Mother Shot Dead by Two-Year-Old Son was Indeed Irresponsible, Criminally Irresponsible

Yes, it is a tragedy that a beautiful young mother and a nuclear scientist, Veronica Rutledge was shot and killed by her own son in Wal-Mart. Yes, it was an accident in that there was no intent on the little boy's part to kill his mother. However, her husband is dead wrong that his wife "was not irresponsible" and his wife was dead wrong with her choice to be irresponsible which leaves her simply dead.

It seems it is pretty easy to forgive-and-forget because the young child shot his own mother dead but what if he had shot someone else's mother in Wal-mart? Would we see a lot more anger then directed at Veronica Rutledge for failure to control her firearm.

There is a simple rule of owning a firearm; you must be in control of it at all times. It should either be in a safe or on or nearby your person in such a way that NO ONE else can access the firearm. A firearm in a purse is okay IF and ONLY IF you are in control of the purse that is housing the firearm. Ms. Rutledge was clearly not in control of her firearm and, worse, she left the firearm within reach of her two-year-old son. This is not only being irresponsible, it is being criminally irresponsible. If the boy had shot someone's else's mother, I would want Veronica Rutledge to be charged as an accessory to murder.

I have always been a proponent of the right to own a handgun and the right to carry. But, I also believe that if we want that right, we also must accept the responsibility that whatever happens with that gun is our fault. If any human being dies by being shot with that gun, then unless self-defense can be proven, we should be charged with a crime whether or not our own finger was on the trigger. The only time this should not be true is if the gun was stolen from us due to a break-in of our home or vehicle or purse (and this does not included "theft" of such a weapon by a relative who has legal access to our home. If our son or nephew knows where we keep our weapons in some unlocked location, we should be responsible for that person taking the weapon and we should be responsible for what he does with it).

Owning a weapon is a huge responsibility. We have no excuse for our gun killing people unless they are trying to kill us.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

December 31, 2014

The Missing: How Close is the Series to Real Life?

I have to admit I only watched The Missing because there was muttering that it had some resemblance to the Madeleine McCann case; curiosity got the best of me and so I watched the eight part miniseries. In general, I am not fond of watching murder mysteries because they are usually too far off of what I know to be true of real life criminals and investigations and I also don't really get much fun out of watching stuff that is work for me. The only kind of mystery stuff I like is Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie because they are more about the atmosphere and the puzzle and the graphic stuff is kept to a dull roar.

Anyway, I watched the series and here are my thoughts on it.

The acting was fine. I thought James Nesbitt was extraordinary as the obsessed father searching for his missing son; the way emotions played out in his face was incredible and I think this is what I enjoyed most about watching the series. But, acting is not what I am here to talk about. How real is The Missing and does it have anything to do with the McCanns?

Well, I would say there is a certain similarity between the McCann case and the case of missing Oliver in that the parents are away from their home country when their child disappears and I certainly believe the directors had Kate and Gerry McCann in their heads as they made the series, an innocent Kate and Gerry, mind you. Other than that, the series isn't a fictionalized version of the McCann case but it does have some interested elements in it which one could compare to the McCann case, like the behaviors of the parents, police, politicians, and pedophile predators.

Oliver goes missing while he is out with his father in a crowded location when his father lets go of his hand and is distracted.

This is a not uncommon way for a child to disappear. The parent is not necessarily being negligent but, in the course of moving about, the parent and the child get separated and a predator may take the opportunity to grab the unprotected child.

The behavior of Oliver's parents is totally believable from the moment he goes missing  (well, at least up until the show goes off the rails - I will discuss this after SPOILERS AHEAD). Tony and Emily O'Conner are shellshocked, confused, devastated....bloody wrecks. They look like shit....they do nothing but stagger around trying to function; they do not look spiffy and well put together, they do not go jogging, they do not call the press. They are basket cases.

They search for their lost child, wildly running down streets and around in circles. In one marvelous scene, Emily thinks she sees Oliver and jumps out of a still moving car to pursue the child.

