ANNIE McCarrick’s family have hit out at the previous Garda investigation into her disappearance and murder saying: “They botched it.”
A man in his 60s was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of murdering the 26-year-old, who vanished in Dublin in 1993.
He was later released without charge.
A garda search team have been carrying out a dig at an address in Clondalkin over the past number of days as part of a cold case review into Annie’s murder and disappearance.
The current occupants of the property are not connected to the investigation.
The investigation was officially upgraded to a murder in 2023, 30 years after she disappeared after returning to her home in Sandymount.
Her mother Nancy and aunt Maureen have been anxiously waiting for any news for the past 32 years but have said the Gardai never investigated who they believed was responsible after Annie had confided in them in the weeks before her disappearance that she had been assaulted by a person known to her.
For years the investigation centred on reported sightings of the New Yorker in Enniskerry and at Johnnie Foxes’s pub, but Gardai now believed she never went to Co Wicklow in March, 1993, when she was last seen alive.
Speaking this week, Maureen said: “They botched it. They admitted it.
“They didn’t listen to the family and did not investigate who we thought was guilty in the very beginning.
“They didn’t follow up on things they should have.
“That’s no secret. It is all documented. I don’t know.
“They didn’t do anything for the first 24 hours, because she was of age.
“And no matter how many times we said there is something wrong, it was: Oh, she is off on an adventure and she will turn up.”
BELIEFS VALIDATED
Nancy added: “But it was the time, too. It was a different country.
“And we were so much more accustomed to every crime going over here.”
The brave mother of the only child admitted it would be very hard to prosecute anyone without a body – but said their beliefs as to what did happen to her have finally been validated.
FAMILY’S ONGOING APPEAL
ANNIE McCarrick’s heartbroken family have continued to appeal for any information that could help them locate the body of the missing woman.
Originally from New York, Annie visited Ireland on a school trip as a teenager and her parents said she fell in love with the country.
She moved to Ireland permanently in January 1993.
She was the only child of her father John, who passed away in 2009, and mother Nancy.
Speaking to RTE News in 2023 from her home in Bayport, Long Island, New York, Nancy McCarrick said she didn’t think it was “remotely possible” that Annie could still be alive.
She said: “I did for a very, very, very long time but not after 30 years.”
The mum said Annie “loved it in Ireland” and that it is her “wish” to be able to bring her daughter home again.
Annie’s family has been “full appraised” of today’s developments in the case, an arrest and a new search in Dublin.
A garda spokesperson said: “An Garda Siochana has and will continue to keep the family of Annie McCarrick fully updated in relation to this investigation.”
Their friend Linda Ringhouse also said: “The team working on it now is at least letting us know we weren’t crazy.
“If they don’t find her body, it might never be (a conviction).
“But we take some comfort in what we thought happened all along being validated.”
