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Irish Times
14 hours ago
- Irish Times
Annie McCarrick's family in Long Island: ‘The gardaí did not investigate who we thought was guilty in the very beginning'
Sisters Nancy and Maureen greet Linda Ringhouse with hugs and wish her a happy birthday. She laughs if off and says she has no big plans. Wednesday is trivia night in People's Pub, a restaurant she runs in Bayport, the coastal idyll in a secluded patch of Long Island's southeastern shore, some 60 miles from Manhattan. She jokes that she'll have a drink and get the questions wrong. Linda still addresses Nancy as 'Mrs McCarrick.' 'I've asked her many times!' Nancy says, mock scolding. READ MORE 'Well, after I talk to Maureen I do call her 'Nan',' Linda protests. 'But it always goes back to Mrs McCarrick. It's all I know really. It's just the habit of a lifetime.' That everyday phrase feels weighted, given the conversation. Linda was three years old when she first met Nancy's daughter Annie McCarrick . That was it for the pair of them: fastened at the soul. Childhood friends. Nancy and her husband John's first home, close to the shore, was adjacent to the Ringhouse home. 'Right around the corner there,' says Linda. 'We were running back and forth through the woods to one another's house. I don't remember back that far; Mrs McCarrick does.' [ Annie McCarrick's best friend is 'overwhelmed with emotion, crying over my coffee' after developments in case Opens in new window ] It's summer season in Long Island but Linda admits that since a man was arrested and questioned in Irishtown Garda station in Dublin last week over Annie's disappearance on March 26th, 1993, she can think of little else. The ongoing excavation of a home in Clondalkin, west Dublin has brought her seeking updates from her phone almost hourly. On June 12th gardaí began a significant dig at the Dublin property that was previously linked to the suspect in the case in the hope of investigators finding clues to the 1993 murder. The current owners of the house have no connection to the case. 'It's really intense,' says Linda of the search. 'We are curious as to how it's going but the why, too ... you know, why such a drastic measure has been taken, after all this time as to dig up a house,' says Maureen Covell (nee McCarrick), Annie's aunt. 'It's something, you know.' Gardaí remove a skip during their search on a house at Monastery Walk in Clondalkin in the investigation into the murder of Annie McCarrick, who disappeared in 1993. Photograph: Colin Keegan/Collins Nancy, a strikingly youthful 82, has been receiving daily updates from Det Insp Ronan Lafferty, who is leading the investigation. She describes him as 'phenomenal' in his kindness and in quickly reviving an inquiry – upgraded to a murder investigation just two years ago – while debunking old leads and unearthing new information in the 32-year search for clues as to what happened her daughter, who was 26 when she went missing. 'It has to be a doozy of a tip,' Nancy says, her eyes widening. 'We are amazed that [gardaí] are taking such a drastic measure. And it has to give you hope.' [ 'We were full of hope': Aunt of Annie McCarrick says family disappointed after murder suspect released Opens in new window ] It takes courage to allow that hope to settle. The burden of three decades of anguish and unanswered questions is significant. The women knew the man questioned last week. He was part of Annie's social circle during her time in Dublin and they had been a couple for a time. Annie McCarrick's aunt Maureen Covell, her mother Nancy McCarrick and childhood friend Linda Ringhouse in Long Island, New York. Photograph: Keith Duggan As Nancy explains, there is a strange Long Island link to how he came to be in her daughter's orbit: 'There's a family here in town, the McDonalds. Eleanor McDonald is from Ireland. And she introduced Annie to her niece, Siobhán, who had come here to visit. So, when Annie went over to Ireland, she contacted Siobhán.' Nancy says Siobhán was friends with another girl who introduced Annie to his man. 'Yeah. Just ... connections. Girl to girl to girl to girl to fellah,' says Nancy. The three women talk about the man. He took her on weekend trips. He visited Long Island with her. Although Maureen is an aunt of Annie's, because there were only nine years between them, Annie was more like a kid sister. Maureen has a memory of being in Annie's house in Dublin one afternoon when she visited in 1989. Annie had prepared three trays of food to bring over to the home of her boyfriend at the time, Dermot Ryan , whom she had met while studying at Maynooth. The cross-city journey was, in the grand tradition of Irish public transport of that era, highly impractical, requiring several bus changes. Then, the other man, a former boyfriend, turned up, just as they were leaving. He had a car. Annie persuaded him to drive them across town. Maureen was in the back seat. 