They fully cooperate with the police. In one scene - I think the finest scene with Tony where those emotions on his face speak louder than words - he is accused by the police of doing something to his son, Oliver. His reaction is spot on....like he had just fallen into an alternate reality. He is totally stunned, horrified, scared, and confused. He is almost paralyzed, but still he cooperates with the police.....because he has no choice....these are the people he is depending on to find his son. He doesn't call them "fucking tossers" and leave town.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Tony becomes aggressive in doing his own personal investigation and ends up breaking into places, beating people up, and killing one of them. All of this is ridiculous. In real life, one of the most amazing truths is that parents of missing and murdered children are incredibly nonaggressive towards possible suspects, always saying they want to be sure it is the right person and they want to see him in a court of law. Even in cases where I have presented ample evidence of the likelihood that a particular suspect has murdered their child, even when the police do not ever arrest the suspect, the family does not take any action against the person. They wait for the law to do their job, even if decades go by.

Tony and Emily finally do leave France and go back to England. They aren't running away; the police       have shelved the case due to lack of any leads. Their marriage disintegrates due to alcohol abuse (Tony) and medication abuse (Emily), underlying guilt for losing his child (Tony) and underlying anger for him losing their child (Emily). Tony is also obsessed with continuing a daily search for Oliver; Emily wants to move on with a life, some kind of normal life. Marriages often fail after the abduction or murder of a child because the individuals can barely take care of themselves, much less a relationship.

The excessive police corruption isn't political (which is more likely in the McCann case) but the result of bad behavior within the department; I didn't particular buy the issues. The mayor didn't want to reopen the case after many years because he didn't want to wreck the economy of the town once again and he didn't want to ruin his political career...that made sense. There were many red herrings and the amazing evidence that is found is all ludicrous as is the final scenario of what happened to Oliver or what is theorized to have happened to Oliver. Here it is:

Oliver and his Dad enter a bar that is nearby the swimming pool they were at and Oliver is distracted by the football game on the television screen. Oliver, in the midst of the crowd, looks out the door into the dark and sees a fox standing there. Oliver is obsessed with foxes and so he leaves the bar to go see the fox and when the fox trots off nice and slowly, Oliver follows it. He not only follows it, he follows it into a wooded area and onto a road. Then he gets hit by a car.

Gets even stupider. The driver is the owner of the hotel where Tony and Emily are staying. He is an alcoholic who has fallen off the wagon after years of sobriety. He thinks he has killed Oliver and quickly dumps his body in the trunk without even being sure the child isn't alive or needs medical attention. Then he calls his brother on the police force to help him with the mess. His brother orders the hotel owner to drive to a house where he knows the owner is out of town and leave the body inside there. Say what?  After he does so, the boy wakes up and the Eastern European criminal clean-up guy kills him because Oliver saw his face and spirits him away. Then, yet another man is called to clean up blood (why is there blood? Wouldn't the killer have just strangled him?) but he feels bad about the boy disappearing so he leaves a picture the boy drew on the wall so the boy's memory is there. Who wrote this crap?

Anyway, the hotel owner conveniently drops a sobriety coin from his collection which is found by another crooked cop who gives it to a news reporter who blackmails him for it yet never actually does any reporting on the hidden evidence of the case, so why he blackmails the cop for it I don't know. When that clue is figured out along with the location of where Oliver was kept (his lost scarf ends up in a thrift store where when it is sold and the owner writes down the buyer's name and address to send to the previous owner so they know their possession went to a good home....bwahahaha....meanwhile, they have a video of from a partygoer across the street that captures a few seconds of Oliver at a window). If only in real life such evidence existed.

The stupid scenario goes further amok; the hotel owner confesses (on his deathbed, of course), but his brother kills himself without giving up more information, so what Tony and Emily have is only the knowledge that Oliver was in that house and that it is claimed he was killed there. In a reenactment we see a big pool of blood on the floor, so that is supposed to show us all that Oliver is truly dead, but there is actually no evidence that there was any blood on the floor or that Oliver was killed. So, Emily accepts the ending and decides Oliver is gone, remarries and moves on with her life.

Tony, however, cannot accept the scenario as gospel and continues to search for his son. He is last seen in Russia accosting a young teen who looks enough like Oliver to leave a question in one's mind as to whether Tony, while crazy, is not necessarily wrong.

