Unsolved

00:00 In January of 1993, 26-year-old New Yorker Annie McCarrick moved to Dublin, as she'd always dreamed of doing. Just two months later, she disappeared. 00:10 For over three decades, people all over Ireland and America have been gripped by the mystery of the Irish-American woman who supposedly went into Johnny Fox's pub in Glen Cullen County, Dublin, one night and never came home. 00:26 Annie's body has never been found. Her family have never gotten justice. And her case has only gotten more mysterious. 33 years on, Annie McCarrick's murder remains unsolved. 00:47 I'm crime journalist Barry Cummins. 00:49 And I'm RTE presenter Katia Mia and this is Unsolved, an RTE True Crime podcast series. 00:55 Each week we'll be taking an in-depth look at real Irish cases seeking justice for the victims of Ireland's unsolved crimes. 01:03 Today, Barry, we're looking into a really high profile case in Ireland. It's the disappearance and murder of Annie McCarrick that is still unsolved. She was a young American living in Ireland. 01:16 Yeah. 01:16 But before we get into the case and really deep dive into it, because there's a lot to it, I know. Let's talk about Annie. Annie McCarrick was born on March 21st, 1967 in Long Island, New York, and she was the only child of John McCarrick, who's now deceased, and Nancy McCarrick. 01:33 really regular family life I would say John McCarrick worked as a high school teacher he was ex-Parks police officer and Nancy was a high school administrator in that same school that Annie went to Annie's parents both worked in the school one of the schools that she attended I would have loved that myself. But they lived in Bayview, in the Bayview area of Bayport. And Annie was, would you say, an Irish American? She had a lot of Irish ancestry. She was proud of her Irish roots. And on her mum's side, she had great grandparents that were directly Irish. 02:05 Yeah, there was a lot of Irish roots on both sides, her mum and dad, more so on her mum's side. And that was kind of really strong links, just going back one or two generations. 02:16 And then all of the Irish influences within the Irish-American community on Long Island as well, that she was as much Irish as she was American. 02:25 And there's a big Irish community around Long Island, isn't there? There is. 02:30 And there was a number of nuns and priests who were out that way as well, who had links to Ireland. And then all of the Irish music, Irish dancing. that was part of that community out in Long Island as well. 02:45 I kind of love this about her because she always grew up with the ambition, number one, to be a teacher, but also to visit Ireland. And as well, according to a family friend, Kenneth Strange Jr., he said Annie growing up because Annie was friends with his younger sister. They loved playing with toy horses. She was very playful character and lovely to be around. 03:06 I've met Kenneth and I know Kenneth a long time. And he was older than Annie, but his sister, his younger sister was around the same age as Annie. So he would have memories of this young kid coming in and playing with his sister and normal, simple, happy memories of kids growing up and playing together and being a joy to be around. 03:32 Yeah, it's fair to say she had a normal childhood. She loved nature. She loved to knit. She was very romantic and had this romantic view about Ireland. And her first ever trip to Ireland was in December of 1987. She had a cousin who was leading a week-long trip in Ireland. He actually taught Irish studies at the State University of New York. And she accompanied this cousin and absolutely fell head over heels for Ireland. 03:57 Danny Casey was the relative who was bringing the large group of people over to Ireland that Christmas and Annie really wanted to be part of it so yeah that was her first visit so I suppose that's important that say six years before whatever happened to Annie happened to her in Dublin she's actually visiting Ireland for the first time it won't be the last she's Over the next few years, she's going to spend a lot of time in Ireland. 04:24 Yeah. And I can imagine around Christmas time. So one of the best times to be visiting Ireland as well. I'm sure that's literally what caught her heartstrings because she comes back in 1988. Annie officially enrolls at St. Patrick's Teacher Training College in Drumcondra. And now she's currently studying in Ireland, living there and essentially building a life for herself here. And as part of her work placement, she is a teaching assistant at a school in Ballymun, Our Lady of Victory National School. And she was very much loved there. 04:55 She was. And the kids, the kids were fascinated with this Irish-American woman with, say, the different accent coming over. 05:04 And she was telling the kids all about her time growing up in New York and trying to teach them and learn from them as well. She really enjoyed her time and they loved having her there. But I think she was able to funnel them in a particular way by telling them stories about her background. 