thecrimeshop

American woman missing in Ireland

She has been missing since March 26, 1993, Annie McCarrick has never been seen again.

At 26 years old, Annie was having the time of her life living abroad in Sandymount, Ireland she was last seen at Johnnie Fox’s Pub in Glencullen, Co Dublin.

Annie was from Long Island in New York and had gone to college in Ireland, she returned to trace her family’s heritage.

She shared an apartment with two girls in Sandymount which is on Dublin’s southside and had been expecting a visit from her mother, Nancy.

On Friday, Mar 26, 1993, just days before her mother was due to arrive, Annie failed to show up at her job as expected to pick up her check. It was not until Saturday, when her friends arrived at her apartment for a dinner party and found no sign of her that she was reported as missing.

Her family knew right off that she had met with foul play because it was not in her nature to just up and vanish without a word to anyone.

Former Garda Assistant Commissioner Martin Donnellan, who led the investigation into her disappearance did one of the most comprehensive and exhaustive investigations I have ever seen.

He believes that Annie was a victim of a serial murderer who was active in the area around the same time Annie disappeared.

After looking at everything, I believe that he is quite correct in that theory. Annie’s mother feels that she will never see her daughter again, that includes finding a body to lay to rest properly.

According to the commissioner young women were abducted and murdered in Leinster between 1993 and 1998.

During an interview for RTE radio, Commissioner Donnellan he said that he believes at least three of the cases are connected, “All three were on their own when they disappeared,” he said. “There was never a trace of clothes found, which is unusual. In each case, the clothing the girls were wearing was very distinctive but we never came across a single item. They were each probably bundled into a car or van.”

A total of seven women vanished without trace. The last to disappear was in 1998 which, according to commissioner Donnellan, indicates that there may be one person responsible for at least some of them.

In all likelihood it was just one individual, who was responsible for more than one of the missing women, if not all, a man who selected his victims quickly. He was not stalking them like a lot of serial killers tend to do prior to killing them, he had no need to get to know them. He had to feed his need to kill and it was hurried.  He selected them by chance, when he saw an opportunity he took it so this is a man who could easily overpower a woman and he knew that.

He was a risk taker but not a show off in doing so.

Once he murdered them, he was careful to leave no trace of things like personal belongings of clothing. The killer disposed of those items most likely by burning them or he kept them as a trophy.

Whatever the case may be with the missing clothing or other personal effects, the killer also knew the area he killed in quite intimately which in this/these cases proved to his benefit.

The man they are seeking is also a bit of a loaner, that is to say he is not one to want to do anything that would afford him any type of attention whatsoever. He prefers being alone.  

Police had one promising suspect at the time, who is rumored to have been or still is living in the Netherlands. Larry Murphy was suspected in at least three of these cases and as luck would have it, he is a convicted rapist. From Baltinglass, Co Wicklow. Larry was in prison for 15 years for the abduction, rape, and attempted murder of a woman in Feb 2000. He was released in 2010 and since then, even he managed to disappear.

The victims of the suspected serial killer are as follows:

~ Annie McCarrick, 26. Disappeared on March 26, 1993.

~ Eva Brennan, 39. She disappeared after leaving a family lunch at her parents’ house in Rathdown Park, Rathgar, Dublin, on July 25, 1993.

~ Josephine (Jo-Jo) Dullard, 21. She disappeared on Nov 9, 1995. She vanished while hitchhiking home from Dublin to Kilkenny. A witness saw her using a pay phone but she was never seen again.

~ Fiona Pender, 25. Fiona disappeared from her home at Church St , Tullamore, Co Offaly on Aug 22, 1996. She was seven months pregnant and had spent the previous day shopping for baby clothes with her mother.

~ Ciara Breen, 18. Ciara went missing from her home in Bachelor’s Walk, Dundalk, on Feb 13, 1997.

~ Deirdre Jacob, 18,  vanished just yards from her parents’ home in 1998. Passing motorists saw her within yards of her parents’ drive-way, but for some unknown reason, she never made it there.

~ Fiona Sinnott, 19. Fiona, from Bridgetown, Co Wexford, went missing on the night of Feb 9, 1998 after a night out in Butler’s pub in Broadway.

The work of a serial killer?

With 7 missing women, who all vanished seemingly into thin air within such a geographically small area…It certainly is not circumstance.

These women are victims of a serial killer. The issue is finding them, traces of them, the killer, DNA…without these things proving anything is an entirely different matter.

Police need new eyes, they need to see new things, such as finding a good place to hide a body or two or seven. If this is the same killer in all 7 cases or even three cases, the bodies will not be far from one another. The police need to find an easy to get to location that is secluded from prying eyes and any type of commercial construction. The area has been untouched by the outside world for all intents, thus far it’s simply a matter of finding it. Figuring out who the right killer is would be helpful as it would be the only way to determine his habits at that time so that police could find the bodies. 

Commissioner Donnellan once said “If people went missing in the US, you would not be surprised, but not in the island of saints and scholars.”

Cristal M Clark

@thecrimeshop

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