Emily and Tony's choices are not unlike real life. Some do go on like Emily and some never let go like Tony.  And, one more thing is for sure; no matter how crappy and crooked and uncaring a particular police department might be, parents of missing and murdered children never stop calling them, working with them, and begging them to find their loved ones. Never. Even when they should.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

December 31, 2014


ThBy Pat Brown

Rating: 

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.

How NOT to Commit Career Suicide

As you all know, I have been keeping quiet about this case and simply waiting for the end. However, there is a lot of excited buzz in the Madeleine McCann world that Nicola Wall, the new DCI on the case who is taking over Andy Redwood's position on the case, is going to bust this thing wide open and it is making me shake my head.

No. Way.

Why? Because if she did, she would make the Met look like fools for wasting over three years and 10 million pounds of taxpayer money. Furthermore, a defense attorney would shred her for going after the parents of the victim when it is clear the previous head of the McCann case (British side, that is) never once investigated the parents or their friends, clearly focusing nonstop on a stranger abduction.

Unless Ms. Wall wants to find herself back on street patrol, she is going to continue down the same road as her predecessor, until she can find a suitable suspect to finally put this case to rest.

Andy Redwood was not eliminating every other possible suspect and scenario so he could circle back around to the McCanns; no police investigation does that because it is ridiculous...you can prove something DID happen but you can't prove something DIDN'T happen which means there could always be one more suspect and scenario that could theoretically be the answer. If there is evidence, the McCanns can be arrested, charged, and taken to court but you can't take them to court just because you couldn't find another person who could have done it. Redwood wasn't moving his investigation toward the McCanns and Ms. Wall isn't going to either. They are either looking for the "REAL" culprits in the disappearance of Madeleine or they are looking for the BEST culprits to blame for her disappearance.

As I have previously stated over and over, I see no evidence that the McCanns are going to ever be looked at again by law enforcement and whatever happened to Maddie will continue to be unproven for years to come barring some incredible miracle like her body being found or someone finally confessing to the events of May 3, 2007.

God Bless, Gonçalo Amaral; may he survive the nightmare whether he wins or loses the civil case, and continue to hold his head high as he deserves to be respected as one who never backed down or sold out.

I can't say the same for Scotland Yard.


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
December 8, 2014



By Pat Brown

Rating: 

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.

Ten Pieces of Evidence You Should NOT Become a Profiler

At least not yet. Not now. Maybe when you grow up. Actually, maybe never.

I get emails all the time from people - teens and college students, from those in their thirties and forties and from some quite mature in age - who want to become profilers and so they write me for advice. I answer some of them when they impress me enough to make me want to spend my time responding, but a good many emails just cause me to roll my eyes and hit the delete button. If your email, Ms. or Mr. Profiler Wannabee is in the trash bin, here are ten reasons why you might think about another career.


1) Dear Mr. Brown.....

If you can't even bother to find out the sex of the person you are emailing, your laziness or lack of interest in doing the smallest bit of investigation shows me you aren't going to spend enough time doing analysis on a case to do it properly.

2) Hi. I am starting my own agency and would like some advice.

Learn to write an email and don't go into business because you really aren't very good at it.

3) Dear Ms. Brown, can you recommend some books I should read to learn more about profiling?

Yeah, how about mine?

4) I keep picking abusive men to be in a relationship with, so I have a lot of experience with bad men and I think being a criminal profiler would be a great fit for me.

Hmm....no....because you suck at profiling.

5) I think Casey Anthony is innocent and if I were a profiler, I could have helped the police find the real killer of Caylee.

Hmm....no...because you suck at profiling.

6) I am a woman who just retired from my job at age 65 and I am thinking about going back to college (I am a HS grad) to become a profiler. Do you think I have a chance of working in the field?

::sigh::I wish..but, let's be realistic. There are hardly any jobs in profiling in today's world and by the time you get a master's degree, you will be in your seventies....so really? Do you really think you can get hired at that age when you are competing against young men and women, especially young men who have worked in law enforcement and the military? I won't tell you you shouldn't try but I could make really good money placing a bet against your chances of success.

7) Dear Ms. Brown, I find serial killers really pretty cool and I have been told I might be psychopathic myself so I could probably get inside their heads. Would I make a good profiler?

