183. Amy Fitzpatrick: The Ground Holds Secrets in Spain - Part 3 of 3 - Reverie True Crime

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(00:25):
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Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hello everyone, Welcome to Reverie True Crime. I'm your host page.
When we closed out Part two, we learned that Amy
Fitzpatrick was scared of her mom's partner, Dave. This began
to show up more in the newspapers right before how

(01:00):
she felt was very much validated when Dave killed Amy's
brother Dean. We also went through what happened to Dean
and Dave. Today we'll pick up with Amy's story, keeping
in mind all the theories so far. Could it have
been Eric Lucky Wilson, the murderer who boasted about killing

(01:25):
her and lived close to her home. Could she have
been abducted by the men involved in the underground sex trade,
was Dave capable of being involved or was Dean his
first kill? Did Amy actually make it home that night
before she disappeared, Since her cell phone that Ashley said

(01:49):
Amy had in her hands when she left her house
was found on Amy's bed, is it possible that Amy
did run away and is out there somewhere to this day.
These are just a few of the questions that we
can moul over as this story continues. Let's get into it.

(02:14):
There's a video of Amy Fitzpatrick, taken months before she
vanished that friends sometimes still revisit. It's nothing unusual, just
a girl being a girl. Amy's in a bedroom, music's playing,
there's laughter, dancing with a pretend microphone, slipping behind a

(02:37):
door every now and then to avoid being caught on camera.
Her friends are giggling in the background. It's harmless, lighthearted,
teenage fun. But the clip stays with people not because
of what she's doing, but because of what's missing now,
Because more than five years after that video was recorded,

(03:01):
Amy was still gone. Frozen in time Forever fifteen, a sharp, funny,
doublin girl with a goofy sense of humor and big
blue eyes, and while time moved on, her image didn't.
Her friends posted birthday wishes for her eighteenth and her

(03:23):
twenty first, but they were writing to a memory. The
tragedy of her brother Dean's death years later understandably took
much of the spotlight, but Amy's story her disappearance has
never been solved, and forgetting her would mean ignoring the

(03:43):
reality a vulnerable teenage girl vanished without a trace on
foreign soil. She could be anyone's daughter, sister, or friend.
What complicates stories like Amy's is that teenage girl who
go missing often get misread. Maybe they're seen as dramatic, unstable,

(04:07):
even manipulative, when in truth they might be scared, hurt,
or hiding from something real. Amy was reported missing more
than a full day after she was last seen. That window,
those critical twenty four hours closed without answers. Early reports

(04:32):
suggested she might have run away. Volunteers and police did search,
but the first major operation didn't begin until nearly a
week later. She was last seen walking home from her
friend's house on New Year's Day two thousand and eight,
with nothing more than her cell phone, as we learned,

(04:54):
would also be found on her bed and a bag
with some clothes that I should lent to her and
then nothing, no evidence, no charges. But the people who
knew and loved her would never give up, people like
her mother, Audrey, who kept her daughter's photo on posters

(05:17):
around the Costa del Soul, or the friends who remembered
her birthday, or the journalists who kept writing, pushing Amy's
name back into the public eye when the world seemed
to move on. People often tell families to let go,
to accept the worst and move forward. But as one

(05:41):
parent once put it, quote would you give up if
it were your child? End quote? No one ever answers yes.
Amy's case is complicated, with many details that have never
been fully resolved. Some she looked older than she was

(06:02):
in those missing posters, more sophisticated than a typical fifteen
year old. Some questioned why she stayed with friends so often.
Others wondered if something had happened at home that made
her want to leave, and those who questioned if Dave
had something to do with it. Amy wasn't from Spain,

(06:25):
and that matters because it makes it easier for predators
to assume no one is coming for her. It would
make it seem easier for her to disappear into the background,
but thankfully there were so many who showed up for
her and kept her in the forefront. On June ninth,

(06:47):
twenty thirteen, The Sunday World published new findings that raised
even more suspicions. After Dean's death, many began to ask
the question that had been mostly unspoken for years. Had
Amy met the same fate. Among the newspaper's findings were

(07:10):
letters and her diary that gave a glimpse into how
she felt about Dave. In one of the last known letters,
she wrote about her volatile relationship with Dave. Amy's best friend,
Ashley Rose, later confirmed to reporters that what Amy described

(07:31):
was not exaggerated. The fights, the tension, the fear, it
was all very real. Amy confided in Ashley often, and
what she said made it pretty clear whatever was going
on in that house was not safe. That's when the

