Someone just asked me this question in the comments section of
the post I did yesterday and I realized the length of my answer would require a full post, so here it is.
"Why," he asked, "do so many people have such vitriol toward the McCanns? Couldn't it be the reason for their behaviors is that they are protecting each other and their family out of love?" (I condense and paraphrase here to make his point).
This commenter ask an excellent question and there are many in the world, including the media, who think that those people who openly despise the McCanns are trolls and haters and cruel people who are treating parents of a missing child in the most despicable manner possible. I am included in that group; a lot of pretty nasty attacks are leveled at me because I am termed a McCann hater. I am considered even a worse human being than the others because I am a professional with a fairly public profile which they feel makes me like the leader of a witch hunt or lynch mob (or more of a threat) out to destroy two lovely innocent people and the hunt for a missing child.
So is there enough justification for such utter dislike of this couple, innocent or guilty,whether they be parents of an abducted child or frightened parents responsible for an accident and a cover-up? As a profiler who has dealt with many parents of crime victims and studied many cases of missing children, I can say hands down, yes, in defense of those who cannot seem to stomach the McCanns.
Here is a list of the reasons:
1) They left their three toddler children alone for five evenings so they could go out and party. The reason this so irks people is how unnecessary and selfish this behavior was. We are not talking about a poor mother desperate to go to work to earn money to feed her kids, a woman with no nearby relatives and no money for a babysitter, a woman who leaves her seven-year-old in charge of her five- and three-year-old siblings in an apartment building where that seven-year-old can call her if there is a problem or run next door to the neighbors she knows. We are talking about a set of educated parents with enough money to go to another country for a not-so-cheap holiday at in a beach town; they could have paid for a babysitter. They could have taking turns watching the children on alternate nights, one of the group could have watched all the children one night a week, or they could have taken the children to the hotel creche for caring. They could have simply stayed home with the kids. But, they wanted their "alone" time at the expense of their children's well-being so they left three toddlers in a strange flat, toddlers who could not run next door and find someone if they were scared, toddlers who could not make a phone call in an emergency, toddlers who could not save themselves from fire, or injury, or an intruder. Along with leaving them alone, the McCanns also claim they left the door unlocked, leaving them vulnerable to any stranger who just could walk in off the street and hurt them. Who DOES this, some ask? Very narcissistic people, I can answer, and this very self-centered behavior on the part of the McCanns really puts people off.
2) They left the children alone AFTER they cried the night before. As if leaving them alone wasn't bad enough, they then left their frightened and unhappy children alone even after they had been told by Maddie that all had not gone well the night before, that they were crying out for their parents for a very long time and they never came to them. People see this as awful cold and callous behavior on the part of the parents, extremely selfish, unconscionable behavior that any parent would choose to continue leaving the children alone upon hearing of their distress.
3) Dressing fashionably with well-groomed hair, make-up, and jewelry, going running and writing a blog after your child goes missing; oh, and leaving your twins behind so you can go run off and see the Pope. The McCanns have a lot of defenders who will say the running and writing were stress relief and going to see the Pope a religious need any parent of a missing child might seek. I can tell you from seeing the behaviors of many missing parents,these are abnormal behaviors, especially so early after a child goes missing. The inside of the brain of someone who has a child kidnapped is a horrifying hurricane of hell. There is a continuous roaring of fear, anger, horror, confusion, panic, hate, grief, pain, hysteria, all of these feeling and thoughts swirling about in almost a physical way that pretty much shuts down coherent behavior. I never forgot one well-depicted scene in a movie made about Adam Walsh, the son of America's Most Wanted's host, John Walsh who, after being told the police found his little son's head thrown next to the highway, John was portrayed as going crazy in grief by running headlong into the space between the mattresses on his bed over and over and over. It is a scene that sticks in one's mind and I still get teary thinking about it while writing of it here.