Dear Mr. Psycho, I am not saying you won't find a criminal profiler with a personality disorder, but I would hardly call that a qualification. However, I will keep you in mind if women start dropping dead in your area.

8). Hi. I think profling is kool I wnat to be one what should I do next

Learn how to read and write.

9) Dear Ms. Brown, I want to be a profiler but I can't stand to look at crime scene photos. Can I be one anyway?

No.

10) Ms. Brown, I want a super exciting career like those profilers in Criminal Minds. I want to chase serial killers and stop them from committing their next murder. What do you think I should do?

Find another career. Profiling is nothing like Criminal Minds and if you don't find studying photos and police reports and interviews something fascinating to do eight hours straight every day with just a break for lunch, you need become a street cop or  join the Marines.


If you sent one of the above emails to me, now you know why you have never heard back!


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

November 25, 2014

Bill Cosby, Hollywood, and the Casting Couch

Model Photo at Age 19 

A lot of people have been asking me if I think Bill Cosby is guilty of sexual assault and rape now that sixteen or so women have come forward to claim he forced sex on them in one way or the other. Let me say right here that I don't know if Bill Cosby committed a crime or he was just behaving like some of the men I encountered during my year in Hollywood; aggressive, entitled, and rather repulsive.

The casting couch was alive and well during the year of 1973 when I did the rounds in Hollywood attempting to get modeling and acting gigs. Managers, photographers, and actors of the male persuasion certainly put the moves on me promising me gigs and stardom if I just gave up a little somethin' somethin'. I remember quite a number of approaches. One day I went to a casting director over at Universal Studios for Police Story and he told me he loved my portfolio. Headshot photo in hand, he asked me to dinner. When I told him I had other plans, he threw it back across the desk at me and told me, mockingly, to call him again when I got in the union. Another time I had this manager take me to Richard Dreyfuss's house. I don't remember the actor being there but I do  remember a dish of pills being passed around. The manager encouraged me to pick a color. I declined. He then told me he could take me to Las Vegas with him while he did some business there. I declined. He didn't take me on as a client. I can remember some other times when my go-see included a man simply dropping his trousers or whipping it out and encouraging me to have a go at it. Yeah, the casting couch was and is a huge problem and I can tell you, I ran into very few girls who said no because those who did often got nowhere in the business. I promised myself I would never succumb to the casting couch and I kept that promise; I failed dismally at getting any work other than extra work.

I am not saying that truly talented women and men can never climb the career ladder in Hollywood without getting on their knees, backs, or stomachs but I can confidently say that a good portion of wannabee actors and models just go with the program and hope it does them some good.

So, can I see Bill Cosby acting in a disgraceful manner and aggressively seeking sex with young vulnerable women wanting to break into Hollywood? Absolutely. Most of the stories the women tell sound more like the casting couch than rape scenarios but that some might have been taken advantage of while heavily under the influence of drugs that Bill might have given them when a sexual act occurred...yeah, possible.

The problem, as always with the reporting of crimes delayed by weeks, months or years and especially when reported in the media rather than to law enforcement is that it is impossible to really know if a criminal act occurred, or for that matter, if even sleazy behavior occurred. Even though a person, like Cosby, with a position of power can certainly cause young person to succumb to sexual pressure either because they are starstruck or desirous of fame or fortune, it still isn't a crime unless there was force involved. One could call it sexual harassment but the fact most of these claims are outside of professional employment situations means it is a matter between two people. And, when a man reaches such a high level of visibility, it is easy for him to become a target of claims that can't be proven but can ruin one's reputation. I have had many lies told about me and I can't do much about them because once they are out on the Internet and being repeated, denial often doesn't make a difference. So I don't know exactly who is being despicable in this situation.

I made the decision at age 19 not to go the casting couch route. I could just have easily decided to use it to my advantage to get work. In reality, this is another version of prostitution and if one want to sell one's body to make money or advance one's career than one must accept that one is choosing to do so and the responsiblity for the act lies on both sides. Is it fair that the casting couch is, for a good many people, a necessity to get work in Hollywood? No, and I would like to see it eliminated. But, for now, it is still a reality and we all know that those in power sometimes demand sex in return for favors and those not in power may offer sex in order to get favors.

