Lisa Dorrian billboard campaign 'will be seen by her killer and the people who kept his secrets' says family

Murdered woman Lisa Dorrian will appear on a billboard campaign from Monday in areas of Northern Ireland frequented by her killer, those who helped him and others who have yet to reveal their secrets.

Shop assistant Lisa was 25 when was murdered and disappeared in Co Down in 2005, and the two week campaign will run across what would have been her 45th birthday.

Monday marks the start of the campaign and 7,036 days since she vanished. Lisa's body has not been recovered to date.

Read more: Timeline of the murder and disappearance of Lisa Dorrian

Read more: Headstone for Lisa Dorrian 19 years after her murder

With a campaign for justice led by Lisa’s sister Joanne with the full backing from her sisters Michelle and Ciara and their father John, the Dorrian family not only remain resolute in their determination to see justice served, they believe it will be served too.

Now the billboards will be placed in areas known to be frequented by people of interest to the police investigation, including the man they believe murdered Lisa on February 28, 2005.

Lisa's dad, John Dorrian, said: "Billboards showing Lisa will be placed in targeted areas such as Newtownards, Shore Rd Belfast, Upper Newtownards Rd and Belfast City Centre. It is in those areas we believe information lies.

"The digital bus shelter ads are focused on the Belfast City Centre area for people on foot who may frequent the city.

"The billboards feature an image of the caravan where Lisa spent her last moments before she was murdered. It also features a QR code which when scanned using a camera on a mobile phone, will link to the confidential page on Lisa’s website.

"This campaign will over a two week period beginning on Monday, June 3. During that fortnight-long campaign it will be Lisa’s birthday. She should have been celebrating turning 45 on June 12."

A local business contacted Let’s Find Lisa Facebook page and offered to fund a billboard and digital bus shelter ad campaign.

John said: "We're very grateful to this family man whose only hope is that it can help bring Lisa home. Lisa’s campaign has always been so well supported by our local community and this grand gesture just confirms the steadfast support of good people."

Lisa's sister Joanne said: “We imagine how her 45th birthday would have been if she was still here. We imagine showering her with gifts, cards and love because that’s how it is in our family. We'd all come together and celebrate.

"If Lisa had had the chance to have children, they also would have celebrated her on the 12th June. But instead, we will come together and honour the short life she lived. We will visit my mum's grave where Lisa’s name was recently added to the headstone, and lay beautiful, vibrant flowers to remember her.

"Our wish for Lisa on this important day is that the people who know where Lisa is will finally contact us or the Police and tell us where to search for her. They don’t have to give their name or details, Crimestoppers won’t even ask.

“I’ve had so many amazing people contact me this year with information about Lisa and the suspects involved in her murder and disappearance. They've bravely put Lisa before themselves and said enough is enough.

"They’ve told me how the information they've held all these years has weighed heavy on them and they’ve described the relief in talking to me and getting it off their chest.

" I’ve been able to keep every single person anonymous and passed the info onto Lisa’s police investigation team. Please talk to me, tell me what you know. I will celebrate you, there never needs to be a worry that you may have known this for a long time. Unburden yourself and live a life free of the weight you are carrying. It’s time to speak up.”

Joanne can be contacted directly via Lisa’s website www.lisadorrian.co.uk where confidential information can be sent. Alternatively Joanne can be reached via Letsfindlisa on Facebook and Twitter. Crimestoppers can be contacted online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org Or by calling 0800 555 111

Timeline to the murder of Lisa Dorrian

Sunday, February 27, 2005
Lisa Dorrian, 25, a shop assistant from Bangor, Co Down, is at a Newtownards house party amongst a new group of friends following the break up of her relationship.

February, 28, 2005
Lisa travels 11 miles by car to a static caravan at a park in Ballyhalbert, on the Ards peninsula.
Amongst other people there is the last man to see her alive, then aged 17, Mark Lovett.
The pair are left alone in the caravan and darkness falls.
Mark Lovett reports being spooked by flashing lights and loud noises, and leaves the caravan with Lisa who runs into the night never to be seen again. He tells police Lisa was last seen at 5am.

March 1 - 5, 2005
Joanne Dorrian has not heard from her sister and starts to become concerned when her phone rings out.
Joanne calls a number of Lisa’s friends and appeals for information about where she had last been seen over the weekend.
She contacts police with her fears that something terrible has happened to Lisa and drives endless roads around the coast and countryside in an attempt to find her, fearing she would succumb to the bitter cold if she had had an accident.