There are things parents just simply are unable to do for a long time because they cannot compose themselves enough to go through the motions while their child is missing, to do any normal thing while their child may be calling out for Mommy and Daddy in terror day in and day out, maybe being raped and tortured in some predator's dungeon somewhere, maybe lying mangled in a shallow grave. You don't think those images run constantly through the head of a parent who child is missing? You bet, and that is why parents of missing and murdered children often need medication to get up in the morning and more medication to try to sleep at night, this is why they can't go to work anymore, this is why they neglect their other children, this is why they fight with their mates and end up divorced, this is why they look like shit most of the time, and this is why they can't watch a movie, take a swim, even bathe, because their child can't do that, can she?
That is why the McCanns looking so put together every day, going running, writing blogs, taking trips....just doesn't register right with folks; they don't seem normal for parents of missing children. Maybe parents of a child dead by accident whose narcissism allows them to focus entirely on themselves since they can't help their daughter any more, maybe that, but not the parents of a child abducted by a sex predator which is who would likely have taken a three-year-old little girl out of her bed.
3) Kate said she could sleep through the night within days of Maddie's disappearance. Within days.This particular statement threw me for a loop. It only took a few days to be able to get a good night's sleep? Really? Even when you know your child might still be in a predator's hands being raped and tortured, chained in some basement, while you are lying in a comfy bed? How do you do that? People don't sleep well for days after their dog gets run over by a car, but you are soundly sleeping while your daughter is being molested by a pervert; I can't wrap my head around that.
4) THE FUND. I would venture to say the fund is what really gets people's goat. It is one thing to accidentally off your child and then, in a panic, hide the body somewhere and tell the police someone kidnapped her, but to then set up a way to get a ton of money from people - not a charity to help all missing children - but a private fund with money you can use for any of your personal needs including suing people you wish to shut up, a fund which has shown no kind of investigative progress at all - a fund, for that matter, that you never tell people how that money is being used, what is being discovered - a fund that just seems to be raking in millions for your own personal use, that just doesn't sit well with people.
5) Carter-Ruck. The McCanns not only disparage those who feel they might be involved in the death of their child and subsequent cover-up, but then sue them to make them shut up. I have seen grieving parents deal with people not believing them but I have never seen this. It hurts when people question your innocence but it doesn't hold a candle to what happened to your child and isn't worth wasting energy over. Many people think the McCanns have spent more time getting back at their detractors than searching for their Maddie; that just doesn't seem normal to them and it's not.
6) Speaking of their detractors, the McCanns do not seem to have a clue as to why people have issues with them. They don't seem to get that they don't like them because they neglected their children, because they never confessed they were wrong for leaving their children (outside of saying they regret feeling that the place was safe and making that decision due to their naivete), that people don't like them for all the reasons stated here. Instead, they call those people psychologically disturbed human beings, which I guess includes me. I am not saying that some haters, on both sides of the McCann issue aren't psychopathic nutjobs - some indeed are - but I am talking about those who truly are bothered by the McCanns' behaviors and honestly believe they have involvement. Most parents of missing children get why people might suspect them, especially if their behavior is a bit odd. All the McCanns needed to do to handle this problem is admit they were selfish in leaving their children alone and that they understand they come off as guilty of a crime to some folks and, perhaps, unlikeable as well. They get it and they don't hold it against people, and while they wish people didn't promote theories of their guilt, they can understand why they do. And they are going to look for Maddie and not waste time being upset over these folks' opinions because their daughter is far more important than their hurt feelings.
7) The McCanns never took a polygraph, Kate refused to answer the 48 questions and they ran the country. Again, this seems to show that the McCanns place their personal well-being above finding their missing child. It is almost true across the board that parents of missing parents will subject themselves to just about anything to convince the police they are innocent of any wrongdoing so that the police will hurry up and focus on finding whoever it is that abducted their child. They suffer immensely during this process but they answer questions over and over again, day after day, weeping and begging during the process for the police to find their child. They take polygraphs even if they fear that they will have a guilty or inconclusive result if something goes wrong with the process because doing the poly will bring them one step closer to getting the police off their backs and in the right direction. Parents of missing children are terrified of pissing off the police because if they do, they might stop looking for their child. Such parents usually are afraid to call the police too often, grovel in any way possible, put up with police silence because they are afraid to anger them in any way. The McCann's actually had the whole investigation shelved for years because they didn't like the way they were being treated
8) Their arrogance. There are so many times the McCanns just come off terribly badly on television, appearing to be snide, flippant, rude, self-absorbed...I have never understood why the person managing their publicity hasn't gotten this through their heads.
