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Mum hires Maddie team in Amy ransom note scam
Alan O'Keeffe– 02 June 2009 09:58 AM
Private detectives asked to investigate a ransom demand for missing Dublin teenager Amy Fitzpatrick told her mother they had previously worked on Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
Audrey Fitzpatrick revealed for the first time that she had retained a Spanish-based firm of private detectives in the search for her teenage daughter.
Bogus
She has only disclosed her agreement with the Spanish private investigators after an apparently bogus ransom incident, she said.
Speaking from her home on the Costa del Sol in Spain, she told the Herald that two private detectives working for a Barcelona-based firm of investigators had worked in the past on the case of missing tot Madeleine in Portugal. She said she had not told any members of her family that she had engaged the private detectives until recently.
Amy's father Christopher Fitzpatrick, who had been married to Audrey, had hired an Irish private investigator to join the search. Mr Fitzpatrick lives in Dublin and their son Dean now lives with him, having moved back from Spain following Amy's disappearance.
Amy was 15 when she disappeared in Spain on January 1 last year while walking from a friend's house to her home in the Costa del Sol. A police search has failed to find any trace of the Dublin teenager.
Audrey said that she contacted both the police and the Barcelona firm when she received a cruel ransom demand for information.
An African man had telephoned her and asked if she was Amy's mother. When she confirmed she was her mother, the caller said Amy had been kidnapped and was being held in Madrid.
He told her he would call back in two hours with a name and an address in the Spanish capital.
"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," said Audrey.
Audrey said she contacted the Spanish police, who have been investigating Amy's disappearance, and the private detectives.
Scam
Later, both were able to establish that the callers were using two different pay-as-you-go telephones which were untraceable.
Audrey said: "Although I know it was a scam, I must admit that if I had a suitcase of money worth a half-a-million euro, I would have just said 'okay, where and when do you want it.'
"My heart had been in my mouth and I had been praying."