Internal review will seek to establish if Annie McCarrick’s bag handed in to Garda station in 1993

Gardaí have launched an internal review in a bid to establish if murdered woman Annie McCarrick’s distinctive handbag was handed in to a Garda station shortly after she vanished. Retired and serving members of the force were being contacted in a bid to establish if the bag was received.

The inquiries are focused around personnel who were serving in south Dublin in March-April 1993 when Ms McCarrick disappeared, though some of those are since deceased. She was living in Sandymount, Dublin 4, at the time and also worked in Donnybrook, where it is now claimed the bag was found.

It emerged last month gardaí had been contacted by a member of the public who reported she had an exchange with a man on social media who claimed he found the bag and passed it to gardaí. The person claimed – on a missing people social media account – he found the bag at the back of the popular Kiely’s pub in Donnybrook and that he was with a friend at the time.

Gardaí have been told the man claimed to have looked inside the bag and found bank cards in Ms McCarrick’s name. However, it appears no bag was ever brought to the attention of the investigation team. And now gardaí are trying to establish if the bag was ever handed in to any station in south Dublin, as claimed.

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The woman who has made the report to the Garda saved the social media messages, from 2021, and has supplied them to gardaí. As part of the inquiry to check the claim, gardaí have also appealed to any member of the public who ever saw or found a large distinctive bag, like Ms McCarrick’s, to come forward.

Speaking at a press conference in March to mark the 30th anniversary of Ms McCarrick’s disappearance on Friday, March 26th, 1993, Det Supt Eddie Carroll made an appeal for information related to the bag. “I want to speak with any person who has any information on the large brown handbag which it is believed that Annie was in possession of when she went missing,” he said.

While the investigation into Ms McCarrick’s disappearance had always treated as a missing person’s case, it emerged in March it had been upgraded to a murder investigation. That upgrading was based on a review by the serious crime review team, the Garda’s cold case squad.

It concluded that, based on the evidence available, the case should be upgraded to a murder probe as the additional resources involved in such a move could lead to a breakthrough. The Garda will only upgrade an inquiry to a murder probe if there is a strong prospect of a breakthrough because the additional resources must be justified.

Investigators are now focused on two men – who were among a large group of people spoken to in 1993 – and they were now being treated as suspects. However, sources stressed no conclusions had been reached and that other lines of inquiry were also being explored.

Ms McCarrick was from New York and was aged 26 years when she disappeared. She had come to Ireland originally in 1987 to study. After going to the United States for a time she returned to Dublin in early 1993 and planned to stay long term. On the day she vanished she was captured in CCTV images in the AIB branch in Sandymount and also went grocery shopping.

While there were sightings linking her to Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, and Johnnie Fox’s pub in Glencullen, Co Dublin, none of those sightings was ever confirmed. Gardaí do not believe she was in Johnnie Fox’s pub, about 6km from Enniskerry, on the night she disappeared and the sightings in Enniskerry are being treated as unsubstantiated. However, gardaí also believe the sightings were reported by people who genuinely believed they saw Ms McCarrick and who were acting in good faith in a bid to aid the inquiry.