The eerie case of child who went missing abroad, just months after Madeleine McCann: Amy Fitzpatrick disappeared in the middle of the night while with her family in Spain, 17 years on, there are still no answers...
- Amy Fitzpatrick, from Dublin, Ireland, 15, went missing in Mijas, Costa Del Sol
- Read more: Mum of girl who vanished in Spain steps up campaign to find her
On a chilly New Year night in 2007, Amy Fitzpatrick spent the night at her friend's house.
Then 15, chatty red-head, originally from Dublin, was living in Mijas, Spain with her mother Audrey, stepfather Dave and brother Dean.
At midnight, she phoned her mother to wish her a happy new year. Little did Audrey know this was the last time she'd ever speak to her daughter.
After spending the night at Ashley's house, where she had been baby-sitting Ashley's younger brother, Amy headed home the next day.
It is thought that she embarked on the 20 minute walk home via a dirt track in the heart of the Costa Del Sol at 10pm, however Amy never made it home.
The ensuing search involved more than 200 police officers but 17 years later Amy still hasn't been found - with her parents still searching for answers today.
Some believe the investigation was hindered by lack of resources or coordination between authorities in Spain and Ireland and to this day not one person has ever been arrested or formally interviewed in relation to Amy's disappearance.
Apart from the initial investigation and search for Amy, which lasted a couple of weeks, the investigation stalled and Spanish authorities listed her as a 'missing person'.
Amy Fitzpatrick, from Dublin, Ireland, who was just 15 years old at the time, went missing in Mijas, near Fuengirola on the Costa Del Sol, in 2008, where she had been living with her mother Audrey, stepfather Dave Mahon and brother Dean
Andrey Fitzpatrick, mother of missing teenager, Amy Fitzpatrick, and her husband Dave Mahon in 2008
'It's been 17 years since Amy disappeared, and the pain feels just as raw as it did that day,' her father Christopher Fitzpatrick told the Sunday World.
'Our hearts are shattered, our lives forever changed, and the ache of not knowing where she is or what happened to her is unbearable'.
For many, the case is eerily similar to that of Madeleine McCann, the British three-year-old who went missing in the Algarve in the middle of the night months before Amy's disappearance.
In fact, Amy's parents even hired the same private investigators as the McCann's in the hope of finding their daughter.
Her family now believe she is dead and say her disappearance should have been treated as a murder probe and not a missing person's case.
Amy, who would be 33 years old today, had left Dublin for Spain with her family in 2004 after her parents split up.
She had been planning to move back to Dublin to live with her father before she vanished.
The night of her disappearance Amy was carrying a Bershka bag containing a tracksuit Ashley had lent her and a pink-coloured Irish mobile phone, however the phone was later found in the Fitzpatrick family home during a police search.
The teenager had been babysitting at her friend Ashley Rose's (right) house on New Year's night and she phoned mother at midnight to wish her Happy New Year, that was the last time she heard from her daughter
Ashley claimed Amy definitely had the phone on her when she left her house, therefore says she must of made it home.
'It looks to me like Amy made it home. She had that phone in our house, and then her mother had it in the interview,' she told the Herald.
'I remember she used the phone to access her mother's number on New Year's Eve in our house and rang the number from our house,' Ashley said.
'I've told the Guardia Civil here but nobody has followed it up or taken it seriously,' she added.
Spanish police officers carried out a detailed search of the path between the two girls' houses, centimetre by centimetre, and found no signs of violence.
The Guardia Civil the principle hypothesis, at least for the first few weeks, was that Amy had simply run away, because the teen gone missing voluntarily in the past, although only for a matter of hours.
At one point the police issued an alert about a white Ford Fiesta on British plates, which belonged to one of Amy's friends, a 34-year-old Irishman who used to fix her computer for her.
The vehicle was stolen around the same time that she went missing, but this line of investigation, that Amy had run away, came to nothing.
