'That bag will have DNA all over it..'

Ex-detective says killer is still at largé | 'Regret' he didn't solve her murder

- PAUL HEALY

A FORMER detective who investigated the disappearance of Annie McCarrick says he believes her killer may have kept her bag as a souvenir.

Last week gardai upgraded the investigation into the American's disappearance to a murder probe and issued an appeal in relation to a brown bag she had when she vanished on March 26, 1993.

Alan Bailey said: "Going on the standards before you'd say that bag if it was located it would probably not yield anything of any evidential value.

"But nowadays that bag would have DNA on it and something like that would be a gold mine in evidential terms." Mr Bailey, who headed the Garda Cold Case Unit that investigated Ms McCarrick's disappearance, added: "It would appear as if it may have been kept as a souvenir by her assailant.

"If you take it Annie was snatched off the side of a road or didn't go of her own free will, well the chances of that person who took her would snatch her and hold on to her bag and all that are slim.

"The fact that the bag still remains missing would suggest that if she was taken and the bag wasn't disposed of, it was kept as a souvenir by her assailant."

The now-retired officer said his biggest professional regret is not being able to solve Annie's murder and other cases in the so-called "vanishing triangle" such as Deirdre Jacob and Jo Jo Dullard.

STRANGERS

He added: "It's the one regret] I have. In the six cases we weren't able to bring closure to the families.

"It's a failure as an investigator on my part and it's something I have to live with.