(07:53):
controversy and debate around Amy's phone really began. Five months
after Amy vanished, her mother, Audrey, appeared on The Late
Late Show and held up Amy's cell phone. She said
she had found it on Amy's bed, but this didn't
make any sense to Ashley or her mother, Debbie. They

(08:16):
both knew Amy had her phone with her the night
she disappeared, so how could it have ended up back
in her bedroom. In Amy's diary, she wrote about her frustration.
An entry from January of two thousand and six read quote,
Dave is being a dick as normal, accusing me of

(08:40):
taking money. Why the fuck would I do that? He
has no fucking right to say I took it, the stupid, bald,
ugly wanker. Another entry simply said, quote, I stayed at
Lisa's last night because Davy was being a dick as normal.

(09:00):
The last time Amy is known to have written about
Dave was during the summer of two thousand and seven,
a few months before she disappeared. She gave a handwritten
letter to her cousin, Nikki Audrey's niece, who had been
visiting from Ireland. In it, Amy admitted, quote, you do

(09:22):
know I don't really like Dave, and it was nice
to talk about him to you. When I have fights
with him, I usually go mental, but when you're here,
you calm me down. End quote. Ashleigh, speaking to the
Sunday World, put it simply, quote Amy never got on

(09:44):
with Dave. She hated him. She was definitely unhappy in
Spain and she just wanted to go back to Ireland.
She was being bullied at school and hated living with Dave. Quote.
As we've learned before, Amy was supposed to go to

(10:05):
Ireland with her family for Christmas, but Audrey canceled the trip,
saying they couldn't afford it, but Dave would later claim
they were millionaires before they spent everything searching for Amy.
Ashley remembered Amy's reaction, saying, quote, she came to my

(10:26):
house crying her eyes out, saying I don't know what
to do. I hate it here. Amy and Dean had
the kind of bond you'd expect between siblings, normal teasing,
but real love, and after Dean died, even more truths
began to surface. Audrey went to Dean's removal, but missed

(10:51):
the burial the next morning. At first, she said she
had fallen ill. Later she said she couldn't watch her
child belowered into the ground. She was afraid she would
have a panic attack. A few days before The Sunday
World released Amy's diary and the letter to Nikki, Audrey

(11:13):
visited Dean's grave, but spent most of that day drinking
with Dave. The man who had taken her son's life.
An inside source summed it up by saying, quote, she
loves him, but she hates him. Dean's funeral itself had
become a point of conflict Amy and Dean's father, Christopher,

(11:38):
the same man Amy had longed to return to in Ireland,
had gone to court with Audrey over burial arrangements. In
the end, the judge ruled the decision should rest with Sarah,
Dean's partner, his best friend, and the mother of their
two year old son Leon. Before Befoor Dean died, he

(12:01):
had started asking questions and he was not being quiet
about it. He confronted Dave more than once about Amy.
Some say that was the real reason why he was killed.
Spanish police continued to claim the investigation into Amy's disappearance

(12:24):
was still open, but a court in when Hirola contradicted them,
stating that the case had been temporarily closed. Back in
April of twenty ten, their statement was quote the judicial
investigation into Amy Fitzpatrick's disappearance was provisionally closed. It is

(12:47):
not being actively investigated, but the case could be reopened
at any time end quote. In March of twenty fourteen,
Dave stepped off a flight at Dublin Airport, looking drained,
uneasy and emotional. After years of living in Spain. He

(13:09):
was back in Ireland not for a reunion, not for peace,
but to face whatever came next in the fallout of
the tragedy of Dean's death. Dave said quietly, quote, I
live in a prison inside myself every day of the week.

(13:29):
At this time, he was preparing to answer to a
number of charges related to Dean's death. A file was
sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. At that time.
He didn't know what the charges would be, but he
said he knew what he was walking into. He insisted

(13:49):
he was an innocent man and said he came back
to Ireland voluntarily, as he always promised he would quote
I had given my word that was always going to
be the case. Still, he wasn't naive about the risks,
saying it's tough as you can see, but I'm going

(14:11):
to take whatever happens on the chin. I've come back
home for Audrey, he said, she's not really coping well
with everything. Audrey was still in Spain, battling serious health problems.
Her liver was failing, her weight had dropped to just

(14:31):
seven and a half stone or one hundred five pounds.
She needed a transplant and fast. Despite everything, Audrey kept
supporting him completely. Dave said quote, She's fully behind me,
one hundred percent. Audrey did want to return to Ireland

