Thursday, November 7, 2013

Fantastical Theories and the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann

One of the interesting occurrences after a mystery goes so long unsolved is the cropping up of many fantastical theories about what might have happened, in this case, what might have happened to Madeleine McCann. Complicated theories usually result from two issues: one, the disbelief that the mystery could still be unsolved if it weren't some diabolical plan and two, some pieces of evidence are missing, unexplained, or confusing which leads people to create scenarios based on supposition. I want to say that fantastical theories have cropped up on both sides of the McCann divide and have led to a lot of out-there discussion and sometimes unnecessary suspects. The theories have been promoted by the public, the media, professionals of varying sorts, and the police. Mind you, I am not saying you should not consider these theories, even if slightly farfetched because doing so could inspire other avenues of investigation which have not been considered, but if one is going to conclude that something is likely to have happened, that conclusion should be based on good evidence, not on things that "could be" or "seems like it could be." In the end, one should play Devil's Advocate and knock down all theories that have a lack of evidence to support them and one should focus on the theory that does have strong enough evidence to consider it a strong likelihood of being the scenario which actually happened..

Let me present firstly what I think should be the  reasonable scenario for the McCanns' involvement and the most reasonable without the McCanns' involvement.

With) The children were left alone so that the McCanns could enjoy their evening out. Because of the problem of the children crying for them the previous night and Maddie being so agitated over this, the children were given medication to quiet them. The McCanns put the children to bed, thought they were out for the evening (as in asleep) and went to have a drink on the veranda and then they went out for the next couple of hours. They did not check on the children again until Gerry came back to the flat at 9:15. Either before or after they left the apartment, Maddie came out, climbed on the sofa, and fell behind it. Because there is a question of timing as to how long a body must remain in a place for cadaver smell to develop that is good enough for the dogs, I cannot say when this accident would have exactly occurred. (the timing seems to be narrowing with further scientific experiments in the matter from one and a half hours to far less than that. At around 9:15, Gerry finds Maddie missing from bed, searches for her, and finds her behind the sofa. Then Kate returns and all hell breaks loose. Gerry takes Maddie away, Kate raises the alarm, some amount of staging is done, but very little as everyone is in a panic.

Without) Some local creep has noted that the McCanns have three little kids and that they are leaving them in the flat alone every night. He notes the McCanns going out again that night and waits until he thinks he has an opportunity to slip in through an open door or pull up an unlocked window. He sees Maddie, puts a hand over her mouth and rushes from the flat. He realizes she isn't reacting at all to being abducted (because she has been medicated) and he carries the quiet child off easily. He would have taken Maddie to his home, raped and murdered her and buried her body on the property or out in the brush somewhere. I want to point out, there is no evidence at all to support this scenario, but if Maddie were actually abducted this would have likely been what happened.

Now, time has gone on and so the scenarios get crazier Because the pedophile abduction scenario does indeed seem a bit too lucky, now we have kidnapping masterminds enter the picture; sex rings or baby selling rings, professionals who plotted this whole crime out with incredible brilliance; hence, the reason no evidence was left and they got away with Maddie into the night without being discovered and why they and what happened to Maddie has remained undiscovered for six years.

Likewise for the scenarios in which the McCanns are involved. People can't understand how the cover-up of an accident was accomplished in so short a time and why the Tapas 9 have never broken and why the body has never been found. In other words, it is hard to believe they got away with a cover-up if it was so haphazard to have had to be done in a moment's notice. Therefore, there are theories that Maddie was never in Portugal, that she was given away days earlier, or that she died the previous night or at least that afternoon and that the children were never neglected and the whole dinner was staged and that Gerry was running about with his younger child to make it look like an abductor had taken his child.

I admit two things; it IS amazing that the McCanns could have gotten away with such a mess of a cover-up and it would be an incredibly lucky abductor who managed to get so lucky to have an easy way in, a sedated child, not to have left a bit of evidence, and never been caught.

Yes, both are rather incredible but one of them happened because Maddie is missing. Which brings me to which scenario is supported by evidence. The abduction scenario has zero evidence of having occurred and the neglect/accident/cover-up has much evidence in its corner.

And it is here I would like to shoot down those fantastical scenarios put out about how the McCanns gave away or killed Maddie (even if accidentally) long before the Tapas dinner that evening. There are four good reasons why the simplest scenario is the likely one. Other than Occam's Razor being taken into account, these four bits of evidence support the theory I gave above: the body (assuming you believe the cadaver evidence which I do) behind the sofa, the window showing no signs of tampering, a man being seen carrying off Maddie towards the beach, and the mass confusion that evening. Let's look at them.

1) The body behind the sofa. If the dog evidence is accurate, Maddie fell behind the sofa. No one hides a body behind a sofa, so why is it there? The odd location indicates to me that Maddie fell there, she died there, and she lay there until her body was discovered. This adds up to an accident while no one was around or at least while no one was paying attention.

PS. If you didn't think the dog evidence behind the sofa was strong enough, one could gather that Maddie died in her bed of an overdose or some other accident. What is most interesting is that Gerry does give a statement that he used his key to come in the front door to check. Now, I thoroughly believe this indicates the flat was locked up while they were out which makes sense if you are leaving your place unattended. This locking of the door requires then the next statement, that the window had to have been opened by an abductor).

2)  The window not being tampered with. If you have enough time to plan a complicated scenario, you have enough time to put a few tool marks on the window. It takes but a minute or two to stage the window being used to break into the flat. The McCanns appear to have been in a frenzy when they told relatives the flat had been broken into, that the window had been "jimmied;" this is what people say when they are panicked and trying to cover themselves in a hurry.

3) If Gerry was seen carrying a child off towards the beach, I guarantee you that this was not on purpose. Staging an abduction by pretending to BE the abductor is foolhardy. First of all, the face of the man was not covered. He could have been identified. Then, once he got down toward the beach, he has to come back with the child....to what...to be seen again bringing her back? No, if that man was Gerry the Smiths saw, then what we have is a desperate man carrying off his deceased child to dump her body some place. Now, he could have put the body closer to the flat, but it makes sense that he wants the body hidden at least long enough for a predator to have had time to rape and kill his daughter and dump her body. It wouldn't do to have the body found five minutes into searching for her, just behind the flat in the bushes, would it? And, if the death of Madeleine happened a day or so ago, there is far more time to carefully plan the removal of her body in such a way as to not have been seen doing it.

4) The mass confusion that evening. Some folks think that the McCanns staged the neglect so there would be an opportunity for an abductor to take Madeleine. I do not buy this line of thinking at all. This is not the way humans make up lies. They don't make up a lie that makes them look bad unless it is one of lesser bad behavior that people already know about. This is then is an attempt to appear contrite and honest. Like the guy who gets caught drunk driving and admits to having a couple. He KNOWS the officer can tell he has been drinking so he admits to doing so but the lesser of the evils..just a couple rather than the twelve drinks he actually had.

A husband gets caught in an affair might confess to oral sex but not intercourse because he thinks his wife might buy that and it is the lesser of the two that she might be able to forgive him for. BUT, a guy doesn't get caught kissing a woman and then tell his wife, "Hey, that's not ALL we've done!"

Likewise with the McCanns. If something happened to Maddie and they had to get rid of her body, they don't then set up a scenario making themselves neglectful parents because no one has accused them of committing any kind of criminal behavior at that point. And there are so much simpler ways to stage the crime and still look like a decent parent which keeps you from getting investigated.


How about getting rid of her body, doing some damage to the window, and pulling it open (with gloves on) or. hey, just having it be open for a nice breeze, and then just say "We decided to stay in that evening and we were on the veranda having drinks while the kids slept. We told Maddie we would be right on the other side of the sliding door and we left the sliding door open an inch so we could hear if anything had gone wrong inside. We must have just sat out there for an hour or so and when we came back in and opened the door to the children's bedroom, we found  Maddie gone! We never considered that someone would open the window and slip in while we were just outside (or just slip through the window if left open for that healthful breeze)."





A simple alternative to this is to have Madeleine disappear while all are sleeping. That someone came in through the window and took her in the night. It happened to Elizabeth Smart, so it could happen to Maddie.

I think that is a plausible story and considering the parents are well-off doctors, I don't know whether I would have questioned the story as long as nothing else stood out.

But, admitting to leaving the children unattended for five nights in a row? That is a bloody stupid story to make up if it isn't true. The problem the McCanns were dealing with was they couldn't make themselves look like better parents because they weren't. But they could try to play down neglect which is a whole lot better than admitting to medicating your kid and having her die behind the sofa while you were off drinking.


The simplest thing is indeed likely to be what happened. Selfish parents neglected their children thinking nothing would really happen. They medicated their kids because they saw no harm in giving them a little something to quiet them. The unthinkable then happened and in a panic they staged a simple crime: they removed the evidence of their child's death from the apartment and they claimed the window had been jimmied so an abduction scenario could be believed. Then they added a man seen by a friend carrying off the child and they hoped they would get away with it. And things were going quite well until they became arguidos. After that occurred, they made another desperate decision; to bolt Portugal and hope they would never be extradited back should the case remain open. All in all, I believe Amaral was on the right track even if there was a question over certain physical evidence. The lie about the window told by the McCanns and the refusal to acknowledge the Smith sighting along with the likely locked flat and the inconsistent and concerning statements and behaviors, all of these things made the McCanns arguidos and is why they should still be arguidos six years later.

 Sometimes people DO get away with crime. The proof of this is the many unsolved, cold cases in every country in the world. Criminals are not often brilliant, so it is not a complicated scenario that kept them from getting arrested and convicted. It is simply the nature of crime that it is usually occurs without witnesses and often the physical evidence isn't strong enough to convince a jury. I know of a lot of criminals who are living contented lives today having gotten away with horrible crimes. If the McCanns are guilty and never convicted in a court of law it isn't necessarily because they are innocent nor is it because they planned a brilliant oover-up, it is because they got lucky, they got rich (off the fund which enable them to Carter-Ruck any troublemakers and hire PIs to do whatever they really did), and they got help from people in high places.


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

November 7, 2013



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


 Cover for 'Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann'



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.





178 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Pat that seems reasonable but leads to other open questions

WHy would Tapas group buy into the story?

What happened to the body?

Given the blatant nature of the inconsistencies present and the support of people "behind the scenes" UK government and Scotland Yard, BBC and media in general - why would this be? I mean there must be individuals in these institutions that have questions but it seems blanket view applies. Its like some kind of thought censership to be honest. To not even allow the mcanns involved possibility makes a fool of all involved really,

Would appreciate a similar reasonableness theory on these three points if you could please?
Many thanks.

Pat Brown said...

Anon, good questions for which I wish I had really good answers. And these are the questions which keep many people from ignoring the evidence that is so condemning.

Why are the Tapas cooperating? Perhaps because they also neglected their children, because they are sympathetic, because they helped in the beginning and now it is too late. Perhaps because only some knew and others did not. Maybe the some that knew are willing to keep a secret; maybe some of the fund money is coming their way. Maybe they are afraid of Carter-Ruck and being convicted of aiding and abetting after they helped in the first place.

Where is the body? Read my blog post of Find the Body and Prove We Did it.

Why the support now for the UK government and SY? Biggest question of all but politics must be behind it and I don't know what that could be. But, I know it has to exist because it makes no sense, even if the McCanns are innocent, that any government would lay out so much money on a case which is inactive, in which the McCanns are not being actively pursued as suspects and they are not all that likeable as people anyway due to their neglect of their children, when their is already a million plus fund paying for an investigation, and when the results after six years of finding some local child predator is next to none considering the lack of evidence supporting that. Heck, SY could have just put one guy on it to read the files and saved a fortune in money. Finally, the simple fact SY did not really start at the beginning with the McCanns and the Tapas 7 if to do nothing but eliminate them reeks of politics and a mandate to exonerate them by only allowing SY to focus on the abduction theory.

Tania Cadogan said...

Hi Honey, another great post.
Looking back through the syatements, i don't believe they were left alone each night as they claim, again the minimising. Admit to child neglect and maybe serve 10 yrs for neglect resulting in harm at a maz except they would plea deal down to a couple of years at worst, This would be their best option since , if charged for neglect, they couldn't then be charged with homicide, concealing a corpse and filing a false police report. it was the lesser of two evils, heck they might even keep their licences after a suspension, retraining or supervision. Each night one adult was away from the table, it was blamed on sickness either of the adult or a child. The children weren't left alone as claimed. The mccanns had to claim this as it was the only way an abduction could take place. No abductor is going to go into a house with a wide awake adult watching the kids, it would be too damn risky. Gerry himself told us all the children were in one apartment when he said "Anybody with young children will understand that children cry; they wake up at night. During that week there was one night, errr… and we can't give too much detail because it's part of the investigation file but there was one night where Madeleine came through and one of the other, errr… twins were crying, so, you know, and when she did mention to it… it to us and we asked her about it and she just dropped… she was completely fine and we thought, 'Was it when they were bathing, getting them, you know, first putting them down in that period when they're really tired. Of course, with hindsight, in the… in the context of what had happened; of Madeleine being abducted, it's put in a very different light and it's put in a very different light to us and, of course, we emphasised that to the police."
Firstly he talks about one of the other twins.
There was only one set of twins, that was Sean and Amelie mccann, there couldn't be one of the other twins. What we see is him self editing, ie sditing as he talks looking to stop anything incriminating slipping out, this leads to disjoint speech with lots on nonsense sounds, stuttering and pauses. What he was going to say is one of the other children. He relaised what he was going to say ( all the children were in one place) and stopped himself although he still messed it up as we can see.

Tania Cadogan said...

This is supported by his later comment about the crying, He asks was it 'Was it when they were bathing, getting them, you know, first putting them down in that period when they're really tired. Think about it for a moment. Do you see it? If kate and gerry were bathing them , the question would not have arisen as they would already be there. If kate and gerry were in the apartment and didn't respond to the crying at bath time who was bathing them? if they were in the apartment they would have heard the crying and parental instinct should have made them check on the children to see why they were crying and reassure them. Since they never heard the crying this raises 2 questions. If the children were in 5a as claimed, where were kate and gerry? If kate and gerry were in 5a, where were the children? the same applies for the putting to bed. Kate has told us this fanciful story about the bedtime routine the night Maddie vanished, sounds good except it didn;t happen. If Maddie was crying when they were being put to bed kate would know as she was present and the where were you when we cried statement would not have happened So, if the children were being put to bed in 5a so were all the other children as gerry already told us all the children were togeather, in which case again where was kate and gerry and who was utting them to bed? if they were all sleeping in another apartment ( the twins being moved back to the apartment and no blankets) whose apartment and who was putting them to bed ( david payne and his liking to bathe little children not his own?) Both kate and gerry have told us the children were not in 5a and that someone other than them was bathing and putting the children to bed. Since they were all in one place not 5a, since there was an adult present, there was never an abduction from 5a. There couldn;'t have been for there were no children there and where the children were , there was an adult present. What should have been done was the bedding is all the apartments taken as evidence and tested for DNA, I bet all the children would have shown up in at least one apartment. The PJ based their initial few hours investigation on an abduction as claimed by the parents. I bet there was a lot of laundry being donwe those first few days

Pat Brown said...

