In March 1993, a young American woman living in Dublin vanished without a trace. Every lead in the investigation hit a dead end, but then other women started to go missing in the same area.
Annie McCarrick’s family had strong link to Ireland, and she fell in love with the country when she first came over here to study in 1987.
By 1993, the 27-year-old was living and working in South Dublin and had many Irish friends.
Annie was last seen alive on Friday the 26th of March 1993, as she boarded a bus headed for Enniskerry in the foothills of the Wicklow mountains. She was reported missing by her friends a few days later.
In this episode of Scannal we hear from Thomas Rock, a retired Detective Garda who investigated Annie’s disappearance; Marisa Mackle, one of the many Irish people Annie worked with and befriended; as well as Kenneth Strange, a former FBI agent and McCarrick family friend, who has helped and advised the family. Journalists Caoimhe Ní Laighin, Gráinne McElwain and Elaine Loughlin also contribute.
When the Gardai first started investigating Annie’s disappearance, they treated it as a missing person case, as there was no crime scene and no body.
One theory was that Annie might have gone for a walk in the area around Enniskerry. One witness claimed to have seen her in Johnny Foxe’s pub with a man that evening. Now there are doubts she ever made it that far.
At the time, the Gardai devoted huge resources to the investigation, with more than 50 officers working on the case at one point. They also searched large swathes of the Wicklow and Dublin mountains, but they never found a single trace of Annie anywhere.
Annie’s parents arrived in Ireland shortly after her disappearance and her father John McCarrick appeared on TV and in newspapers appealing for information about his missing daughter. Hundreds of people came forward with reported sightings of Annie from around the country, but every lead turned out to be a dead end.
Annie’s parents kept coming back to Ireland for years, appealing for any information about their missing daughter. They offered a $150,000 reward, hired private detectives, consulted clairvoyants and even got the FBI involved.
When other women started disappearing in the same area, some people were wondering if a serial killer was responsible. No one has ever been charged or convicted in her case, but some people have theories about what might have happened to Annie McCarrick.