Claims that Annie McCarrick was seen in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, on the day she disappeared are no longer being treated as reliable with An Garda Síochána’s investigation into her murder now focused on Dublin 4.
While reports of a new suspect have also emerged in recent weeks, that man was known to gardaí from the time Ms McCarrick disappeared and is not a new suspect. The man, who is Irish and was known to Ms McCarrick, was examined as a person of interest at the time the 26-year-old New Yorker vanished 30 years ago.
He was never arrested and the initial checks into him never led to any development in the case or the upgrading of his status to suspect. Detectives, however, are keeping an open mind in relation to him, and others, as the murder inquiry is now focused on her life in Sandymount, where she lived, and her movements in Dublin 4 on the day she vanished.
Gardaí were told by a man who was in Johnnie Fox’s pub in Glencullen, Co Dublin, on the day Ms McCarrick vanished – Friday, March 26th, 1993 – that he saw her in the pub. There have also been other claimed sightings of Ms McCarrick getting on to a bus in south Dublin bound for Enniskerry on the day she was last seen alive.
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Furthermore, a new documentary to be aired on RTÉ One on Monday night, Missing: Beyond the Vanishing Triangle, includes a new claim from a woman that Ms McCarrick was seen with a square-jawed man in an Enniskerry cafe on the day she disappeared.
Much of the narrative around Ms McCarrick’s disappearance, only recently upgraded to a murder inquiry, has centred on her final sightings in Enniskerry and the possibility she was killed there, with her body hidden in the area. Gardaí are now treating Sandymount as the last place she was seen alive, however, and it is now at the centre of their inquiries.
Ms McCarrick went into the AIB bank in Sandymount late that morning and was captured on CCTV inside the branch. Garda sources told The Irish Times that was now being treated as the last sighting of her, adding none of the evidence gathered, or claims made, to date proved she was in Enniskerry on the day she vanished.
Gardaí are, therefore, treating the sighting of her in Johnnie Foxes pub in Glencullen, around 6km from Enniskerry, and of her getting the bus to Enniskerry, as a case of mistaken identity.
An Garda Síochána also now believe the other Enniskerry-related sightings emerged after it was heavily implied Ms McCarrick was in the village on the day she vanished, including the fact that gardaí canvassed the area for information.
Friends of Ms McCarrick have told the RTÉ One documentary-makers she told them she was struck by a man known to her in Ireland and was dealing with a difficult situation with a person known to her in Dublin.
One of those friends, however, American Linda Ringhouse, tells the documentary she does not believe the information she supplied about the assault on Ms McCarrick was ever pursued by gardaí. She says she was one of five people who sent faxes to the Garda about the difficulties Ms McCarrick was having in the period before she vanished but they were never contacted by detectives about the information they passed on.
Gardaí believe Ms McCarrick planned to stay in Ireland long-term. She first came to Ireland in 1987 to study in Maynooth University. While she travelled back to her home in Long Island, and to parts of Europe, for summer work, she spent most of her time in Ireland during those six years.
On the day she disappeared, she had bought groceries, which were found in her Sandymount apartment in their bags, suggesting she had left in a hurry or believed she would be back in the flat shortly.
The documentary, due to be aired on Monday night, contains a number of new claims, including from a woman who said her now deceased mother reported seeing Ms McCarrick in Poppies cafe in Enniskerry with a man on the day she disappeared. That woman, Una Wogan, says the sighting was reported to the Garda at the time but she did not believe her mother, Margaret, was ever spoken to again by detectives.