(14:55):
with Dave, but they couldn't afford the ticket and realistically
she wouldn't have been strong enough to make the journey.
Dave said he had to be strong for both of
them and face whatever happened. In December of twenty fourteen,
Justice Minister Francis Fitzgerald addressed families of missing loved ones

(15:18):
on National Missing Person's Day commemoration. Quote, it's a very
moving event to go in and meet families, and to
meet a mother who has lost her son at eighteen
years old and doesn't know what has happened to him
is extremely upsetting for them. All you can say is

(15:39):
that every single individual person is continuing to be investigated.
End quote. On International Missing Children's Day. In May of
twenty fifteen, Audrey and Dave tied the knot after many
years together. The two were saying they were pushing for

(16:02):
another search and a reconstruction. Audrey said about families of
missing children. The day she spoke at the Global Day
of Remembrance for Children who have gone missing. Quote, it's
like a unity. We are all together. It is a
bond between all of us that nobody else will understand.

(16:24):
One of the mothers said to me, we are all
part of a club that no one else wants to
be a member of. A child goes missing every two
minutes in the EU. That's a lot of kids. In
twenty thirteen, after investigating over seven thousand missing children cases,

(16:45):
the guard I claimed only three were still missing. They
also stated that they realize missing children are vulnerable to victimization, exploitation, violence,
criminal active pivity, and in some cases self harm. In
twenty twelve, the Irish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to

(17:10):
Children introduced the Missing Children's Hotline, which received two hundred
twenty calls in twenty fourteen, including some from kids who
were thinking about running away from home. The hotline provides
support to children, young people and their families. They also

(17:32):
received calls from parents who just wanted to talk to
someone who would give advice and support about their child
being missing. In August of twenty fifteen, Audrey and Dave
were getting ready to take a trip to Spain to
sit down with Guardia civil officers who were investigating Amy's case.

(17:56):
Dave was awaiting trial charged with murder, but he was
still allowed to go. They both refused to say what
the meeting was specifically going to be about, except that
they were hoping to get an update on the investigation.
I'm not sure what the outcome of that meeting was,

(18:18):
but I don't believe they got many answers from the
looks of things going forward. In January of twenty sixteen,
Amy's dad, Christopher, said he was praying that twenty sixteen
would be the year that there would be a breakthrough.
He said, quote, it only feels like yesterday I got

(18:40):
the call about Amy. Never in a million years did
I think eight years on I would still be waiting
on the news. We know there are people with information
who are afraid to come forward. Please do the right
thing this year and help us put an end to
this ongoing nightmare. End quote. Months later, police would admit

(19:07):
that there were no leads or anything they had found,
and confessed they were actually back to square one. Years
had passed since Amy Fitzpatrick vanished, but the questions lingered
and the silence around her case was deafening. By twenty

(19:27):
twenty one, Amy's aunt, Christine Kenney, Christopher's sister, was still fighting,
still emailing, still calling, still doing all she could. Speaking
on Newstalk Breakfast, she said what her family had felt
for years but had rarely said so plainly. Quote as

(19:51):
far as I know the cases in the archives, it's
on a shelf somewhere end quote. That's what it had
come down to, a teenager gone without a trace, and
her disappearance was now officially just paperwork in a cabinet.

(20:13):
Christine explained how difficult it had become to get even
the smallest updates from Spanish authorities. The GUARDA Sibyl wasn't
sharing new information, no reports, no briefings, no transparency. She
had recently got in touch with the Guarde in Ireland

(20:34):
asking if they could at least reach out to their
Spanish counterparts. She wasn't asking for miracles, She just wanted
answers or even confirmation that someone was still looking. She said, quote,
it's just crazy, the way you have to go and
fight for every single thing you need end quote. Ristein

(21:00):
spoke about her brother Christopher and how the grief never
left him. Quote he thinks about her every single day.
He wakes up thinking of Amy and Dean, and the
same before he goes to bed end. Quote. He had
lost both of his children, one to disappearance, the other

(21:26):
to a knife. She went on to say, it's horrendous.
It's horrendous looking at him and knowing nothing is being done,
not by the Spanish government, not by our own. But
Christine was speaking to anyone willing to listen. She urged

(21:47):
Irish citizens to stand with their family to sign a
petition calling for a cold case review, not just for Amy,
but for every family living in the same hallatious nightmare.
The petition had already gathered thousands of names. It called