'And it was obvious he was annoyed – and with good reason. But he had a temper. I remember being in the back seat and he was talking fast and calling himself an 'effing eejit', which I had never heard before, and asking: 'What am I doing taking you over to your new boyfriend's house?'' 'It is a very valid question,' says Linda. Later, Maureen gives me a whistle-stop tour of the Bayport of Annie's childhood. There is a sense that little has changed: like many prosperous American hamlets, it seems impervious to time. We pass Our Lady of the Snow Church, where Maureen was married. Annie served as flower girl that day. We drive past Bayport Blue Point High School, whose entrance is decorated with a ballooned archway and red carpet as students gathered for the evening's graduation ceremony. She spins around to show me the dock where they often spent time hanging out. There's a summer fog this afternoon but when the sky is clear overlooks the Great South Bay and Fire Island. I asked Annie if she wanted to go to Ireland and she said no – she'd rather be home for Christmas. I pretty much persuaded her to go — Nancy The residential avenues are filled with period houses dating from the late 1800s, designed as summer cottages for wealthy Manhattanites seeking refuge from the infernal heat. Bayport is a 20-minute drive past the last Long Island Rail Road stop, Ronkonkoma. But in the 1980s, the city, Manhattan, was a regular draw for teenagers eager to escape the limitations of locale. 'Annie liked the city,' says Nancy. 'Food shops. The opera had standing room tickets for eight dollars and she was hitting those all the time.' 'It was really a lovely place to grow up,' Linda says of the town. 'We kind of had it all. We were close to the bay, very small school districts, small town feel. But the city was right there. It was pretty perfect.' At a house party on Long Island in mid-1980s are childhood friends Linda Ringhouse, Annie McCarrick and Kathy McQuade After high school, their gang of friends began to split in different directions, college bound. Linda moved to Washington DC for a while but returned and set up her business. All three women agree that Annie's infatuation with Ireland came about suddenly but was the real thing. Nancy and Maureen's maternal grandparents were Irish. But the family was never moony or misty-eyed about the old country. 'We had soda bread and bacon and cabbage on St Patrick's Day and that was it,' says Maureen, laughing. There was a happenstance element, too, to Annie's introduction to Ireland. Annie was 19, and Nancy's cousin Dan Casey, who taught Irish studies, took students to Ireland every Christmas. 'I asked Annie if she wanted to go and she said no – she'd rather be home for Christmas,' says Nancy. 'I pretty much persuaded her to go. 'And when she arrived, she called me two days later and asked if it would be all right if she stayed there. She was doing her second year in college here – Skidmore. So she finished her second year and went back.' She studied in Maynooth before returning to New York for her master's degree until 1991. She was working at the Corner bookshop then as a student. But she had resolved to make a life for herself in Ireland. Nancy McCarrick with Annie at a cottage in Ballyboden Annie was renting while studying at Maynooth Ireland in 1993 was a different country: patriarchal, heavily conservative and, in the eyes of comfortable New Yorkers, almost certainly basic in terms of luxuries and conveniences that were common place at home. Linda tells us about a trip she took with Annie to Roscommon, and Clifden, Co Galway, in January 1993, just two months before Annie went missing. It was a hoot: an eight-hour car odyssey where they arrived desperately late for a steak dinner prepared by their hosts. A bunch of them slept in the livingroom: the temperatures dipped once the fire went out. 'And Annie, who was upstairs, came down the next morning and she was like: 'Ah that heating blanket was so warm,'' Linda says, laughing. She could see Ireland's effect on Annie. 'I could see why she was smitten with it. And I was jealous of Ireland! I was angry she was moving away. Because she liked everything better there. And it made me ... jealous. That was the truth. I was happy for her. But I was losing her. And it was just letters then, to stay in touch, and an occasional phone call.' Maureen delights in remembering 'the coldest bathroom I have ever experienced' in Annie's place in Dublin. 'The little thing heating the whole room was this big,' she says using her hands. 'It was flipping freezing. And she had warned me about the toilet seat and we hopped into the bed and there was a hot water bottle. I'd forgotten they still made those. Then in the middle of the night I had to use the loo. And that seat was freezing. And Annie yells: 'Told ya!'' Maureen was perplexed about her niece's love for this damp, uncomfortable country. Yes, it was friendly. Yes, it was their grandparents' land. 