Sometimes standing up to those in power means losing money and opportunity. I didn't make it in Hollywood at age 19 because I chose not to go the casting couch route (and I probably wasn't all that talented, either) and I lost my job as a professor with Excelsior College because I chose not to allow plagiarism and I refused to participate in grade inflation. I have lost a good portion of my television work because I won't speak on mass murder. That is how life goes. I am sure many readers here have lost opportunities because they said no to sex, or lying, or cheating, or racism, or elitism, or whatever less-than-ethical action their boss or company required of them. And hurrah for them.

So, is Bill Cosby guilty of what these women claim? I don't know. All I know is he is still funny and I still love The Bill Cosby Show. And I still think Michael Jackson can dance.


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

November 24, 2014

Let's Talk about Curtains

Anyone who works in a lab that tests hotel bedspreads from a crime scene can tell you that they may find dozens and dozens of DNA samples on just one item, perhaps even semen from more than two dozen men. Why is this? Because hotels don't wash bedspreads very often.

Now, let's talk about curtains. How often do you think curtains in rental flats are washed? Yeah, about as often as those hotel bedspreads; actually, probably far less often because curtains are not usually a place where spilled drinks and food, vomit, pee, or semen tend to land. Unless those curtains get really disgusting (full of cigarette smoke, for example), they probably hang around without getting a wash for quite a long while.

And while they are hanging around, they are touched quite often.....open, close, open, close, open, close. So, if you want to find a location in a rental unit that might still have a lot of DNA from a number of people, you just might choose the curtains.

After, you test them, you would then have to run down everyone who ever stayed in the unit (and their friends who visited) and all the employees who might have entered the room in order to exclude anyone who have had reason to be there. You could then try to match the DNA to known criminals if you have their DNA or their DNA is in a data bank.

Of course, in the end, if you still have some DNA that can't be matched to anyone, you can always suspect that mysterious DNA be the calling card of some unknown person who committed some terrible crime that happened in that location.

Just saying.


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Why do People Tweet so Much about the Madeleine McCann Case?

The news media is reporting that McCann skeptic Brenda Leyland tweeted some 4220 times about the McCann case (how they got this number I am not sure) and, certainly, that does raise an eyebrow as to the issue of obsession and, to some people, trolling. Although I myself think, wow, that is a heck of a lot of tweets on one subject, I quite frankly don't want to count how many I have tweeted on the matter and that would be on top of my seventy plus posts at The Daily Profiler on the Madeleine McCann case, a whole lot of Facebook posts, a trip to Portugal to analyze the case, oh, and yeah, a book, too. So I guess that wouldn't put me far off of Brenda Leyland's numbers except I could claim I have more validity for speaking on a case as I am a professional profiler and Brenda, well, she is just a "regular" person (in fact, my haters will say any "real" professional profiler would never have spent as much time as I have on this case without pay....that I am just doing it because I am a nutter and self-promoter...you can't win with this case, as a professional or a layperson when it comes to being called a troll).

But there is a perfectly logical reason why both so many people are spending an incredible amout of time ruminating about this case; there has not been a case like this since I don't know when. I think this case beats out the JonBenet Ramsey case and the Charles Lindbergh case for many reasons, the biggest which is the McCanns themselves. The case is fascinating, bizarre, a media magnet (so the media should have no right to mock anyone for their interest in the case), and unsolved. And to top it all off, we have a set of parents who act like no other set of parents of missing children, parents who have courted the media from Day One and sucked a massive amount of money out of goodhearted people and sued the crap out of anyone who dares to "purport a theory" (a right everyone has as stated by Gerry McCann under oath). Oh, and (as one reader just reminded me), we have the entire police files that were made public so we aren't merely speculating; we are able to see the facts for ourselves and draw our own conclusions.

So, Brenda couldn't let go of this case? I can understand why. Was it healthy for her? I have no idea. Did it give her something to do or did it drive her crazy? Did she lose faith in justice? Did she lose faith in the government? In law enforcement? In the media? Was the doorstopping the last straw? We will never have the answers to this but I can surely state that Brenda is not alone in wanting to get to the truth of the McCann matter.

