Major Garda searches for the torso of a 17-year-old Irish teenager who was killed and dismembered

Gardaí has ​​launched a new search and excavation to try to find new evidence to catch the killers of a 17-year-old teenager.

Officers using sophisticated equipment hope to find the young man’s lost torso, along with the weapons used in the brutal attack.

They also suspect that mobile phones used by the gang involved may also be buried there.

The search is focused on an area of ​​vacant land between Rathmullen Park and the Hillbrook housing estates on the south side of Drogheda, Co Louth.

The young man was killed in a house just a couple hundred yards from the area that agents were searching.

The teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, disappeared on January 12 of last year.

He was kidnapped, stabbed in the neck in the house and his body was dismembered.

Subsequently, parts of his body were thrown at Coolock and Drumcondra in Dublin as a warning to others.

The gruesome nature of his death shocked the country and the fact that someone so young was executed as part of a war on drugs.

So far, eight people have been arrested and questioned about his murder.

A 47-year-old man has been charged with murder and is out on bail, while another has been charged with obstructing a Garda investigation and is in custody.

A Garda source said: “This is an important search, we believe that much of the evidence is buried in this area.

“Obviously we would like to find the torso of the young man who is still missing. The other parts of his body were found.

“We are looking for the weapons used in the crime, the phones and the evidence that was thrown in the cleanup afterwards.

“A large number of people were involved in one way or another in this murder and we want to bring them all to justice.

“The whole unfortunate episode required a lot of planning and also the cleaning up afterwards.”