"The article also mentions that, prior to her abduction, Jean went to the aid of a wounded British soldier and that the act may have antagonized local IRA operatives."
That's one of the stories that has attached itself to the case but the recent BBC Storyville documentary I saw said that the investigation found no incident of a soldier being injured at that time that would have been compatible with that story. The other side's narrative is that she was an informer, but there's no evidence to support that either. The reality was that she struggled to cope after her husband's death from cancer, and with 10 children on her own, she had a breakdown and began behaving erratically. She was from a protestant background and had been estranged from her family over her marriage to a Catholic man, and they had been driven from her own community. Without whatever protection he could afford her, and as a relative outsider in a very insular and (in its own eyes) embattled community she would have been an easy target for malicious rumours.
Even by the IRA's despicable standards Jean McConville's forced disappearance marked a particular nadir. She was dragged out of her home in front of her children. She was kept for a number of days after her kidnapping before being transported to the beach in County Louth where she was buried, she was forced to kneel and shot in the back of the head. Her children were left entirely alone after her disappearance. It was December, and three weeks before a stranger turned up with the money and the rings.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/05/amanda-foreman-jean-mcconville-ira
The children struggled to cope under the care of the 15 year old daughter for about a month after her disappearance before eventually having to turn themselves in to a charity project, I believe. One story I heard was that the local community, well aware that the mother had disappeared and why, were afraid to approach them for fear of reprisals. The children would eventually be split up in different childrens' homes.
False rumours were put about that she had run off with a British soldier, and it was 2003 before the body was discovered and the IRA acknowledged what had happened.