05:24 And they did what she said. 05:26 It's mad because each week when we talk about these cases and get to know the victims, you know, we always find a way to connect. And I find it quite interesting to learn that Annie McCarrick also went to Maynooth. She's a Maynooth alumni like myself. And she enrolled in St. Patrick's College in Maynooth, entering a second year of sociology and English, all as part of her degree. And right there is where she met one of her best friends. That's Geraldine Delaney. And we actually have a quote here. I know you interviewed her, Barry, and she said some really nice things about Annie. She says, Annie was an only child and so was I. 05:58 So we had a particular bond. Annie was what you'd call a real Celtic woman. She wore lovely cloaks and knitwear, and she was such a reliable person, even to the extent that when we studied in the reading room in the arts block in Maynooth, if Annie took a break, she'd write a note of the time she had left. She'd leave the note on top of her books. She was that reliable, that predictable. I also visited her in New York after she finished her studies there, and we would have such great chats about everything. 06:27 I think that's so sweet. Yeah, I remember... 06:29 When Geraldine gave me that quote, when I met her, when I interviewed her, I went out to the school she was teaching at out in Palmerstown in West Dublin. So she had kind of gone on from Maynooth and pursued a career in teaching. And it just struck me that Geraldine was doing what Annie might have ended up doing. But I remember sitting down with Geraldine, grabbing a quiet time to hear those memories of Annie. And they did strike me as... 06:54 really poignant and evocative as well. Like, Annie came from New York. She was street smart in terms of living in the States and living close to a city in New York, coming from Long Island. 07:09 So she was aware of surroundings. 07:13 She was very capable and confident in But she did also have this view of Ireland, which seems to be looking for the best in Ireland. And there's a lot of great things in Ireland. But also we know and we know what happens to Annie later on. There's an awful lot of really bad things in this country as well. 07:32 And she didn't seem to focus on that end. She focused on maybe the more dreamy, wonderful aspects of Ireland. 07:42 And in 1990, Annie graduates officially with a degree in English literature from Maynooth University, but goes back to America. And she's still dreaming to move back to Ireland someday officially. But at that point, she has plans to do a master's degree. In 1991, she earns that master's degree from New York's Stony Brook University. Now, according to friends and family, Annie had two romantic relationships with Irishmen between her first visit in 1987 and her disappearance in 1993. Yeah. Tell me a bit about that. 08:12 Yeah. So she was in Ireland for on and off for over six years, really. And during that time, so she's gone from her late teens into her 20s. She had a wide circle of friends and she in amongst the circle of friends, she had two relationships at different times. And One of those that she went out with was Dermot Ryan, a man who I met and who I interviewed. He sadly has passed away since. And he was able to tell me so much about Annie and the young woman she was. 08:46 And he had spent time back in New York with her as well. They had met at Maynooth as many relationships begin in college. She was 20. He was 19. And They had, you might call, a relatively long relationship for young people, which spanned across the Atlantic at different times. 09:05 But they had an amicable breakup then as well. 09:10 There were tears, but any... Dermot told me wanted to have maybe a stronger relationship or a longer term. He didn't know he wanted to think about it, that kind of thing. 09:23 So they broke up jumping forward when Annie later went missing. Dermot had moved on out of Ireland. He was actually living over in Italy. at that stage and he was in a relationship with an Italian woman I remember one quote that Dermot gave me which again it's from people who knew Annie that we learn so much about Annie he told me when I was going out with Annie she was renting a cottage in Ballyboden it was out in the wilds it took about two hours to get there from Maynooth but Annie wouldn't live anywhere else she just loved that cottage Annie had a romantic view of Ireland that most people would find corny But she just loved this country. 10:04 She had the most beautiful, warm voice. So Annie's other relationship was more of an on-again, off-again situation with Philip Brady, another man from Dublin. And she knew Philip for a lot of the time that she was in Ireland. And she knew all the Brady family as well, even so much that... 10:23 She was storing a car. 10:25 Philip helped her to store a car that she had when she was moving around houses. 10:31 And so she kept in touch with Philip and also with the rest of the Brady family as well. Philip's brother, Hillary. and Hillary's fiancee at that time, Rita. 10:42 Which is nice because you think as well when you move country and you don't have a family base in this new place that you're living and establishing a life in, like the value of friendships is so high. And the official move to Ireland for Annie McCarrick came on the 6th of January 1993. 