(22:07):
for something simple but so important that across the EU,
families of missing persons would have the right to a
cold case review at one, five and ten year intervals,
that disappearances would not be just case files gathering dust

(22:27):
on a shelf and forgotten. It would be presented to
the EU Parliament and to the Irish government, because if
justice couldn't be found in a dusty file folder in
fwend Hirola, maybe it could start with a signature and
maybe just maybe it could start with remembering that Amy

(22:50):
Fitzpatrick is not just missing, she is still loved, still missed,
and still worth fighting for. Christine Kenney has never stopped
speaking for Amy. Then, as her niece's thirtieth birthday arrived
without her, Christine once again called on the Irish authorities

(23:15):
to take action to do what still hasn't been done
after all these years. She wanted answers, updates, and accountability. Quote.
At the end of the day, Amy is an Irish
citizen and she is entitled to be fought for. She

(23:36):
doesn't understand how a fifteen year old child, a little girl,
could completely disappear and still be so easily forgotten by
the people in power, saying quote, she was only a child.
People don't understand that her father is heartbroken. Christopher, who

(24:00):
Amy used to call constantly from Spain, still lives with
that heartache every day. His daughter wanted to come home.
She said it again and again, but she never made
it back to him. Now Christine was demanding a cold
case review, something thousands of others have also asked for.

(24:25):
The petition calling for action at the time had more
than five thousand, four hundred signatures, each one a reminder
that people were still paying attention. She also demanded that
Amy be seen for who she really was, not judged,

(24:45):
not mischaracterized, not dismissed. Quote. I just want them not
to treat her as one of these taraways, because she
wasn't a tarraway. Amy was a kid, a bright, funny,

(25:06):
deeply feeling girl who danced in bedrooms, loved her friends,
and wanted to feel safe. Christine remembers her that way
as a happy kid, especially when she was with her dad. Now,
on what should have been Amy's thirtieth birthday, her family

(25:27):
chose to honor her with a moment of peace. They
gathered at the Sensory Garden in edenmore just music, a
small service and quiet remembrance in November of twenty twenty three.
After all these years, Amy's stepfather, Dave, remained a figure

(25:48):
of controversy and suspicion. Despite serving time for the manslaughter
of Amy's brother Dean, Dave consistently denied any involvement in
Amy's disappearance. Dave has expressed frustration over the lack of
progress in the investigation, stating that he identified four people

(26:10):
in his self published autobiography called How Much pain can
our hearts endure, and he believes those people should be
investigated further. He has recounted efforts to confront one of
these individuals, including sending people he knew to the person's

(26:31):
UK address, only for the person to dodge contact. Dave
claimed that the Irish and Spanish authorities were aware of
these interactions but have not pursued them enough. The initial
investigation into Amy's disappearance involved extensive searches, including the use

(26:53):
of snifferdogs and helicopters. However, Dave has questioned the sincere
of these efforts, suggesting they may have been more for
show than substance. Dave and Audrey have never been officially
named as suspects. They felt the focus had been misdirected

(27:15):
despite times steadily going by. Dave said he was holding
on to a little hope that Amy might still be alive,
though he acknowledged the likelihood was very slim. At that point,
He said he wanted to return to Spain if credible
information was discovered. Dave said that their connection to the

(27:37):
country remained strong. In December of twenty twenty three, nearly
sixteen years after Amy disappeared, Audrey and Dave sat down
to speak publicly again, not just about the night Amy vanished,
but about everything that followed. Speaking on the pat Kenney

(27:59):
Shaw So, Dave said he never felt like he or
Audrey were treated as suspects by Spanish police. He said, quote,
that was the last thing on my mind. My job
was to find Amy at all costs. We didn't know
what day of the week it was. It started out

(28:20):
with hours missing, days missing, weeks and months. Now here
we are almost sixteen years later. End quote. Audrey agreed,
saying they were always considered witnesses, never suspects, saying, quote,
when we did interviews with the Guardia Civil, we were

(28:43):
basically witnesses. We were never suspects. Never ever. We told
them everything we did that night. Everybody knew where we
were that night.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
End quote.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
As we know, Dave was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced
to seven years in prison. He only served five before
he was released in twenty twenty one. Many still struggled
to understand how Audrey stayed with the man who took
her son's life, but she spoke openly about it. Quote,

(29:22):
We've been together twenty two years. We've been through everything,
especially with Amy and both of us have been hanging
on to each other for Amy for so long. End quote.
Audrey opened up about Dean's struggles as well, how he

(29:43):
had dealt with mental health issues even before Amy disappeared, saying, quote,
he suffered from psychological problems. He started using drugs early.
I don't like to speak ill of him, and I'm
not trying to explain away what happened that night. But
that wasn't the first time Dean pulled a knife. That

(30:05):
wasn't the first time he had a gun. End quote.
She said Dean had a kind heart, but the drugs
changed him. Quote. He was such a softy, but when
the drugs took over, as many people know, there's nothing
you can do and then it just turns end quote.

