Thursday, September 6, 2012

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Occam's Razor and The Madeleine McCann Case


The concept of Occam's Razor, that the simplest explanation is likely to be true, is useful when analyzing the case of missing Madeleine McCann. With Scotland Yard having flushed millions of pounds of British taxpayer's money down the toilet in an effort to promote the most ludicrous of theories (in complete opposition to Occam's Razor), I want to step back to the night of May 3, 2007 and examine the simplest of answers.


Why did the McCanns leave Madeleine and her siblings alone in the vacation apartment evening after evening? 

Because they were not worried that anyone would get into the apartment or that the children would get out.

Why were they not worried that anyone would get into the apartment or that the children would get out?

Because the apartment was thoroughly locked down so that it would be extremely difficult for anyone to get in or for the children to get out.

As then it would be routine for the McCanns to lock down the apartment when they went to the Tapas bar in the evening, would it be likely that they would change their routine on the evening of May 3, 2007 and leave the doors unlocked so that someone could get in or that one of their children could get out?

No.

Therefore, it is most likely that the apartment was locked down on May 3, 2007.

Yes.

Oh. 


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

September 6, 2012


Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann available at Smashwords and Barnes and Noble.



By Pat Brown
Rating: 1 star1 star1 star1 star1 star
(5.00 based on 5 reviews)

Published: July 27, 2011

What really happened to Madeleine Beth McCann in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007? Was she abducted as the Gerry and Kate have claimed or did something happen to Madeleine on May 3 in the vacation apartment and the incident covered up? Criminal Profiler Pat Brown analyzes the evidence and takes the readers through the steps of profiling, developing a theory that is intriguing and controversial.



17 comments:

Anonymous said...

She was not abducted IMO the parents do not come across as honest, good luck Mr Amaral though u don't need it, the mccanns need to pay back now to many people

Anonymous said...

You've been quoted extensively on the net, Mme Pat. But no comments here? Let me be the first one then to say: if possible, yes, keep it simple. And ... no neglect, no abduction. So what else ...? Right!
Cordialement, Châtelaine

Anonymous said...

In the space of about four weeks it has been demonstrated how a person\child can be overlooked in a search or obvious situation
Tia Sharp
France - where a child age 4 remained hidden in a car

How does this happen?

SEARCHING or alerting is done with the ears, YES sound, directs the eyes.

As in Jane Tanner in her flip flops remained UNHEARD, thus unseen.

Did Kate McCann miss Madeleine behind the sofa?

Sound plays an important aspect of the McCann story, sound as in lack of it

How many people searching that night were actually LOOKING.. or were they LISTENING, crying,sobs etc.

Reavaluate everything you have read and your point of view, then overlay the issues of SOUND (i.e. lack of.

Try and imagine where there should be sound and it doesnt exist!!

Lastly, distance from the Tapas to the apartment has no relevance, if in distress the children couldn't be HEARD.

puddleduck

Anonymous said...

For the past weeks,I studied the evidence as well. How can anyone reading all the evidence and having knowledge of the reactions and words beeing said conclude anything else than you and Mr. Amaral and others?

I really hope, one day, for Maddie's sake, the truth will come out. Undisputably.

Anonymous said...

Exactly! NO unsecured premises equals NO abduction, NO neglect towards the children (leaving them alone in the apartment)also equals NO abduction! Then, how would they explain to the police(and the world)the child's disappearance...? They had to come up with the neglect and unlocked doors, of course. How else would the big bad scary abductor have the opportunity to do his thing?!
I do not believe they left the apartment unsecured, and I also do not believe the children were ever left alone.In my opinion the children were all together in one of the group's apartments with an adult minder, either a babysitter of the resort (wasn't there one that was swiftly sent away from Portugal to another Mark Warner resort in another country?)or one of the group.
Keeping it simple...? No, that just would not do, no, oh no! "They" worked very hard on making things complicated for the police, in Gerry's own words, "confusion is best"...