10:59 This is where she decided, right, I'm ready to establish my life here. And it's known that Annie's dad, John, was keen for her to stay in New York and not move to Ireland and establish herself in New York first. But her mom, Nancy, kind of had a conflicting view. She wanted her daughter to just be free, live her life. She's young, do something you really want to do while you can. But nevertheless, the two of them, they kissed Annie goodbye at JFK. And they didn't know it at the time, but they would never see Annie again. 11:28 those last memories and where families will fixate on that last memory of a missing person, not realizing that that's the last time, but that is the treasured memory that they'll relive again and again. And I think particularly in this case, because Annie was an only child and because her parents both wanted the best for her, but it must have been difficult for John and Nancy to know that And he was once again going to Ireland and that she was trying to see, could she settle down? Could she get a job as a teacher? 11:59 Now, she had a problem in that she didn't speak Irish. English was her main subject and she had studied that in college and that she will be able to teach that as a single subject. 12:11 But so she was coming over. She didn't have any plan other than to get immediate work, which was actually in cafes and restaurants to tide her over. Well, she then figured out was she actually going to be able to get work as a teacher. And she also had to figure out a work visa as well, because she was now looking to get on the PAYE systems and whatever else. So she's all this to figure out. 12:39 A lot of adulting to do, to be fair to say. But she sounds like a pretty ambitious woman. She was going to figure it out. Even when she first moved to Ireland in January of 1993... 12:53 The initial accommodation, she stayed with a friend in Clendalkin for a short period of time. And then she managed to find a flat and did a flat share in St. Catherine's Grove in Sandymount with Jill Toomey from Cork and Ida Walsh from Newbridge. And she actually sort of established a really strong friendship with Ida as well, one of her flatmates. 13:12 Yeah, like so she only met Jill and Ida in the January of that year. So... 13:19 two months, a little bit more than two months before she disappears, she meets them and she's she she gets she becomes the third flatmate in this in this apartment. 13:29 St. Catherine's Grove in Sandymount has always kind of maintained as an apartment block. 13:35 had a communal laundry room that required coins to use like for the washer and the dryer also the apartment itself had a phone that could receive calls but not place them so that's something to know but very basic features that were standard of the time I think they were standard and they it was to do with cost reduction and whatever if you had landlords and 13:56 People who didn't want to get stung with long phone bills and where people were sharing phones and trying to figure out the phone bills. All kind of complicated. And again, pre-mobile phone time for so many people. So Nancy could ring Annie on the phone phone. in the apartment. But if Annie needed to reach Nancy or reach anybody else, there was a call box around the corner and she could make her calls that way as well. 14:21 It was of a time of maybe organized phone calls where someone would say, look, I'll ring you at 6 p.m. and then you'd know to be home then so you could receive the call. 14:29 And also there were ways if ever she needed to ring the states She could do the call collect to see if Nancy would accept the call on her end and accept the cost of it. So there are ways to keep in contact. 14:41 That's it. And we mentioned her ambition to become a teacher. But initially, when she arrived in Ireland, she gets two jobs, two jobs in hospitality, obviously to earn a living for herself. One was at the Courtyard Restaurant in Donnybrook. and the other one at Cafe Java on Leeson Street. So she's now established, living in Ireland. She's working and also celebrates her 26th birthday in Dublin here as well. 15:07 So we talk about her as 26. She had just turned 26, but she had achieved so much in those years from late teens into mid-20s. And she was about to embark on a really... 15:23 exciting next step in Ireland, whatever that was going to be. 15:27 And it's sad to think that her last day or her last known day to all of us was only five days after that 26th birthday on March 26th. We know that morning on Friday at 7 a.m. Annie, she wakes up early. She's knitting in bed for a period of time chatting to her friend, Ida Walsh. Ida was actually packing for a weekend back home in Newbridge in Kildare. And Jill as well was leaving for a weekend home. 15:55 That was, yeah, so many of the people who lived in the flats would be people from down the country. 