So yeah, maybe let's share more on that.

So I'm not sure anybody who likes sales.

I think that's the first thing.

So the whole word sales is this feeling that somebody's convincing you to do something you don't want to do, to buy something you don't need.

And I think sales only applies on luxury things.

And you walk into the Tiffany store, they take your bag, they give you a champagne and they show you around.

You almost feel like you have to buy something.

Then about communicating, kind of getting the narrative right, right? That surrounds what you're here for.

The day we give up is the day that we can put her body in the grave beside our mother and her brother, he said.

Even now, I'm, I'm, I'm almost sat back in that room, and it was just unbelievable, like, that we had gone through all that and then nothing, obviously, you know? So it was quite traumatic and upsetting and so difficult.

And we had to walk out and go home and back to a house.

Again, a very, very sad, lonely house, still without Sandra.

But we had to respect, obviously, that the judge had made a decision, and we have to respect that it was the law and that's the way it goes.

We have no choice.

It almost felt like we had gone back to two thousand again, like where she'd gone missing again.

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law.I try not to think about it too much, but I think about who the Patrick would have been if this had never happened.

And I wonder where he'd be and what he'd be doing.

And I'm kind of sad for him, if that makes sense.

That sounds really weird, but I don't mean that.

I'm not talking about myself now in the third person, but I'm thinking how my life could have been and where I would be or where I could be if I didn't have to go through all of this and we didn't have to go through.

Where would we be as unique individuals on our journey's life, on our life's journey, if the 4th of December hadn't happened, if we went from the 3rd to the 5th and Sandra was still alive? You know, would we be the people we are today? It's like left or right, and you have to go down whichever way.

In case we'd forget anybody.

Learning that the guards believed she'd been murdered had a profound effect on them.

Everywhere I went, I'd always look for her in the crowd, just in case that you'd see her or I'd spot her.

Or if I go to Galway on a day out, I'd be always looking, just in case that I'd... [laughs] When I think about it, how silly I was, in case I bump into her.

But then, like, obviously, it wasn't until 2010 until the superintendent sat in Bernie's front room and told us that she wasn't coming home and that we were dealing with a murder case, that all them tiny little hopes and dreams of us being reunited again were...

That she, we'd, we'd never see her the way we wanted to see her again.

I'd never be able to throw my arms around her and give her another hug.

So that was hard to...

You can understand their growing frustration and resentment as the years went on.

The children continued to go to school, but afterwards, every afternoon for months, they returned to Killala with their parents to look for Sandra.

Got up, went to school as normal, and then Tuesday was the 5th.

My mother told me that Anne had rang at lunchtime to Bridie, because Bridie was at work, to say that Sandra hadn't come home.

At the time, I thought, "Oh, it's not like you." But then I thought, "Oh, maybe..." I honestly thought maybe that there had been a, a row or something between the two of them, that Sandra had stormed off or...

I, I didn't really, I didn't think, I didn't go into real panic mode.

I said, "Oh, I bet they've had a row now or something's gone on between them.

Maybe Sandra's finally stood up to her and told her I've had enough of this and, you know, done what we were telling her to do.

However, with the passage of time and knowing a lot more details about Sandra's life now than they did then, the Collins family have questions about the investigation into her disappearance.

His sister, Patrick told us, was a particularly sweet young woman who always wanted to help those she could.

Like, I don't remember Sandra ever living at home with us, because she had gone to Killala at that stage to look after Anne.

But, like, she was, she was kind and caring, and the big, typical big older sister looking out for us, just like James and Bridie was, but they had lived at home with us.

So, you know, we would've had, um, a closer, obviously, bond with them because we saw them every day, as opposed to maybe only seeing Sandra once a week.

We were still, like, really, really close, even though she was 10 miles down the road, but we had no way of, obviously, of contacting them.

Well, we hadn't a telephone, but they did, so we'd have to write letters or whatever to speak to them, do you know? Unless we'd wait until the following week to see them.

I seen recently a clip on, I think it was on Facebook or something, about Glenroe, and oh my God, when I saw it, it really, really brought me back.

They've had to rely on her friends to tell them how she might have spent her time.

There were plans to spend a few days in Fota over Christmas, and she'd picked out the mobile phone she hoped to buy herself.

The last time I saw her then was the 3rd of December, 2000.

That was it then.

A typical Sunday night in our house.

Glenroe was back on, and we were obviously getting ready for Christmas, and we were planning, like, what we would be doing for Christmas and, 'cause it was going to be our first one without James, obviously.

And they came up, and, um, it was Bardy's birthday on the 3rd.

We went up to, to the town, to Crossmolina, and Sandra brought her, went into the shops, which she did every Sunday.

the whole thing up

They were picked up and arrested just hours after Robbie Lawler was killed, but after being questioned, they were released, and the PSNI have since said they don't believe they had any involvement in the murder.

The gunmen who have been named in court again by Joe Brolly, um, have not even been arrested and questioned formally about this.

We know that they were stopped on the day of the killing, but they were released without charge.

Um, they were then involved in another very serious incident, some of them over in England.

The questions have been asked, I suppose, by Holland and Teer's legal team is why when they were in prison in England and therefore, again, a captive audience, you didn't need to go look at them.

They were there on remand awaiting trial for something else.

Were they not questioned then?

Mm-hmm

Indeed, he often thinks about what their lives would be like now if Sandra had never gone missing.

