Alleged Spanish serial killer a 'person of interest' in Annie McCarrick's disappearance
Annie McCarrick, 27, vanished after a day trip to Enniskerry, Co Wicklow in 1993.
A retired guard has claimed an alleged Spanish serial killer is and “will remain” a suspect in the disappearance of American woman Annie McCarrick near Dublin until the mystery of his whereabouts is solved.
Antonio Angles, who is wanted in Spain over the November 1992 murders of three teenage girls near Valencia, will remain a person of interest "until he can be definitively ruled out".
A US private investigator spoke last year about the fact Angles, identified as a stowaway on a British-captained container ship who fled Portugal for Dublin after escaping a police manhunt in Spain, would have reached Dublin just before 27-year-old Annie McCarrick disappeared without a trace.
Ms McCarrick, from Long Island in New York, had gone to college in Ireland and returned here to trace her family’s heritage. She vanished after a day trip to Enniskerry, Co Wicklow in 1993.
On Wednesday night, retired Garda Detective Sergeant Alan Bailey — who was centrally involved in the investigation of the missing tourist — will tell a Spanish TV programme about the fugitive’s escape from police and the mystery of his current whereabouts.
“I would say Antonio Angles will remain a person of interest until he can be definitively ruled out and we know what happened with Annie McCarrick.
“Antonio Angles needs to be traced, investigated, and ruled out of the inquiry if he wasn’t involved.
“The fact he has never been located means he will be a suspect always.”
Recalling how several women vanished on Ireland’s east coast between 1993 and 1998, Mr Bailey, whose task force investigated the disappearances to see if they could be the work of a serial killer, says: “We had a number of suspects and one of them was Antonio Angles.
“We would have been aware of the injuries Angles allegedly inflicted on the bodies of the girls that were kidnapped [in 1992].
“If Annie McCarrick’s body had been found we would have looked for similarities between his modus operandi in Spain and here which would have pointed to him.”
Former FBI agent Kenneth Strange, now working as a liaison for Annie’s mother Nancy McCarrick, also tells the La Sexta three-part documentary , which in English translates as : “Annie McCarrick disappeared on March 26, 1993.
“Antonio Angles reached Dublin less than 48 hours before Annie vanished.
“I have reached the conclusion it’s possible they crossed paths.”
The documentary carries interviews with the retired British captain and several crew members of the ship Angles is said to have escaped on after fleeing Spain.
Kenneth Farquharson Stevens and other sailors all identified Angles from photos as the stowaway. They recalled being interrogated by police in Liverpool after the vessel docked at its final destination and officers went on board with sniffer dogs following an international call for help from detectives in Spain.
All the men interviewed, and the widows of those sailors that have since died, claimed they played no part in helping the fugitive escape the ship from a locked cabin he had been put in after being discovered before it docked in Dublin.
A former port worker has told the documentary he saw a man believed to be Antonio Angles use a rope to escape the ship and reach dry land undetected.
Investigators have not ruled out the possibility Angles drowned.
In 1992, the bodies of Miriam Garcia, 14, Desire Hernandez, 14, and Antonia Gamez, 15, were found 75 days after they vanished from their home village of Alcasser near Valencia after hitch-hiking to a nearby disco. Miguel Ricart served 21 years in jail for the crimes but alleged accomplice Angles has never been caught.
Ricart told the police he, Angles, and an unidentified third man had kidnapped the girls and tortured them over a two-day period.
The only man to serve prison time was released from jail in 2013.
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