March 6, 2005
The police are now treating Lisa as a missing person. Her parents, John and Pat, make a public appeal for information and her whereabouts in the previous six days.
John says: “If she is out there and sees all this involvement with the police and the media, it doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it, come back.”
Police say they cannot rule out that a crime has taken place.

March 7, 2005
Searches are stepped up as police involvement intensifies prompting extensive air, land and sea searches along the Ards Peninsula.
Police carry out a reconstruction at 5am GMT, timed to the exact hour Lisa was initially assumed to have gone missing.
Drivers on the coast roads around Ballyhalbert are stopped and prompted for information.
An ex-boyfriend of Ms Dorrian’s, Jimmy Mills, said she had been spending more and more time in the Ballyhalbert area.

March 13, 2005
PSNI escalate their missing persons case to a murder investigation
Fears are raised that loyalist paramilitary interests are preventing people coming forward with information.
Graffiti appears in Ballyhalbert linking the murder to the paramilitary Loyalist Volunteer Force.

April 28, 2005
A £10,000 reward offered for information leading to the recovery of Lisa’s body.
The Dorrian family offer the money hoping to bring their horror to a conclusion and to give their daughter a resting place.
Dad John Dorrian, said: “This has ripped the family apart and we cannot move on until we can give Lias a Christian burial.”

May 17, 2005
A BBC Spotlight investigation claims loyalist paramilitary groups are carrying out a parallel investigation into the death of Lisa Dorrian.
The programme reports that members of the UFV and Red Hand Commando had interrogated two teenagers over her disappearance, and believed the LVF are behind the crime.
David Ervine, then leader of the Progressive Unionist Party which is closely linked to the UVF, said he “had no doubt” that Ms Dorrian was killed by the LVF.
He appealed to those involved but no information was forthcoming to Mr Ervine.
Lisa’s mother, Pat, said their family is willing to speak to loyalist paramilitaries about finding Lisa but did not “want any retaliation and comeback”.

May 19, 2005
A memorial to Lisa Dorrian in the grounds of council offices in Bangor

May 27, 2005
Conflicting accounts over phone calls made around the time Lisa disappeared, emerge.
Two men questioned over the murder gave different accounts of a phone call said to be made moments after she disappeared.
One, Mark Lovett, claimed to be the last to see Lisa, said the pair were frightened by noises outside the caravan where they were partying, and that they ran away and he lost Lisa in the dark.
Heconfirmed he called Lisa’s mobile phone and spoke to her former boyfriend Stevie Thompson who, he said, told him he was in Bangor, Co Down, with a female.
Stevie Thompson told police he was in the company of a man and teenage girl in a flat in Ballywalter, and that Lisa’s phone had been left in the flat.
Two separate allegations are made regarding Lisa’s death during two meetings at Belfast City Hall - that she was being harassed by two men over money for drugs in the weeks leading up to her death and that she was minding £20,000 at her Bangor flat for another man. The details of these unsubstantiated allegations were given to David Ervine who passed them to police.

May 31, 2005
The Dorrian family meet with David Ervine who stressed his involvement was a bid to help the family and that he had no political agenda.
Mr Ervine described the circumstances around the murder as a cesspit and added: “If you leave cesspits alone, they multiply.”

June 12, 2005
Lisa’s family release 26 balloons over Bangor’s seafront to mark her 26th birthday.

June 28, 2005
Lisa’s sisters Michelle and Joanne and their father John are joined by Linfield manager David Jeffrey and Glentoran counterpart Paul Millar, with players from both teams to show their support for the family before the Setanta cup game at the Oval in Belfast.

July 1, 2005
Fundraising to keep the Lisa Dorrian appeal in the public eye steps up. Blue ribbons are given out to support attempts to locate Lisa’s body.
The four people questioned about the murder have now been freed without charge.

September 16, 2005
Police say they believe Lisa’s body may have been hidden in water and appeal to boat owners in the Ards Peninsula to check their vessels for signs they had been tampered with or broken into.

August 23, 2006
Rock band Snow Patrol pledges its support to the efforts to find Lisa’s body and wear blue ribbons during their performance at a gig in Belfast.

December 11, 2007
Lisa's family have marked off 1,017 days since her disappearance as they prepare for another Christmas without her.
Dad John, says the family still feel “just like it happened yesterday” and appeals for information.
He said: “We would appeal to them in humanity, please any small bit of information, give it in confidence. It is gnawing in our stomach, we know she’s out there somewhere. It would give us great relief if we could just know where she was.”

