A former police cold-case investigator has claimed an alleged Spanish serial killer is and “will always remain” a suspect in the mystery disappearance of an American tourist near Dublin until the mystery of his whereabouts is solved.
Antonio Angles is wanted over the November 1992 kidnap, rape, torture and murders of three teenage girls near Valencia whose shocking assassinations featured in a 2019 Netflix documentary.
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 massive police manhunt in Spain, would have reached Dublin just before 27-year-old Annie McCarrick disappeared without trace.
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She vanished on a day trip to the picturesque village of Enniskerry in County Wicklow and detectives involved in investigating her disappearance as well as her friend Marisa Mackle have claimed she was murdered by a serial killer.
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.
“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 mum Nancy McCarrick, also tells La Sexta three-part documentary ‘Angles: Historia de una fuga’, which in English translates as ‘Angles: Story of an escape’ tonight (WED): “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 fascinating documentary, due to continue tonight/last night (WED) after the first part was broadcast yesterday/on Tuesday, carries interviews with the retired British captain and several crew members of the ship Angles is said to have escaped from called City of Plymouth after fleeing Spain.
Kenneth Farquharson Stevens and other sailors all identified Angles from photos as the stowaway and 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.
The programme counted with the support of an Irish private eye who helped two Spanish journalists who have spent years investigating Antonio Angles.
She put them in touch with a former port worker who 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.
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 hideous 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.
Investigators have not ruled out the possibility Angles drowned after escaping City of Plymouth, although his body has never been found.
Over the years there have been reports of unconfirmed sightings of him in countries as far afield as Brazil and Uruguay.
The Alcasser Murders was the first original Netflix documentary in Spanish.
The five-part series, which premiered on June 14 2019, included new interviews and analysis about the horrifying case.
Authorities in Spain only have until the end of this year to bring the suspected Spanish serial killer to justice before a statute of limitations prevents an effective prosecution.
Annie McCarrick’s disappearance sparked Operation Trace after beginning to be linked to the cases of other women who went missing in the east of Ireland between 1993 and 1998, including those of Deidre Jacob and Jojo Dullard.
Retired Detective Garda Thomas Rock has been quoted as saying: “It definitely wasn’t a coincidence that a number of women travelling on their own went missing in the east of the country.
“Looking back on it now, it looks like it could have been the same person.
“One of the major difficulties in solving a case like this is you have no crime scene, you have no body, you have no material evidence.
“There were similarities between three of the women that went missing — there was Annie McCarrick, JoJo Dullard and then there was Deirdre Jacob — three women on their own, just out walking, and then they suddenly disappeared and were never seen again.”
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