Hobnob,

I think we will have to agree to disagree and I stand by what I wrote in the post. Having worked many cases, people behave in specific ways. In my opinion, what happened to Madeleine happened right before or after they left for the Tapas restaurant and I do not believe any other scenario makes sense with respect to the evidence and behaviors.

Anonymous said...

hi,im with hobs on the crying episode,were the mccanns so drunk that they couldn't remember what they were doing when Madeliene and one of the twins were crying.who was bathing the children??????? something very fishy about this episode

Martin B said...

Many thanks Pat, perfect common sense article from you as usual. I've grown a little tired of one particular forum in particular, where a well-known victim of the removal of freedom of speech is busy bullying others into his point of view, and banning them when they don't tow the line. Reading your blogs are a breath of fresh air.

Tania Cadogan said...

Hi Pat I see your point, however as an analyst i have to look at the words spokem by the mccanns and both of them when they talk about the Maddie crying episode ask if it was when they were being bathed or put to bed. This only makes sense if they weren't the ones doing the bathing and the putting to bed otherwise they would have been present and the question would not have arisen. This then begs the question if they weren't the ones doing the bathing and the putting to bed, who was? We know they are vagie about who did what on what days and have moved events around to fudge the issue causing confusion, and, as we both know, confusion helps the guilty conceal the ir involvement in a crime. I also note that on the thursdays may 3rd there is kate having both a shower and a bath (a shower and wrapped in a towel when payne shows up for his 30 seconds/30 min visit- how can there be such disparity in time plus 3 and it's variants are the liars number mark McClish) she then has a bath later when gerry comes back. when water is introduced into a statement it can indicate sexual activity has taken place ( along with doors opening and closing, lights on and off and covering such as blankets) Cadaverine is produced enough to be detected ( depending on the environment) approx 80 mins after death. At some point a body that had been dead for at least 90 minslay behind the sofa and managed to migrate to the wardrobe. Also gerry told us in a spanish interview "nothing could be as bad as the night WE found her" We indicates unity, sharing, co-operation. So when did they find her and why was there a need to not report it as an accident (the she must have fallen whilst we were asleep/doing something in the apartment that we never noticed she wasn't in her bed type of excuse) they could have said they did a listening check rather than a visual or went straight to bed when they returned from the tapas not checking on the children) it would explain away any questions about time of death, we found her missing when we went to wake them and found her behind the sofa etc. There had to be some compelling reason they chose the route they did rather than have an autopsy. If she had o'd they could have explained it away as she must have thought the pills were candy, something often heard of or seen in ER. They would have a problem if tests indicated long term sedation or signs of physical or sexual abuse, they could blame that on babysitters, nannies. heck the taps 7 or even the creche. They had to hide the body for a reason.

Anonymous said...

HI Pat - same anon as first comment above - thanks for your quick response.

Re points 1 and 3. Sounds reasonable re Tapas 7 but then for it all to stand up would have to implicate them also in the overall over up under point 3? Do we know if the Portugese police were ever anywhere close to charging any of the tapas 7 with something like perverting the course of justice?

Re point 2 - where is the body I read the article on your thoughts where the body might be.

Surely the hire car story does not stack up. With the media and police spotlight on them surely they can not be moving a body three weeks after the event. Surely they were under surveillance?

Presumably the use of GM mobile west of Praia de Luz was known about immediately?

Was GM asked for a statement of these trips? or of subsequent trip to Spain?

ALso was GM asked the same 48 questions as Kate? and did he also refuse to answer? If not asked then why not?

As you say she is either alive or dead and we have evidence for death but not for alive so that seems worth pursuing but surely if the theory of mcannn involvement is the correct one then we must also conclude that the body has no chance of being found now. The continued publicity just would not make sense?

Appreciate your thoughts again thanks

Pat Brown said...

Anonymous 3:15

You would be surprised at how often surveillance is not done and not 24/7 especially if no one is thinking about someone moving a body.

The phone information clearly was noted after the fact. A lot of times things aren't done if they can't be and are done if they can. Later, it all seems like it is impossible but it is not if one understands how things work.

For example, there was a case I worked on where a girl disappeared out of the shopping center at 9 pm as all the stores were closing for work (strip mall). She was standing outside waiting for her friends to pick her up and when they got there she was already gone. She was found raped and strangled about two miles away on the side of a road.

Now, one question people had was how could a serial killer grab her out of a busy center. What I kept trying to tell people was that the serial killer didn't necessarily have to grab that girl at that time. It is obvious no one saw the girl being grabbed so "it happened" just like Maddie's body was taken somewhere ...it happened. Serial killers sometimes spend evening after evening driving around an area until they get lucky one night....girl outside....look around...no one there.....window of opportunity....grab.

Likewise, a sex predator could have been wandering by the McCanns' flat for evenings on end and then just saw a window of opportunity, slipped in, grabbed the child, and slipped away with her. If it weren't for all the physical and behavioral evidence that points to the McCanns and the zero evidence pointing toward the abduction, I would say this could have happened.

Pat Brown said...

Thanks very much, Martin.

Anonymous said...

thanks for the article, Pat. It's the most straight forward theory and most likely what happened.

To those who talk of the "crying episode" and "where were you". This never happened. It was made up by the McCann's to cover for Mrs. Fenn's report of children unattended & crying.

Pat Brown said...

One more thing I want to point out about stuff in retrospect. We can overanalyze to a point where everything seems to be some terrible behavior.

I don't know if some of you are not parents or haven't been raising kids for a while, but some days just make you look like horrid parents. I am not talking about premeditated neglect as in the McCanns leaving their children unattended, but bad hair days which have you shrieking at your kids like a banshee or doing something that makes you look like an abuser. Sometimes kids drive you over the edge just like spouses do. I am sure I have had more than one incident with my children I wouldn't have wanted to be taped and put on YouTube. If my kid had ended up missing right after such an episode, I don't know what would be made of it. I have already seen how I have been misquoted, edited, had my motives misunderstood, things exaggerated,etc., by people wanting to read more into what I said and did than what is true. So our agendas can color how we view certain things, things that can be easily taken out of context or are such a snippet, we have to question whether we are missing the rest of the bit that would have changed how we viewed it dramatically.

This is the same reason I am fairly reluctant to take one photo or clip and make an absolute statement about what that meant. I could be severely depressed and someone says something (like happens at funerals) and my shattered emotions make me hysterical and I start laughing maniacally. Then someone snaps a pic and says, "Look how happy she is!" Or vice versa. I stub my toe and grimace and now I am a mean bitch. You can't win with snippet commentary. Hence, again, totality of evidence is most important and not creating a big scenario out of something that might be fairly minor or meaningless.

Anonymous said...

Hi Hobnob. I agree the crying comment and subsequent discussion is bizarre especially the conclusion that madeleine just dropped the discussion and started playing with "something".

IN fact its so preposterous that it makes me mad. The question is straightforward - where were you when ...... You dont have to be sherlock to know that implicitly this implies you were not with me when...... SO KM going on about "was this when I was bathing her" .......I cant even get the words out to express the ridiculous nature of this statement.

But there are many bizarre comments and generally they just serve to fuel the theory that they are covering up something but are not conclusive in telling us what that something is. IM no expert but I think the theory is that lies lead to more lies - the whole crying discussion may be just that - maybe it never happened.

PS can you send a youtube link to the comment of when WE found her

Thanks

Thomas Baden-Riess said...

Because this case is so peculiar I have to confess to having read up on some of the more wild ideas floating out there (e.g. Maddie was a clone, Gerry knows about Princess Di)whereas in any other circumstances I would have discredited them as nonsense straight away (as they most certainly are here as well).

But as you said last week Pat, this is just such an amazing case and I agree I just don't think there's been anything like it. There have been other fake abductions of children yes, but this case seems to be an intersection of a fake abduction case with some other scandal that we don't yet know about.

Vis-a-vis your ideas about the hasty disposal of the body by the Mccanns, was it just panic that led them to go for the 10pm abduction notion? Personally I think I would have waited, bought myself some time to clean up all the blood and then taken Maddie out during the night, and as you said claimed the intruder took her in the night via the conveniently open window. So why did they not give themselves a bit of time to get organised?

Also I agree with anonymous at 3.15 about the scenario of Gerry recollecting the body after 25 days, when he's under the media spotlight and then taking it in the hire car for burial. It seems like a huge, huge risk. I know Maddie's DNA was found on the hire car and so it's probably a case of if you remove the impossible what remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. Still it seems a little bit hard to believe.

Also the driver of the car, a friend of the Mccanns says it is ludicrous they had Madeleine's body in the car. Of course he could be lying, but then he would then have to be in on it too.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Pat for your superb posts. I just want to press you again on one point if I may.
I quite understand how this case has been overlaid with many theories and it is always a good idea to return to simple explanations based on likely human behaviours.
I think we all attempt to do this but always meet the same stumbling blocks.
What really separates this case from the run-of-the-mill is the high level protection the McCanns have had. I know you said above, with great candour, that you have no explanation for this. But isn't it just the political protection that takes this case out of the run-of-the mill category and makes it complicated? Rather than the case happened to get to the long-running stage by serendipity and then attracted complicated conspiracy theories?
Thanks Pat.
From Patricia.

Pat Brown said...

Thomas, very thoughtful questions! You remind me of the kind of person I like to have a team of investigators, someone to play Devil's Advocate, to make us consider other possibilities - rational ones - and then to explore that road and see how it ends up.

As to why they wouldn't then hunker down, do a clean up, remove the child in the middle of the night, I believe because all hell had already broken loose. They were missing from the table, Kate is crying or shrieking, one feels to a good extent,the cat is already out of the bag 0- someone may call for the police or more may start paying attention or questioning. It is panic time and in panic time,things tend to be done in a rush in order to put things back to "normal" as quickly as possible. If, on the other hand, Maddie had been discovered deceased before the dinner or even during the night before or killed in the late afternoon, there would have been no rush but time to make a plan. The kidnapped between checks and the window was jimmied and being seen with a child is sloppy and unnecessary unless one is short on time to arrange something better.

As to the hire car, well, again we could have panic and desperation with Kate telling the cops where Maddie's body was (at least in her dream). If it had to be moved to prevent it being found, then it did. Again, one would need an element of luck but maybe he had it.

IF the McCanns were involved in the removal of Maddie's body from the flat, it had to go somewhere and unless they did have a huge opening of time to move the body to a fabulous location, moving it twice is not unheard of.

Anonymous said...

Hi Pat, If I was ever going to lie I would do if my family were at risk of harm if I told the truth.

You posted quote
"but if one is going to conclude that something is likely to have happened, that conclusion should be based on good evidence, not on things that "could be" or "seems like it could be."


yes it should be and most people know that don't they?
It hasn't always been the case has it?I have been reading about 2 other cases in the area over recent years where the evidence appears to have been lacking but that didn't change the outcome.In this case there is some evidence.
There doesn't need to be anyone or anything else at fault.
Who else may have had access to keys and the quality and provision of childcare,the environment as a whole is not relevant if the parents are found to be at fault.


Pat Brown said...

Patricia,

Yes, the politics in this case did indeed help catapult it to conspiracy category, but other cases without politics get vaulted to more sensational theories as well. Somehow the unknown is more fanciful than the known. For that matter, this is why cops often can't accept that the loser sitting across the interview table is some evil serial killer because he seems so normal. The UNKNOWN guy must be a super scary Hollywood psychopath.

I am not one of those people that thinks Monteiro couldn't have abducted and killed a child. I don't know what kind of guy he was. I know he commits crimes; he could be a sexual psychopath, too. What I don't see is evidence to connect him to the crime and the continuation of the police to seemingly toss all the evidence that DOES exist in the crime....this is where politics seems to come in, whether it be something bigger or just the politics of making one's department look good by "working on the case" and "following up new leads" blah blah blah....

Anonymous said...

Hi again, It's the media doing what they do as far as I'm concerned.I think that people who are most inclined to stereotype (either negative or positive) other people/groups of people are the most easily convinced.
Do the media study Hoffman's stories?

Anonymous said...

Pat,do you have a view on this? That the Ocean Club was hosting a swingers event during that week in 2007.
Regards and thanks for all your hard work.

Anonymous said...

Hi Pat.
I go along with all you say, and I think your point about the risk of walking towards the beach with a child on your shoulder and walking back without it is something important that has escaped others. But I agree with the three points of Anonymous 1, and would add one more, which comes of socialising with a number of English doctors who are hardened to surviving amongst the culture of litigious threats that potentially face them. They don’t scare easily, yet the Tapas group were obviously as scared as s**t. I believe the only reason (and I apologise for repeating a point posted before) must be that there was something about the body that could not be presented to a pathologist. Children have accidents, even doctors’, they get caught up and strangle themselves, they fall into fires, they fall off balconies – you know the scenarios, and no parent is going to lose their job or their reputation because of any of those things. I know from a personal admission that the McCanns are not the only doctors to leave their children alone in the evening on holiday.

In short, I would love to swallow the simple scenario, I could sleep better at nights,but these were not a simple group of people, and whether conspiracy or cock-up, whatever it is has sealed lips and relationships despite incredible pressure.

I wonder if it’s time to apply a bit of lateral thinking. I’ll suggest just one. My understanding is that not one bit of Maddie’s DNA for reference matching was found in the apartment (if that’s a myth, read no further) – I find that unbelievable if true, not one hair, not one slough of skin. It implies a standard of forensic cleaning that could only be achieved with a microscope – in practical terms impossible. Why?

Anonymous said...

Was what many consider justice (as they believe justice to mean) done in the cases of Rachel Charles and Joana Cipriano?
Anyone (and I stress anyone) could learn from and potentially misuse those cases couldn't they?

Anonymous said...

the McCanns do not believe they were negligent in leaving their children alone in the apartment. In fact, they have said on several occasions that going to Tapas bar was like eating in your 'back garden' (back yard) with children sleeping upstairs barely 50 yards away. All they wanted to do was reverse engineer a window of opportunity for a potential abductor. So no, I don't believe the McCanns want to direct people to believe they were culpable of the lesser crime of neglect rather than manslaughter - they would have you believe they were guilty of neither.

Martin B said...

What convinces me most that Madeleine died on the evening of the 3rd is the rogatory interview of J.R.Salcedas, waiter at the Tapas bar that night.

He said 'I ran out of the Tapas and noticed that some of the childcare works of the Mark Warner had begun to arrive. At the point I left the Tapas I heard a scream from a woman I did not know. I do not know who screamed, but I had never heard a similar cry. I cannot even describe it but thought it had come from the child's mother.'