Amy's disappearance did not get the same level of international media attention as other cases. Some believe the investigation was hindered by lack of resources or coordination between authorities in Spain and Ireland
Speaking in 2008, Audrey, who did not officially report her daughter missing until January 3, recalled: 'The phone call was the last I heard from her.
'She said "happy New Year, I love you and I'll see you tomorrow"
'I think about her all the time. But you can't let yourself think what might have happened because if you do the thoughts that come into your head will drive you mad.
'If you have a death in the family eventually it gets easier. But every morning I wake up it's like a death everyday and that's what you have to live through. It doesn't get easier.'
There had reportedly been tension in the Fitzpatrick home before Amy's disappearance.
Audrey and Amy had been due to travel back to Ireland for Christmas that year, but had to stay in Spain because her brother Dean had 'got in trouble', according to Audrey.
Audrey said her daughter had 'thrown a little hissy fit' at being unable to go home, 'but she got over it so well'.
The divisions between Amy's estranged parents worsened, after it was reported that her father Christopher learned of her disappearance through social media several days after it happened.
Amy Fitzpatricks father Christopher holding one of the doves which were released after the mass to mark one year since her disappearance in 2009
Amy's stepdad Dave Mahon was the one who initially led the search to find Amy after she went missing on the island.
Her best friend Ashley and her mother Debbie said the teen detested her stepfather - the man would later go on to kill her only brother Dean, 23, in May 2013.
He was convicted in June 2016 and sentenced to seven years in jail for manslaughter, however after serving five he was released in 2021.
Dave claimed he stabbed Amy's brother by mistake, after claiming the young man ran into a knife he was holding inside his pocket, following a row over a water bottle.
He reunited with his wife, Audrey, the mother of Dean and Amy, who stood by him after he killed her son.
The pair have started a new life in the west of Ireland and are living together in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim.
A senior investigator working on Amy's case revealed that they were 'interested' in Dean's tragic death.
Amy and Dean's father claimed that his son 'planned to come forward' with new information on Amy's case before he was stabbed to death.
It emerged the 23-year-old was planning to go to gardai with vital information which he hoped would catch Amy's killer.
Christopher told Irish Mirror. 'The last couple of days he was confiding in me quite a lot about Amy.
'Before that he never said much but he was coming around and talking a lot more about it. He was loosening up in the last week and a half.'
Dave, who self-published an autobiography titled How Much Pain Can Our Hearts Endure, previously claimed no one has ever accused him of Amy's disappearance.
In his book he identified four suspects in the disappearance of Amy – and he says he hopes one day someone takes it seriously.
In the book he speaks about meeting with a British man who is one of the four 'suspects' and asking him directly if he had any involvement in Amy's disappearance.
He claimed that the man got spooked and 'went on the run' and he doesn't know where he is to this day.
He insisted the Spanish police need to investigate the four people – one of whom he believes is responsible for what happened to Amy 17 years ago.
Dave (pictured) was convicted of killing Amy's brother Dean, 23, after they had a row in the summer of 2013
However another mystery puzzled investigators throughout the years, Ashley and Debbie said at the time that Amy always carried her phone with her and even had it on the night of her disappearance.
But her device was later found during a search of the apartment she shared with her mother and stepdad and it has never been established how the phone got back to the property if Amy was abducted on her way home that night.
Dave claimed neither he or Audrey – who married him after he killed her son Dean in 2013 – were ever suspects.
One of Dave's 'suspects' in his book was a convicted killer who he believes was never seriously investigated by police.
Another man Dave suspects visited their house in Spain and spent a lot of time around Amy.
Speaking to the Irish Mirror in 2024, he added: 'He was in the house alone with Amy a few times, I didn't know that at the time. I haven't spoken to that man in 16 years.'
Asked if he thinks Amy is dead, he wrote: 'It's more fairly high she's gone but 99% not 100.
'Look, it could be she's off on a yacht somewhere living the high life. All those things go through your mind.'
In another interview with the Mirror, Audrey revealed that she had received information from someone in Amy's circle who said she had allegedly got involved in a drugs transport deal.