16:01 She had a quote when she spoke to you. We have it here. Ida says, on that morning, I had clothes to dry in the basement and I needed change for the machine. I knocked on Annie's bedroom door. And she was sitting up in bed knitting. She asked what time is it? And I said 7 a.m. Annie thought it was earlier and didn't realize that her watch had stopped. She gave me change for the dryer and we had breakfast together. She didn't have any real plans for that weekend. 16:27 That's... 16:28 So informative in so many ways and she didn't have any real plans. 16:33 So things were kind of easy and plans could be made loosely as well. She wasn't due in work until another day or two. So she had free time. 16:41 Yeah, we know she was off that Friday, the 26th of March, but she was scheduled to be back at Cafe Java for work on Saturday morning. But yes, she was alone in the apartment for the full weekend, you know, with two flatmates gone. So you can imagine maybe she wanted to make plans, even though she didn't have plans initially. I know that Ida gave Annie her sister's phone number in Newbridge to use just in case of emergencies or in case she got bored or just wanted to come to Selbridge. But Ida leaves for work after breakfast, followed by Jill. Both of them are out of the apartment by 9am and neither of them see Annie again. 17:16 Annie at 10 a.m. on that Friday, the 26th of March, leaves the apartment to walk around Sandy Mount and run errands. So there is a receipt and there's a timestamp there of 11.02 a.m. for when she pays for her shopping in Quinsworth in Sandy Mount. That's a supermarket. 17:34 Yeah. 17:34 Do we know what she bought or what she was out buying? 17:37 She was getting various goods to do the baking that she said she would do for her job. So she was actually doing extra work for Cafe Java by baking. She was very talented at it. She had a skill. She was known for it. And she loved to do it. So she was buying goods to bake. 17:59 and non-perishables. 18:01 And so that's what she got. 18:03 To drop them back in because, you know, she was in for her shift on Saturday morning. So her plan was maybe to bake on the Friday, drop some treats into her colleagues on Saturday morning. 18:11 And that was it. So although she had worked the next day, she would have been finished by evening time on the Saturday. So she had... Saturday free as well and looking into Sunday. But Friday was a day, although she was going to do with the baking, she was she was off. She was off. She didn't see it as work. 18:27 And even after 11 a.m. Annie places a number of calls from a phone box in Sandy Mount Village. And one call that she made was to her friend Anne O'Dwyer. who was living in nearby Rathgar at the time. So Annie invites Anne to go for a walk in Enniskerry. This is one of her favorite places to go. 18:45 But Anne had declined that walk because she hurt her foot. So there is record of this, Barry, isn't there? 18:52 Yeah, so the phone call was made and Gardaí would later check the call box. And yes, the call was made to Anne. 18:58 And it matched with the chat and the discussion. And it wouldn't have been unusual for Annie to talk about going for walks in Enniskerry or the Wicklow Mountains because she'd done it. And she'd actually brought Ida and Jill out to Johnny Fox's pub previously to socialise as well. So she was known to... head out and we were talking about her living in Ballyboden years before she although she lived in Sandymount she was as quick to get on a bus and go traveling somewhere to go go for a walk as as she wasn't yeah and certainly from the chat with Anne that she Anne would later talk about to Gardaí even though Anne couldn't go on the walk she took it from the chat with Annie that Annie might still go for a walk herself She hadn't really decided. 19:42 It wasn't, she didn't say, well, I'm not going to go because you're not going. 19:46 That there was still a possibility. She might go herself. She hadn't decided. 19:51 There was no definite answer there. And after 11 a.m. at an unknown time on that Friday, March 26th, Annie arrives back at her apartment with the shopping that she got at Quinsworth. And The shopping was left at her table because she had planned to go downstairs and put on a wash using the communal laundry room. And I think it's important to note that her shopping is entirely non-perishable. So you could leave it on the table. There was no milk. There was no butter there. She had plans to come back and pack it away. But her clothes are actually found everywhere. 20:23 in a machine, untouched in the laundry room and an ironing board is set up in the kitchen. 