This says to me that Madeleine was missing, the Tapas group were searching, people outside of the group were already aware, and then something tragic was found. Which, if it was what I think it was, left Gerry with two choices - face the police and everything that comes with it, or hastily get rid of the evidence.

Barbara Adler said...

You're Probably going to think I'm a whack job..but I have a weird feeling that the reason why they havnt found Maddy..is because she's back in England..(dead of course)..I know what you're thinking oh please u most be on drugs thinking that way..I think Gerry hid heron the beach and buried her in the sand..then later dogged her up..after the sand did its job to the body..u would be amazed what sand can do to a body..then place her in a suitcase..and back home he went...or if Gerry isn't wise to what sand can do to a body...then she might still be buried somewhere in Portugal..and one day a man walking his dog finds her..or a land developer comes along buys some land to build a home and they come across. her...this is just my opinion...

Anonymous said...

No Country can hide or change what the world knows about the it.The evidence,good,bad and indifferent is there for all to read.
There are some Countries which I'd never travel to.My safety,my legal rights,healthcare,respect of all people,a Country's Justice system,attitude to tourists are very important to me.I can see and understand why it is in some cases that tourists often call their home Country when things go wrong during overseas holidays.Just as I can understand how it could be that an innocent person may say "I'm stuffed now" if officials find drugs in their baggage while travelling overseas.They know that they have little to no chance of being able to prove their innocence.
Pat,anyone unknown should include all people regardless of their position or anything else or what side of the interview table they sit on.
I remember reading a comment in the media perhaps reported as being Murats? something along the lines of this won't change or be solved unless the UK gives money .
Conspiracy theories are easy where Governments,suss media and money are involved.Even more so when the world is hearing about International spying.

Anonymous said...

Perp: "Yes, we were busy dumping that body but it wasn't like murder or anything. Nooh it was just an accident."

Police: "We believe you, Occam, Because it is simple. By the way that is some fine razor that you're holding there sir."

Speaking of jumping to fantastical conclusions.

N3 said...

Why is that, nobody who believes Madeleine was abducted, and everybody who believes the jemmied window is a lie, never seem to consider that the abductor had a key to the front door and the abductor opened the window (from the inside) to hide that fact???????

Why is this never considered.

Lesley said...

Thanks for another enlightening post Pat.
I wonder if you can clarify a point...are you saying that Gerry, finding Maddy dead,may have removed the body and then returned to the Tapas table,allowing Kate to find Maddie and make the alert?
So Kate's reaction would have been(in the first instance at least)-an honest one? Then he confessed either to her or selected others or to the whole group...
I still, if I'm completely honest have a stumbling block with a staged abduction being shared with the group...even in panic,would Gerry McCann have trusted everyone? He is too canny,too self-preserving in my opinion.

Martin B said...

Oh, Pat, by the way, thought I would warn you - that esteemed forum member who is bullying others that I mentioned in my earlier post ... absolutely certain that he's posting here now, couple of posts up from this one if I'm right. I recognised the tone of the writing immediately :) And a big HI to Candyfloss if you're reading, you're doing a great job directing people here tonight, thank you for pointing people towards some simple common sense for a change!

Anonymous said...

Thanks pat. I was unaware of the km dream until now. Can you point me towards some more detail on this. Again though I would q why km would disclose this if it was going to compromise her or gm?

Anonymous said...

An accident doesn't have to be the simplest explanation for a hypothetical death. I don't have any hard theory of what happened, but there are some disturbing quotes from both parents.


Kate McCann:
"I know that what happened is not due to the fact of us leaving the children asleep. I know it happened under other circumstances." (Daily Mail, 17.9.07).

Gerry McCann:
"So. An' if she died when we were in the apartment or fell injured, why would we... why would we cover that up?" (Seven on Sunday, 2011).

I think that automatically presuming an accident when considering possible removal of the dead body is a mistake.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous at 5.20 .. I seem to recall a former investigator/ forensic expert making a very similar point about lack of any hair/ DNA etc.. And that evidence of a clean up is also significant.

It seems that there is plenty of evidence to put the Mccanns as top suspects but not enough to charge them and secure a conviction in court.

I admire you Pat and also Goncalo Amaral and others who have been prepared to challenge the Mccanns version of events put forward logical theories, in the face of attack from the mcann's and their supporters . It has lead me to go back and review the Police files , mcann interviews first hand and realise what tripe we have been fed via the uk media and that the powers that be here do not seem to want justice to be done.

Unless th Pj or SY have something up their sleeve, Madeleine's body is found or one of the tapas 7 breaks ranks (all unlikely) it seems that the perpetrators will be getting away with it.

If there is no new evidence , what can be done? Nothing it seems. Do we just have to accept that a 'good enough ' crime was committed and let them get on with it?
It is very frustrating to watch not least because of the aggressive way in which the mcann's have dealt with anyone who dares to put forward a view different to theirs , continue to shamelessly collect money for their Fund and refuse to acknowledge their neglectful behaviour which allowed this to happen in the first place.
The mcanns claimed that Every penny of the fund would be used for the search. Notwithstanding the likelihood that the Mccanns knew that Madeleine is not alive and there was no abductor to be found,the continual use of this fund on libel case fees for me is enough evidence of fraudulent and misleading use of the fund. I hope they will not be allowed to continue to get away with that.

Anonymous said...

Hi Pat,

I am really enjoying your blogs and your comments on the case.

I have always up to this point thought that Madeleine died on the 2nd, but after reading your recent blogs have changed my mind, and I agree that it is far more likely that she died some time on the 3rd.

In regards to the neglect theory, I don't know what to think. I agree with Hobnob that Gerry has slipped up at times in his interviews, and many a truth is told in a lie. I find it very hard to believe that Russell O'Brien and Jane Tanner left a 12 month old baby alone, and that Matthew Oldfield and Rachael Mampilly also left their baby alone. Both of these children were unwell.

Why did Diane Webster go on that holiday? I always thought she was an odd fit? Did she help out with babysitting?

In regards to one member of the group being sick and unable to attend the restaurant every evening, why didn't 2 people ever get sick at the same time? Of course it is possible that the McCann's left their kids alone, whilst the others were being minded. Not likely though. Mrs Fenn heard Madeleine crying on the 1st May, when it was suggested that the group may have been at Chaplin's. Was Kate actually with Maddie for part of that evening? Were their statements by the Tapas staff that confirmed that the group went off to check on their kids on other nights, apart from the 3rd?

What about the flurry of phone calls that were made on the 2nd, and also Gerry's deleted text messages? If Madeleine did die on the 3rd, why did Kate and Gerry delete their phone calls and texts for that day? The day after Mrs Fenn heard who she thought was Madeleine, crying?

Tania Cadogan said...

the link to the when we found her comment (i apologise for the quality, it was a spanish interview hence the voiceover. http://gerrymccan-abuseofpower-humanrights.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/dr-gerry-mccann-it-wasnt-as-bad-as.html

Source: Las Mañanas de Cuatro interview with McCanns (Tuesday video with English transcript)

With statement analysis we don't decide truth or deception based on one sample unless it is so blatant it cannot be ignored ( casey anthony and her dead squirrels climbed into the engine as an example.) we may decide something is off and look for further statements for comparison, the more they speak the more they leak. With the mccanns it's not a case of one off statement, there are multiple statements all varying is degress of truth and deception, where the story changes, in some cases doing a full 180 (shutters jemmied windows opened door hanging off to his family in his initial calls to oh he must have come in the door as there is no sign of a break in.) I don't know when Maddie died or exactly how and where. What is known is that she was dead long enough for cadaverine to taint where she lay and subsequent places and items she came in contact with. What needs to be done is have each member of the group write a day by day account of what they did on such and such a day and then compare them to the rest of the statements and also to their initial rogs. descrepensices will be noted and queried, when there is a clear change from the initial story, further questioning must be done. There is a lot of sensitivity around may 2nd and a need for them to change when events happened from one day to a different day which begs the question why? For such a traumatic event the parents should remember everything with stark clarity up to the moment they found her, when my brother was run over as a toddler, up till the day my mom died, she could tell you exactly what she did the previous night and during the day right up to the moment it happened. traumatic events sear themselves across the brain. Why was there a need to fudge details, why when kate talked about the crying incident ( whenever it occurred) did she do a shaking movement with her hands on an imaginary Maddie whilst saying she should have asked more questions. If i can find the video i'll put it up, here though is kate telling us they weren't the ones bathing the children or putting them to bed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqQ1-rUuTxM

Anonymous said...

no reason for someone to take the body of a deceased child while his/her parents were waiting for advice and support from their home Country
nor for anyone to go back and stage things without the parents knowing so that the evidence and focus was on the parents?
No reason for anyone to be really scared by the authorities in certain places nor by even bigger potential risks?

Anonymous said...

Hobnob,
If as claimed they took her . 'they' whoever they may be have made her cry

Anonymous said...

We all talk about the Smith's family spotting a guy 60/80% like GM with a bumbling child in his arms! I really dont doubt about this sighting and that the guy happens be GM! But... can anyone say that the child he was carrying on was MM? I have my BIG doubts! Dont you think carrying a dead body was to risky for him? Dont forget he was a stranger in a strange land...he had no suficient knowledge of the ground he was walking on to hide a dead body...not only a couple of hours after the "event"!!! But...you may ask...if not MM then who? ELLA...Tanner's daughter, about the same age and appearance of MM....sedated! Gol of the mission? To be seen...but not recognized, so WE HAVE an abductor! Definitely...MM died 1st or 2nd May..not 3rd! No time to set up all the scenery, the story with the others and dispose the body in a temporary and safe place! NO WAY you could had done all that in 2/3 hours! As impossible as an abductor leaving the bedroom through that window with a child in his arms!

Anonymous said...

Pat

How easy or otherwise would it have been for the smith sighting to involve the carrying of a dead body. Common perception is that carrying a dead body even small like Madeleine would look cumbersome or that whoever was holding the child would be struggling. Thoughts please?

Anonymous said...

Pat

How easy or otherwise would it have been for the smith sighting to involve the carrying of a dead body. Common perception is that carrying a dead body even small like Madeleine would look cumbersome or that whoever was holding the child would be struggling. Thoughts please?

Tania Cadogan said...

Kate cried they've taken her. If the children were in the apartment as claimed, which her was she referring to?

Anonymous said...

I find it interesting that the McCanns chose to mention to others that they were leaving the children unattended. To Brigitte O'Donnell (the previous night if memory serves) and to one of the T7 on the night of the presumed disappearance itself. Coincidence or evidence of scene setting? If the latter, it suggests an earlier time of demise.

Anonymous said...

with this
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/STEPHEN-CARPENTER.htm

and

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356762/Millionaire-child-abuser-girlfriend-accused-trying-extort-2-5m-missing-Madeleine-McCanns-parents-arrested-Portugal-hideout.html



I know where and how I'd place my my money if I was the gambling sort.


TM Hondo1650 said...

Hi Pat

Thank you for your insight and experience in dealing with believe is many cases with varied degrees of complexity. This case unique in some sense as I have mentioned myself, before May 2007 very few knew who the McCann's were or about the most important part of this the true fate of a then 3 year old little girl little Madeleine McCann.

Since the McCann's were arrested and what has followed to date. Those like myself that have followed it from the beginning have analysed all the media files, PJ transcripts as we as discussions going over and over what we know to date.

We are tending to be repeating ourselves trying to make sense of it all. Abduction or no abduction. We all have our pet theories and some may be not far away from the truth and some will be way off the mark, but when the McCann's and their media circus allowed the public in it has opened a Pandora's box.

We now have SY and the Portuguese Police again working on the case. We all hope for Madeleine's sake that a successful outcome is found and whether she is alive or dead the guilty are brought to justice.

With the amount of money being spent surely that would be hopefully the case. If these days tax payers money seems to get frittered away in gay abandon even though we are supposed be still in austerity times.

At the moment we are trying to make sense of what has come out so far. Are these real suspects or again are the police making sure they aren't accused again of not investigating thoroughly. But l would hope as like many the police are looking at all the timelines of Madeleine's and everyone who was around her from when they all came off the plane to start their holiday until that night.

The next few days or weeks should be interesting. Justice may come, but as you have said yourself the guilty are not always caught.

We hope Goncalo Amaral wins his Libel case as he didn't deserve this.

I keep looking into your blog Pat and as many have said you allow opinions of what we are thinking as long as they are not malicious or cruel as we see on many forums and the vile stuff put on twitter. I thank you.

Barry Bucket said...

Again, thank you Pat.
Humans being what they are, it is easy to see how the friends would say nothing at the start, not realising what a circus it would become. It would be a brave person to speak out later and say 'Look, this is what really happened. It was an accident'.
As you say, simple is usually correct..and the simple in this case should be blindingly obvious to a decent cop.
As it was to Amaral.

Anonymous said...

Pat, I do appreciate your thoughts but your theory overlooks so much. The immediate involvement of ambassadors, crisis groups and the like. The fact that the Maddie posters may well have been brought from England. The story being in UK press before midnight (Telegraph). The fact that KM said "f****** b*******" had taken Maddie, as if she knew who was involved. And so much more that suggests a set up.
The sofa was in the middle of the room I thought but was pushed back over stains etc?

Thomas Baden-Riess said...

Thanks Pat :)

Anonymous at 6.56 pm: I think Kate told the Portuguese about her dream when she was alone in the country and Gerry for some reason was back in the UK (if my memory serves).

Many people have interpreted this incident as a veiled confession, or Freudian confession. Kate, without Gerry on hand to guide or counsel her had a 'wobbler' and tried to spill the beans a bit.

Diane said...

Dear Pat, I really appreciate this platform of intelligent debate...

I would really appreciate your thoughts on one of the pictures of the 'crime scene' - I think Madeleine's bed was 'staged' to appear that she had slept in it... the would indicate that the "accident" happened before 'bedtime' and before they went to the Tapas - could you share your thoughts on this please:- http://www.mccannfiles.com/id141.html

Anonymous said...

thank you pat I have watched a video clip on u tube of Gerry mc cann being asked on austrilan tv did you kill your daughter there answers so cold the way the talk about madeline so cold no emotion at all the are guilty as hell it makes me so angry shame on met and david Cameron its a child we talk about for god sake

Anonymous said...

this is all good but u r missing a few facts 1-dogs picked out maddies day clothes, says to me she died in them and was changed 2-kates clothes was picked out by the dogs,tells me she held her dead daughter 3- gerrys clothes was not picked out tells me he was not carrying a dead body. I have my own views of how all this happened and I go of the facts I have. also if u read the files maddie did not cry the night before like the mccanns tell us the witness says it was the night of the 1st so id ask why r the mccanns making a deal of this crying are they trying to prove she was alive on the 2nd (to cry) and 3ed may. (to make her comment)now I here u all the crèche records all the staff describe events of the 3ed but if u look at there wkly planner it was the 2ed they did these things. also the signatures don't match if u need to see this it all in the files

Anonymous said...