I have pretty much given up on that. I believe we have a whitewash in progress and this whole affair will be put to bed and the answers we all seek may have to wait for another time, if that time ever actually arrives. It saddens me because it seems wrong for so many to try so hard to just get this case handled honestly and properly. Some do it for justice for Madeleine, some do it for justice for all missing children, some keep on to insure our governments act properly, and some want the McCanns to justify their use of the money so many have given to them to "find" Madeleine only to find their money squandered.

As a profiler who has worked on cases from the inside, I can tell people that the McCann case isn't the only one that has had the truth hidden about it. I have seen police lie to the public, prosecutors lie to the public, evidence claimed to exist that doesn't exist, people convicted wrongly that no one cares enough about to be sure that due process was served, I have seen DNA reportedly matched when, in fact, no DNA actually exists. Why does this happen? Because it can and because the media knows which side their bread is buttered on and unless there is going to be a hell of a lot more in it for them than the next few easy stories from the police department, they aren't going to print anything controversial. Sadly, most police detectives work hard and want to see the right person convicted of the crime but politics sometimes overtakes the case, and when that happens, truth and justice and anyone who cares about these things become collateral damage. Just like Brenda.


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

October 8, 2014





By Pat Brown

Rating: 

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.

We are in the Secret Madeleine McCann Troll Dossier

In the wake of the death of Brenda Leyland who was outed by a pro-McCann group, Summers and Swan, and the UK and US media, condemned as a Twitter Troll and McCann hater, let me publicly state that I can be pretty sure that I am one of those named in the dossier as a McCann hater and troll.

Let me be perfectly clear to all media outlets. You don't need to out me. I am Pat Brown, criminal profiler, from Maryland, USA. I can be reached at profilerpatbrown@gmail.com and all my contact information is on my website at patbrownprofiling.com. I have two Facebook pages under my own name and a twitter account @profilerpatb. I am more than willing to discuss publicly my skepticism of the McCann account of what happened to their daughter in Praia da Luz in 2007.

If you believe you are one of the others named in the dossier, please add your contact information below so media does not need to track you down, publicly humiliate you and hound you to your death.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

October 5, 2014

Summers and Swan and The Demise of Journalism

Although I am no longer writing ongoing commentary about the Madeleine McCann case (not because I have been "silenced" but because I feel a whitewash is a foregone conclusion), I still find myself unable to keep quiet when I see the media act in egregious and unethical fashion. And since I have been part of the media more than a decade and also have insight on the how the publishing world and police agencies operate, I can shed some light on exactly what is happening with this sudden attack on McCann skeptics that has proliferated in the British and US media in the last few days. For those not up to speed, it has been reported by more than a dozen media outlets that the Metropolitan Police have received an 80 page dossier from a "concerned citizens group" which recorded the actions of vile trolls and their attacks on the McCanns.

This is my profile of exactly how this went down:

Summers and Swan put out a book (that I believe may have been commissioned) and expected - since they consider themselves to be investigative journalists of such a high caliber - to have little negative response to their book. They were surprised by the numbers of one-star reviews that certainly have curtailed sales (btw, the sales are not as bad as some believe - the site they are accessing for book sales is not accurate. While the book is not a bestseller, it is selling at a modest pace).

Summers and Swan are correct that some one-star book reviews were made without reading the book. However, some of the five-star reviews were also made without reading the book. There is no "organized" attack by any particular group - just general encouragement to post reviews of a book many feel is a sham and inaccurate. The only group I know of that has coordinated an "organized" attack is the online group that turned in the dossier against the McCann skeptics. This is pretty much a group spearheaded by one particularly aggressive pro-McCanner. This same group encouraged people to not only attack my book on the case, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (btw, this was an earlier independent review of the case, Mr. Summers and Ms. Swan) and put up negative reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but to go after my other books as well as punishment. This same group is the one from whom Summers and Swan got their information on me (rather than reading my book and blogs or interviewing me) and has kept a running log on McCann skeptics; I have a page devoted to me on their site (or, more accurately, pages) which I am sure was included in the dossier sent to the police.

