"I Knew Straight Away She'd been Taken." - Kate McCann

I have already discussed the biggest behavioral red flag in the missing Madeleine McCann case, that of the McCanns playing down the Smith sighting of a man carrying a little girl toward the beach at 10 pm. I have also discussed the odd statement of Gerry's to relatives after Maddie went missing, "It's a disaster!" But, since watching Crimewatch with Kate relating the events of that evening, I am nagged by the another big red behavioral flag in this case, the description of the open window and whooshing curtains in the children's bedroom and her statement, "I knew straight away she'd been taken."

Let's put aside the evidence which does not support the window actually being open and imagine that Kate really found it that way. Imagine you are Kate and you have walked into the bedroom, seen the twins asleep but your daughter missing. You get confused and you check the house for her. Then you go back in the bedroom and the curtains whoosh and you see the window is wide open. You know your child has been unattended for at least 30 minutes (if we are believing the Oldfield check in which he actually doesn't say he saw Maddie but Kate thinks he has) and that the bedroom Maddie is in is on the ground floor right alongside the street and a parking area. The curtains whoosh and you realize that the window has been opened, not by you, not by your children (I stayed in a similar apartment in the complex and it takes a bit of work to open the window so I am sure Kate knew that Maddie did not do it), but by SOMEONE. SOMEONE opened the window and likely that SOMEONE has your missing child!! What would you do next?

The first thing Kate does is look around the house AGAIN. Okay, maybe in her confusion and last hope she might do that. Maybe the guy is inside with the child, maybe your child got scared and hid and the guy ran away, maybe you are imagining the window was opened by someone else and your child is in really secreted somewhere in the house. I get that this is a possible reaction. So you look everywhere, everywhere, except behind the sofa.

It is the next action that strikes me as bizarre. Kate runs off to the Tapas restaurants to tell everyone that Maddie is gone and someone had taken her.

Again, I ask what would you do next if you thought someone had grabbed your child from her bed possibly a minute ago? I think if it were me, I would run out my front door screaming her name, running into the parking area to see if someone is putting her into a vehicle, running into the street to see if someone is carrying her off somewhere, screaming her name, hoping she will scream back, hoping someone might take notice of me screaming her name and wonder about some man hurrying by carrying a little girl. I would be screaming, "Help! Help! Someone has taken my child! Maddie! Maddie!" I would be hysterical, standing even in a deserted street screaming and crying, hoping someone will rush out, someone will look out their windows, that some police officer might pop up! Then, I might run to the Tapas restaurant, screaming all the way, "Maddie! Maddie! I would scream to raise the dead on the way to get more help,

But, that is not what happened. Kate did her check in the house and then went straight down to the restaurant. She does not even describe in her book looking for Maddie as she does so. It is not until after Kate raises the alarm and supposedly seven of the Tapas 9 return from the restaurant that Kate finally runs out into the car park screaming, "Maddie! Maddie!"

Some will say I am nitpicking here, that Kate might well have run straight to her friends because she was seeking help. That she was in shock which is why it took so long for her to look for Maddie outside the apartment and why she doesn't even mention scanning the area for her child on her way to the restaurant.

Maybe, but I don't think that is what the story is telling us. I think we are finding out about what happened between 9:15 and 10 pm. More and more I believe Gerry found out that Maddie was not in bed during his check and when he didn't get back to the table quickly, when Kate made that remark about Gerry getting distracted watching the footy on the television, she went with Oldfield to find out what was taking him so long. When she got there, Gerry may have already been in a panic trying to find Maddie. Kate and Oldfield join in, and they finally find her behind the sofa. There is a short period of shock, horror, and panic, Kate cuddling her daughter, and then the decision is made to take Maddie from the flat, that Gerry will do this and Kate will raise the alarm.

There are those who every time I write a blog making one particular point go crazy and then spread tales that I am basing my theory of the McCanns' possible guilt on one behavior alone. This is not so. In my blogs, at this point in time, I am merely bringing up points of interest, behaviors and other information that lends to the whole picture. I have already written a book on the case and written numerous blogs making dozens and dozens of points which lend to my final analysis. After I wrote my book, I went to Praia da Luz and saw the area and flat firsthand. When I came back I wrote blogs about what I found out and what of my analysis needs to be updated with the new information. There is always updating to do as time goes by and more information comes in. I have adjusted some of my thoughts but I have found nothing to dissuade me from the likelihood of the McCanns' complicity in the demise, yes, demise of their child. Right now we have the media going on and on ad nauseum about some Cape-Verdian guy who happened to work for the same company that runs the vacation rentals were the McCanns stayed and whose phone pinged somewhere in the vicinity (how close a vicinity we do not yet know) supposedly on the evening she went missing. Of course, he actually didn't work at the complex, had never been seen near the apartment, and lived only fifteen minutes away, but somehow he is now a major suspect. With those not-very-damning bits of info , there is not much of anything to build a picture of a man who should be a top suspect in abducting Maddie. But, there are many, many reasons to look at the McCanns' involvement in their daughter's disappearance; there are many peculiar behaviors on the part of the McCanns to build that picture of possible guilt along with the physical evidence in their rental flat and their rental vehicle that points in the same direction.

With the media telling many a tall tale about this suspect and that, with the media not questioning the McCanns' bizarre behaviors - like not making public the e-fits of the Smith sighting five years ago when their PIs handed them the pictures (and even threatening them with a lawsuit if they released them to the police or public) - or bringing up the physical evidence that points to Maddie dying in the apartment and her body being moved in the rental car, I feel we must all, for a time, keep alive the other side of the picture - that there are many people - police officers, detectives, criminologists, profilers, lawyers, and citizens - all who think the evidence strongly points to the McCanns as being involved in Maddie's death and disappearance and these folks would like to see the Metropolitan Police and the PJ make the McCanns one of their avenues of investigation even if they believe abduction is still a possibility. I see nothing unreasonable in this, do you?

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

November 2, 2013

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

By Pat Brown
Rating:
(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.