around Perada, the area where

21:03

Jean was last seen. I've

21:06

walked the length and the breadth of it. It's

21:08

all residential, it's quiet, it's

21:10

seem safe. People don't have anything bad

21:12

to say about it. She also

21:15

paid a visit to the hostel where her sister had been

21:17

staying. I knocked

21:19

on the door of the hostel when I was out there

21:22

and

21:24

I got in the front door. I never

21:26

got to look around

21:27

the rest of it and

21:30

the management of the hostel wouldn't meet me. I

21:33

asked to meet them, I asked to come back another day so

21:36

I wanted to have a look around, I wanted to see,

21:38

I wanted to speak to them. So they

21:40

wouldn't meet me and I've

21:43

had no contact with the hostel since.

21:47

I just think that if

21:49

it was your sister who

21:50

went missing, wouldn't you at least

21:53

try to help somebody from

21:55

another country whose sister disappeared from

21:57

your hostel? Why are you so

22:00

evasive, why are you

22:02

so cold? Like my sister

22:04

disappeared from your hostel, your employees

22:06

say that they saw my sister leave this

22:09

hostel and they were the last to see

22:11

my sister. So why can't we

22:13

have a meeting about that, a discussion about

22:15

that?

22:18

Then the family had the meeting they'd all been

22:20

waiting for,

22:22

a sit down with the PSP, Portugal's

22:24

national civil police force, the

22:27

ones who had taken the report when Jean

22:29

first went missing over a year and a half

22:31

prior.

22:32

Accompanied by her husband, an

22:35

official from the Irish Embassy and

22:37

an interpreter, Leona found herself

22:39

face to face with the chief commander of

22:41

the PSP, along with his deputy

22:44

and four stony-faced detectives.

22:49

Now when that report was made, the

22:51

fact that Jean was a lone traveller will

22:53

say, a young woman, a young

22:55

foreign woman, a young woman travelling in

22:58

a foreign country who was reported

23:00

missing, that report

23:02

should have went straight to the judicial police

23:06

in Portugal and that never happened.

23:08

The judicial police is Portugal's national

23:10

crime investigation agency, specialising

23:13

in serious crimes including drug trafficking,

23:16

kidnapping and homicide. Who

23:19

took the report, where was this report from,

23:21

who made the report, you know, what

23:24

was happening. I was led to believe that

23:27

because Jean had gone off from

23:30

the hostel in July and had

23:33

left her stuff behind, what

23:35

I was told was that if travellers

23:37

leave their stuff behind

23:38

in a hostel, the

23:40

hostel has to keep the belongings

23:43

for three months and then the police come

23:45

and pick it up or that you have to report

23:48

that a traveller never came back for

23:50

their belongings. The men

23:52

sitting opposite Leona weren't able

23:55

to provide satisfactory answers to any

23:57

of these questions and when it came

23:59

to the official...

23:59

missing persons report made

24:02

by Jean's friend they said they weren't

24:04

authorized to show it to the family.

24:08

He said it was on the system and he couldn't access

24:10

the system. So I'm sitting

24:12

in the room with him looking at him he's

24:14

looking at me and he's telling me with

24:16

the computer beside him that he can't access

24:19

the system and I think I said

24:21

to him but the computer is there in front of you

24:23

I still can't access the system and

24:25

he said to me you shouldn't

24:28

be here you should be you should have

24:29

your meeting with the judicial police and the

24:32

public ministry you shouldn't be here I shouldn't

24:34

be meeting with you you're not meeting with the right people

24:36

I am NOT the person for you to meet with them. He

24:39

said you need to get your government

24:42

and your authorities to

24:43

put to talk to the Portuguese

24:47

government and authorities said I can't do that

24:49

I don't do that I'm running a

24:51

police station all I can tell you

24:53

is that our

24:54

police detectives took up the report sent

24:58

true in Drupal at the beginning

25:00

of 2021 we have gone down to

25:03

the hostel we can't find your sister

25:06

and your sister's case has moved on

25:08

and that's who you need to see and that's who you need to get

25:10

in touch with. Jean's

25:13

family returned to Ireland crestfallen

25:15

they had seen firsthand

25:17

just how difficult it was for them as civilians

25:20

to put pressure on the investigation and

25:23

so they got in touch with some people who wouldn't

25:25

have that problem. Well we

25:27

first contacted senior

25:29

politicians within government in 2021

25:32

we wrote letters to everybody

25:35

there January 2022 and I have

25:37

to say that our local TD

25:40

Brendan Smith

25:43

for Kavanagh Monaghan is fantastic

25:46

because

25:47

everything now goes through Brendan to

25:50

his colleagues and other departments

25:53

and they have to get back to Brendan

25:55

they may not get back to me they don't get back to me but

25:57

they have to get back to him

25:59

he's been able to

25:59

to help us to

26:01

get to where we want to put to where we are

26:04

now.

26:08

Jean's case has now made its way

26:10

to the very top of the Irish Government.

26:13

We submitted questions to Brendan

26:15

Smith that

26:18

have never been answered by the Portuguese police.

26:21

And Brendan has submitted

26:23

those questions to Mihal

26:26

Martin-D'Otonishta, a minister for foreign affairs.

