'Allow us search for Annie McCarrick remains', plead forensic experts
An open letter from five forensic experts pleading with the Garda Commissioner to facilitate a search of an underground cave in Wicklow for missing American Annie McCarrick has yet to receive a response.
The letter, published on the anniversary of the 26-year-old’s disappearance on March 26, 1996, was addressed directly to Drew Harris and signed by forensic scientist Professor John Cassella, David Kenny, cadaver dog experts Neil Powell and Raph O’Connor, and former FBI special agent and friend of the McCarrick family, Kenneth Strange.
The men are offering to search the site for free, at their own expense, and with their own ground penetrating radar, thermal imaging drones, and cadaver dogs in the presence of gardaí.
Their offer however, has not even been acknowledged.
“Not a word. The silence has been deafening,” said former European Central Bank counterfeit and forensic expert Mr Kenny.
“I might have expected [an acknowledgement] as a matter of professional courtesy,” said Prof Cassella.
“Even if it was to say they were conducting ongoing enquiries or something.”
Professor John Cassella. Picture: Sorcha Crowley
Professor John Cassella. Picture: Sorcha Crowley
The group first notified gardaí in 2017 about their discovery of documentary evidence dating from 1948 of an unmapped underground cave or souterrain in dense woodland in Wicklow.
The souterrain, which is an underground passage formerly used to store food in the Bronze Age, is believed to be located within 1.6km of where convicted rapist Larry Murphy was interrupted by hunters in his attempted murder of his only proven victim in 2000.
It is also less than 4km from his former home and he is believed to have had hunting rights in the same area.
The experts believe that by bringing his rape victim 40km from Carlow to that area of Wicklow, Murphy proved his intention of “availing of a victim disposal location in the vicinity of his home”.
“The suspect’s behaviour on the night of his only proven crimes indicated a strong preference for locations which offered ‘deep cover’ and with which he was intimately acquainted,” they wrote.
“It’s in smack in the middle of where he went hunting.
“We know that the place he stopped on that evening was another place where he had hunting rights. Also deep in woodland.
“What wasn’t published is the fact that it was less than a kilometre from his in-laws home at the time,” Mr Kenny told the Irish Examiner.
“It’s a ready-made hiding place.”
Larry Murphy. Picture: Maxwells
Larry Murphy. Picture: Maxwells
They also know of an elderly local man still alive who claims the entrance was visibly blocked off 60 years ago.
In the intervening years, three cadaver dogs have been brought to the site on eight separate occasions, all reacting positively within metres of each other.
“We’re scientists, not psychics. There’s only one way to find out what those dogs are responding to,” says Mr Kenny.
The group requested a search of the site in October 2021 but their intelligence was dismissed as “speculative” by a member of the Garda investigation team.
Nothing has happened in the intervening years and in their view, the “matter continues to be wholly and unnecessarily protracted”.
“There’s been no real follow up,” Mr Kenny says.
“They seem to pass this case from one guard to the next and seem to have done so over the decades.
“And you end up with a scenario where each time it’s passed on, somebody has a mountain of paper to read.
“And you lose that continuity. When you start talking about individual places and you hear something like, ‘well, I don’t really know that place’, or ‘’I have to talk to the previous guy’ and so on. So, it doesn’t flow,” he says.
Prof Cassella said his message to Mr Harris is clear: “I would firstly say to the guards, thank you for the sterling work that they are doing.
“There are people out there, members of the public, scientists, who want to assist them.
“The problem is people sometimes forget that the police do a job, but we also have a job.
“A public duty is to support them and to find bad people who want to do bad things to our families and our friends and help put them away,” he says.
“Criminal justice involves all of us, and so none of us can sit back and go, ‘oh, well, that’s the police’s problem.’ No, it’s not. It’s a problem for us all. Because when it comes knocking on your door, it really is a problem for you.
“This is not about one upmanship. This is not about making a public statement for one’s own benefit.
“This is about helping to move forward. So, if we’re right, then we’ve helped. If we’re wrong, then we’ve helped.”
A Garda spokesperson said they do “not comment on correspondence from third parties” and “does not discuss potential site searches or investigative strategies”.
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