Annie Bridget McCarrick from Long Island, New York went missing on March 26, 1993, in Wicklow. Thirty years on Retired Garda Detective Sergeant Alan Bailey, speaking on a Spanish TV program has claimed that a fugitive serial killer remains a suspect in the 27-year-old's disappearance.
Antonio Angles is wanted for the kidnap, rape, torture and murder of three teenage girls near Valentia, in Spain. In 2022 a US private investigator revealed that Angles had stowed away on a British-captained container ship. He left Portugal for Dublin following a manhunt in Spain. He would have arrived in Ireland just before Annie McCarrick went missing.
On a Spanish TV show "La Sexta", a three-part documentary "Angles: Historia de una fuga" ("Angles: Story of an escape", the Irish former police detective, Bailey spoke about the fact that Angles remains a suspect and that his current whereabouts is unknown.
“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," said Bailey.
“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.”
Several women went missing on Ireland's east coast, between 1993 and 1998, McCarrick, Deidre Jacob and Jojo Dullard among them. Det Bailey worked on the task force that investigated these disappearances and whether a serial killer could be involved.
He said "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.”
Speaking about the numerous disappearances, retired Detective Garda Thomas Rock, who also worked on the investigations had said in the past “It definitely wasn’t a coincidence that a number of women traveling 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.”
Gerry McDonell, a former stevedore at Dublin Port, told the Spanish documentary about when Angles, the stowaway was found.
"I had finished my shift but was asked to return. I was told there was a stowaway on the City of Plymouth and was asked to take a look and warn the police who were coming to take him away.
“I said I’d do it."
Describing how he spotted Angles disembarking the ship he said "He was walking normally and not looking around. No panic. He didn’t even look at me or try to look.
“I looked at the police, I looked at him, and then I just got on my bike and just thought, ‘Stowaway. Someone just searching for a better life.’ That’s what I said to myself.”
Antonio Angles' crimes
In November 1992, the bodies of Miriam Garcia (14), Desire Hernandez (14), and Antonia Gamez (15) were found 75 days after they vanished from their village of Alcasser, near Valencia, in Spain. They had been hitchhiking from a local disco.
While Miguel Ricart served 21 years in prison for the crimes his accomplice Angles was never found.
Ricart, who was the only one to serve prison time, told police that he was one of three men involved in their kidnapping, torture and murder. The third individual remains unknown and Angles remains at large.
Authorities now have until the end of 2023 to capture Angles before the statute of limitations runs out.
Comments