26:29

And he is going to make it his business

26:31

to get those questions answered. And

26:34

that does mean a lot because

26:36

the Portuguese police may

26:38

not answer those questions for me or

26:40

indeed for the Irish police, but they

26:42

will have to answer them. They

26:45

will have to send a reply back

26:48

to the minister for foreign affairs,

26:50

because these questions

26:52

have to be answered. I mean, you

26:55

can't have it that somebody disappears and

26:57

that the basic information is not

26:59

gathered

26:59

in a missing person's case.

27:02

And the other thing as well, if

27:05

we don't get these questions

27:07

answered, what message does that send

27:09

out

27:10

to other families? What

27:13

message does that send out to people who

27:19

are working outside the

27:21

lines of the law? You

27:23

know, well, I can do this. I'm not

27:25

going to be caught.

27:26

Nobody's going to bother looking. There's

27:29

going to be no investigation and there's going to be no

27:31

this. And, you know, I can

27:33

do what I like. There has

27:36

to be accountability. By

27:38

the time you're listening to this, Leona

27:40

will have made another trip to Portugal, this

27:43

time for a long anticipated meeting

27:46

with the judicial police.

27:48

What they said was to a liaison

27:51

officer with the Irish embassy, they said that we will

27:54

meet the family any time they want to meet. So

27:57

I said, no problem. We'll be over.

27:59

better be prepared because Leona

28:02

has a lengthy list of questions, all

28:05

of which demand answers. I

28:08

need to find out exactly what

28:10

have you done, what remains outstanding,

28:14

like a query at the bank records,

28:16

where is the public appeal for information,

28:19

where is the social media account records, who did

28:21

you speak to in the hostel, did you speak to the hostel

28:23

manager, how was Jean living in Portugal,

28:26

do we need to review the entire case again?

28:31

For Leona and the rest of her family, Jean's

28:35

disappearance and the endless ordeal

28:37

of dealing with the Portuguese authorities has

28:39

been a hellish experience.

28:45

It's having a terrible effect on the family. I

28:49

suppose one miniature in

28:51

denial, the next miniature in disbelief and

28:53

then the next miniature, okay,

28:55

this is real and this is terrible and what can you

28:58

do about it? You're in a very helpless position,

29:01

which is very hard to deal with.

29:04

There is a loss, we're experiencing a loss,

29:07

but we have no outcome,

29:10

so there's no closure. This is an ongoing loss

29:13

and the lack of information

29:15

is obviously compounding the

29:18

loss and

29:20

it's having a devastating effect.

29:24

This past February, a mass was held

29:26

in Jean's home parish of Muntcha Conacht

29:29

for her safe return. It

29:31

was a lovely mass, but it was very difficult

29:33

and I

29:37

think since that mass, it's

29:40

really hit home

29:42

to a couple of members of the family. This is real.

29:44

We know it's real, but

29:50

this just doesn't affect myself,

29:53

my father, my brothers and

29:55

sisters and Jean's friends. It

29:58

affects our spouses. Our

30:02

extended family, neighbours

30:06

and friends, you know, it

30:08

has a major ripple effect.

30:11

And that's something that you have to be very aware

30:14

of

30:15

as well. I

30:17

mean, I am

30:19

very worried for certain members of my family, you

30:21

know. Will

30:25

they be able to survive it? In

30:35

many cases, it takes just one piece

30:37

of information to lead police

30:40

or family to the answers they crave. If

30:43

you know what happened to Jean, or

30:45

you remember seeing someone like her on

30:48

July 13th 2020, your information could be vital. Even

30:53

if you've never heard of Jean Tai before

30:55

listening to this episode, you could still

30:58

help. Visit our website, themissingpodcast.org,

31:02

where you'll find more information on this

31:05

and every other case we've featured on this

31:07

podcast. There,

31:09

you can join an online movement, one

31:12

dedicated to supporting the investigations

31:14

for all the cases we've covered, including

31:17

the one you're listening to right now.

31:20

Since the launch of The Missing Podcast,

31:23

over 300 volunteers have joined

31:25

community investigation teams led

31:27

by Locate International.

31:29

In the UK alone, there are over 12,000

31:32

long-term missing and unidentified

31:35

people.

31:37

To support Locate's efforts and

31:39

to learn more about the vital work they

31:41

do, visit locate.international,

31:45

where you can join the mission to help

31:47

locate the missing. The

31:49

series is also made in collaboration

31:51

with the charity Missing People, who

31:54

work tirelessly to support the families

31:56

of the missing. Their

31:58

helpline is open to the public.

31:59

to offer support and advice if

32:02

you've been affected by anything in this episode.

32:05

You can reach them by calling or texting 116

32:08

000 or by emailing them

32:10

at 116 000 at missingpeople.org.uk. We

32:20

cannot say this enough, it takes

32:22

just one person with the right

32:24

information to solve any of the

32:27

cases in this series. The

32:29

Tai

32:29

family hopes that the information

32:32

will soon arrive to solve this

32:34

one. The Missing

32:37

is a podcast from Podemo and What's

32:39

the Story Sounds. It's hosted

32:41

by me, Pandora Sykes. The

32:43

episodes are researched and produced by Jacka

32:46

Kennedy.

32:46

The executive producers for Podemo

32:49

are Jake Chudnow and Matt White. And

32:51

the executive producers for What's the Story

32:53

Sounds are Darrell Brown and

32:56

Sophie Ellis.

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