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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Clare McCarthy

Who is Annie McCarrick? New RTE documentary raises questions about 30-year disappearance of American student

30 years after American woman Annie McCarrick went missing in Ireland, there have been fresh questions raised about her disappearance.

The 27-year-old student teacher from Long Island vanished without a trace in 1993 after telling friends she was heading for a walk in Enniskerry.

A new RTE true crime documentary – focusing on her disappearance and the cases of other women who went missing in the east of Ireland – includes a bombshell revelation that Annie had been stalked and assaulted just weeks before she vanished.

READ MORE: Annie McCarrick murder probe shock as true crime doc claims she was assaulted before she vanished

The first episode of Missing: Beyond the Vanishing Triangle airs on RTE 1 tonight at 9.35pm and suggests that a serial killer may have been at large.

Ahead of the documentary, here is everything we know about Annie McCarrick and her disappearance:

Who is Annie McCarrick?

Annie Bridget McCarrick is an only child from Long Island, New York, who was born to parents John and Nancy McCarrick.

She went missing under suspicious circumstances in 1993, while she was living in Ireland. She was a vibrant, young woman who was popular and had a number of friends in this country.

There has been no sign of her since her disappearance.

Why was she in Ireland?

College student Annie moved to Ireland permanently from Long Island in New York in January 1993 to fulfil her dream of living here and to complete her teacher training.

According to her parents, she had visited Ireland as a teenager on a school trip and fell in love with the country and wanted to live there when she was older.

Before moving permanently, she had previously lived in Ireland for two years in the late 1980s, where she studied teaching at St Patrick's College in Drumcondra and Maynooth but returned to New York in 1991 to study at Stony Brook University.

Before she vanished, Annie lived in an apartment in Sandymount, south Dublin, with two other housemates and worked as a waitress at the Courtyard Restaurant in Donnybrook and at Café Java on Leeson Street in Dublin city.

What happened to Annie McCarrick?

Annie vanished at the age of 27 after telling friends she was heading for a walk in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, on March 26, 1993.

The last confirmed sighting of Annie was captured on CCTV shortly before 11am at the AIB on Sandymount Road in south Dublin on the day she went missing.

There were also reported sightings of her boarding the No 44 bus for Enniskerry, and she was also allegedly seen in the village and at Johnnie Fox’s pub in Glencullen that evening.

However, the new RTE documentary reveals new information that Annie was seen with a man in Poppie’s Cafe in Enniskerry on the day she disappeared.

What happened after she disappeared?

Annie didn't show up for work on Saturday, March 27 and she had also invited friends to her apartment for dinner that day but when they arrived there was no sign of her.

She didn't show up for work again on Sunday, March 28 and a friend went to her apartment in the evening and later reported her missing at Irishtown Garda Station.

Her mother Nancy arrived in Ireland for a planned visit on March 30 and confirmed the missing person report.

Gardai launched an appeal to find Annie and her disappearance was treated as a missing person’s case, as there was no evidence of foul play.

Her father John McCarrick, an ex-policeman, travelled to Ireland when she disappeared in March 1993, with top New York attorney Michael Griffith.

The pair stayed here for several weeks conducting their own investigation and appealing for information, offering a reward of 100,000 Irish punts. But despite their best efforts they could not advance the investigation – which also left gardai stumped.

What do we know now?

Today, the investigation into Annie McCarrick’s disappearance remains "open and active".

The 30th anniversary of her disappearance fell in March and gardai have now upgraded her case to a murder inquiry – even though her remains have never been found.

Gardai have collected more than 5,000 documents and taken in excess of 300 statements in the three decades since the investigation opened.

Gardai are now believed to be focusing their investigation on a suspect who lived close to Sandymount in the same Dublin neighbourhood as Annie.

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