20:28 So I just remember going back to Geraldine Delaney and how Annie was back in Maynooth and so organized and leaving notes if she was doing things that she wasn't somebody to leave out an ironing board just hanging around the apartment and not put it away again or to leave her laundry down in the laundry room knowing i mean anybody who's had to share a laundry room will know that the frustration if you find clothes in the machine yeah so annie wasn't someone to just leave her stuff lying around and one other thing about the apartment when it's later yeah analyzed and this is it the phone book was out as well uh and this is back before people could could uh check numbers in other ways uh that the the hard copy large aircom phone books were the way to uh to contact people we don't know who she might have been looking for in the phone book but the phone book was out and again she hadn't put it away it's strange the apartment was left uh not in a way that she'd want anyone else to to see 21:30 Annie McCarrick was as reliable and organized as she was dreamy. Her last morning on earth was emblematic of that. What really happened that afternoon on the 26th of March, 1993 remains a mystery. 21:54 Now, Barry, there's a couple of more alleged sightings that we want to talk about. I know yourself and many other journalists would have reported about these alleged sightings as fact over the last two decades. But Gardaí changed things in 2023. Tell me a bit about this. 22:10 Yeah, so what we're going to talk through are the various incidents. 22:15 issues on the day Annie disappeared that were reported as either most likely to have happened or actually did happen, when we now have to say, did they happen at all? And it's instructive that down the years, myself and so many other journalists, in trying to report as much as possible about the case, would put in all the information that we had and were learning. And through all of that, People, including those writing the stories, come to say, well, that happened. You come to believe it happened because it's matched by somebody else's sighting and somebody else's. 22:47 And many people, it all seems to tally. Gardaí aren't disputing it. They're the ones actually saying and pointing towards these various leads so that a lot of facts mightn't actually be facts. I'm not saying they're not facts either, but it's the it's the whole trying to figure out what's what's real and what's not. We know the 1102 receipt, 1102 in the morning receipt of Annie McCarrick is is accurate. She did that shopping. But then there's a lot of things that day we actually have to say now. 23:18 Did it happen? 23:19 There's a question mark around a couple of these. And I also think it's important to know because we did talk about Annie inviting Anne to go on a walk with her and Anne is scary. And Anne declined because she had hurt her her leg. That day, sunset was at 6.15 p.m. and also the weather conditions were wet and windy. So that's just something to keep in mind as well. Speaking about the first alleged sighting, I suppose, it occurs at 10.55 on that Friday. Annie visits the Sandy Mount AIB branch. So she was there for a branch change query. 23:52 because initially she had opened her AIV account in Klandalkin, where she was staying initially when she moved to Ireland. But she wanted to move that account over. So what do we know about this allowed siding? 24:02 We know she went to the bank. But we now have to ask, when did she actually go to the bank? There is CCTV footage of Annie McCarrick in Ireland. the bank and she actually turns to the camera just absentmindedly. She's in a queue waiting to be served and she turns to her right and she actually seems to look at the camera just by chance. So there's a sighting and it's really good and you're looking at it and you see she has a bag over her shoulder. That bag is later missing when she herself is missing. The clothing she's wearing seems to match what she would have been wearing on that day that she's last seen. 24:37 So it becomes part of the narrative that that's footage taken on the day that she disappears. But the footage is not what it seems. 24:48 Is it fair to say, before we go on with a couple more alleged sightings, is that Annie had striking features. She was five foot eight. She was pretty tall. She had long, dark hair. I mean, she's a memorable sort of face, would you say? Yeah. 25:03 Memorable face, memorable hair, memorable clothes as well in terms of the type of jacket she might wear. We know on the day she disappeared, she was wearing boots as well. Things that would stand out. People would hear the boots. Then they'd see them. 25:19 So she would be striking in many ways. 25:23 Her voice, her accent as well, if people heard. So she was not somebody who mightn't be noticed. But out of all that, a lot of people seem to have then seen her that day or somebody like her. 25:37 And that then fills in. So it's this whole thing of when Garda are appealing for witnesses and any information. And definitely you want people to call with information. But sometimes the information, even though it's given in the best of ways, the best of intentions, it's not actually... 25:55 the right information or doesn't tally with something else. And we're just trying to distill all this, figure out what actually happened. 26:02 Yeah. So there is another question mark around another alleged sighting. This is around 3.15 on Friday, the 26th of March. Annie is spotted leaving her apartment building by a plumber named Bernard Sheeran. So this is considered a credible sighting. 