She claimed two men said they would pay her 100 euro if she pretended to be the daughter of one of them and sit in the car with them on 'drug runs'.
A Spanish Civil Guard agent took part in the search for the 15-year-old who vanished on 1st January 2008
Audrey said: 'These were bad men. These men were in their 40s or 50s and she sat there and got paid for just being there in the car.
'I didn't know anything about this. I was told she would sit in the front of the car like somebody's daughter.'
The scheme worked by the men posing as though they were on a family day out in the car, therefore being able to get through any potential police checkpoint easier.
Audrey revealed that she remembered her daughter often going off for periods of time but she thought she was shopping with friends.
While no concrete evidence has ever emerged in Amy's disappearance, in 2011 a police report stated three witnesses claimed that they saw Amy at a local bar the night she vanished.
It claimed Amy's was spotted in the Trafalgar Bar in Calahonda's El Zoco hours after her previous last reported sighting.
However investigations led to a dead end and this line of enquiry was eventually dropped by police.
Some investigators believe there could be a Dublin gangland connection, with suspicion falling on the hitman Eric 'Lucky' Wilson.
A Facebook tip-off led the family to ask gardai to investigate possible links with the gangster, who the source claimed 'boasted about murdering her.'
In an emotional post on Facebook, Christopher and his sister Christine Kenny (pictured) recently told how a day does not go by when they don't think of Amy
Speaking to the Irish Independent in 2012, Dave said: 'We are hopeful there will be movement on this, we believe the information we have is credible.'
At the time of her disappearance, Wilson was living near the area where she vanished. He had rented a farm in Coin, less than 30km away from Amy's home of Calahonda.
Wilson, from Ballyfermot, Dublin, had been linked to a string of unsolved gangland contract killings in Ireland thought to include those of Paul Reay in 2006 and Roy Coddington in 2007.
The gangster was sentenced in 2011 to a 23-year jail sentence for the brutal killing of a British expat.
In 2010, he shot Dan Smith eight times from close range after racing home on his motorbike to fetch a gun following a drunken row over a girl.
It was claimed that the girl was one of Amy's friends, and that the missing teenager had been spotted near the area where the shooting took place on the night she disappeared two years earlier.
Amy was spotted in the Costa del Sol town with an older man at the time and her family now believe it was Wilson.
Meanwhile, in 2009, there were reports that the Fitzpatrick family received a 'ransom note' which police believed to be a scam.
Audrey revealed an African man phoned her and said Amy had been kidnapped and was being held in Madrid.
Dave claimed he stabbed Amy's brother Dean (pictured) by mistake, after claiming the young man ran into a knife he was holding inside his pocket, following a row over a water bottle
He told her he would call back in two hours with a name and an address in the Spanish capital.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, Audrey added: 'So I agreed, of course. Five hours later, I got a text to say ''Can you pay us €500,000? Yes or no? Send your answer now and we will send you all the information you need.''
'Two hours later he texted again saying he was still waiting for my answer. I'm almost certain it was a con but there is a chance he has something. There is no proof yet.'
Audrey contacted the Spanish police and the private detectives who later were able to establish that the callers were using two different pay-as-you-go telephones which were untraceable and likely a scam.
Elsewhere one of Amy's friends later revealed details of his last conversation with Amy the night before she disappeared on social media site MSN.
Alan Quieros told the Irish Mirror that Amy said she had a 'scheme' after her mother cancelled her flights home to Ireland.
Amy apparently told Alan: 'I love you, Happy New Year, and don't worry about me, I've got a scheme'.
Audrey was shocked to hear this information for the first time, especially 15 years after her daughter's disappearance.
In another strange twist in the case, eight months after Amy's disappearance Dave reported that burglars smashed their way into their Spanish home and stole items from Amy's room, including Audrey's laptop, which she'd been using in the search for Amy and had missing person poster designs on it.
Dave, who claimed he was at the gym at the time of the incident, said they 'ransacked the place' stealing jewelry and vital contact numbers for politicians who were helping with Amy's case.
Worryingly Amy's Nokia phone was also later reported to have been stolen in the burglary.
