A retired detective garda has claimed an alleged Spanish serial killer is and “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 murders of three teenage girls near Valencia, whose shocking assassinations 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 Dublin just before 27-year-old Annie McCarrick disappeared without trace.
She vanished on a day trip to the picturesque village of Enniskerry in County Wicklow, and detectives involved in investigating her disappearance — as well as her friend Marisa Mackle — have claimed she was murdered by a serial killer.
Retired Garda Detective Sergeant Alan Bailey — who was centrally involved in the investigation of the missing tourist — spoke to a Spanish TV programme, due to air on Wednesday, about the fugitive’s escape from police and the mystery of his current whereabouts.
“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.
“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.”
Connected disappearances
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.”
Annie McCarrick’s disappearance sparked Operation Trace after beginning to be linked to the cases of other women who went missing in the east of Ireland between 1993 and 1998, including those of Deidre Jacob and Jojo 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.
“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.”
Former FBI agent Kenneth Strange, now working as a liaison for Annie’s mum Nancy McCarrick, also tells La Sexta three-part documentary ‘Angles: Historia de una fuga’, which in English translates as ‘Angles: Story of an escape’: “Annie McCarrick disappeared on March 26th, 1993.
“Antonio Angles reached Dublin less than 48 hours before Annie vanished.
“I have reached the conclusion it’s possible they crossed paths.”
Suspected crimes
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 after hitch-hiking 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 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 from jail in 2013.
Over the years there have been reports of unconfirmed sightings of him in countries as far afield as Brazil and Uruguay.
Authorities in Spain only have until the end of this year to bring the suspected Spanish serial killer to justice before a statute of limitations prevents an effective prosecution.