'I would say she was infatuated with a lot of things. It was like a historical glimpse, I think,' says Maureen. 'And I remember her saying: well, the butter is better. And the milk is better. And the eggs are so fresh. And I'm like: oh shut up. They all come from the cows and chickens. Gimme a break. 'But she loved everything about it. And she loved the simplicity. And she liked the pace of the city. And everyone was so friendly there. That intrigued her. Everything and anything in Ireland she thought was better.' A year before her disappearance, Annie McCarrick and her aunt, Maureen Covell, at a cousin's wedding on St Patrick's Day in New York Nancy could understand it, though. There were two Irelands then: the official Catholic conservative country and, hovering out of reach, a burgeoning pub and music culture. The early 1990s were a fun time to be young in Ireland. The scene was authentic and energetic and unlike anything her daughter would have experienced in greater New York. 'She was an only child, too,' says Nancy. 'Everyone she met there in Ireland had, you know, four sisters and three brothers. I could see why she was so happy there. 'They could get these little houses to live in. She brought her bicycle and dishes and clothes and was very much at home there. The flight was no longer than to California. So it wasn't a big deal. Annie saw no reason why I couldn't live six months here and six there. I could have seen it. Because she was so happy there. I'm not a summer person so I'd be right at home in Ireland.' Time is tricky. It is easy for the three women to slip into the soothing nostalgia and what-ifs of that time, before March 26th, 1993. When they speak about the days either side of that date, it is with a vivid clarity not normally associated with the passing of three decades. When they recall the first weeks after Annie was reported missing, and then months, and then years, and finally decades of the original Garda investigation, it is with vexation. 'They botched it,' says Maureen flatly. 'They admitted it. They didn't listen to the family and did not investigate who we thought was guilty in the very beginning. They pooh-poohed a lot and didn't follow up on things they should have. That's no secret. It is all documented. I don't know. They didn't do anything for the first 24 hours, because she was of age. And no matter how many times we said there is something wrong, it was: Oh, she is off on an adventure and she will turn up.' [ Annie McCarrick: Cold case murder detectives must overcome poor investigations of 1990s Opens in new window ] Nancy, who has been extraordinarily stoic through her 30-year ordeal, gently interjects to say: 'But it was the time, too. It was a different country. And we were so much more accustomed to every crime going over here.' She adds that when she returned to Ireland in 2009, to participate in an RTÉ Crimecall programme, she was taken to a number of Garda stations. 'And they were all so sorry this had happened. They were very kind,' she says. But the family felt condescended to by the authorities in the beginning. Annie's father, John, who died in 2009, and Maureen's husband, John Covell, travelled to Ireland and were actively involved in the early days of the search for Annie and liaised with gardaí at the time. In those early weeks, after reported sightings of Annie in Johnnie Fox's pub in the Dublin mountains, her family and friends were willing to believe that there was something to the reports, but were quickly dismayed as the sightings seemed to dictate the energies of the investigation. 'When it first comes out, yes,' says Linda. 'In the very beginning it is a very surreal thing to think that someone she knows – and someone you know- would murder her. So, in your brain, anything to take you away from that is welcome. 'Then there was another sighting. So it did take you away for a minute.' An image of Annie McCarrick released by the Garda in 2023 on the 30th anniversary of her disappearance. Photograph: Colin Keegan/Collins She feels the first Garda investigators were 'in over their heads from the beginning'. 'I feel they had everything they needed in the first few days and once they got the tip, they were off to Johnnie Fox's. 