It is thought that she embarked on the 20 minute walk home at 10pm via a dirt track, however Amy never returned home ( Amy pictured with her pink Nokia phone)
In the same month, Fitzpatrick's lawyer, Juan José de la Fuente Teixidó, said burglars also got into his property and stole 'confidential police reports' related to Amy's case.
He said: 'The stolen documents included confidential police reports about Fitzpatrick's disappearance. I believe the burglary was related to Fitzpatrick's disappearance.
'It makes no sense that they took documents which financially are worthless, and left behind all my expensive valuables like TVs, computers and music equipment.'
Amy's aunt Christine Kenny 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 in 2017, she claimed there were 'were too many coincidences.'
She said: '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.'
Yet another bizarre development in the case came in 2023, when Christine revealed that an anonymous woman sent her new important information which could prove to be vital in solving the case.
Speaking to the Mirror she said: 'This lady has never been given her name, but she has been giving information over the years.
'This information has eventually found its way to me through sources. I haven't got around to all the bits and pieces. There are about 21 pages in it and it's ongoing.'
In 2023, one of Spain's top television networks, La Sexta, aired a documentary about the teens disappearance in an appeal to get new clues about the case.
The documentary featured an interview with the lawyer of Audrey and Dave, Mr Juan Jose de la Fuente, where he claimed to be astonished when they offered a one million euro reward for any information about Amy.
The lawyer believed the couple simply didn't have the money because he ended up spending a lot of his own money on the case.
He said: 'I paid for advertising and many things between €6,000 to €12,000. I also paid for a trip to Ireland. I also paid for a trip to the Canary Islands'.
Over the years Dave and Audrey claimed they exhausted all efforts to try and find Amy but don't have the strength they once did because their health is declining.
Christopher Fitzpatrick and Dean (brother of Amy) following a special mass service for Amy in 2008
Speaking to Dublin Live, Dave said: 'There's always something we can do. But we are not doing it all the time. We were doing it 24/7 and we burned ourselves out. I'm not saying I got cancer from it but it didn't help.
'Audrey attempted suicide and was in hospital and she needed a new liver. So we tried our best and then some.'
He added: 'You do think that pretty much every day, that you're never going to know but you never fully give up hope. You know someday they could knock down a building and Amy could be under it.
Now a mother herself, Amy's friend Ashley, 30, who was the last person to see her, blamed the Spanish authorities for not doing more to find her mate.
Speaking to the Irish Mirror, she said: 'The way the Spanish police have treated this case from the very start is an absolute disgrace.
'They are convinced Amy ran away from home, is still alive somewhere and that is the end of it. They have no interest in looking for her or trying to find out where she is buried.
'The Spanish police are just not interested because Amy is Irish. I can guarantee you if Amy was a Spanish child there would be world war then and they would move heaven and earth to find her.'
Ashley, who was the last person to see Amy before she went missing, believes that her friend was killed and that her 'murder is being covered up.'
She claimed she has her own suspicions and what happened to her friend but doesn't feel comfortable 'naming names.'
Amy's father has set up a petition on Change.org, asking the Irish and Spanish authorities to resume the investigation.
In an emotional post on Facebook, Christopher and his sister Christine recently told how a day does not go by when they don't think of Amy.
He said: 'It's 17 years since Amy disappeared and the pain feels just as raw as it did that day.
'Our hearts are shattered, our lives forever changed, and the ache of not knowing where she is or what happened to her is unbearable.
'Amy, we miss you more than words can ever say. Not a single day goes by where we don't long to see your beautiful smile, to hear you laugh or to hold you close.
'The emptiness you've left behind is overwhelming and our family will never be whole again.
'To anyone out there who knows anything, please, we beg you, help us bring Amy home. Even after all these years we need answers, we need closure.
'Amy we will never stop loving you or hoping for the day we can finally have peace. You are forever in our hearts you beautiful girl.'
Spanish police said the file on Amy's case is still open but they are still treating her disappearance as a missing person's inquiry.