26:17 Yeah. And we're now into eyewitnesses and people who are doing their very best to tell what they knew. Because two other people in Sandymount are in and around the same time who didn't necessarily know her well, but saw this woman who matched Annie's description running for the number 18 bus, which would have been going from Sandymount up into Renola. 26:38 and this again seems to tally that the bus driver remembered slowing down in Sandy Mount because a woman was running to catch the bus, and Annie would be the type of person who wouldn't just stop as the bus went off. She'd call out, hey, wait, I'm here, just a minute, whatever, that she wouldn't be shy about chasing the bus, and the bus driver stopped, so a woman matching Annie's description got on a bus. 27:03 But we have to wonder, was it Annie? 27:05 Speaking of the bus siding, there is another one at 3.40pm on that Friday, March 26th. So the number 44 bus leaves Ranla for Enniskerry. And Annie, or perhaps a woman matching Annie's exact description, is on that bus. And Annie getting on this bus, she would have been, you know, keeping up with her plan to, I suppose, go for that walk and it's scary without Anne. 27:30 Yeah. 27:30 And that was still her plan. Apparently, you know, we know with the phone call Anne had said she wasn't sure if Annie was going to go on and do it by herself or not. There was a question mark around that. 27:41 So if she was going to go to Enniscary, the only way was by bus. She didn't have her own car with her at that time because it was being stored elsewhere for her. 27:50 And again, it's trying to where we all try and solve these things and figure things out. So we're looking for natural conclusions to things. If Annie got on the 18 bus, that doesn't bring you to Enniskerry, but it does bring you to Renola. And you could get a 44 bus from there. And here's the thing. Somebody who knew Annie to see, knew her well to see, Emer, was queuing for the 44 bus. 28:15 that afternoon and saw who she believed was Annie also coming to join the queue to get on the bus and she called out but the the woman she thought was Annie didn't respond to her but she thought it was Annie and she said Emer said she got on the bus and the person she thought was Annie got on the bus then Emer gets off a short time later and the woman she believes is Annie stays on the bus which would tally that if she was going to Enniskerry She'd naturally be staying on until the last stop. 28:44 So it all, you can see how we're kind of moving along, reported sightings. It all seems to match. It matches what she said to Anne on the phone earlier, even though, as you say, Katia, that it's getting dark at this or will be getting dark pretty quickly. The clothes she's believed to have been wearing don't match. She's not wearing hiking boots. She's not wearing a Mac in case it's going to rain. She's in her tweed jacket. She's in her boots. 29:09 um her cowboy boots as they were described um so she's quite entitled to wear what she wants but it doesn't seem to tally with somebody who wants to go for a good stretch of the legs and then a scary nature's walk but that's i'm bringing my interpretations into it and that's what's happened down the years so many people have brought their their life experience to try and figure out what's going on. But now we're actually saying, well, was it Annie on the bus at all? 29:36 And even if Annie did board this bus, her arrival in Enniskiri would have been close to 5 p.m., which actually brings us to another alleged sighting of Annie or a woman matching Annie's description between 8 and 10 p.m. that day on Friday, March 26. Annie or a woman matching her description and a male friend arrive at Johnny Fox's pub in in Glen Cullen. And this was made by the doorman of Johnny Fox's. He gave that statement to the Gardaí and he believes he saw Annie or a woman matching Annie's description with a man alongside her with a square face, five foot eight square face. 30:12 I imagine there was a, wasn't there a sketch of this man? 30:15 There was, yeah. That was later issued by Gardaí that the witness, the doorman at Johnny Fox's became a really important witness because he was really good as a describer of his memories. 30:27 and was able to talk about saying that he believed it was Annie. He'd studied the photographs that had been issued by this stage. So this is a week or two into the missing persons investigation. And he says she was here. She was in Johnny Fox's. 30:40 And not only that, there was a man with her. And he remembered that there was a cover charge to get in. The band that night, trad music that night, the Jolly Plowmen were the band. So you can imagine it would have been pretty busy. 30:54 bit of crack that night a bit of uh good atmosphere and they were charging people in a cover charge only a couple of pounds i think but annie was looking for the cash and this doorman said he the reason he remembered the whole interaction was the man who was behind annie as he said it was annie uh or uh beside her or behind her said i'll get that and that this man paid the cover charge for the two of them to get into the pub to continue the night so there was that kind of interaction that the doorman was able to I didn't just see them I interacted with them and this became really important in the Garda investigation because like I said earlier Annie had been to Johnny Fox's before it wasn't out of the blue for her to suddenly go there but the question was Was she there? 