(30:26):
When she found out how Dean had died, Audrey said
she was devastated, but heartbreakingly not surprised. Quote. People might
find this hard to believe, but I could understand it.
I had seen it before where Dean took a knife
out and Dave had to take it off him. Dean

(30:48):
never did anything to me, but he always had this
rage in him. And I'm not blaming him. It's not
his fault. I turned to alcohol, suicide, nervous breakdowns, the
whole lot. Been there, done that, not being a Holy
Joe or anything like that. But God, for some reason

(31:11):
wants me to stay alive, and I have to believe
it's because I have to find Amy. She admitted that
there are days when she doesn't want to keep going,
but she does quote even though I want to give up,
I don't want to walk this life, I'm still doing
it end quote. Audrey and Dave say they hope that

(31:36):
by continuing to speak out to the media in public,
someone somewhere might finally remember something, might finally say something.
Audrey said she hoped it would be a nudge at
someone's conscience. In the hills near mi Haas, not far
away from where Amy was last seen, Spanish police found

(32:01):
something grim, a skull, a scattering of bones, and a
suitcase buried in the earth. News of the remains rippled
across families who knew the ape of waiting all too well.
Among them was Christine and also Michael Millis, the boyfriend

(32:22):
of another woman who vanished in Spain. Agnes Clavenna, a
thirty year old Latvian born waitress, had disappeared after leaving
a nightclub in Marbella in twenty fourteen. Two women, two years,
two sets of families without answers. Now they were bound

(32:43):
by one haunting possibility. Christine and Michael reached out to
one another, quietly, offering something rare and necessary, support from
someone who understood the exact weight of that size les.
Christine said, quote, since news of this body in Spain emerged,

(33:06):
Michael has been in touch with me. He's wondering if
it could be Agnes. They had been leaning on each
other ever since, trying to give each other hope and
sharing dread. She said, quote. We share a common connection.
We have loved ones belonging to us missing for some years,

(33:30):
and we're there for each other to offer help and assurance.
We all want to find both Amy and Agnes, as
well as anybody else who is still missing. This has
been tormenting all of us for years. We need closure.
As someone who's lived this too long, she stated. Quote.

(33:54):
The body that was found is someone's daughter and she
deserves dignity. Authorities told them the remains had likely been
there for over a decade. Early reports suggested the bones
belong to a woman between twenty five and thirty years old.
That detail casted doubt, but it didn't get rid of

(34:17):
the possibility. Christine said, quote, there is a possibility that
it could be Amy. There was a satchel bag found
with the remains, and Amy used to have a similar
type of bag end quote. Christine has never stopped demanding answers.

(34:39):
She has led the charge on behalf of Amy's father's
side of the family, speaking publicly advocating for cold case
reviews and pressing for resources that never came on their own.
She even met with Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister, urging him

(34:59):
to help push Spanish authorities to reopen the case with
the urgency and care that it deserved from the beginning,
because if that body in the hills does belong to Amy,
they deserve to know, and if it doesn't, they still
deserve to know. Forensic identification takes time, but Christine knew that,

(35:24):
and she wasn't ruling anything out yet, saying, quote, it
takes ages for that type of thing to be dealt with.
In an interview with The Irish Mirror two years ago,
Audrey shared something shocking. She claimed she had been told
that Amy had been used by local drug dealers in Spain,

(35:48):
She said, quote, I didn't know anything about this. I
was told she would sit in the front of the
car like somebody's daughter. These men were in their forties
or fifty, and she sat there and got paid for
just being there in the car. Audrey said she never
questioned it at the time. Amy often disappeared for long stretches,

(36:13):
but Audrey assumed she was going to the shops or
out with friends. She had no idea there might be
something more dangerous going on. Another friend named Alan told
The Irish Mirror about an online conversation he had with
Amy shortly before she disappeared. Amy seemed frustrated, maybe even

(36:37):
a little rebellious, when her mom had canceled their flight
back to Ireland. Amy had come up with what she
called a scheme. She wrote to Alan, quote, I love you,
Happy New Year, don't worry about me. I've got a scheme.
It's never been clear what that scheme was. Christine also