'I think they believed they were going in the right direction. Unfortunately, they weren't listening to other people. But at the end of the day, statistically, for 30 years, we have been asking the same questions.' They have been here, by the coast, in the years when nothing at all seemed to be happening with the investigation. Annie McCarrick is one of a series of high-profile cases involving women who inexplicably went missing in Ireland in the early 1990s. The words 'disappeared' and 'vanished' are often used. But she was blindsided through an episode that, the family believe and have long accepted, ended her life. Their anguish has been compounded by being left in limbo for 30 years. Recent newspaper reports quote Nancy as saying she has 'no interest' in justice. She elaborates by saying that she doesn't believe the person responsible for what happened to her daughter is serially violent, or a threat to society. Maureen and Linda, in contrast, are adamant in their wish for justice. What is known about the events leading up to Annie's disappearance are details about an individual that she spent the day after St Patrick's Day 1993 with. This week reports attributed to undisclosed sources theorised that Annie had felt guilty about that encounter, as the suspect had a girlfriend at that time. A week later, on Friday, March 26th, she was last seen in Sandymount, Dublin, where she lived. Groceries were found unpacked in shopping bags in her flat. 'I just have to say,' says Nancy, 'I always felt this could have been accidental. I did.' The last confirmed sighting of Annie McCarrick, captured on CCTV in mid-March 1993, when she visited an AIB branch on Sandymount Road, near where she lived. Photograph: Garda Press Office Whatever exactly happened to Annie McCarrick, and whether or not the details can be established as a result of the ongoing investigation, it is clear that she was the victim of a wretched act. 'The team working on it now is at least letting us know we weren't crazy,' says Linda. She feels there is unlikely to be conviction unless there is a body. 'If they don't find her body, it might never be.' But they would take 'some comfort' in having the scenario they have thought all along might have happened validated. Later, when she is leaving, Nancy waves off Maureen's offer of a lift and is happy to make the short walk to her house. The sisters make plans to meet. Through this week of intense waiting, the daily chores of life go on. But Annie McCarrick is very much present, three decades on, in the minds of her mother and aunt and her oldest friend. Linda has carried their friendship through her 30s, 40s and 50s. She still wonders what Annie's opinion on events of the day might be. This trio of women are warm, gracious and tough. They all fervently hope that the phone call they have been waiting for will come, so they can make plans to bring Annie back to Bayport.
Irish Times
14-06-2025
- Irish Times
‘We we're full of hope': Aunt of Annie McCarrick says family disappointed after murder suspect released
Annie McCarrick's mother Nancy is used to waiting. She has been waiting for 32 years to find out where her only daughter's remains may be buried. When she received a 3am phone call on Thursday from the Garda team investigating her daughter's murder, it brought a new level of emotional intensity to the family's wait for answers. A man who knew Annie McCarrick had been arrested on suspicion of her murder . Fortunately, Nancy McCarrick's younger sister, Maureen Covell, was staying with her when the gardaí called. She has supported Ms McCarrick since 1993. READ MORE Annie McCarrick was nine years younger than Ms Covell, who is now 67. Both women were like best friends and spent lots of time together. From early on Thursday morning until the suspect was released without charge on Friday afternoon, an extended Irish-American family living in the Long Island area of New York had their fingers crossed. After all, this was the first arrest in a case whose narrative has changed completely since a new team of Garda investigators were appointed. 'Naturally, we were full of hope,' said Ms Covell. 'At last, it seemed there would be answers. There have been so many attempts over the decades to solve this case but there had never been any conclusive or definitive answers.' It was a case of disappointment once again for the family on Friday, as the man was released without charge . A search and excavation at a house in Clondalkin, Dublin, which was linked to him, is ongoing. Speaking to The Irish Times from her home in Long Island, Ms Covell said: 'All of us are quite disappointed as we were hopeful that some results would come of this arrest and interrogation. It is important to say that we haven't given up all hope as it seems the gardaí are getting close. We cautiously look forward to hearing if there are any findings with regards to the excavation. 'We appreciate the continued efforts of the gardaí as they follow some very recent leads.' She added that the family continues to hope for 'closure and answers along with a possible conviction to this 32-year- old nightmare'. Ms Covell said the family had been left deeply frustrated by elements of the original Garda team's approach to the investigation. 'Unlike my dear sister, who has remained so graceful and stoic throughout this ordeal, I still find it very frustrating that all the faxes our family and friends sent to the gardaí after Annie's disappearance about significant issues in her personal life were ignored at the time,' she said.