Good summary Pat. When in doubt use Occam's Razor. Also called law of parsimony. Many people feel McCann's story lacks the ring of truth. Whereas in 2007 many believed them and suffered with them, that is certainly no longer the case and this last incredulous announcement that the abductor is conveniently dead has put an element of doubt in many more minds. But what really concerns me is the amount of celeb, media and high profile support the McCann's have. Puts me in mind of Jimmy Savile and media complicity. Why?

Anonymous said...

Anon at 1031. Good point re gm clothes not being found by the dogs. What is your theory please?

Anonymous said...

Anon at 1031. Good point re gm clothes not being found by the dogs. What is your theory please?

Anonymous said...

People forget that just because GM is a narcissist / sociopath that doesn't mean he isn't extremely intelligent and one step ahead of detection all by himself with no assistance from anyone. UK Medical School is incredibly demanding for anyone wishing to be employed beyond GP / menial levels it requires great A Level Results, at least 5 years of hard study and practical with a super high result in order to progress to surgery, all involving people skills, team work, and 'bedside manner'. It is highly probable that not only GM *thinks* he is intellectually superior to investigators and accusers but that he genuinely IS. That left him far more than one step ahead when he found the dead body of his daughter and no-one else was aware there could be a problem. Everyone else is following on his coat tails of lies, contrivances, avoidances, and game of chess. He has the absolute advantage. He also has an utterly compliant (and seemingly very lost) wife who will always do what he says. Plus also, it seems, plenty of supporters for whatever reason. It may be that we never see resolution of this case and never see justice for Madeleine. They will have to live with their own consciences and mainly, the fear of their twins reading all that is written here combined with really knowing plenty of people around them know they are as guilty as hell too. It may be innocence of sorts but that is a life sentence in its own right.

Anonymous said...


To Anonymous at 5.02

I agree with you that we may never see justice for Madeleine and that Kate & Gerry McCann have given themselves life sentences of sorts. But do they have to continue to make money from it?

McAnalytical said...

Thank you Pat for the simple hypothesis about what likely happened. I agree with you completely. As a probation officer with more than 30 years experience of working with offenders, your analysis is based on evidence and just makes the most sense. The only issue I continue to struggle with is the length of time the McCanns have managed to hold the story together especially if some or all of their friends were in the know. This is quite a considerable achievement. Usually, as time goes by, someone breaks or information leaks out. The more people involved, the harder to control the leakage. I think that there may be a life event trigger which will act as a catalyst for the story to come out at last. It could simply be the additional pressure brought about as the twins grow up and start to ask more questions, (Kate has said that the reason for bringing the libel action is because the twins are starting to read the internet blogs) or if one of the family develop a serious illness, or Gerry has an affair....transitions, changes, life stages, all bring their pressures and may lead to the truth finally being revealed. It really must be like a living hell for the McCanns trying to keep up the story every minute of every day although by now they probably believe it themselves anyway.

Always look forward to your insights Pat.

Anonymous said...

Hello Pat
Regarding this comment you made in reply to someone else

quote Pat Brown:You would be surprised at how often surveillance is not done and not 24/7 especially if no one is thinking about someone moving a body.


It frustrates me a little that you didn't mention what you would surely know full well.That being that no matter where one is, it isn't always the people who are those thought to be the 'baddies' who may be best served that even where there may be 24/7 surveillance it isn't on or working when it's actually needed to assist a victim of crime.

Also If it was a swingers type weekend as some suggest,some of that kind of footage could be quite powerful (damning) too.

If the child was actually abducted by some organised crime ring the abductors seem to have been aided by how things looked, how they were handled early on and the total confusion and conflicting statements.

The only time I may be very tempted to physically grab a child is if I know or can see that she/he has been very abused......
I wouldn't want money to hand them back.I'd take them to the appropriate authorities as their safety would be the only thing I care about...not money,politics,my own safety or anything else.We aren't all like that...

Anonymous said...

there is so much on the internet and
IT companies involved too isn't there? What is involved with putting images with a persons name which come up in a search result as images for that person?
The name of the wealthy alleged extortionist comes up with an image of a young girl laying on a bed with a swollen,black and blue face.All very suggestive and inclined to lead to assumptions.
If someone had done that to their child they perhaps wouldn't want that to be public knowledge.

Pat, could the evidence have been placed?
The dogs wouldn't know who's body they find nor if the body is human or a pig (I believe that it is only those who the cadaver dogs pick up?).

Anonymous said...

ps. That should read if any person or even their offspring had done something like that to any child they might not want that known.

John said...


To N3

"... the abductor had a key to the front door and the abductor opened the window (from the inside) to hide that fact
"Why is this never considered?"

That's a real possibility, N3. I guess that the police had thought the same but apparently not Mr Amaral nor people who believe in his thesis. By the way, there was another advantage for an abductor in doing this: to let people thinking that Madeleine had left on her own through this window and save a lot time that way.

Some other questions remain unanswered too : knowing that the smell of cadaverine can be easily transferred from one hand to an object, why the cadaver dog, Eddie did only react on clothes that were on top of this box?
Why did he react only on the key car of the Scenic, while we know that this car hasn't be driven to this garage by Gerry McCann? Why did he not react in the boot of this car if, as some people believe, the body of this little girl had stayed in it?

There are more questions that point in the same direction. I'm pretty sure that the PJ of Porto and the MET have noticed these details too.

Anonymous said...

This article written in September 2009 seems even more relative in light of the recent C.Watch - Smith sighting, Oldfield's check of children, K & G hiding efits, and much more.

http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2009/09/crying-shame.html

Anonymous said...

Hi Pat!
I watched the Oprah Winfrey interview again.The part where Kate McCann is telling how she found madeleine gone,she also insists that she didn't say They've taken her"!Watching this clip again I am convinced that is how it,partly,unfolded.
When talking,Kate McCann seems like she is back there,see also how she reaches for Gerry's hand.
She wasn't acting that Dispare.
I'm also stumped when it comes to Russell o' Brien.The,Geographical at least,"connection" with Exeter and Robert Murat!Help me!Thank you!!Courtney

Anonymous said...

The evening of the 3rd May waa the first time that all of the Tapas 9 had all eaten together and also as confirmed by Diane Webster, it was the first night


that others had checked on the
McCann's kids. How do you account
for that Pat? I believe that evening and the checks were staged and that

Anonymous said...

Madeleine died on the 2nd.

Anonymous said...

Pat,do you suppose Mrs Webster was along to keep a eye on David Payne?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 8:44 AM

for explanation of 'checking children' read 'Just Checking' series on

l-azzeri-lies-in-the-sun.com

Lesley said...

Pat,
As I've only recently read your blog and come to appreciate your experience...I feel that I need to read'A profile of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann'before I can continue to comment.
About to download book.
Your site is refreshing, in that it appears to allow all theories,even the most bizarre to sit along your own view? This I feel is a huge credit to you, I'm sure I'd be saying' Hey,have you read what I've written?'
Anyway.just speaking for myself...I feel my comments to be only legitimate when I've read the whole copy of your profile.
Lesley

Anonymous said...

were blood spots high up on a wall? how would that happen in an accident where a child fell and hit their head?

Anonymous said...

@ anonymous 5:08 pm

Blood Spatter

Anonymous said...

Hobnob, children could be any child not necessarily the children belonging to the tapas group couldn't they?though GM does sometimes say things like Madeleine and 'the children' as though she is separate to 'the children'.
Did the man who cut his holiday early and left with 3 of his children (his male children) on the 4th make a statement?

Anonymous said...

To N3...2

Nice theory of yours of the guy having a key of the front door...Just one question...where did he get that key from?....

Anonymous said...

Anon 6.18PM

It is the same as what Pat indicates here.

Quote from Pat Brown:What is most interesting is that Gerry does give a statement that he used his key to come in the front door to check.


N3, is noting that more than 1 key could quite likely exist.

John said...

As far as I can remember (but I'm not 100% sure), it's somewhere in the file : there are at least two other keys of this door. One at the main reception and the other one in a locker for the maintenance staff.

Anonymous said...

Further to my previous comment abt Gerry being extremely intelligent, I should also like to bring another point. I have personally witnessed the psychic and mental breakdown of my mother through the intolerable control and abuse perpetrated upon her by my father. Now all the doctors said that my mother's psychotic schizophrenic breakdown was due to childhood predisposition. The psychiatrists all said the things she was saying were utterly delusional and not based in fact. However, I saw my father - a man not unlike Gerry who is intelligent and military trained - psychologically destroy my mother. I know the things he did to her and how he forced her to put on a front like some kind of stepford wife. All the doctors said these things of abuse he did to her and denied weren't true. There is only one problem with all that. 30 years later when my dad was in hospital dying he confessed those things to my brother (and more). When I was a kid, I saw my mother's mind break down, shatter, fracture, a psychic destruction beyond all comprehension. Yes she genuinely suffered schizophrenia and paranoid psychosis. However, I see Kate clinging onto her own sanity by the skin of her teeth. I see a woman who KNOWS what she is saying isn't true but daren't even admit to herself it isn't. She is intuitively supporting Gerry as well as directly following instruction. She will breakdown. It is not possible that she can continue without a breakdown. Then what? If she goes in a psychiatric unit ranting and raving about the disposal of her dead chid's body will they say it's a delusion? Will they be forced to report her to the police? Will Gerry murder her? Will he administer antipsychotic medication prior? Is he already? Is she voluntarily taking antipsychotics? Or will she get found mysteriously with her 'wrists slashed' in the garden like poor David Kelly (reference weapons mass destruction Iraq)? The human mind unless extremely and naturally pathalogically criminal cannot bear the loss of a child in these circs as Kate is in. Dostoyevsky wrote it well enough. Kate either needs to fess up or she's dead meat. She may wish to consider that choice. Someone may wish to point out to her she's the next one to go missing if she doesn't tell the truth and get protection from her husband and anyone of influence involved.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous at 7.18
What a powerful and incisive post. I completely agree. I've witnessed similar things in my long lifetime.
The mind is more fragile than we suppose. Insanity is frighteningly close to people in Kate McCann's situation.
She needs to break free, confess what really happened and start the long process of healing her mind. It may never be healed completely - it can't be after what has gone on for far too long. I frankly dislike the woman but, if she reads here, I would urge her to come clean. That way she will start to have some peace back in her life and won't end up sectioned. I might even respect her.

Anonymous said...

anonymous 7.18
I know how that works and how that can make a person appear to those who don't know what goes on behind the scene.My Father was similar in his treatment of my Mother.He was only one man though not more than than 1 person or even a whole group of people.He had the power to scare and silence my Mother.It was safer for her and her children to remain silent which often made her behavior seem crazy to others at times than tell all.
In this big often frightening world there would have been things and people who could have made my controlling Father scared,submissive and silent to.

Anonymous said...

A lot of people who don't know different think mental breakdown only happens to people who are mental. Well firstly that isn't logical and secondly regardless of logic it isn't true. Put simply, people who breakdown are those who are at odds with reality for whatever reasons. Being at odds with reality can never sustain in the long term. Of course when Kate is inevitably found dead they will say suicide or that she was murdered by a random person who targetted her because of Madeleine (cue the blame allocated to a local vulnerable person). Hey, they may even read this and say it was me. It wasn't. If I was to put money on it I should say Kate will be found dead within the next 12 - 24 months.

Anonymous said...

anon 9.57
what is your view on the George Wright?He did manage long term didn't he.

Unknown said...

Pat Brown, let me just say you are brilliant and analyse the case in such a fair manner!!! :) Even though, I tend to believe that Madeleine was taken by somebody, you approach the case in such an objective manner that I cannot disagree with your views as well!!! Instead of incriminating the McCanns and stating that accidental death is the only theory, you acknowledge the possibility that Madeleine was taken, and simply state that evidence thus far suggests that the McCanns are involved. I respect you for your amazing analysis on this mysterious case. Thank you so much. All I hope is that the truth comes out, so there's justice for Madeleine

mrcibubur said...

There are certain inescapible facts which Pat Brown touches upon in her admirable Blog.

1. Evening of 3rd May 2007 was supposedly the only evening on which the Tapas nine sat down for supper at one time in the Tapas Bar Restaurant

2. Cadaver implies dead blood and the dead blood of Madeleine was supposedly found by the Dogs behind the sofa in Apartment 5a, suggesting that Madeleine McCann is dead rather than still alive

3. In direct conflict with point 2, there is also the suggestion that Apartment 5a may have been cleaned of any evidence of her blood which could implicate the parents of Madeleine McCann in a crime connected to her death

4. A man was seen carrying a child around 10pm a distance away from Apartment 5a on the evening of 3rd May. That man was thought to be Gerry McCann and the child is now thought to be Madeleine McCann, dead or alive

5. It is quite conceivable that the man carrying a child seen at 10pm was not Gerry McCann or indeed his own child Madeleine or rather the child in some kind of decoy of one of the other Tapas group members who resembled Madeleine

6. It cannot be dismissed that something did happen to Madeleine McCann the day before on 2nd May which prompted the strange behaviour on 3rd May of many if not all the Tapas 9 group members

7. The inference that there must be a compelling reason behind Madeleines death adds substance to why the McCanns chose not to subject to their child to be reported dead and have an autopsy

8. It is also quite conceivable that someone could have entered the apartment 5a with one of the other available keys but it does not explain how the patio doors were apparently unlocked

9. The discrepancy in time when David Payne approached from the patio doors and spoke with Kate McCann remains one of the biggest question marks to be properly answered

Anonymous said...

pat reading your blog gives me much hope was reading Gerry mc cann blog for july 2007 all about the fund and kate and I not much mention poor madeline at all he talking about get early nights its great for him he can sleep so soon after his daughter suppose to have been taken the both make me sick to the core

Anonymous said...

I hope that behind the scenes
justice is being done for many children.

Unknown said...

Can ANYBODY give me any hope that this case will not go the same way as the 'Sabrina Aisenberg' case; the similarities are quite spooky, the thought of the McCann's still being free 13 years after the event, truly is too much to bare.

Anonymous said...

Hi,can anyone help!Gerry McCann said in his uk police statements,mccannfiles,that he used the front enterance,also see clip, Madeliene was here,when he checked on the children,but he also says he usede the slide door when being interviewed.Also that documentary was described by Clarence Mitchel as a Recontrouction,but it wasn't.Kate McCann refused to return to PDL.Thanks,Charlotte

Anonymous said...

Does anyone agree that Jeremy Wilkins perhaps came by when Gerry McCann was in the process of taking Madeleine,to hide her,that would account for the dogs scenting cadaver,blood,in the garden,Gerry McCann maybe placed Madeliene ther 'till Jeremy Wilkins went??The timing would match to Gerry McCann being seen by the Irish family??

Anonymous said...

