Dilip Kuner
A BRITISH man – said to be associated with the Kinahan drugs gang – is being investigated for the disappearance of Irish teen Amy Fitzpatrick from the Costa del Sol 13 years ago, according to the Irish press.
Spanish police are following up a lead from a woman witness who says she overheard the man – who has not been named- discussing burying Amy’s body after she vanished on New Year’s Day 2008.
The 15-year-old had set off at 10pm from a friend’s house where she had been babysitting to walk the few hundred yards home in Riviera del Sol (Mijas) but never made it back.
Sources told the Irish Sun that they now believe there may have been several people involved in the teen’s murder and are following up the latest witness statement seriously.
The woman told police that she overheard a conversation between the suspect and her boyfriend in which the suspect was asked if he ‘had got rid of the mattress’.
At the time she believed that this was in reference to a mattress in their apartment. But the suspect went on to admit that he had become ‘infatuated’ with Amy.
He left Spain and is now said to be serving time in a British jail on an unrelated offence.
Spanish officers travelled to the UK to interview him, but he refused to talk to them. Investigators remain unable to find the burial site despite intensive investigations.
Spanish cops interviewed the woman in the UK, saying she appears to be terrified of reprisals from her ex-boyfriend. He is said to be a ‘bag man’ for the notoriously violent Irish Kinahan drugs gang.
Amy’s brother, Dean was stabbed to death by their step-father Dave Mahon in 2013, for which he was jailed.
Amy and Dean’s natural father, Christopher Fitzpatrick, said just before Christmas that they had received new leads in the case. These aare not related to the woman witnesses’s evidence. He said: “We have received new information recently and hopefully it can help our case. Every piece of information has to be analysed so we can see how credible it is. My hope for 2020 is that we find her.”
He also said: “Amy had a lot of friends at the time and they might have information that could lead us to her. They were very young at the time and were probably afraid to come forward but they’re young women now and it would never be too late for them to tell the authorities what they know.
“I’m appealing to her friends who might be parents themselves now to think back to that time and tell us what they know. My precious daughter has been missing from our lives for 13 years now and we just want this nightmare to end.”