October 16, 2012
Police investigate an area of farmland near Comber, Co Down, as part of a search for a vehicle possibly used in Lisa’s murder.
No evidence is found and the search is called off.

23 February 2015
Shortly before the 10th anniversary of Lisa’s disappearance, her family once again appeal for information.
Meanwhile, Crimestoppers offers a new reward of up to £5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

June 28, 2015
Convicted murderer Jimmy Seales tells a newspaper that he knows where the body of Lisa Dorrian is buried, claiming she was dumped in a sealed container on an illegal landfill site near Ballygowan, Co Down.

December 29, 2016
Lisa’s mum Pat dies. Her daughters later say she died from a broken heart over the death and disappearance of Lisa.
Family friend Lady Sylvia Hermon said: “News of Pat’s death has come as a dreadful shock, and I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact I won’t see her again or hear her distinctive voice or share another pot of tea with her.
“The pain of losing Lisa, her eldest daughter, in such awful circumstances and of never having had the chance to give her a proper Christian burial undoubtedly took a terrible toll on Pat’s health.
“Her heart ached every day of every year without Lisa. Every day she longed for the discovery and return of Lisa’s remains, but that just wasn’t to be. It’s so very sad and so cruel that Pat hasn’t lived long enough for that to happen.”

January 5, 2016
The funeral of Pat Dorrian, Lisa’s mother, takes place with a burial at Clandeboye Cemetery, Bangor.
Mourners are told that the death of her daughter “took an unbearable toll” and that while her wish to see Lisa buried would not be fulfilled for her, “it is one that can still be fulfilled for her family”.

February 15, 2016
Police search land outside Comber for Lisa’s body. The search ends a week later with no human remains being found.

February 28, 2017
Lisa’s dad and sisters recorded a new video message appealing for help on the 12th anniversary of her death.
They address “person who was with Lisa at the moment she died” and say: “It’s never too late to tell us. A place is all we need.
“Please help yourself by easing your conscience. Tell us where Lisa is.”

June 29, 2018
Following an appeal on BBC’s Crimewatch three fresh search sites are identified and worked by specialist officers, including wooded areas in Craigantlet and Carrickfergus with specially-trained police dogs.
Joanne says: “We have endured 13 years of torture. We lost my mum about two and a half years ago and she just couldn’t cope with not having Lisa.

April 1, 2019
40 police and search personnel move into Ballyhalbert at dawn as police announce fresh searches of the caravan park in Ballyhalbert, Co Down where Lisa was last seen alive.
Searches started at a disused RAF airfield in Ballyhalbert to include a vast area of underground bunkers. Ground penetrating equipment is deployed in the search.

April 5, 2019
One man and a woman are arrested in connection with the disappearance and murder of Lisa Dorrian. A spokesperson said: “A 49 year old man and a 34 year old woman were arrested today in the Newtownards and Ballyhalbert areas on suspicion of murder. They have been taken to Musgrave Serious Crime Suite for questioning.”
The family members were released without charge.

April 20, 2022
A multi-millionaire TV reality star and dad-of-six has donated £50,000 to boost a reward fund for information about the burial site Lisa.
The single donation was made today by businessman Barrie Drewitt-Barlow.

Sept 10, 2023
Lisa’s family released the image of the last place she was before she went missing, a caravan on the Ballyhalbert site that was transported to PSNI property for full forensic examination and has since been destroyed.

October 4, 2023
Netflix broadcasts a new crime series examining the unsolved murders of four women in Northern Ireland aged from 15 to 25 including Lisa.
The lives and deaths of Lisa Dorrian, Inga Maria Hauser, Arlene Arkinson and Marian Beattie will be revealed in detail as their families continue their search for answers and justice.
The loved ones of Lisa and Arlene are still searching for the remains of the young victims despite extensive investigations over decades, because the victims’ bodies were hidden in secret burial plots.

February 12, 2024
Work starts on the gravestone at Pat Dorrian’s burial place. Lisa’s name is included with the words LISA: 12th June 1979- MISSING SINCE 28th FEB - 2005.

February 25, 2024
The Dorrian family visit the family grave at Clandeboye Cemetery and see Lisa’s name on the headstone for the first time.
Joanne said: “Those words were very carefully chosen. Just two dates and nothing else at this stage because we’re not finished. There will be more added to the gravestone when we have Lisa returned to us.
For now we are content we’ve done the right thing as a family. Then Lisa will be buried with mum and her life and our love for her will be memorialised on the headstone, just as we have with mum.”

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