Regards,
Roseanne

Anonymous said...

Why did Fiona Payne and Rachel O Brien say in their interviews Kate was worried about leaving the patio doors open on the 3rd May when Kate has said they hardly ever used the front door after the first couple days. Something not right there.

Anonymous said...

Greetings Pat!

One question: has the Profile of the Disappearance of MMc been updated in the light of your research trip to Praia da Luz?

One comment: I am planning to travel to Portugal soon to witness court events and support Mr. Amaral. I hope to see you there.

I am worried for Mr. Amaral because of the presence in court of Mr. Pinto - the autocratic cockerel - "Chick" in Portuguese. I refer here to the operatic president of the Portuguese Bar, who cynics claim is also on the Mcs pay list along with his colleague, Madame Isabel Duarte - the Mc's expensive, designer lawyer in Portugal.

One thing is for sure: both Madame Duarte and the autocratic Pinto, have immense influence in Portuguese legal circles.

Let us not forget that it was Pinto (with his operatic skills and autocratic power) who single-handedly assassinated the character of Mr. Amaral namely by providing the media (then the courts) with Photoshop-ed "evidence" of bruises of another child killer (Joana) and claiming Amaral and his team had caused them. This was around the time his nephew Madera's lawyer/medium and ufologist Marcos Correia started to represent Leonor Cipriano (the mother of Joana) but that is another story within the same story. Suffice it to say cockrel Pinto avoided being cross-examined in court about his "Photoshop-ed" evidence by using his status at the Bar and making himself an "accessory to the process". Expect more cheek from Pinto - the autocratic cockrel (...)

It will be interesting to see what happens in the end with the Portuguese legal system and the full force David Cameron's government behind the Mc's (...) I feel sorry for Mr. Amaral. I have no doubt Mr. Amaral will win hands down at an Appeals Court or at the European Court of Human Rights for that matter but I suspect the odds are stacked against him in this less savvy, if not corrupt court.

Anonymous said...

http://blacksmithbureau.blogspot.co.uk/

Marianne said...

Well said, Pat. I have always been a fan of Occam's Razor. So are most law enforcement, e.g. who do they always look to first in a murder investigation, the spouse, of course.

Anonymous said...

Occam's Razor is usefull too for the light it sheds upon those details that perhaps don't fit the most direct or 'simple' theory. It enables us to set a context, without necessarily resorting to ever more convoluted ideas about what happened (not that these can be discounted.)

If Amaral's conclusions can be thought of as Occam's theory, then what of all those other details that need accounting for? I'm thinking of the crèche records, uncertainties about 'timings', photographs etc.

We are left with a central premise (a tragic death in 5A) that is surrounded and *preceded* by a party of adults that failed to honestly account for the whereabouts of the several children in their group; Madeleine in particular.

Anonymous said...

Dear Pat,
I have studied this case upside down and back to front.
I noticed in ROB's statement that on the very early search he "met Dan in the car"
I have never posted on a forum but I started a thread about this on Tony Bennett's site and it has thrown up an intesting theory.
I would be interested what you think.
Dan either DISTURBED or HELPED ROB as ROB was "on his own in a dark place". Dan was the tennis instructor. Might be nothing but Dan seemed to be around more than you think.
If he had a very short hairstyle in May 2007 he might match Carole Tranmere's description.
Also Amaral said there was a similar incidence in Greece. Was Gerry,Payne and Dan in Greece.
At the very least Dan would know if Gerry had a tennis bag.
The thread is called "having met Dan"
Thankyou for reading this.
Might be nothing-but I would be interested in what ROB's demeaner was at the time.He might have just picked up the body from the beach.

Anonymous said...

Pat,
I forgot to say he was in a vehicle
so ROB could have passed him the body.
And ROB was on the tennis court with Dan at 7.30 on the evening of May 3. (I think --but I have trawled through the statements)

Anonymous said...

If one of the tapas men met the tennis instructor before the police were called in chaotic first search---+ they were in a vehicle---dos'nt that crack the case wide open?

