New info brings first Annie arrest

GARDAI were last night questioning a millionaire over the murder of missing Annie McCarrick — after they received new information in the case.

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And more than 32 years after the American student disappeared in Dublin, officers also began searching a house in the city.

Sources have told The Star that the arrested man, who is now a respectable businessman and owns several properties with combined values of more than €1million, has long been a suspect in the case of Ms McCarrick, who disappeared from south Dublin in March 1993.

It's the first arrest in the long-running probe, and comes two years after the case was upgraded from missing person to a full-blown murder inquiry.

Sources have also told us that the man, who is now in his 60s, had an infatuation with Ms McCarrick.

He has been interviewed by gardai at least twice but that was as a witness — and now he is being questioned as a murder suspect.

Early yesterday morning, officers from Irishtown Garda Station in south central Dublin, where the Annie McCarrick investigation is based, sealed off a house in Clondalkin in south west Dublin that they suspect may be connected to the murder.

EQUIPMENT

Gardai began using specialist search equipment at the house yesterday afternoon, but the force stressed in a statement: “The current residents of this home are not connected in any way with Annie McCarrick or her disappearance.”

The suspect, who was known to Ms McCarrick, was arrested on suspicion of murder early on Thursday morning and he was being quizzed in a Dublin Garda station last night.

Officers can hold the man for 24 hours before he must either be charged or released.

But this does not include significant periods of rest that must be offered to the suspect, meaning it is likely the detention time will run out on Friday afternoon, or in the evening.