Irish Times
12-06-2025
- Irish Times
Annie McCarrick timeline: 32 years of false leads and setbacks in search for American woman presumed murdered
A man in his 60s was arrested on Thursday morning in connection with the disappearance and murder of American woman Annie McCarrick (26). She disappeared in March 1993. A search of a property in Clondalkin was also under way. Timeline of the case: March 26th, 1993: Annie McCarrick, an American student living in Ireland since 1987, spoke to her flatmates in St Catherine's Court, Sandycove, before they travelled home for the weekend. March 27th, 1993: A couple were worried when they turned up to Ms McCarrick's apartment for a dinner she planned to hosting and she wasn't there. She did not turn up for work that day in Cava Java on Leeson Street nor on Sunday. READ MORE March 28th, 1993: Her flatmates return and find bags of unpacked shopping on the floor of the apartment. A receipt confirmed that the shopping was purchased on 11.02am on March 26th at the Quinnsworth on Sandymount Road. That evening she was reported missing to the gardaí. March 30th, 1993: Ms McCarrick's mother Nancy, who was due to visit Ireland anyway, confirms the missing person's report. April 7th, 1993: Gardaí state Ms McCarrick was last seen at Johnnie Fox's pub in Glencullen, Co Dublin, in the company of a man who was of medium height and athletic looking. They believe she travelled alone on a bus to Enniskerry on March 26th, 1993. These leads would later be dismissed. [ Annie McCarrick's best friend from childhood: 'I believe she knew the person responsible for her death' Opens in new window ] March 26th, 1994: A year after Ms McCarrick's disappearance, her father, John McCarrick, offers a reward of $150,000 for any 'serious information leading to her whereabouts or to her location'. He died in 2009. June 1997: A search of a pet cemetery in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, is carried out following a tip-off, but her body is not found. October 2008: A cold-case review sees gardaí interview two suspects who were living in Co Wicklow at the time of Ms McCarrick's disappearance. They were released without charge. Nancy McCarrick, mother of Annie McCarrick. Photograph: RTÉ April 2nd, 2016: Ms McCarrick's mother Nancy makes an appeal on RTÉ's Crimecall programme for any information related to her daughter's disappearance. Mrs McCarrick concedes that she is most likely dead. July 7th, 2020: New York based lawyer Michael Griffith says he has a 'very, very promising lead'. March 24th, 2023: Gardaí upgrade the disappearance of Ms McCarrick to murder 30 years after her death. At a press conference Det Supt Eddie Carroll said there was now sufficient evidence to suggest Ms McCarrick had been murdered. He believed modern forensic techniques may help to solve her disappearance. May 11th, 2023: Gardaí confirm they are re-examining the actions and movements of two men, including rechecking accounts and statements they gave in 1993. March 26th, 2024: Gardaí confirm that two lines of inquiry, that Ms McCarrick had taken a bus to Enniskerry on her own and was last seen in Johnnie Fox's, were both ruled out. The CCTV photograph of her in the Sandymount branch of the AIB was also ruled out as evidence. It had been taken 11 days before her disappearance. June 12th, 2025: A man was arrested in connection with the disappearance and murder of Annie McCarrick who disappeared while living in South Dublin in 1993. The detention of the man in his 60s is the first arrest ever made in the inquiry.