We were lucky in that we had a lot of really good friends, and the community was really, really supportive, Castlemaine and even further afield, I have to say.

Everyone was so supportive and so kind to us.

And, but, like, at the end of the day, it was down to the five of us.

We were Sandra's family, and we're the ones that had to sit through it and prepare yourselves mentally, physically, and emotionally to go through a journey that nobody wants to be on.

Nobody wants to be there, um, and to maybe hear things that you didn't know, upsetting things.

So it was quite...

In case we forget anybody.

Learning that the guards believed she'd been murdered had a profound effect on them.

Everywhere I went, I'd always look for her in the crowd, just in case that you'd see her or I'd spot her.

Or if I go to Galway on a day out, I'd be always looking, just in case that I'd... [laughs] When I think about it, how silly I was, in case I bump into her.

But then, like, obviously, it wasn't until 2010 until Superintendent Saturn Burgess from Trueman told us that she wasn't coming home and that we were dealing with a murder case, that all them tiny little hopes and dreams of us being reunited again were...

That we, we'd never see her the way we wanted to see her again.

I'd never be able to throw my arms around her and give her another hug.

So that was hard to...

You can understand their growing frustration and resentment as the years went on.

PATRICK, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN YOU LEARNED ABOUT THIS ALLEGED MISCONDUCT?

Very similar to Judge Perry.

And again, Judge Perry, who made these comments that I think really were the impetus for the letter.

Judge Perry, experienced judge, but also a former federal prosecutor, said she had never seen anything like this in terms of the misconduct in the grand jury.

And she talked about the presumption of regularity.

And Brandis, I think the reason that I signed the letter, I love that office.

It was some of the best professional moments of my life.

This particular circumstance, and this particular case, I'm hoping is an isolated example because the things that happened in that context, talking to grand jurors about the case outside the grand jury room, personally vouching for the validity of the case, Those kinds of things, frankly, were unheard of prior to this circumstance.

The children continued to go to school, but afterwards, every afternoon for months, they returned to Killala with their parents to look for Sandra.

Got up, went to school as normal, and then Tuesday was the 5th.

My mother told me that Anne had rang at lunchtime to Bridie, because Bridie was at work, to say that Sandra hadn't come home.

At the time, I thought, "Oh, it's not like you." But then I thought, "Oh, maybe..." I honestly thought maybe that there had been a, a row or something between the two of them, that Sandra had stormed off or...

I, I didn't really, I didn't think, I didn't go into real panic mode.

I said, "Oh, I bet they've had a row now or something's gone on between them.

Maybe Sandra's finally stood up to her and told her I've had enough of this and, you know, done what we were telling her to do.

However, with the passage of time, and knowing a lot more details about Sandra's life now than they did then, the Collins family have questions about the investigation into her disappearance.

Maybe tell us a little bit about that, who Anne was and, and why Sandra ended up living with her in Killala.

Well, Anne was our dad's aunt, so I suppose for anyone who's listening to the podcast, um, Sandra and Bridie and James, their dad was Francie, and then he died in 1978, and my m- our mom remarried my dad, Joe, and in that family, there was Francie and Joe, Bridie, and Anne.

And, um, Anne was the baby of the family, and she had rheumatoid arthritis.

And in the, in the 1980s, Bridie was living in England with her husband, Ivan.

Um, Mam and Dad were at home with J- with James and Sandra and Bridie, and-

Mm.

And Anne was married in Westport.

And then, sadly for her, her life took a bit of a turn unexpectedly when she got sick herself and got rheumatoid arthritis and had loads of miscarriages, and her marriage just broke down, unfortunately.

All of them, that is, except for Anne.

She had met this man, um, and had been in a relationship together for a while, and he was very nice and all the rest.

And then in 1998, then she told us that she was expecting a baby.

We were delighted, and we were really excited about becoming aunts and uncles, and my mom and dad were so excited to be grandparents.

And but at that stage, the relationship between Sandra and her boyfriend had broken down or, you know, they'd, they'd split up, obviously.

I can remember them coming up every Sunday night, and obviously her getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And then, um, Bridie got married that year as well in the July.

Yes.

Whenever you asked them about their childhood, their faces light up.

So there was a bit of a gap between the first generation and second generation, but, um, we grew up in a lovely house with lots of love and laughter and fun and, um, where everybody shared everything and there was one bathroom and, you know, there was a busy household with six or eight of us at sometimes, do you know, in the house, but it was always full of love and warm and happy memories like a childhood should be.

Everybody had to share everything, I suppose it taught us from an early age to have to share, so, but it was lovely like.

Mind you, in saying that, it was difficult at times when you were small, you had to share with your toys or whatever, you know.

But that was part of growing up in every, everybody's household, I suppose, in the 1970s and '80s and '90s in Ireland, you know.

It was a different time really.

It doesn't feel like a long time ago, but yet it's a big difference in modern Ireland like.

the latter years.

There were plans to spend a few days in Fota over Christmas, and she'd picked out the mobile phone she hoped to buy herself.

The last time I saw her then was the 3rd of December 2000.

That was it then.

A typical Sunday night in our house.

Glenroe was back on, and we were obviously getting ready for Christmas, and we were planning, like, what we would be doing for Christmas and, because it was going to be our first one without James, obviously.

And they came up, and, um, it was Birdy's birthday on the 3rd.

We went up to, to the town, to Crossmolina, and Sandra brought her, went into the shops, which she did every Sunday.

But so-