Alleged serial killer is suspect in McCarrick disappearance
Spaniard has been on run for 30 years
A FORMER garda says a Spanish alleged serial killer ‘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 murder of three teenage girls near Valencia, and the shocking killings 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 the Irish capital just before 27year-old Annie McCarrick disappeared without trace.
She vanished on a day trip to the picturesque village of Enniskerry in Co. Wicklow, and detectives involved in investigating the case, as well as Ms McCarrick’s friend Marisa Mackle, have claimed she was murdered by a serial killer.
Last night, retired detective sergeant Alan Bailey, who was centrally involved in the investigation over the missing tourist, told a Spanish TV programme about the fugitive’s escape from police.
‘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,’ he said.
He added: ‘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, 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.’
Former FBI agent Kenneth Strange, now working as a liaison for Annie’s mother Nancy McCarrick, also told La Sexta’s threepart documentary – titled Angles: Historia de Una Fuga – last night: ‘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 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 on the vessel.
All the men interviewed, and the widows of those sailors who have since died, claimed they played no
‘It definitely wasn’t a coincidence’
part in helping the fugitive escape the ship from a locked cabin.
A former port worker told the documentary he saw a man believed to be 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, having hitch-hiked 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 that 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 in 2013.
Investigators have not ruled out the possibility Angles drowned after escaping City Of Plymouth, although his body has never been found. Authorities in Spain only have until the end of this year to put him on trial before a statute of limitations prevents an effective prosecution.
Annie McCarrick’s disappearance sparked Operation Trace after being linked to the cases of other women who went missing in the east of Ireland between 1993 and 1998, including Deirdre Jacob and Jo Jo 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.
‘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 – Annie McCarrick, Jo Jo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob – three women just out walking, and then they suddenly disappeared and were never seen again.’