31:41 Did she go that night? If she did, who was she with? So Gardie poured over all of the information about Johnny Fox's, but they could never find anybody else who was in there that night who was able to say they'd seen Annie. There was another American woman who was there who kind of looked like Annie, She was there with her mother. The doorman, the guardian went back to the doorman to say, well, could it be this other woman? And he said, no, I remember her as well. I remember her with her mom. There was another. So she was basically he was basically saying there were three Americans, the two, the mother and daughter and this other woman he said was he believed was Annie. 32:17 Gardie searched the camera of a French tourist and kind of looked through the camera roll to see the surroundings of Johnny Foxes and who was in there and maybe like who was beside Annie if Annie was there and they didn't find anything, right? 32:30 And I think part of this is that we're talking about something where there was no CCTV footage of all the nights you'd want to have footage somewhere to be able to say what actually happened. There was no footage there that night. 32:45 In today's world, there'd be footage in every bar or pub or most of them that you'd be able to figure things out quite quickly. Back then, no. So Gardie figured out that, yeah, there were French tourists. Thankfully, they'd taken loads of photos as they were out enjoying the Jolly Ploughmen playing the music that night. And the guards looked at all the images. No sign of anybody else. 33:09 matching Annie's description in the imagery so it does it doesn't tally with Annie being there the fact that there's no imagery also she was a pretty loud American in that she was somebody who would be chatty nobody else could remember 33:30 uh annie being there on the 26th of march 1993 johnny fox's pub is around six kilometers from enniscary village which is where the bus was leaving annie if she was on that bus and approximately a 65 minute walk from enniscary village or a 10 minute drive but we know she was not using a car at the time and it would have been a bus that she was on so that's just something else for me to note as well, doesn't really tally up with what we have already learned about Annie. 33:59 Yeah. And even even if she never went to Johnny Fox's, the question would still be, well, did she go to Enniscary? 34:07 And what happened was there was Again, a description of a woman who went in to buy stamps, three £52 stamps in the local post office in Enniskerry, which would match the value of postcards out of Ireland. Now, nothing ever arrived with Nancy or John or anybody else. But the person who served the woman in the post office believed it was Annie. But again, that may have been just another wrong lead that somebody else looking like Annie maybe was in Enniskerry that day and quite possibly it wasn't Annie at all. 34:47 So, Barry, let's get into her disappearance. The last known sightings we have of Annie are on that Friday, the 26th of March, 1993. But we do know that on Saturday morning, 27th of March, Annie was scheduled to show up at work at Cafe Java and she fails to show up that day for her shift. Now, the alarm bells aren't raised immediately by her colleagues, but they do ring her apartment and they try to contact her, especially when we know she was going to head there and also drop in the baked goods. 35:17 Maybe there was a bit of concern. Why hasn't she not shown up for her shift? And maybe she had a reasonable excuse. 35:23 I imagine, I mean, Cafe Java would have been busy. It's a busy work environment. You're serving customers. 35:30 somebody hasn't shown up, you're wondering where they are, but you also have to compensate that they're not there. So you're extra busy. So you're wondering, where is Annie? It's unlike her. Why isn't she here? They ring. There's no answer. 35:44 They can't leave a message. Can't text her. She doesn't have a mobile. There's no other way to reach out to her. And you have to just deal with the fact she's not there. 35:52 And so it's out of character, but there's no immediate alarm raised. It's later... That evening, the Saturday, that again, it begins to become more apparent to people who know her that something's not right. So she had dinner plans again with Hillary Brady and Rita Fortune was Rita was Hillary's fiance. 36:19 And they were good friends of Annie. And they're calling by arrangement to meet up for dinner, calling to Annie's apartment. And there's no answer. And they've no other way to contact her because it turns out they don't know or can't remember the number for the apartment. 