Anonymous said...

Hi Anonymous of 3 posts ago, February 27, 2013 at 2:11 PM.

Do you have a link for that thread page, please?

Anonymous said...

The news was soon viral in Europe.
Abduction/missing.. and look please.
The coloboom.. is easy to spot on light eyes.
So.. If she's still out there..
It seems impossible
The reward is high..to speak out or come forewards..

People with a coloboma (and no syndrome)s have a problem with light, their pupils have a problem to close..or getting smaller.
So.. Jane saw..Someting?
Had a few drinks less?
Was it her kid vomitting?
Or did she had her monitoring?
I man.. why not checking on the Mccann kids?
Why did Kate look AFTER the door slams..
If it didn't.. It was reported in the morning?

Yeah, I think K&G like Rose and Fred..growing into eachother
In hindsight..It never is about never stepping on that plane..
Go back before booking..

'Be there at that moment' well gerrY Was He or She there at that time?
You do think so..
Hidden there... when he took a pee and had that 'lucky blessing moment'
I really do get a strange feeling about parenting in the U.K
I mean.. they were not retarded, or low of cash.
They left them in daycare.
No family vacation

Anonymous said...

Quote:- "Therefore, it is most likely that the apartment was locked down on May 3, 2007."

Could the patio doors be opened with a key from the outside? If not, it seems the apartment wasn't "locked down" every evening when the McCanns were out and left the children alone. In her statement, Mrs Fenn heard them return by the patio doors on the 1st May.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/PAMELA_FENN.htm

Amanda

Anonymous said...

From my viewpoint I really feel the McCanns did just as they said they did.

Having arrived at the resort that late April day and spending one whole day doing the things one does initially on arrival, they sadly felt the resort friendly enough and quiet enough to go along with the plan of self checking on the children, being as they had been informed by Mark Warner that no Listening Service was running in that resort because of the distance between apartments. Let's remember Kate & Gerry were not the only ones to make this decision as another 6 parents and 1 grandmother went along with it. Tragically, only the McCann's suffered the loss of their beloved first born.

Undoubtedly it wasn't the wisest decision any of them made, but that is easy to say in hindsight and for the first 4 evenings it worked a treat.

They knew their children better than anybody else and their sleeping habits and for all we read that Madeleine had been inclined to waking up and going to their room, well, most children do this and Madeleine had outgrown it by the Luz holiday but, of course, new surroundings could have changed her sleep pattern back.


Whatever their reasoning, it was flawed but not done with any malicious intent. They may be doctors but the doctors I know are human beings and apt to making human errors along life's rocky road.

So they left the children, leaving via the patio doors which had full length voile curtaining as well as the heavier chequered curtains. These would have to be pulled aside in order to slide open the patio door. The couple would step outside and slide the door closed but they could not lock it because the only way of doing so would be from the inside on the centre of the frame. They would then open the child safety gate at the top of the steps and having stepped down would turn and fasten the safety mechanism. Then the descent down the steep stone steps and another small gate at the bottom to open and close behind them.


Each check would entail them doing the same (but in reverse) on arriving back, and again on leaving to return to the Tapas. Quite a rigmarole in fact.

To my mind this would make it impossible for Madeleine to leave this way on her own because nowhere in the statements do the couple tell us that they found any of these gates or curtains disturbed, only the front bedroom window half open/shutters up and voile curtain fluttering in the Algarvian breeze, something the country is well renowned for.

Pat, you know Goncalo Amaral to speak to having met him. Can you recall him ever telling you why the Tapas restaurant staff were hardly interviewed? As a profiler surely you can see there was a need to get them thoroughly investigated as they were casual staff and some were transient and not locals living permanently in Luz.


It may be that the files pertaining to the staff were not included on the DVD Duarte Levy got hold of, or if they were the translators chose not to translate them and upload them to the internet. I think they didn't exist and wonder why that would be?