(37:00):
talked about a woman who chose to remain anonymous, but
she was persistent she had been offering information about Amy's
case for years. Christine said, quote, she's never given her name,
but she's been giving information over time. This information eventually

(37:20):
found its way to me through sources. Christine is now
working through what the woman has sent her, which around
twenty twenty three were more than twenty pages of information.
She said, quote, I haven't got around to all the
bits and pieces. It's ongoing. What's scary is what the

(37:43):
woman claims that the people involved in Amy's disappearance were
not strangers, they were known, they were familiar, and after
almost sixteen years of waiting, that idea, more than anything,
might be the hardest to live with. Dave has spent

(38:06):
nearly two decades under suspicion, not in a courtroom, but
in the court of public opinion. He says, no one
has ever accused him to his face of harming Amy.
Still the accusations have been loud and constant. It was
talked about here and there in the press, posted online,

(38:28):
and passed around in comment sections. When the interviewer asked
him directly, he said, quote, no, no one really has
put it as blunt as you just said it. Look,
I'm not out to change anybody's perception. I don't really
care what people think. They don't have to walk in

(38:49):
my shoes or Audrey's. Let's just hope one of their
kids doesn't go missing, and then I go, Jesus, they
must be having a rough time. End quote. Over the years,
Dave said he learned how to live with the noise. Quote.
Of course it's going to affect you. But if I

(39:11):
was to sit down and start suffering from depression and
stuff like that, well you might as well just swallow
a bullet. Everybody has an opinion, like everyone has an asshole,
he said. Seventeen years ago, it might have been different,
but I'm too old, too wide, too tired. Now I
know what I have to do to survive, and so

(39:33):
does Audrey. He talked more about his book, How Much
Pain Can Our Hearts Endure, saying, quote that book tells
a whole different story, and I hope someone picks it
up one day and says, let's look into these four
people properly end quote. One of those four, Dave claims,

(39:56):
is a British man that he confronted personally. He's says
he once sat face to face with the man and
asked if he had anything to do with Amy's disappearance. Later,
he tried to find him again, saying quote, I sent
a few people in England over to his address. He
ended up going on the run. Dave said he got

(40:19):
on the phone and asked him to come back to Spain.
Dave recalled quote he said, it was too hot. When
I first sat down with him, he told me I
never met Amy. But then he rang me a month
later and I told him, you lied to me. Over time,
Dave said his faith in the investigation began to deteriorate. Quote.

(40:45):
We saw the sniffer dogs, the helicopters, all of it.
But was it for a show? Yeah? I do believe
it was for a show. Another man, Dave believes, should
have drawn more attention and spent time around Amy in
their home in Spain, Dave said, quote, he was in

(41:07):
the house alone with Amy a few times. I didn't
know that at the time. I haven't spoken to that
man in sixteen years. Today, Dave and Audrey live in
Carrick on Shannon County Leetrom. He sells cars locally, which
he said helps distract from everything else. Quote, you get

(41:31):
caught up in doing this, that and the other. It
takes your mind off it. It's just a touch of reality.
Speaking on Audrey's health, he said, quote, she's going in
next month for an operation. She's doing better than she was,
but she's not well. When asked if he believes Amy

(41:52):
could still be alive, Dave was hesitant, but blunt quote,
it's fairly high she he's gone, but not one hundred
percent ninety nine, not one hundred Look, it could be
she's off on a yacht somewhere, living the high life.
All those things go through your mind. Asked if he

(42:16):
would go back to Spain if there was new information,
he said, quote, I don't know. That's a tough one.
My heart in Audrey's heart, it's in Spain. It wouldn't
be a holiday, but if we got the news, we'd
be back there in a heartbeat. Ashley Rose, who was
thirteen at the time, was the last known person to

(42:39):
see Amy at thirty years old. Ashley had so much
frustration over how the Spanish police handled her best friend's case.
She believed they treated Amy's disappearance as a runaway situation
and didn't pursue it seriously. Ashley mentioned that despite a

(43:01):
tip off suggesting Amy's remains might be buried at a
nearby racetrack, authorities never searched the area. Ashley also told
that she was only interviewed once by the police shortly
after Amy went missing and hasn't been contacted since. She

(43:22):
feels that if Amy had been Spanish, the investigation might
have been more thorough. For Amy's family, the pain has
not gotten easier with time, and after seventeen years, they're
no longer asking Quietly, both the Fitzpatricks and the Irish
government have been urging the Spanish authorities to take the