BBC News
12-06-2025
- BBC News
Annie McCarrick: Man arrested on suspicion of US woman's murder
A man in his 60s has been arrested in connection with the disappearance and murder of an American woman in the Republic of Ireland more than 30 years McCarrick, who was 26 at the time, had been living in Dublin when she went missing on 26 March case was treated as a missing persons inquiry for more than 30 years until it was upgraded by gardaí (Irish police) to a murder inquiry in man was arrested on suspicion of Ms McCarrick's murder on Thursday morning and a search operation is also underway at a house in the Clondalkin area of Dublin. Gardaí have said that part of the house and garden will be searched and forensic examinations carried search operation will be supported by other agencies, if required, according to Gardaí.It is being directed by a senior investigating officer, with the assistance of the serious crime review team from the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The family of Annie McCarrick are being kept fully updated on the latest developments in the are also appealing to anyone who may have previously come forward, but who felt they could not provide all the relevant information they had at the time, to contact them again. With the passage of time, according to a spokesperson, these individuals may now be willing to speak again with the investigation team. Groceries had been left unpacked Annie McCarrick was the only child of her father, John, who is deceased, and her mother, Nancy, and was originally from New a teenager, she visited Ireland on a school parents had previously described how she fell in love with Ireland and the way of life and how, upon her return to New York, she indicated her intention to return to Ireland to the late 1980s, she completed her third level studies at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra in Dublin and at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, before returning to New York in 1991 to complete her studies at Stoney Brook January 1993, she moved to Ireland to live permanently and settled into rental accommodation at Sandymount in Dublin with two other March, Annie spoke to both her flatmates before they left separately to travel home for the also made arrangements with friends, inviting them to her apartment for dinner the following day, 27 March was also said to be excited and making plans for her mother Nancy's impending visit to Ireland the following 28 March 1993, friends of Annie McCarrick became concerned for her welfare after she was not at home when they called for the prearranged had been left unpacked in shopping bags and a receipt in the shopping bags was the last confirmed activity of Annie McCarrick.
The Independent
12-06-2025
- The Independent
Man aged in his 60s arrested on suspicion of murder of Annie McCarrick
A man aged in his 60s has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Annie McCarrick, who went missing in Dublin more than 30 years ago. The man is being detained at a Dublin Garda station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984. A house and garden in Clondalkin, in west Dublin, is to be technically and forensically examined as part of the investigation. Gardai said the current residents of the home are not connected with Ms McCarrick or her disappearance. Ms McCarrick was 26 when she went missing on March 26 1993. Originally from Long Island in New York, she had moved to Ireland to live permanently in January 1993 and was staying in rental accommodation at St Catherine's Court in Sandymount with two other tenants when she went missing two months later. On the day she went missing, Ms McCarrick spoke to both her flatmates before they left separately to travel home for the weekend. She had made arrangements with friends to have dinner in the apartment the following day, and was making plans for her mother Nancy's visit to Ireland in the following days. Ms McCarrick was not at home on March 27 when her friends called for dinner as invited, and had not turned up for work on Saturday or Sunday morning. A friend called to her apartment that Sunday evening and spoke with Annie's two flatmates. Groceries that had been purchased by Ms McCarrick in Quinnsworth on Sandymount Road on Friday morning had been left unpacked in shopping bags. A receipt in the shopping bags confirmed the date and time of purchase as March 26 1993 at 11.02am, which is the last confirmed activity of Ms McCarrick. Ms McCarrick was reported missing by a friend at Irishtown Garda Station on the Sunday evening, which was confirmed by her mother Nancy when she arrived in Dublin on March 30, 1993. In March 2023, gardai announced the missing person inquiry has been upgraded to a murder investigation and made a public appeal for information. This is the first arrest made in the case. The family of Ms McCarrick are being fully updated in relation to this investigation, gardai said.