I think you're right Pat, the simplest scenario (May 3rd) is by far the most probable. This isn't to say that there aren't other complications surrounding the McCanns and their circle of friends. I think there are.

What continues to shock me about the events of the last 6 years is the unremitting willingness of the McCanns to exploit Madeleine. From day 1 of her 'disappearance' the McCanns have sought to mobilise a slick machine of exploitation. There has never been even the briefest pause for remorse; no hollow eyes, no screaming appeal, just exploitation.

Rather than cosset a precious image of their first child, they chose to hang her out to dry on T Shirts and banners. Private family videos were drip fed into the media with cynical timing. There is no sanctity. They have prostitued their daughter for financial gain and for their own legal evasions.

That they can do this after her loss makes me wonder how she was treated when alive. I think that people are right to highlight the many behavioural and 'forensic' discrepancies surrounding the McCanns (prior to May 3rd), not because these discrepancies establish a better theory for Madeleine's disappearance. They don't. However they do raise questions about the type of life afforded to Madeleine by her parents.

The smug ease with which the McCanns moved from the panic of May 3rd to the media savvy professionalism of photo calls and T shirts speaks of a couple who were already dissociated from the suffering of their own child.

Anonymous said...

A closely argued theory here...

http://unterdenteppichgekehrt.blogspot.co.uk/p/theory-english.html?spref=tw

... in english - well translated from a german site.

It does seem to account for many anomalies that "simpler" narratives tend to ignore.

Lesley said...

Whenever Madeleine died I do believe she was drugged by her parents,either by drugs they had with them or drugs given to them by for example,the Paynes or others.
I also think,that night the twins were drugged too...given Kate's continual checking of them,watching/feeling their chests rise etc.
The Calpol theory doesn't work for me...Calpol isn't a sedative as such. I believe they were given something like a kid's Pre-Med...something such as Midazolam?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1643676

This is routinely given to kid's to relax them before a general anesthetic and makes them slightly sleepy and compliant.Both Fiona Payne being an Anesthetist and Kate(a former Anesthetist) would have access to this and know how to use it. It's given in a sweet drink to young kids...?
There are side effects,dizziness,head coordination,nausea?
In my opinion,the group may have thought,as Doctors and given the McCanns narcissism that they could administer this accurately and to secure their own 'kids-free' time.
I think something of this nature backfired...and this is at the core of the decisions and actions that followed in removing Maddie and hiding her corpse.
The link I attach is only a small example of a sedative used..there are striking examples of pre- meds going wrong in young kids all over the net.

Anonymous said...

This in the Portuguese news 2003

'Amnesty attacks Portuguese police brutality'.

much more info is on the net.Re the tapas group not going back or anyone else for that matter..the thought of having any contact with Police even as a witness to a crime scares the sh*t out of me!!!



Anonymous said...

a sedative given to the other two would have calmed them if they were upset.It would have also prevented them from saying what happened and who was involved.Perhaps revealing who 'they' were as they might otherwise if they were awake that night and aware that people were looking for Maddie.
I can't help feel that some people with some sort of influence,money,authority or power (officially or not,spoken or unspoken) over others may be involved and not only as assumed 'after' the event.
Learning what wasn't done for Maddie in the early hours and days has me pulling my hair out

guerra said...

When the facts are difficult to refute you attack the credibility of the police, that is the universal tactic adopted in the defence of criminals. I don't believe there is a police force anywhere in the world that has not had to deal with cases of brutality committed by their own.

http://police-brutality-uk.co.uk/tag/metropolitan-police

The reality is if the McCanns had been Portuguese they would have been arrested for child neglect. And in fact there are Portuguese citizens who have helped and continue to help the McCann couple in their endevours, which have nothing to do with finding their daughter. If it was the other way around and it had been a Portuguese couple vacationing in England who had reported their child missing under the same circumstances, they would be doing time for more than just child neglect.

You want to read a bit of comedy go to the case files online and look at the excuses the McCann's Tapas friends gave for not doing a reconstruction and what Mr. Rebelo had to go through to try and convince them to come to Portugal.

Anonymous said...

Guerra,The world was and is aware (if they care to be informed) what is and isn't necessarily needed to convict in Portugal.They may have even known at the time how things were and had been in the past.


In this case (involving English Tourists) blood spots were added.

..and then if that wasn't enough at a later date there is the cadaver scent added (which could be any body,at any time,human or pig cadaver scent).
If it was a local that much may not have been needed.I know that.They all (including the Police) would have known that.

What is the actual time the GNR were contacted?That depends who you believe.
If they weren't contacted until 11.50pm as earlier GNR reports to the public.When did they arrive?Were there any GNR officers there before the report was alleged to have been officially received?

Why does it seem as though finding the child and maintaining evidence from the beginning wasn't the main object.Why wasn't border patrol notified as soon as possible,the garbage collection cancelled(collected around midnight? ) until it could all be inspected closely?
Failing to help the child and gathering the facts from the very beginning is what I expect police to do.


guerra said...

Another anonymous doing his job to misinform. Is the money worth it, can you people live with yourselves afterwards?

Anonymous said...

that little girl (along with many other children) has been let down.
I don't get paid for my comments.I wish I didn't feel the need to make them.

guerra said...

Of course the Portuguese police sprinkle blood in the McCann apartment and vehicle drag a dead pig through their apartment and vehicle and then send samples of these fluids to England despite having their own capable lab in Coimbra. Samples which initially the FSS laboratory were certain were Madeleine's.

You should be ashamed of yourself!

Anonymous said...

Guerra, Anyone could have done it.That is not impossible and there certainly looks to be various motives for different people,groups of people to do so.
If a death set up as a hoax abduction.It is possible for an abduction (or anything else) to be set up as a hoax death isn't it?
an abduction
and later death is too isn't it?


I've read about the child Joana.I'm appalled about the lack of evidence and the fact that some
unknown man left his mark on her underwear.That he was and is allowed to remain unknown.He could be still out there...unpunished.

guerra said...

Joana caught her mother having an incestuous relationship with her uncle. In a videotaped confession that was presented to the court, the girl’s uncle Mr. Joao Cipriano said that he and his sister Leanor Cipriano struck the child causing her to bang her head against a wall and land on the floor unconscious. Mr. Joao Cipriano said that he tried to call an ambulance but that his sister prevented him from doing so; he claimed that she told him instead to inform Joana's stepfather that she had disappeared. He also said that he had dismembered the girl and placed her body parts in a refrigerator.

Joana’s stepfather testified that Leanor Cipriano, the mother of the girl, had a conversation with him at judicial police headquarters in which she confided to him that she had a sexual relationship with her brother and admitted that she and her brother had killed Joana.

The mother took two days to report to the police that the child was missing. In those two days she washed her house with petrol. Joana’s blood was found in the freezer, which the mother claimed came from a nose bleed the child suffered after she had given her a beating.

The family of Miss Leanor Cipriano does not want to have anything to do with her.

Unknown said...

Hey Pat, I was wondering if I could just ask you for your opinion on something. While I was sifting through the case files, I saw that there was polish couple that the Portuguese police had traced, and i became really suspicious of them based on the following things:
1. A witness stated that the man was taking photos of children on the beach in a disguised fashion.
2. That same witness said that the same man had come very close to his daughter in a pastry shop the same day, in a way that the witness was so shaken that he thought it was an attempted abduction(and the girl shared similar traits to madeleine)
3. The witness said that the man had gone off in a grey renault clio car with a female accomplice in the front seat.
4. The car was GREY and its(partial) number plate was then traced to a polish couple; Wojciech Krokowsi and cant remember the woman's name
5. A witness (who lived in an apartment very close to the McCanns' apartment, stated that at 9:58 she saw a small GREY car next to the McCanns' apartment window (where madeleine was).
6. They then fled Portugal on 5 May 2007 (I think)

Do you think these things may have anything to do with madeleine's disappearance, or do you have any more knowledge that may be important?
btw these are the links to the statements:
witness statement about the suspicious couple: http://themaddiecasefiles.com/post5191.html#p5191

The car that they were driving: http://themaddiecasefiles.com/post560.html#p560

Grey car seen outside the window where madeleine was at 9:58: http://themaddiecasefiles.com/post170.html#p170

I find it ridiculous that this polish couple were ruled out of the investigation based on the fact that Madeleine was not found at their home in Poland (or any material possibly related to madeleine. They should of at least been asked to explain the suspicious behaviour mentioned above

Pat Brown said...

Melina,

The first problem here is that these people WERE investigated and nothing was found but, on the other hand, the McCanns were investigated and something WAS found. Yet, why is it that many want to ignore the findings on the McCanns and focus on some person's interpretation of supposedly suspicious behavior?

Now to this couple...what was suspicious, really? Praia da Luz is a very small town. If you are a tourist there, it is very likely people will come in contact with you more than once. Let's look at these witness statements.

1. A witness stated that the man was taking photos of children on the beach in a disguised fashion.

Really? How is that? Maybe the guy is just a photographer. I took a picture of a little girl feeding a duck the other day. Am I a kidnapper? People are so paranoid now they think anyone who snaps a pic of a kid is a pedophile. Some think no child so have their picture taken without the agreement of the parents,well, okay that is polite. But,tell that to all the National Geographic photographers.

2. That same witness said that the same man had come very close to his daughter in a pastry shop the same day, in a way that the witness was so shaken that he thought it was an attempted abduction(and the girl shared similar traits to madeleine)

Hahaha! Really, again? Someone is seriously paranoid. It is a pastry shop and I am going to guess it is daytime because the place is open. The same man came close....do you know how small the pastry shop is? I am trying to remember which one it could be but pretty much all businesses in PDL are small places. So the man came up to the pastry counter and GOT NEAR A KID! OMG! CALL THE POLICE!

Oh, and she looked like Madeleine. What? She was a small blonde girl like most of the kids visiting PDL from Britain, Sweden, and Germany?

::sigh:: This is why many witnesses and tipsters are such a waste of time. All I see here is someone, after the disappearance of Maddie, seeing creeps where there are no creeps. That the PJ followed up this "lead" shows that they did investigate the abduction theory and that they found nothing with this lead is not surprising.

Anonymous said...

If gm was smiths sighting were did he take her? It had to be somewhere close for him not to be missed,this is the ONLY thing that doesnt seem to fit the scenario

Unknown said...

thank you pat!! Every thing you said is very true. and I too am puzzled how the McCanns have been forgotten as suspects. I just hate to pin on them a crime that they still may have not committed, especially considering the pain they would be suffering (especially if not guilty). The things above just really brought out my suspicions. I really hope the Portuguese police followed up the lead properly. And I hope one day the truth comes out (whatever that is), because Madeleine certainly didn't deserve whatever happened to her. A part of me just doesn't want to believe that the parents were involved, but I am very confused as to how the McCanns would have covered up Madeleine's death in such a short time frame, when witnesses at the tapas bar stated that nothing seemed strange with them on that night whilst they were having dinner? How did they maintain composure in front of these witnesses? How did they dispose of her body so quickly and so well that it wasn't discovered in the following days? Wouldn't the time frame had been between 9 and 10? even smaller if Jeremy's conversation with Gerry had taken place. Impossible for Gerry to have acted normally if he had just found Madeleine dead? Just such a mysterious, confusing case. And an abduction also seems so difficult due to the small time frame, but certainly just as if not more plausible. And thank you for your brilliant coverage of the case, your opinion is always very well supported with thought out explanation :)

Anonymous said...

Letter to all pedophiles,kidnappers,abductors,people who create and get a kick out of child porn.
If I see anyone taking photos children in a way which looks suspicious.I will inform the police about it.I know such people exist and I will not sit by and be called paranoid for being aware.Depending where you are you can't even take photos of your own children performing in school plays.
What comes of my report is not up to me.I could not sleep at night knowing that information I had could potentially help protect a child.

Anonymous said...

Pat,You are one of many people who make me more aware that those things and those people do exist.

Anonymous said...

Pat, I really admire your professional assessment of the crime. We are all reading and sifting through files,exchanging information on forums trying to find a plausible reason why this poor child vanished. We are no near finding out what happened to her and why her parents continue to enjoy a privileged position with friends in the higher echelons of society who are completely blinkered and believe the abduction theory, yet highly influential and willing to bend over backwards o save them from answering "awkward" questions. What a farce that latest crimewatch programme was!
I really think we armchair detectives deserve to be paid the money that SY has used (6 million pounds of tax payers money)Shame on them! We are working much harder than they are.
With regards to the theories... I have been following Pat's line of thought and I totally agree that there was an accident of some sort- chloroform, Calpol or something strong to keep the children quiet while the parents had their adult time. However, I am beginning to think that the accident happened early in the morning of 3rd. and that the body was kept and then disposed of on 3rd night. Yes, I know that the shutters story was such a slip up and that if they had had time to plan they could have come up with something more convincing but there were so many other things to take care of during the day of 3rd. Hiding the body in the wardrobe hence the bodily fluids being there. Cleaning the apartment, being seen playing tennis, bribing the nanny's at the creche, organising the evening abduction scenario, coaching the T7 for possible police investigation and working out how they would dispose of the body.Creating the smoke screen like the crying story to make people belive that the child was alive on 2nd May.David Payne's visit to confirm that he had seen 3 happy children at 6:30 or so for 3mins/30mins at the flat. Also the JT sighting to work out, and then when GM should rush away to hide the body at a convenient time when he would not be missed during the evening meal after 9 pm. There is something that I cannot really work out and it's this - were the children in the apartment when KM discovered that M was missing? There are conflicting stories as to whether the children were there or not. They were certainly back there when the police came, drugged of course. I don't think the parent would have been so callous as to leave the twins in the room with a dead body. That would expain why KM rushed off to tell the others that Madeleine was missing without worrying about leaving her twins in the room when the abductor could still have been around. Everybody must think they couldn't have been so calculating
but we have to remember that they are professionals used to death and seeing cadavers. Remember KM was with 6 cadavers just before her holidays.


Anonymous said...

Did someone enter Mr Amaral's yard and beat his dog to death (a head injury),which scared his wife to the point she wanted him home with his daughter or to drop the investigation?
Did he dispose of the body and while doing so think how easy it would be to dispose of a body a rubbish bin?Is that in his book?
No one would think that it was his wife or himself who must their dog that head injury.Fact is someone obviously did.The body of the dead dog with it's head battered proves that.
If it was taken by someone with or without leaving traces of it's blood behind.It would be very hard to know what happened to the dog .
It could be dead or alive.


Anonymous said...

K- We had a super week. We came with a group of friends who themselves have children. Ours had more small friends. There was this club for children with lots of activities. They spent there great moments.
G.- Madeleine, in particular, has a lot of fun. One day, she even did sailing with the club.
K- She played tennis.
G- In the evening, adults stood together and the children were on their side. It was fun sometimes to hide and they were pursuing us.
P.M- How was Madeleine during these holidays?
K- She is very intelligent, very sociable and engaging. She loves to talk, she is funny, she has a lot of energy.
G- She is still very active, she loves to organize everything, she is very good in the role-playing. At the day nursery of the hotel, she loved to organize things… For her age, her vocabulary is very good, better than mine! She understands a lot of stuff, she twigs quickly, she is very perspicacious.