(43:46):
next step reclassify Amy's disappearance as a murder investigation, because
after this long, with no trace, no sightings, no signs
of life, that label of being missing feels not only
outdated but dishonest. Amy's dad has carried that reality in

(44:10):
his chest for nearly two decades. He recently said, the
pain of losing Amy feels just as raw today as
it did back in two thousand and eight. There's nothing
that makes it easier. What he wants now is simple,
a moment of peace, closure, to know what happened to

(44:32):
his daughter, and he's begging again for anyone who knows
the truth to come forward. Only about three weeks after
Dave had been let out of prison, he had just
walked out of court, now acquitted of assaulting a seventy
three year old neighbor, and now for the first time

(44:54):
since the trial's end, he was ready to talk about it.
He said he regretted it. It was the first and
only interview he gave after the verdict. His tone was
said to be defiant, defensive, and reflective, often all at once.
He kept insisting quote, I'm not a violent man, Absolutely not.

(45:19):
I think you know my personality by now end quote.
But the images told another story. Jim Fay, the neighbor
he was accused of attacking, had ended up with two
swollen black eyes and a bloodied face. Dave admitted to
headbutting him, claiming it was self defense, and said the

(45:41):
argument started over a joke about McDonald's, but turned dark
when mister Jim allegedly made cruel personal remarks toward Audrey.
Dave said, quote, I was only out of prison three weeks.
Maybe I was still in that mode. I'd just come
from a place where you're watching your back constantly end quote.

(46:07):
He claimed he'd tried to leave that he turned his back,
told Audrey they were going, but when he turned around,
Jim punched him. Allegedly. Dave said he reacted on instinct.
Quote I just headbutted him. It was a reaction. The
court had heard the full story, how that trial had

(46:29):
been delayed twenty two times since twenty twenty one, how
Dave had signed in at the police station weekly for years,
how Jim had once told guard I he wanted to
withdraw his complaint. Dave said of the trials, quote it's criminal.

(46:50):
Four hundred thousand euro estimated costs to the state, all
that for a few sausages on a barbecue. He didn't
that things got physical. He didn't deny that it got
out of control, but he sat upright at the suggestion
that he got away with something. Quote I don't call

(47:12):
living on your nerves for three and a half years,
going to court twenty two times, and the stress it
caused Audrey, myself and my family getting away with anything.
The trial had fallen apart when key witnesses did not
show up, including Jim himself, who was hospitalized. Another witness,

(47:35):
Noel Byrne, testified but admitted he hadn't seen everything. The
third witness, Tony Scott, never showed despite attempts to track
her down. Judge John Elmer made the call the evidence
was so tenuous no fair trial could proceed. Quote there's

(47:59):
a huge in the prosecution's case. The only person who
could have given a full account was Jim himself, and
he wasn't available end quote, So the jury was instructed
to acquit. And now Dave was back in the public
eye again, trying to explain a fight that turned into

(48:21):
another headline. But the truth, as he tells it, is
more complicated than violence or victimhood of Jim. Dave said, quote,
I've no problem with that man whatsoever. I've known him
for twelve years. He apologized, We moved on. Asked if

(48:41):
he regretted headbutting him, he hesitated, then answered, quote, We're
all entitled to defend ourselves. When asked if he'd apologize publicly,
he declined maybe he already had privately. Maybe he didn't
see the point. He said, I'm not here to change

(49:03):
anybody's opinion of me or Audrey. We're just trying to
get out of that life. People have their own opinion
no matter what we say. Some people probably think I'm
a thug who battered a pensioner. Some want a go
off you just for who you are. Dave says he
was ready for the worst. Quote, there was a real

(49:26):
thought that I could be in prison by the end
of the day, it would have probably killed Audrey. At
the time, Audrey was still recovering from surgery, still struggling
with her health, and the delays of the trial felt
like a slow sentence. Dave said, quote it's like prison.

(49:47):
You're free technically, but it's got a hold on you.
End quote. His restrictions meant he could not leave home
between midnight and four am. That's over a day a week,
he said, quote over a few years, that's a fair
few months. I believe the state wanted me behind bars again.