36:36 Yeah. 36:36 Because, again, Annie is a creature of habit. Normally, if she's made a plan and you ring the bell, she's going to answer. She's there. And they actually will ring all the way across to the States. They contact Nancy. They ring Nancy because they know Annie's... 36:52 Mum's number back in New York to say, what's the number again? We just can't reach reach Annie. 36:57 So at this point, they weren't saying to Nancy, look, we're worried about Annie. We think she might be missing. They were they were just saying, look, she's not home. We have dinner plans. Would you have her number by any chance and we can ring us? 37:07 Yeah. 37:07 And now Hilary and Rita call into Annie's work, Cafe Java, and they're informed that Annie never showed up to work that day. So I can imagine maybe at this point, the alarm bells for her friends start ringing because it's the next day, Sunday, the 28th of March, when Annie's friends report her missing to the Gardaí at Irish Town Station. 37:28 Yeah. 37:29 Because on Sunday evening, Hillary and Rita, they go back to Annie's apartment. Ida and Jill are back home and there's signs of Annie all over the kitchen. Yeah. 37:38 And I remember I have a quote here from Ida where I interviewed her. When I came back on Sunday evening, the first thing I remember was hearing the phone ringing inside the apartment. There were two locks. It took a little while to open the door. When I got in, I answered the phone. It was Hillary Brady asking if I'd seen Annie. 37:55 I remember there were two or three bags of shopping from Quinsworth just inside the door. 38:00 And the bags contained ingredients for the tarts for Cafe Java in Leeson Street. And she also mentions the ironing board was out, the telephone directory was out, as if Annie had been looking through it. Hillary came to the apartment later that night. He said he had phoned all the hospitals to check if Annie had been admitted over the weekend. We waited until Jill arrived back from Cork to see if Annie had made contact with her over the weekend. Jill hadn't been in contact with Annie since Friday morning. Families and friends know their loved ones best and their friends best. 38:33 And if something's not right... 38:35 And those first few hours or days can be so important that already that weekend calls are being made. 38:44 Alarms are being raised. And that's the time when they say they need to ring again, need to ring back over to Long Island in New York and talk to Nancy and John and say whatever they said, but basically get across there's something not right here. 39:02 One of the first things to allegedly be reported to Gardaí is immediate rumblings from multiple sources close to Annie in Ireland and the US about a man Annie knows who is allegedly violent and unstable. 39:14 Yeah, and that most of this is talk actually across in the States and the distance across the Atlantic becomes a bit of a problem in this investigation. We now know we can say looking back, but at that time in 1993 in America, discussions are going on between Annie's friends, and it's becoming apparent to some of them that they all seem to know a little something, which is relating to somebody in Ireland that Annie has had previous interactions with and not good interactions, and that also it'll become apparent that her Aunt Maureen Hasn't discussed this with many other people, but she says that she's aware of an incident where a man had hit Annie while he was drunk. 40:03 So these are really important bits of information that the family and the friends in the US want to get across to Ireland, want to get across to the Gardaí. So they send faxes to a family member of the McCarricks who has now arrived in Ireland. 40:20 And they want those faxes passed on to Gardaí. And he will pass them on. He does pass them on to Gardaí. 40:28 And that becomes something we'll talk about thereafter because the detectives who need to know this information don't actually know it at the time. 40:36 Outside of the people who sent these faxes, Barry, no one is aware until 2023. 40:41 Yeah, and it's a big issue. And it's how we can learn from this case to help solve the case itself. But also wonder about other cases have... Bits of information been lost down the years. 40:58 Has geographical distance been a problem where people assume that the relevant Gardaí have been made aware of something? And then these Gardaí all these years later say, I was never told I didn't know about these faxes. 41:12 It may well have changed the course of an investigation. 41:16 So there's an awful lot to get into there about about who knew what, when and also what what can we all do about it now? 41:24 In part two of our story, we'll hear about the massive international search that took place after Annie McCarrick was officially declared a missing person on the 30th of March, 1993. That episode will be out next Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. 41:39 If you know anything, have seen anything or remember anything about any of the cases discussed in our series, please contact our tip line at unsolved at rte.ie.