9) Kate's book. I have read a lot of books by parents' of murder victims and Kate's book just doesn't come off right to me and many others. It seems more like a memoir about Kate and her troubles than about finding a missing child. There are a number of statements in the book that made people cringe.
I could go on and on, but I think that is enough to make the point as to why many people can't stomach the McCanns. I don't agree with a lot of the nastiness out there making fun of them, I don't think that this is necessary to push the issue of what really happened to Madeleine McCann. I don't think we need to comment on people's looks or make mockery of everything, but I do think people have a right to speak up as to why they think the McCanns are involved in the disappearance of their daughter and why they think the police should keep them on as suspects.
Oh, let me not forget to address this part of the original question; couldn't these be people who just love each other very much who are scared of the penalties of being truthful, who are covering up to save each other and their kids? Sure, they could be and if they had simply just run off and hid Maddie's body in a bush and come back and pretended that she had been abducted, never pointing fingers at anyone in particular (like Murat) or setting up a fund to bilk people out of their money, if they hadn't sued the crap out of everyone, sure, I could buy that. I don't think I had too much of a problem with baby Lisa Bradley's parents until they showed up on Dr. Phil and then I rather lost my sympathy for them; it is one thing to lie to save your ass, it is another to go on a huge national broadcast and proclaim your innocence and rile people up to send money and spend hours searching for the missing child you disposed of. (I add here that this is only a theory that the Bradleys also are responsible for the accidental death of their daughter - well, at least Deborah Bradley - and the disposal of her body). It is one thing to do something in a panic to save one's butt; it is another to make money off of it and waste massive money and manpower pushing a lie to such an extreme.
The narcissism displayed by the McCanns makes me think that it is not love that is fueling them to continue with what appears to be a massive farce. I think their behaviors make it clear that Kate and Gerry each have their own personal agendas supported by their own very selfish personalities - Gerry wants to be a big man, Kate wants to be a respected woman - and the twins, well, yeah, this will all help them, too. The incoming money and fame is a plus as well.
I am sure in the comments area people will add a dozen other reasons why the McCanns have made themselves the target of dislike. I do ask that people keep the comments factual and not full of nasty jibes and snarkiness.
I once wrote an
open letter to Kate McCann explaining why she had become such a target of hatred and how she could change that but, in the long run, I don't think she took much of it to heart, which is sad if she and Gerry are really innocent in the disappearance of their daughter. They could have left a lot more stones unturned if they had toned down the "distractions" with a few simple, self-effacing statements. Like not releasing those e-fits five years ago because doing so might also be a "distraction," they might have had a lot more help finding Maddie, the thing they claim is most important to them, if they hadn't pushed so many people away. As I once said to them, I would have worked on their case for free and gone public with a change of my view toward them if they could help me see they were innocent, and I am sure a number of other profilers, PIs and retired police would have done the same, but they took no one's help that they could not control one hundred percent with a paycheck and Carter-Ruck. One more reason people probably don't like or trust the McCanns.
Finally, I have a personal reason. What bothers me the most about the McCanns is the damage they will do to missing children investigations in the long term. With funds so tight in any law enforcement agency, we need those funds to meet the needs of ALL missing children, not just one, and we need those funds to be spent properly. We need the police to be able to understand how children go missing, who to believe, and how to find those children with the least money and manpower to be used per case. Any fraud or untruth b perpetrated by the McCanns will, not may, do long term damage to the search for missing children and this, for me, is the Number One reason I have negative feelings toward Kate and Gerry McCann.
Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
November 3, 2013
Published: July 27, 2011
W
hat 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.