Kate and Gerry McCann, Paris

Match, September 2007

__________________________________



I see that yellowish nose in the photo on your book cover and also the eye problem .Was she well?
G's comment 'she is still very active' used to describe Maddie on the holidays.

have they never told their audience that children and adults are sometimes abducted (used) for organ harvesting and medical research as well as by pedo gangs?

Anonymous said...

Is there a possibility that her body didnt leave the appartment at all?(cadaver on the suitcase),is there any evidence that it was searched before the car was hired? Fantastic theories Pat keep up the good work

Anonymous said...

I believe that GM being an intelligent man and a surgeon, his first instincts on finding a dying or dead Madeleine whom he may or may not have 'operated' upon in order to try and save the life of, ie, tracheotomy, stem bleeding from a severe wound, etc... when she is dead, his immediate instinct would be to make sure that body could NEVER be found and then clean up. If he took Madeleine to the shore, I would suggest that in his professional job as a surgeon (butcher) he would have taken her somewhere maybe just on a shored up row boat to cut her throat and bleed her blood out into the sea then possibly disembowel her to stop a stench. With the stomach & intestines removed and the blood gone, a body will not rot and stink so quickly. Once he had done that, he could not risk her ever being found. Did he take a long time to chop her in tiny pieces, take a boat further out and throw her to fishes? What about the bones? It's so hard to chop the bones and you can't risk even ONE bone washing up to shore. Is there an incinerator at that hotel complex? One connected to any nearby crematoriums? Or even animal vets or zoos or hospitals tht he could have accessed FAST. It the T7 were involved and helped one could have driven somewhere before the whole story and drama was even announced. In the circumstances they found themselves in, every single person would know, that body must permanently disappear as a matter of priority nothing else is more important even if there is blood in the apartment or anything else, the body has to be got rid. I don't believe they would have left her body nearby 'waiting' to be transferred and I don't believe Gerry had the time to sit and cut his child into the tiniest shreds including her bones then take a boat further out to sea to ditch those pieces. He does however have the skill.

I also do not believe for one minute the Tapas 7 or McCanns were leaving their kids unattended. Tht makes no sense. They are educated and moderately good parents. No-one in their right mind would leave tiny children alone, esp professional healthcare workers. Therefore I think it is absolute to say THEY NEVER DID and that has been the biggest red herring to everyone even those of us who are sure the McCanns disposed of their daughter's body.

Anonymous said...

Worth a read:


School Pedophilia Scandal Shakes Portuguese Society
By CRAIG S. SMITH
Published: October 9, 2003
NY Times


gives those who were reported as collecting for children's homes a totally different meaning.
Politics@it's worst




guerra said...


http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2012/11/06/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-tory-paedophile-scandal

Anonymous said...

Hello Pat,

I want to mention three points :
1/ Madeleine did not sleep in her bed but in her parents bed, Kate was sleeping in de sparebed. Maybe the parents put Madeleine in her bed but then she surely moved to her parents bed. Eventually the last days they did nog even still put Madeleine in her bed but directly in their bed. Why ? Because Madeleine was very much afraid alone in the appartement, this is a certain fact that appears from declarations of the parents and also from a whitness (Madeleine crying at night, Kate who mentionned that Madeleine asked them a morning why they were not there when she was calling them and that she had to cry. The parents telling that Madeleine slept some night in their bed- ). This explanes to, why the night of the drama it appeared that Madeleine's bed was not used. The conclusion of this point is that it reveals clearely a mise-en-scene about the night of the drama.
I make here a parenthesis : it is nog excluded that the parents told Madeleine that they remained there and that they remained till she was asleep to leave afterwards, what could have made Madeleine even more insecure.
2/ When a person is under suspicion it happens that he starts to lie because he thinks that some doing of him when he tells it like it was, could inforce the suspicions. Persons who are not guilty but under suspicion can make their situation worse by this, because the lies for "bestwill" come out. These kinds of lies happen most of the time when the person under suspecion does not know what the object is of the suspicion (in the Roman inquiery system it goes like that).
In this case the parents of Madeleine knew from the beginning what they could be suspected of. If they lie they are doing it for covering up some facts that confirm the suspicion. There is some sort of rule in these cases, that a person who starts to lie to cover up his guilt, or is directly taken and recognises his wrong doing, or if he succeeds in the first period to get away with it keeps his line stadely till the end. He goes on with it without ever changing his position ; this even if he is confronted with facts or documents that were in the meantime found through the investigation that are in contradiction whith his explanations. Why even in this case ? Because if a person does not recognise a crime or a fault that provoced harm to an another, the person who has to put forward the accusation and bring this person in front of a juge, still feels some sort of uncertainty. It is also a fact that in our type of investigation of crimes (Roman system) the investigation tries to become a recognition by the person who is suspected. In each staged of the investigation this is the question that comes up. If I would put forward a kind of mistake that could have been done in the investigation of the disappearence of Madeleine, is that the try to make the parents recognise the dead of Madeleine trough their neglection came to early. May-be the pressure that was made on the investigaion plays a role in the decision of the moment GA decided to confront the parents. The result of it was on the contrary that the parents used this momentum to reinforce their position.
3) Could it still be that the parents lied on an amount of facts for "bestwill" ? It is very difficult. The only way for the parents to make this clear is, one, give the content of the telephones the made to one an other the night of the drama, - I do not understand why this is not still investigatec -, second, to ask themselves to reopen the Portugese investigation and ask to investigate who is the man that was seen carring Madeleine toward the beach the night of the drama in order to exclude it could be Gerry Mccann on the one hand and start the search about whom this person is on the other hand. Not taking this steps brings to the conclusion that they did not lie for bestwill.
Zorro

Anonymous said...

Pat or any other poster.

Do we know anything of Jane tanners sighting other than he was coming back from night crèche. Crime watch didn't even have the decency to say he didn't want to be identified. Just that he came forward theb with some photo with his face covered Then a patronising comment that it was stroinkingly similar to the jt sketch. Are we expected to believ this person did not know about the jt sighting and only came out of the woodwork due to sy investigation. Any other clues who he might be ?

Anonymous said...

pat id like to ask your opinion on the fact mc cans kept e fits of the two suspects that Scotland yard released hidden for 5 years

Anonymous said...

id like to say does david Cameron and the met condon the fact mc cans left 3 kids alone every nite its like giving green light to anyone to do same shame on them

Anonymous said...

Pat are you ok? have you been silenced?

John said...

Interesting article about the liability of sniffers dogs when they're used in criminal researches.
Following this article, the reactions of these dogs can be influenced by the desire to please their masters.

http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/21/the-mind-of-a-police-dog

Anonymous said...

@john

The only desire the dogs would have to "please their masters" is to do their job,alas detect whatever scent warrants,for want of a better word,their masters interest,the same scent they would be trained to detect,by their masters.Also those type of dogs are important in police work,hence their use by the FBI!!

shelley said...

I think they only drugged the kids that night that Maddie disapeared and the night prior.

Because.. while it was possibly going ok for the first few days.... after Maddie work up that changed things. Upset their plans if you will and I read that the neighbor Pamela Fern did contact hotel staff so it was likely addressed. They were not gonna risk another complaint.

I then think that night maddie woke up, crawled on the couch too look out that window for them and fell. Then died.

They listened for crying, heard nothing and returned to the table. Thus the extended time in order for the dead body to leave a scent.

I think cuddle cat was with her (cadavor scent on this toy) and mom and dad placed it back on the bed to make it appear she was last in that bed... because the scent was not on the bed which means too that the toy had recenlty been placed there.

Continued......

shelley said...

I think they knew the complaint made that night about the 1+plus hour of crying would be shared with the police and media so to avoid this, I think the parents decided to share the "story" about Maddie waking up so they didnt later have so many questions about the actual complaint but in trying to make it seem really insignificant and avoid the reality that they were not checking as the claimed. Basically they figured if they bring it up and control the event, it does not seem as bad. And it has worked as they still have supporters and i have not seen alot of hard questions about the amount of time they were gone.

So basically I think it was all made up to control that part of the timeline and that is why they could not speak clear about it.

Also.... watch a few videos. Not speeches but ones where they are asked questions. Gerry typically sits very still and speaks very clear when not asked sensitive questions. Even about Maddie. Still and calm. He is a doctor afteral and has years of exp doing pubkic speaking. He speaks very well.

but when asked if they drugged the kids or if they killed Maddie he rubs his ears, has very sharp drastic body movements and stutters thru his comments. A coupke of times I think I almost saw a look from Kate like "oh shit" while Gerry is moving around like he has parkinsins. Seriously watch him. He is very clearly uncomfortable.

I aslo heeard later they refused to do shows that refused to agree to stipulations that certain questions are not asked. Would make sense. It clearly makes gerry nervous as hell.


And the reason I think the friends went along if they knew the truth (I am not sure they all did but I think Jane did for sure) was that they possible used sedation as well. I can see them rationalize to them "it coukd have been any of the kids" and/or "if they find out we drugged the kids.... they may question/test your kids too and we all go down. There is a reason. What else could it be.

And I dont think it was something innocent like caphol or nyquil but something drs only would have easy access too. That was Kates original speciality....

And if the police had the dead body, the autospy would show drugs and at least in America drugging then leaving your child unnattended would result in involuntary manslaughter I believe.

Life is over. And being they are doctors they kmow what would show up and being doctors, I am sure if it was medical grade sedation...that too is a very serious crime.

AND those e-fits they hid that were just released.... I think it was because it was Gerry (I believe the Smiths saw him) and while its not super obvious, they both have traits that do look like Gerry and thats why they did not release them. Too close for comfort.

Alot of comments I have read people think because its not a clear match for Gerry that it rules him out... but its a sketch based off a memory. Imagine walking down the street, glancing at someone and then trying to describe them well enough for someone to draw them.

Better yet, this was the police sketch for Ariel Castro based off by a witness when Gina was taken. This is for sure him.

http://www.onenewspage.co.uk/n/Front+Page/74vudwr21/Ariel-Castro-Police-sketch-of-Gina-DeJesus-abductor.htm

Theese are done by memory of certain features. So at a glance, it may be u thought they had thicker eye brows or rounder face.

Some argue it really close for Ariel but the biggeat thing to me is the goatee. But if you look closer, the sketch has an oval face, the real Ariels face is rounder. If he did not have a goatee would there be any simularties? No.

Shelley said...

Those e-fits being kept a secret make them look so quilty yet so many stiil fall for this BS.

But if you are innocent... then this a
is possibky the real kidnapper and you would share these sketchs with the world.

But if that was Gerry (which I believe) then these sketchs are just too risky. The nose did it for me. Look at that, take away the face shapes and jaw line. He was seen at a glance.

right now with out looking at him, the nose would be the only thing I would think of to describe him.



Also, Pat. You walked this path.. is that church he had the keys to near this sighting area or on this path.

like Hobs I follow a statement analysys blog and there has been discussions about leaked info that later was actually the location the body was found... and I think it was Gerry who talked about "tunnels" and I have read that there mat have been some tunnels ybder the church. Would be a good hiding place.

shelley said...

One last thought....

Regarding the every 15 minute checks...

last year we had my sons bday part at the park by our house.

Now I read somewhere that it was about a minute and a half walk from the apartment to the resturant. So about 3 minutes round trio.

So our park takes about 1.5 minutes to walk to. And since the park did not have a bathroom, guests had to walk back to our house to go. We had alot of complaints about this during a 2 hour party.

Now imagine a 4-5 hour night hanging with friends.... and doing this walk every 30 mins (for the couples taking turn). This sounds awful... I would rather stay in that do this all night. Or get a sittter.

So they are all implicated if they lied about the number of checks. Which I really think they did.


And this is why they refused to do a reenactment. It would really show hiw rudicilous their statements were.

Anonymous said...

Great analysis Shelley! How do we find the statement anaysis site?
/Catherine

Anonymous said...

Thank you shelly!!I agree with you about the kind of sedation.I do think it is most likely to be pre-med,for children before surgery.Jane Tanner also would've had access to this,and the cover up,for Kate and Gerry McCann is because of the absoulute public fury it would create,also John McCann worked as aPharmacutical Rep!The implications for the lot of them would bring,possibly,the British Govt and the NHS,also of course the Tapas Docs.They have everything to loose,if that gets out.

Anonymous said...

Hi!Love your Blog Pat!
Can anyone agree with the reports about Gerry Mcann priveously knowing Robert Murat!??

Anonymous said...

Also,can anyone see a conection with Murat,O' Brien,they look a lot like each other,hence Tanner putting the Portugese Police on his scent.

H. Genreith said...

Dear Pat,

I startes a german discussion of the case on my Blog TandemVipera.blogspot.com .

I think because of the large amount of facts it is best to work with MindMaps to structure things.
At
http://genreith.de/index.php?id=the-maddie-case
on may get the blog articles and one can download the first MindMap for further use and expanding it.

I agree with you on the most likely szenario of a false medication resulting in an allergic shock and then an abduction faked in panic. A close reconstruction after the PJ-Files one may find at http://tandemvipera.blogspot.de/2013/11/der-fall-maddie-just-five-hours-in-may.html

Best Regards, Heribert

shelley said...

http://statement-analysis.blogspot.com/

statement analysis is amazing!!

shelley said...

http://statement-analysis.blogspot.com/2012/11/statement-analysis-mccann-interview-2011.html

Here is a link to one of the posts on this case. He has thousands so wanted to share a good one that is related.


Anonymous said...

http://trustmeigetit.blogspot.com/2013_11_01_archive.html


An "explanation" for all that "so called evidence"

Anonymous said...

