A bestselling author has called for a cold case review into the disappearance of her friend and colleague Annie McCarrick, saying: “I won’t rest until they find out what happened to her.”
Novelist Marisa Mackle – speaking ahead of the 29th anniversary of the American woman’s vanishing on March 26, 1993 – believes a false lead in the case meant it was never solved.
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She said a fresh investigation is needed to find out what happened to her fellow waitress Annie, one of Ireland’s six missing women. She’d like to help by talking to gardai.
Annie, 27, went missing after taking a bus to Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, to go walking in the mountains.
Marisa said: “It was said for years that Annie was last seen on a night out in tourist spot Johnnie Fox’s pub, in the Dublin mountains.
“I knew her character really well – she didn’t like pubs and she didn’t go drinking. Yet this idea she spent her last night there is frequently presented as fact to the public.
“There was never any proof of this and those who knew her know she would never have been in a pub all night. To her, that would have been a waste of time.
“It’s shocking considering she probably never set foot in the place.
“It set the investigation in the wrong location.”
Marisa – who worked with Annie in The Courtyard restaurant in Dublin’s Donnybrook the year she disappeared – has never been interviewed by gardai probing the almost 30-year-old case.
She has always said Annie would never have gone to the Dublin mountains tourist pub.
But it is only recently has been accepted the reported sighting of her there was mistaken identity.
A barman said he saw Annie there all night with a man in a wax jacket. Nobody saw them leave and the man has never been identified.
She said: “They interviewed staff from Johnnie Fox’s, but they never talked to me. There was a staff of 50 in The Courtyard restaurant and we all should have been interviewed.
“Annie was talking to all of us all the time. For example, she told me all about her plans to go travelling around Ireland for the summer.
“I don’t know what I would have been able to say to gardai that would help but I worked with her night after night.
“It is always in the back of my head – should I have called the gardai and said something? But I was only 18 at the time, and my young mind couldn’t take in the idea she might have been murdered.
“I thought she might have gone on an adventure. It was only later I realised how serious it was.”
Marisa, who lives in Co Clare with her teenage son, recalls Annie as a “striking looking woman” who you could not forget once you met her.
She added: “If she had been in Johnnie Fox’s for the night, everyone would remember.
“She was exotic – distinctive looking, with wild curly hair, tall and broad and very loud.
“She was beautiful, the photos of her don’t do her true justice.” Marisa recalled their time working together.
She said: “We were both waitresses
“We got on really well and had lots of fun together.
“She wasn’t like any of my other friends, she was always off on adventures. She had no fear and was well able to look after herself.
“She was from New York and she thought everyone here was really nice. That makes me so sad. Most people are nice – but she obviously met someone who wasn’t.
“Annie looked at Ireland through rose-tinted glasses. The saddest thing is – she thought she was safe here.”
Marisa believes it is terrifying that a young woman can go missing without a trace in Ireland.
She said: “I don’t want to discredit those who worked on the case. I’m sure there was a lot of time and effort put into it. But there were also some false leads.
“I believe she was taken against her will by a stranger. I believe Annie is up there in the mountains.
“If I can jog someone’s memory, it might lead to finding her. The danger is, with the passing of time, memories will fade. So a cold case review should happen sooner rather than later.”
Gardai said the investigation remains “open and active”.
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