(50:11):
I'm outspoken. I've written things that are not kind to them.
Even after walking free, he knew nothing would change the
public's mind. Quote, I'm only human, but I'm still here.
That's all I can do. Hopefully I'll never come to
the attention of the guard ee again, but I can't

(50:33):
promise that. Seventeen years have passed since Amy Fitzpatrick walked
out into the night and vanished. Her story has been
discussed across newsrooms, courtrooms, dinner tables, and message boards. One
woman who lived and worked in the Calahonda and Riviera

(50:56):
area in the two thousands remembers Amy not through headlines,
but through little encounters. She used to see Amy most days,
and what she saw has never left her quote. She
was very quiet, introverted, didn't say a whole lot, the
kind of child who'd hide at the back of someone

(51:18):
pulled out a camera end quote. At the very least.
In the last six months leading up to her disappearance,
Amy had stopped going to school. Locals started noticing her
around commercial centers late at night. She worked at a
bar called Dose Patties, the kind of place, the woman said,

(51:41):
where criminals and powerful people came and went. Amy waited tables,
served sandwiches, and never made eye contact. The woman said, quote,
she always seemed desperately unhappy. She just looked like she
wanted to disappear. End quote. Amy floated between homes, sometimes

(52:06):
staying with friends families for weeks at a time. She
borrowed clothes, ate tomato ketchup sandwiches. Her friends said that
she barely touched food, and behind all of it was
a gnawing desperation. Amy wanted to go home, home, to Dublin,

(52:27):
home to her dad, the woman said. Quote. She had
a flight booked once, but for whatever reason, she never
got a lift to the airport. End quote. Likely that
was around Christmas when her flight was booked with her
family to go visit Ireland, and as we know, the
flight was canceled. Some parents considered contacting Spanish social services,

(52:53):
others turned a blind eye. One older English girl admitted
to supplying Amy with cannabis, not to hurt her, she claimed,
but to ease the pain. She said, quote Amy was
really really unhappy. I just did it to help end quote.

(53:14):
Even the woman who knew Amy's face so well didn't
realize at first that she was the daughter of Audrey
and stepdaughter of Dave. Quote. And all the time I
saw her going to and from work, I think we
only spoke twice end quote. Now living in another country,

(53:35):
the woman has recently been in contact with Amy's father's
side of the family. She's angry, heartbroken, confused. Why hasn't
this case moved forward, she said. Quote There is not
a chance in hell that Amy had the courage or
the know how to run away. She was either killed

(53:58):
in a terrible accident that's been covered up, or she
was murdered end quote. She does not believe Amy was abducted.
She does not believe her body will ever be found.
Her theory Amy's remains are buried somewhere in the concrete
of the Riviera poured over during the construction boom in

(54:21):
two thousand and eight. She said, quote there are a
lot of loose ends that have never been tied up,
people who were never interrogated questions no one ever asked
end quote. Amy's family is still pushing, still pleading for
the Spanish authorities to upgrade the case from a disappearance

(54:44):
to a murder investigation. The Guardia Civil in Fuen Hirola
says it won't be reclassified unless dramatic new evidence appears.
There was a tip off once so someone said Amy's
body might be buried at a nearby racetrack. They even

(55:05):
gave the stable number, but no one searched. A lot
of people still focused on that particular spot to this
day and still want digging to be done. Nearly two
decades later, here we are. Why wasn't this treated like
a child abduction case from the beginning? Why didn't the

(55:29):
Spanish police follow up on key leads on the people
who were closest to Amy, the ones who watched her
come undone? How many others knew Amy was in danger
and did nothing. What was it that made her fall
so far so fast? Was it avoidable? Is it too

(55:54):
late to find her? Or are we just waiting to
build something else over the truth, Amy Fitzpatrick's story is
one of neglect, silence, and missed chances. Because Amy more
than likely did not just disappear sadly, she was probably disappeared.

(56:18):
Let us not forget Amy Fitzpatrick, Dean Fitzpatrick, or their stories.
If there are any updates in Amy's case, I will
definitely do an update episode. Thank you so much, and
until next time, stay safe and take care.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Thank you for listening to this episode. As we close out,
let us not forget. Awareness is our greatest defense in
a world that can be dark and grim. Vigilance is
our beacon of hope when it comes to the cases
we have explored together that have remained unsolved. If you
happen to hold a piece of the puzzle, there to
step forward. As Arthur Lois McMaster bouge Hold once said,

(57:04):
the dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a
duty of the living to do so for them until
we reconvene. My friends, stay vigilant and stay informed.

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183. Amy Fitzpatrick: The Ground Holds Secrets in Spain - Part 3 of 3

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}183. Amy Fitzpatrick: The Ground Holds Secrets in Spain - Part 3 of 3