Gerry McCann isn't a surgeon, he is a cardiologist and I think his job is to read slides or CT scans or the likes, to identify heart disease. The idea of him as a "surgeon" then extrapolating from there to "butcher" and from there to the concept that "he bled her out into the sea and dismembered her" is just the ridiculous kinds of suppositions and "theories" that Pat is taking about as being utterly unhelpful - AND not only does not fit with facts nor human behavior in general nor the evidence in this case, it is stupid and makes all those who want McCanns to be reviewed more closely for possible involvement look like complete nutters which is why whoever proposes these kinds of things feels more like an anonymous pro McCann plant trying to demean the level of discourse rather than an interested party who quite rightly believes that there is more than enough evidence pointing to a need for mcCanns to be investigated for their involvement based on real things that really did occur and real behavioral profiling by someone who doesn't see Gerry gutting his 3 year old and mummifying her in the sand as something that might reasonably occur. Similarly the "analysis" of the language which goes from "Kate said they've taken her" - (Madeleine's gone, they've taken her) to the notion that she knows who the they is, and in fact set this abduction up - is an analysis without basis. As with "where you when Sean and I cried" and Kate's and Gerry's musing about what she could have meant - the SIMPLE answer to that is, they did not want the police to believe that they KNEW she has woken and cried before, for long periods, when they were OUT - because that makes them look at neglectful as they in fact ARE - they wanted police to believe their statements that they felt the children were safe because they always slept well and did not wake until the "wee hours" if at all. - Madeleine cried when she was alone was clearly about being left alone At NIGHT and such is the actual testimony given or evidence given by the neighbor Mrs Fenn who heard this crying. There exists evidence - she WAS alone, she DID cry for long periods at least one night, and no one came. Asserting that mcCanns made this up to "prove" Madeleine was alive the morning of the 3rd when she allegedly asked this question (?) of them (why did you not come when we cried), or to "prove" she was alive the night of the 2nd is not supported by anything, and it's not needed - the crèche nannies saw her eat dinner at five PMN the 3rd! No one substituted another child who pretended, craftily to BE Madeleine- it's nonsense to go from these kinds of statements of actual facts given by real people who were there and did witness certain things, and then to claim that the parents "made it up" to support a scenario for which there is zero evidence and much evidence to the contrary, which also requires a vast conspiracy of lies and involvement by people who have no reason to be involved nor to lie for McCanns. Is there a reason to investigate mcCanns further as suspects? Yes there is. Does it require or is it helped by these kinds of "theories?" No. They are arrived at by working backwards from the fact that a longer time- to hide evidence and plant evidence and "bribe" all the crèche workers, and hide and butcher bodies etc etc has to be in place in order for certain people to support their pet theory which they arrived at because they hit a wall in their own thinking - because they do not understand the evidence, or profiling or human behavior or the facts of this case or they are in fact not all there. What did happen that we know of is enough to justify a deep review of the Tapas 9 and especially the timeline of the night of the 3rd.

Anonymous said...

Can anyone direct me to an English source for news on the current libel case against amaral

Anonymous said...

A question that I have is, does the evidence that continues to come in make an abduction look more likely or does it go to the McCanns are more likely to have removed her body?
We have the latest piece of information of the efit of a subject - that they hid, suppressed, and threatened the investigator who produced it. Does this make it seem more likely that there was an abduction? Or more likely that McCanns were engaged in the latest round of Cover Your Ass behavior? There is no reason to suppress this if you think or feel or "know" that an abduction occurred; there is massive motivation to hide and suppress an efit of a guy who looked like Gerry McCann.
Does fleeing Portugal make it seem more likely that an abduction occurred, or more likely that they themselves were involved?
Does the dog evidence make it more likely that an abduction occurred, or that the parents were involved in moving a body?
Does the spending of the Fund on Carter Ruck rather than offering rewards or chasing leads make it more likely that an abduction occurred, or more likely that the parents were engage in a cover up?

Where they are involved and engaged in spending their time and money is a good indicator of where they think the truth lies or where they know it lies.

Does encouraging a vow of silence in the Tapas 7 encourage the abduction theory? or does it point to the parental involvement theory?

Does telling your sisters and parents that the window was smashed and jimmied when it was not smashed nor jimmied make it seem more likely that this was part of an abduction or part of the staging?

Their behavior can be put down to protecting themselves, from the charge of neglect leading to harm or child endangerment - but again, does protecting yourself rather than telling the truth lead one to suppose that they had a live child out there with an abductor or make it more likely that they are willing to interfere with the investigation and provide red herrings because they know she is beyond any further harm?

Refusal to take a lie detector test?

Etc.

An enormous amount of money and time are being spent on protecting themselves - from WHAT? If all they did was to stupidly leave their kids alone, and one was abducted, then what are they protecting themselves from? We all know this was the case.

Anonymous said...

McCann Files,Excellent!

Anonymous said...

this is disturbing
http://aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/madeleine-mccann-kray-twins-margaret.html

Anonymous said...

November 17 1:48

People are just speculating beyond what are known facts that is a different thing than analysing facts and we all know it. However, a dead body is still missing and it went somewhere and has never turned up. Likelihood is something gruesome happened to it.

Anonymous said...

Exactly Shelly - Shelly said "they knew the complaint made that night about the 1+plus hour of crying would be shared with the police and media so to avoid this, I think the parents decided to share the "story" about Maddie waking up so they didnt later have so many questions about the actual complaint but in trying to make it seem really insignificant and avoid the reality that they were not checking as the claimed~

They were not checking as they claimed and if you actually re-enacted this as the PJ asked them to do, it would become obvious that all this coming and going would have been ludicrous to those involved and obvious to everyone else.

People did not see it happening therefore it did not happen or at least did not happen as they say it did.

The fact that the new investigation is opening up the timeline from 9 to 10 means that Scotland Yard is discounting both Jane's "sighting" and Matt Oldfield's "check" -which means they doubt these checks were happening - as we all do.

If Pat is right as I suspect she is, neither Kate nor Gerry nor anyone else checked Madeleine or the twins after they were sedated and put into bed.

That then opens the timeline for Madeleine to have died any time after they left or even BEFORE they left at 830 - if they were out on the balcony deck having wine and she went to look for them, fell and hit her head or broke her neck, fell awkwardly and choked off her air supply - they could easily leave without noticing her little body behind the couch since that was not in their line of sight - when first asked if Madeleine was asleep when they left, Kate waffled. She wasn't sure.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Kate thought had Gerry checked, they were in such a rush to get to the bar she did not go and look herself - they were the first ones there - Madeleine could have been behind that couch dead before they left at 8 PM or whenever they left while they THOUGHT she was safely tucked up in bed. All their prattle about "we did listening checks, they were BETTER than regular listening checks" nonsense is just that - garbage. They have to find a way to justify that neglect, and how carefully the watched and listened to their children! - my goodness me, there could be no time at which Madeleine and or her siblings cried when the parents did not come, because they are such great checkers, that if someone DID cry they must have gone right back to sleep afterwards - balderdash!



That death earlier in the evening leaves time for the cadaver scent to arise, it explains her scent behind the couch, it provides motive to hide the body - not just neglect but serious neglect and child endangerment with the sedation - leading to a child's death - leading to the end of your family, job, career and reputation. And of course, to jail...

This explains why they were so willing to go through legal processes to prevent the investigation, because they knew there was no delay that would hurt Madeleine now, she was beyond the power to be further hurt. They themselves though and their family job kids etc could be hurt hence the need to stick to the abductor story - and to gather money to pay lawyers rather than waste it on searching.


The only thing left to uncover is who knows about this and who was involved in the removal of the body, if this line of investigation is correct.

The church would be a good place to put a body temporarily, one presume the scent of death is lingering near the graveyard so you'd be safe from the dogs, and it is a hallowed place where you could tell yourself your child was having some sort of religious observance.

I don't think McCanns needed to move her body themselves the second time - nor would they risk it - but someone else could have been told where it was and could have removed it. They certainly have a wide acquaintance and a brother or cousin who knows you, knows your loved your child and make a horrible mistake, and does not want to see the entire family suffer as a result, might be willing to help as they see it, bury a child who fell dead to an accident - the parents probably did not tell their helper that they had sedated the kids.

"after all, if she hurt herself while they were out, why would that be their fault?" as Gerry McCann so bizarrely asked.

That is one theory that does have evidence backing it up and does not need Gordon Brown in a pedophile ring with Gerry McCann or aliens to explain it - just good old fashioned selfishness and arrogance. IF that is what occurred, I think Scotland Yard will figure it out.

Anonymous said...

anonymous at 10:04 AM
totally agree with most of this
still doesn't explain why the family are being protected though..

Anonymous said...

Maybe the family aren't being protected so much as detectives see no point in putting pressure on as the McCanns are unlikely to kill anyone else and if the case goes wrong they will be forever 'innocent'. At least this way they're in limbo. They have never been cleared of guilt in court. Hardly a great place for anyone to be in when half the country thinks you killed your child by neglect / accident / or wilful aggression / even worse pedophile activitity. They're in their own personal hell and they sure as heck will never kill any other child.

Anonymous said...

Their media strategy has for sure back fired.

Anonymous said...

Today I heard in the news that SY are going to collaborate with Portuguese detectives in order to bring the best result and I quote 'stop chasing ad-hoc leads'. I think that just about says things are closing in on the McCanns and their tapas friends?

Anonymous said...

Today I've read that 'a close pal' to the 'parents' is talking trash of the investigation, saying the PJ doesn't pull her weight.
Seems like media efforts to portray this all as some whitewash that will lead to nothing.
I see two lines in the media of exoneration in advance been set up: 1. The police is corrupt. 2. Whatever happened was done by strangers or 'just an accident'.
It is simple!

Anonymous said...

The last person or people to see Madeleine alive are apparently one or both of her parents. The creche records show Madeleine was picked up before 6.00pm. I don't believe that DP saw the children when he went to "check" that kate and the children were OK.
This in addition to Matt Oldfield's not so great "check" and O'Brien's missing time away from the table could mean that the only ones who knew that madeleine was dead were O'brien and the McCanns. I seem to remember reading something about O'Brien having some sort of breakdown after he returned to England - could this be down to what he knows?
All hypotheses but someone knows exactly what happened.
The other thing I really don;t understand at all is why so much time and money has been spent on one missing child. What made the british government pay so much attention to the story released to the media by team McCann?

Sarah said...

Thanks for a good site and a good discussion in the comments.

I agree with the theory about sedation and some kind of accident. I have been speculating a lot about how much the tapas 7 knew and whether they helped cover up. After all, their statements and behaviour is strange.
First I wondered if maybe Jane Tanner knew, because I found her statement about her seeing a man carrying a child a bit strange (and the fact that she said, that she didn't told the McCanns about it from the beginning).
The problem for me to believe in that, is that I really don't think, that you, as a friend, could keep silent about such a thing and I can't imagine how the McCanns would have said that: "Hello Jane and Russell - we accidently killed Madeleine, would you help us cover up?"

But then it suddenly crossed my mind, that maybe she (and some of the other friends) didn't *knew*. I mean, - maybe they didn't exactly knew what had happened, but just had a feeling about it. Lets say Jane knew about the sedatives (maybe they all used that?) and had a feeling about what happened and that it was not a abduction.
In that kind of situation you would maybe help cover up and even though you might have this creepy feeling that something is terrible wrong, you would keep thinking: "No! Of cause they didn't, - and I won't say anything that criminalises them, even though I have my doubts. If they did it, let the police find out".
I have a story from my own life, that I thought of, when this possibility came to my mind:

Ten years ago I had a friend who was sick of her marriage. Me, her and some other girls went on a weekendtour out of town and after a couple of drinks she said to me, that she just wished her husband dead. That choked me and I suggested a divorce. She didn't want to get a divorce she said, cause that would give a lot of economic problems (they would have to sell their house and loose money on the sale and so on). I was choked, but at the same time I thought, that... you know... We were drunk and she was sad and it was maybe just something she said to make me understand how bad she felt.
Two months later her husband got hospitalized. He was sick, but the doctors couldn't find out what was wrong. At last they concluded, that he had been poisoned in some way, and they concluded, that it must have happened at work (he had a work where it maybe could happen, but the chance was very small).
When my friend told me this, she seemed sad, but at the same time she said, that it was much more easy, when he wasn't at home.
And as you can imagine, I just stood there, thinking about what she had said that evening.
But I put it aside. Thinking; of cause she didn't poisoned him. She was my friend, - I knew her. I thought that it must have been a coincidence that he got sick shortly after her saying she wished him dead.
He got well and some years later they got divorced. I never told her about my thoughts and I really believe, that it was a coincidence, but... I'm not sure and I still think about it.
What if her husband had died? I've asked myself that question. Would I have said something to somebody? And maybe criminalized her. But what then? What if it really was poison from his work? Then I would have criminalized her without reason and people around town would have hated me for that.

So... The point with my story is to clear, that the tapas 7 maybe didn't knew about what happened to Madeleine, but at the same time had the feeling and suspicion, that the McCanns played a part in their daughters disappearance.
And that can have made them "lie" or at least made them give vague statements about what happened that evening Madeleine disappeared.

(sorry my bad english, I hope you understand it, - I know some sentences isn't correct)

Anonymous said...

The friends were all leaving their kids alone and an abduction could have happened to any of them, maybe that's reason enough for them to protect the ones who did have something happen to their kid. Scotland yard has said that neither Matt Oldfield (who claimed to have checked at 930 on madleine) nor Jane Tanner (who claimed to have seen the abduction happen) are right and no one checked the kids from 9 to 10 pm - the Oldfield and Tanner checks were 915 and 930, so even the COPS know they are lying. Why would they lie? who knows. To protect mcCanns, to protect themselves... they had all testified to not checking anyone else's kids for the whole holiday yet on this one night supposedly they all were hanging around being responsible parents helping check, which we have always know and now cops confirm, is BS. So the obvious question is not only since they lied, why? but since they lied what else are the lying about.

Anonymous said...

I think it very unlikely that all 7 of the friends would lie for McCanns and keep quiet all this time - at the same time, I think it very odd that they do not have their suspicions. I agree that these kids were being medicated - they had an excuse, everyone was "poorly" and some of the kids even vomiting and with diarrhea yes still being left alone so parents could go party - and there is a good chance that Madeleine aspirated her vomit or fell while doped up. All the parents - also, to their shame, doctors - would feel guilty as they knew darned well in their career that this is not responsible parenting. They might not have wanted the police to check into their children who were similarly medicated (the OBrien child was sick, her father went to check on her and ended up staying in with her) and may have feared neglect charges of some type although hard to imagine they would all agree that an ocean or hilly burial for a dead child and ongoing lying to the press, defrauding people out of their donations etc was the best result rather than taking their licks. Still you never know. In Kate's book she alludes to the fact that they had lost some friends due to this - one can presume that Oldfields and O'Briens are among them. Still there is also a good chance that the girl was kidnapped, that is what the police keep saying. They are supposedly looking for an abductor at this point, having declared McCanns are not suspects. Could be a ploy to gain their cooperation?

Anonymous said...

Theory about Gary hiding maddie in sand is brilliant and I thought whau u solved the case. But then u said ridiculous theory about Gary transferring the body to UK?? Suitcase?? Airplane?? What next? Aliens abducted her?,

Anonymous said...

Cos then they would really be innocent. Cos then no-one of us would care much about this maccan kid. Cos they would behaive real and they would stick to 1 story and cos then they would answered all questions. Cos even if Portuguese police was blaming them and they were angry and hurt by being suspects - Then they still would work with them cos pride is 1 thing but finding your 'kidnapped' kid is different....

Anonymous said...

