Desperate sister retraces missing mum Esra's steps two years after she disappeared

The young woman's family are this weekend retracing her final steps in the hope of uncovering fresh clues.

As the months turn to years, hopes of ever finding out what happened to the Esra, who would now be 40, are fading. But her sister refuses to give up the search.

"My poor mother, when we are talking to her, she is just staring into thin air and is drifting off again," Berna Fidan told the Herald.

Mum-of-one Esra left her home in Collinstown Grove, Clondalkin, in the early morning of February 23, 2011. Her car was spotted on CCTV in Bray some time later.

Gardai told the Herald that the investigation is continuing but as of now, there are few fresh leads.

Esra will be 41 ears old in March and her sister Berna has returned to Dublin from the UK to try and help investigators.

Her husband Ozgur and their son Emin (4) live in the UK where they are supported by family and friends.

There is now a new occupant living in Ezra's former family home. Berna keeps photographs of Esra on the wall and tells her story to anyone who visits.

Sinister

"I am very emotional every time I go back to Bray, even to her house (in Clondalkin)," Berna told the Herald.

She believes it may be too late for any new information.

Berna fears that something sinister may have happened to her and is sure that Esra did not take her own life.

"She had invited my mum and her husband's mum over. Somebody who is going to do something to themselves would not invite family members to come over," Berna said.

"She was even giving me a shopping list to send things back with my mum from the UK.

"Yes she was upset that my dad passed away, but it was not unexpected, he was ill. His death wasn't a shock."

On the morning that she disappeared, Esra told her husband Ozgur that she was popping down to the shops for a few minutes at 7.15am.

But almost an hour and a half later her grey Renault Twingo car was picked up on cameras driving erratically in Bray. The same car was almost involved in an accident with a Skoda Octavia on the corner of Convent Avenue and Strand Road.

Esra's car was later found abandoned at the nearby Bray Head car park – with her purse and credit cards in the boot.

Berna thinks that it may have been someone else was driving her car.

"The CCTV footage shows the speed of that car, the erratic driving, she never drove like that," she said.

"It looked like a speed race and she is such a cautious driver anyway.

"It was so strange with her purse being locked in the boot of the car.

"You cannot tell me that it is suicide without a body."

In a strange twist in the investigation, months after she disappeared, Esra's car keys turned up in a chip shop close to her home in Clondalkin.

But Berna said gardai told her that they simply do not have the resources or manpower to sit through several months of CCTV footage to see how these keys arrived at this place.

Esra's mother is broken-hearted that there is no news about her daughter and her health is failing.

"Her health has deteriorated and she had to have a blood transfusion. She is shutting down. She said 'I need to know what has happened to my baby before I die.'

"My brother – he says that just sometimes the only way he can carry on is to think that she is dead. The thought that she is alive, stuck somewhere – that makes him angry and upset. I hate to think she may be out there and may not even know who she is."

Berna filmed with RTE's CrimeCall in the hope of getting new information.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Missing Persons helpline on 1890 442 552; Ronanstown Garda Station on 01 6667700; Bray Garda Station, 01 6665300, or the Garda Confidential Line, 1800 666 111.

clairemurphy@herald.ie