TODAY MARKS 10 years since the disappearance of Dublin girl Amy Fitzpatrick in Spain and her family still has no idea what happened to her.
Amy Fitzpatrick went missing on the Costa Del Sol in Spain on New Year’s Day in 2008.
The then 15-year-old girl left a friend’s home, and hasn’t been seen since. But her family has never given up hope of finding her. They have been keen to keep her name in the public eye, hoping that someone has a piece of information which could unlock the mystery of her disappearance.
Spanish police had a number of different theories, Amy’s family had claimed, but none of them amounted to anything significant during the course of a number of investigations.
Amy’s mother Audrey had moved to Spain from Ireland with the children’s stepfather Dave Mahon to “start over again”.
Mahon would go on to stab Audrey’s son Dean to death. He is serving a seven-year sentence for manslaughter and recently had his appeal against the severity of the sentence dismissed.
Christine Kenny- a sister of Amy’s father – believes there is cause to ask more questions about what was happening in Amy’s life in the lead-up to her disappearance. In an interview with TheJournal.ie, she said that there were a number of things that “didn’t fit”.
She said: “I’m not going to get into the specifics but there were too many coincidences, things that just didn’t fit. I truly believe this wasn’t a flash-in-the-pan incident. I don’t think it was planned or anything but these things don’t just happen out of nothing.”
“You know when you just have that ‘that’s not right’ kind of feeling. I want a set of fresh eyes to have a look at this case.”
The family has called on the Spanish police to open a cold case investigation in a bid to solve the disappearance. However, they have been told that every avenue has been exhausted and there is nothing more they can do.
Kenny described how there is someone out there who knows what happened to Amy and that they have the information needed to reopen the case.
There had been tension in the Fitzpatrick home before the disappearance. Audrey and Amy had been due to travel back to Ireland for Christmas that year, but had to stay in Spain.
“Everyone thought that I just had disappointed Amy and decided to stay on in Spain for Christmas but the real reason was Dean had got into trouble in Spain,” Audrey explained.
I never even told anyone about this. I don’t mind saying it now because Dean is gone.
Audrey said her daughter had “thrown a little hissy fit” at being unable to come home, “but we were really surprised she got over it so well”.
Amy had spent New Year’s Eve at a friend’s house, and had called her mother at midnight. Audrey said nothing seemed out of the ordinary at that point.
Panic didn’t sink in immediately, Audrey said. The family called around Amy’s friends in an attempt to find her, assuming she had gone to visit someone.
We were still trying to do it ourselves before we let the reality sink in that we had to call the police.
She added that the family “ended up broke” after travelling around Europe in attempting to find Amy.
We spent every last penny going all over Europe ourselves, meeting all sorts from the police, private investigators, the underworld, the IRA. Our hope was we’d come to a country and put up a poster and we’d find her. I’m 99% sure she’s not coming home, but I still have that 1%.
“I don’t care who we talk to as long we as get answers.
“No matter what I say, people believe what they want to believe and it’s only the people that matter to me the most know the truth.”
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