You people are the problem thinking up complete lies,why ring a mechanic and tell him you no best,because you haven't got a clue what your talking about and the harm and damage you can cause...have you been and lived in liz no but you no best make me laugh you no nothing of the dark underworld you make that clear enough.
Will you put. Up your profile and picture when you say sorry for the hurt you caused when proven wrong...no says it all.if you no where or how madeline was taken go get her you had 6 years, you all talk complete rubbish sad.

beangrinder said...

Someone had a key to the apartment. This someone, perhaps with accomplices, knew that the apartment was often rented by families with young children. They pounced on a family who they could see were being cavalier about childcare. They came and went in under a minute. The crime was so sudden, so shocking, that the McCanns and their friends were thrown into a spiral of panic and disarray. This threw up inconsistencies and statements that were later changed. The McCanns have have done all they can to get Madeleine back by exploiting every contact, every avenue they can think of and this has resulted in high level folk being involved or dragged in. Madeleine is very probably dead and her body will very probably never be found because it is small and easily disposed of. The case will only be solved when/if the criminal gets caught for something else and someone joins the dots and makes him confess. And that is by far the most likely, most economical, explanation.

Anonymous said...

You say,' and they had help from people in high places.' Isn't that the real mystery here. WHY?

Anonymous said...

BEANGRINDER says, ' The case will only be solved when/if the criminal gets caught for something else and someone joins the dots and makes him confess. And that is by far the most likely, most economical, explanation.' RUBBISH! This case will only be solved when the McCanns are subjected to a half decent interrogation. The dots ( as you call them ) have already been joined by even the dimmest lay investigators but, for whatever reason , a cover up is in place.

Anonymous said...

A more likely scenario . Madeleine dies in the apartment at some point BEFORE the evening of the 3rd, whether by accident or as a result of short tempered violence is unclear. Mr McCann who appears to have friends in high places urgently requests assistance in the cover up. An accomplice subsequently arrives at the apartment to take Maddie away towards the beach to a waiting boat. This is the man the Irish Smiths see. It isn't Gerry McCann .This is the reason that the McCann's website completely ignored this sighting whilst highlighting Jane Tanner's. Not because the man carrying the child was McCann but because it was the TRUTH. Gerry McCann may even have been in the apartment about nineish to help this accomplice in and out. By his own admission he spent quite a few minutes in the flat,' going to the toilet.'IMO

Anonymous said...

The police are blinded by the burglars taking her just like the jane tanner sighting and look at how that turned out. Once the burglars have been cleared and they will be hopefully the police will look at the parents properly this time round.

Anonymous said...

Don't hold your breath! This farce gets fishier by the day. How stupid do 'they' think we are? I wouldn't pay Deadwood in tin washers but hey it's only tax payers' money so that's okay.

jj said...

Maddie
When is the truth going to be told.
NO body/ no evidence.
Where is she.
Is she alive and kidnapped.OR
Murder/ Manslaughter.

TRUTH
MADDIE can only be in 3 x places in 2014
The triangle being buried in portugal.ASK GERRY
The sea Ask Gerry or Kate /No evidence of body eaten gone .Boats hired by them.

Kidnapped No evidence what so ever .Their apartment broke into where is the evidence to give any truth.

What they did in 2007 by leaving Maddie and the twins alone in a an apartment is not right.
If she was kidnapped and it was you doing it.Who would you kidnap!
Maddie or the Twins

Maddie was a naughty girl and hard to deal with as a parent.However If as a parent you make a mistake whether you are a doctor/nurse you should tell the truth FROM that Giving drugs to 4 year child can cause death. TELL the TRUTH.
Evidence on my beliefs are too high but without MADDIE S BODY NO court case.

THE METROPOLITAN POLICE have done well since Portugal passed case.They KNOW about Gerry and KATE looks /eyes/ movements of body/phone calls/ visits to Portugal/DNA/Blood found by dogs in apartment + car + on material but still NO body.

THE POLICE have also looked into GERRY and KATE,s past iF you new the TRUTH about these People you would think again. SWINGERS/DOGGING I can not do that .WHERE is the love WHERE IS THE TRUTH.EVIDENCE is Needed on some equations of my comment I HAVE ALL EVIDENCE SO DO POLICE.

This case will not be ended unless the police in ENGLAND Take onboard the original case PORTUGAL took. and use the evidence with define outlooks.WE NEED to CHOOSE CAREFULLY and WISELY

THE POLICE need to get them too tell the truth.

beangrinder said...

Like all conspiracy theorists, those who believe the McCanns are complicit in their daughter's disappearance have a habit of twisting the truth to fit their version of events. EVERY single piece of "evidence" against the Drs McCann has been examined and ruled out or substantially inconclusive. Research the FACTS properly. And the idea that a cabal of shady powerful people were on hand, at a moment's notice, to assist in the disposal of a little girl's body far from home is risible to anyone with sense. The involvement of the media at an early stage meant that the case took on a very high profile very quickly, with politicians being made to feel anxious to be seen as supportive.The McCanns, stuck in a very provincial part of a country totally unfamiliar to them, made frantic calls to anyone they or their friends and family could think of. And in doing so, they unleashed Hell. The case became political. Professional pride was insulted. Police officers were subjected to intense scrutiny and pressure for results. The McCanns were rabbits in the headlights, trying to do the right thing in keeping the case's profile as high as possible, but increasingly inviting vilification.

I repeat: there is not a single shred of reliable, conclusive evidence against the McCanns. Not one. After 7 years, thousands of man hours, millions of pounds, colossal publicity, extraordinary availability of information...not a sausage. Only conjecture, misdirection and wilful obfuscation on the part of those for whom the extraordinary truth is always too mundane.

Anonymous said...

beangrinder says...bla,bla,bla nice try gerry ,how are the twins?clock is ticking for you two .

Anonymous said...

FROM BEANGRINDER:...............''I repeat: there is not a single shred of reliable, conclusive evidence against the McCanns. Not one...........''
FROM ME: ..''Omissions, contradictions, evasions and loss of memory certainly add up to circumstantial evidence and if I wasn't the person I was, I'd add 'downright lies' to that list!

Anonymous said...

Freemasons are a shady cabal of people . The police have never done a proper investigation into this case and Andy Redwood's latest effort is simply risible. The parents' and their friends' contradictions and omissions have never been addressed by the police and indeed the police appear to be doing everything they can not to implicate them. As any amateur sleuth would see, this is not an investigation but a whitewash.

Anonymous said...

Amateurs may well see things this way. Fortunately professional police officers are better acquainted with reality.

Anonymous said...

Oh really?
The cold reality is that Madeleine McCann is still missing and despite constant references by the police to Madeleine's ABDUCTION, there is absolutely no indication that she WAS abducted. Anyone with half a brain can see the police haven't a clue with this one but then it must be difficult one to solve with your hands tied behind your back.

Anonymous said...

There is every indication she was abducted I'm afraid. Experienced police officers are used to discrepancies in witness testimony and apparently strange inconsistencies. These are human. What one has to look for is motive, means and opportunity, then true suspicions can be followed. The McCanns had no motive to kill their daughter. If she had had an accident, they had no motive to cover it up. There was no drugging, no swinging sessions, no agreement to hide anything. And as for opportunity, it was simply IMPOSSIBLE for any of the family and friends to dispose of a body in the timeframe without enlisting considerable local help and cooperation. And that did not happen. And the McCanns simply had no means of storing and disposing of a body. Before anyone starts harping on about sniffer dogs and rented cars, read the FACTS and ask yourself: was this part of the investigation conducted very shortly after the disappearance in a scientific, controlled and isolated environment? Was it conducted by wholly disinterested parties?
If you believe the McCanns had anything to do with their daughter's disappearance, you are incorrect. This will be proved when the perpetrator makes a mistake and inadvertently reveals himself or when the police get lucky. My theory? Trace the keys, trace anyone who was involved in getting the McCanns to their accommodation and anyone they had dealings with.

caroleann said...

First off, you speak of 'experienced' police officers. Like Andy Deadwood for instance? He, with his remarkable Crimewatch revelation that a look alike Gerry McCann was seen by the Smiths carrying a look alike Maddie McCann? A sighting that had been deliberately omitted from the McCann's own site?
Secondly you speak of motive. Well if I'd left three children under four in a strange room in a strange country and one of them had met with an accident I think as a supposedly responsible person I might just be sufficiently motivated to hide the fact.
Unless you were actually present I don't think you can state categorically that there was no 'this and that' going on. The FACTS are that sniffer dogs ARE used very successfully by the police and to suggest that either the dog handler or the Portugal police were in any way impartial is ridiculous. Yes the case will be solved when the perpetrator makes a mistake but it would help a tad if Mr Deadwood got his act together and started off with the obvious. The Creche Man, the Burglars, The known Paedolphiles , The immigrant Tractor Man and now Smelly Bin Man .................whoever next?

Anonymous said...

A SNIFFER dog used in the search for missing Madeleine McCann found a man buried in sand dunes in Orkney, a court heard yesterday.
FBI consultant Martin Grime told the High Court in Glasgow he and his springer spaniels Eddie, Keela and Morse were called in by police in the hunt for Bob Rose, who disappeared on the island of Sanday last June.

caroleann said...

CORRECTION TO MY ABOVE POSTING ..........................the police and to suggest that either the dog handler or the Portugal police were in any way corrupt is ridiculous

Peter said...

In 2007 I was about to attend Court in New Zealand complaining of my own daughter's abduction to NZ.
When asked by a lawyer what I might do if I was unsuccessful that day one of my remedies was to begin a national campaign in UK to publicise the wider problem of child abduction and to raise the profile of the case involving my poor daughter.

The following day I contacted a friend in UK with this in mind. The Madeleine McCaan news had hit in the previous day. I thought at the time that this felt rather odd and strangely co-incidental. Could it be that the whole Madeleine McCaan story was more or less invented to cover up another story? This would explain the McCaan's insistence that their child is alive somewhere.It struck me then that the rapidity with which this became a massive news story was also somehow odd.

I would be very interested to hear from anybody who might have views upon this.

peter_jewell@hotmail.com

Anonymous said...

Personally, no, I don't think the whole thing was invented. It's understandable that a missing child would become a massive news story which is only being prolonged by the Establishment's prevarication and downright incompetence at getting at the truth. The 'smell of death' in the apartment picked up by the dogs was certainly no invention and regardless of what the McCanns might say in print, I'm damned sure they know that Madeleine is dead.

Anonymous said...

I note that PETER LLOYD JEWELL is a member of the official ' Find Madeleine Campaign ' so if anyone does use the phone address he gave you should be aware of this.

Anonymous said...

Im not sure if they are involved..But some of the mccanns evidence appears to be tailored as to what the police evidence was..

Anonymous said...

I think the police are onto something..Coming right back and searching around the area of the apartment..

Anonymous said...

The reason the McCanns are being protected is that Gerry is a Freemason. Hope this clears up a lot of confusion.

Anonymous said...

If the McCanns are guilty, or hiding something, then why have they spent the last 7 years maintaining a high profile and doing all they can do to keep themselves in the news?!!!! If they are linked to some powerful shady organisation, then why has that organisation not shut them up, or paid them off instead of allowing them to draw attention to themselves? Why does everyone get so exercised by the sniffer dogs, when they were deployed a significant time after the event in an apartment that had been trampled through by many people? If the motive in hiding the body was to cover up the fact that the children had been left alone, why readily admit to it?

Anonymous said...

Blanket view...thought censership!...never thought of it like that but yes..creepy..not one raised eyebrow..as others have said, if they had been council estate dwellers, if would have been blanket view 'hang em high'

Anonymous said...

Is that you gerry?

Carters said...

After reading through the facts & evidence of the disappearance this is what my gut feeling says:

PART 1:

I believe that David Payne & Gerry McCann were chatting at some point (perhaps during tennis or at another time) about Madeleine's crying on previous nights causing an official hotel noise complaint.

David suggests a sedative medicine (that doctors use b4 sedating patients) that he has there with him on holiday - he suggest that Gerry & Kate give Maddy this drug to to "knock Madeline out"...so she would sleep thru, while they hv their "adult time".

Gerry McCann suggests to David that he pops in to the apartment when Kate is getting the kids ready 4 bed. (5:30pm-6:30pm - ish)

David Payne arrives sometime during that 5:30-6:30pm time...bringing with him the "medicine". Kate gives dose to Maddie...right there, in the lounge. Out of the blue Maddie has a lethal reaction to the drug & dies. Perhaps they try to resuscitate...to no avail.

They start to freak out because:
1) Being doctors they would all, including Gerry who directed David to come to the house with the medicine, be struck off medical register & no longer have jobs
2) Being prosecuted & jailed, both families losing their children

They convince themselves it's an accident....they place body behind sofa...in panic.

David Payne goes back to his apartment - tells his wife while Kate cleans up evidence, wipes down house/patio door - gets the twins to down while she waits for Gerry.

Gerry eventually comes home from tennis courts & they work out plan to wait until dark (sunset on 3rd May 2007 was 8:25pm...complete dark from 8:55pm-ish). Gerry moves body to the closet from behind the sofa. It is a better hiding place.

Body was kept behind sofa for 90 mins (out of sight of any1 first glance)...

Around 9pm-9:30pm (sunset...twilight...perfect darkness) GM removes body to external location. (as per Jane Tanner sighting).

Goes back to dinner & Kate stages her check at 10pm to be when she "finds" Maddy "gone".

Carters said...

PART 2

Here is the reasoning:
1. Maddie's bed not used, she was never put to bed.

2. 5:30pm-6:30pm death allows time for 90min cadaver scents in both locations (initially lounge...sofa...then closet)

3. David Payne's statement (out of all the Tapas 7) having the biggest discrepency of 30 seconds vs 30mins). He was 100% involved.

4. Why the Paynes & Mccanns stuck like glue 2gether that night. Explains why Kate stayed with Fiona on night of 3rd instead of looking for Maddie. Fiona needed to keep Kate close to prevent her from "losing it" & spilling beans. Another terrible simple reasoning for Kate staying behind would be to ask ourselves why did Kate stay? What if Maddie was NOT the first child to be given the drug, what if the twins had already had their dose (had no lethal effect) and then afterwards Maddie was given her lethal does. It would make complete sense that Kate would never leave the twins in case they never woke up. She may have "needed" to desperately be by their side to ensure they woke up.

5. Gerry Mccann would have found out when he got to apartment from tennis...he would hv moved body to closet after hearing & seeing the tragedy. Then come up with the plan of when and what to do with the body.

6. They then 2gether with Paynes "held it 2gether"(acting) while they went down to dinner.While waiting 4 sunset & complete darkness....9pm ish

7. Timing of the sunset is crucial. It fits perfectly & is very important.

SUMMARY
The body may be found oneday. They may be able 2 work out cause of death but still could be blamed on a burglar or anyone who "took her"... but it still will be too difficult to nail the McCanns.

We must prayer our Heavenly Father convicts one of those 4 for a confession. This is our only hope for closing & justice on this side of eternity.
Thank you Pat for bringing together facts in a concise clear manner.