So, Summers and Swan gather information from a particularly vicious Internet site that essentially stalks, harasses, and slanders people who believe the McCanns might be guilty of a crime; then this same group warned them that they might get negative reviews on their book when it came out. After this comes true, Summers and Swan get all pissy and decide to fight back. I am sure if this "dossier" was given to the police by the group without the publicity generated, absolutely generated by Summers and Swan who are tightly connected to the media industry, the police would have shelved it without comment. I know this because I have been stalked and harassed on the Internet and there is little the police can do unless there is a direct threat made that the authorities will take seriously. Saying nasty things about someone on Twitter or Facebook is not a crime. I have had many nasty things said about me by the pro-McCanns (I don't see Summers and Swan getting all bent out of shape on my behalf...no, they are instead teaming up with my abusers) but most are not criminal threats (the closest was a photo that was supposed to be of my house that was posted either to identify my home so I could be assaulted or to show that my house was not a mansion - it was actually a photo of my neighbor's house). I have been slandered unmercifully, but that is a civil, not a criminal, matter.

Summers and Swan now also claim that they are being personally attacked. I guess if you call questioning their journalistic ability being personally attacked, they are correct. The group Summers and Swan are having a "promance" with have slandered me over and over but that is totally okay with this ethically challenged duo.

The police are not going to do a damn thing with this dossier. Although another ethically challenged journalist, Carole Malone, claims Brenda Leyland (who was stalked and harrassed by Martin Brunt), sent 50 texts a day to the McCanns. I don't see any evidence she texted the McCanns threats. She posted on Twitter which is not a personal contact as would be texting and emailing or mailing. It is a public space where people chat and gossip. If you don't go hang out there, you won't get your feelings hurt as Summers and Swan and their daughter have or so they claim. Also, you can block anyone from Twitter and not see what they write. I have blocked all my haters and I see nothing of what they spew. I also block them from my Facebook page and, therefore, do not have to be bombarded by their nastiness. So, the police are not going to waste their time trying to slap the hands of Tweeters; they only commented to the press because Summers and Swan sent the press their way.

By the way, I am not defending really nasty stuff I see posted concerning the McCanns. As to Sweepyface (Brenda Leyland), I have only seen a small number of her tweets of; some are fine, some are a bit stronger in emotion than I am comfortable with. Whether or not I approve of all her tweets is not at issue; what is concerning is that she is being singled out as representative of all those who question the McCanns' involvement in the disappearance of their daughter. This is a wide and unethical brush. There is quite a variety in the content of what people post and some of it (though not the majority of it) has caused me to prefer, as a professional, not to be linked to any particular Facebook page or website other than my own. I do not approve of photoshopped pictures of the McCanns, sick comments, and such. I have had enough of that done to me by the pros and I do not think it is a civil way to conduct a conversation. Most of the people on the Facebook pages and Twitter are discussing things in a decent manner but there are those who cross the line and act crudely. Unfortunately, any major issue is tainted with nastiness these days on the Internet; you can see that by going to any comment section on any subject. If Summers and Swan think they or the McCanns should be not experience what every other public figure and author experiences, well, then they think somehow they are better than everyone. In reality, they have the fortune (and the lawyers) to have the media on their side  for many years, so they suffer far less at present than the rest of us.

Which brings me to my final comment on this; the media have become the most vicious of all trolls on the planet because they spit out gossip, lies, and slander without even bothering to check facts, which is exactly the opposite of what they are supposed to do as journalists. They run with any moneymaking story no matter who generated it and how true it actually is. Summers and Swan clearly orchestrated this junk story in the media knowing full well that none of their media cohorts were going to bother to do any real reporting on the matter. My name is in that dossier, I am damned sure, and not one journo has called me to validate the accuracy of the dossier or to find out more about this "secret" "concerned" citizens group.

Although I believe the Summers and Swan book is likely to have been "encouraged" to coincide with the end of the civil and criminal cases (although this seems to have been a miscalculation), this attack on McCann skeptics is simply Summers and Swan's outrage at having their book dissed. They are buddy buddy with the media so it is no surprise they were able to retaliate through them and, again, no media outlet is likely to question anything that is pro-McCann. I have been out here for seven years, written over seventy blogs on the case and published a book that was Carter-Rucked by the McCanns, and not one journalist (including Summers and Swan) has contacted me, a high profile independent professional criminal profiler, to understand the other side of the story. Balanced reporting, investigative reporting, ethical reporting - in the UK and the US - is pretty much as dead as Madeleine.





Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

October 5, 2014



By Pat Brown

Rating: 

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.

"Looking for Madeleine" by Summers and Swan: A Book Review by Pat Brown - Part Three

Today I have finished  reading Looking for Madeleine by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan and I sadly find I was right about my prediction that this book would be well-written enough to satisfy the masses that the McCanns are innocent of any involvement in their child's disappearance. As I read the narrative, I could feel myself starting to question their guilt and feeling my own guilt rising for ever thinking these two wonderful parents did anything questionable. Bravo, Summers and Swan, mission accomplished.

But, I know what they doing because I have experienced similar responses when I read well-constructed critical reviews of two of my own books, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann and The Murder of Cleopatra, reviews written cleverly enough that I started doubting my own theories and wondering how I came up with them at all. I had to go back and reread my books to see what I really had said and then I could see exactly how these critics had deceived me with their reviews, using magician's tricks to obscure the truth. And, when you have an audience who is never going to read the source material (either because it is too much work or the reviewer doesn't bother to footnote where he gets his material or have a bibliography at the back of his book), the critic can blatantly lie as well and the reader will simply accept what he says. For example, a number of my detractors of The Murder of Cleopatra blithely stated I had done little research on her life and death, completely ignoring the extensive bibliography I included in the book (along with many footnotes). I have a wall of books on Cleopatra and Roman and Greek history, architecture, geography, seafaring, poisons, etc (which I read from beginning to end with notes in all the margins) and I have massive numbers of web searches on my computers where I looked for each and every reference I could find on issues related to analyzing the Pharaonic queen's history. Never mind the two trips I made to Egypt. But, "I did little research;" I just made up a theory out of thin air. Likewise, with Madeleine McCann. I read so many attacks taken totally out of context that I had to go and read exactly what I did say and why I said it and when I said it and what I said before and after I said it.Cherry-picking  bits of info and then cleverly creating a narrative around them is the way readers can be deceived into believing what they are reading is factual and honest.

And this is what Summers and Swan do and do well. They cherry-pick facts which will support their narrative that the McCanns are innocent of any wrongdoing. Then, they weave an emotional story around them and find all the supports they can to bolster the "validity" of what they are saying. Any facts that are damning or that would raise questions are simple left out of the book. Glaringly so, to people who have followed this case and read the police files, but to those that know little except what they have seen in the media, they won't have a clue they aren't getting the whole story.

The other technique used by the detractors of the my two books and used heavily by Summers and Swan is the ad hominem attack. Those who attacked my Madeleine book spend a good deal of time trashing my professionalism. Attackers of Cleopatra book claim I can't properly analyze her life because I am not a historian. Summers and Swan infers that all those who question the McCanns are but haters or publicity seekers or incompetent morons.

Finally, Summers and Swan set themselves up, without any previous training, as better detectives and profilers than anyone else who has looked at the case. I have no problem with people who have not been trained analyzing something and then presenting good evidence to support their theory; in fact, I have been sometimes surprised by the good deductive reasoning of some lay people which is why I don't knock people who don't have a degree in a field for making a hypothesis. Sometimes experts are wrong and nonexperts are right. I don't object to Summers and Swan giving their opinion at some point (although for investigative journalists I should think this should be kept to a dull roar) but I do take issue with their incredibly arrogant stance that their deductions are clearly the right ones and those who question the McCanns in any way are one hundred percent wrong.

I won't bother to go into detail on all the inaccuracies in the book, the deceptions, the glaring omissions...I will leave that to other reviewers.  My final thought on this book is simply that it has achieved its purpose; to create a final narrative in favor of the McCanns and abduction. I don't think it matters how well it sells or if it has a bunch of one-star reviews on Amazon because this book isn't about sales but propaganda. I do believe this book was commissioned and the publisher had no issue with putting the book out there because it wasn't going to be Carter-Rucked and might sell well enough for a profit (as long as they didn't have to spend money on publicity which clearly they did not). I find it extremely odd that the publishers did not send out copies prior to publication for reviews - an extremely common practice and one you would think would be done with authors with a name - and I have to wonder if part of the deal was actually an agreement to not encourage major reviews that might put a negative spin on the book. "Haters" on Amazon are not taken so seriously as are book reviewers with major newspapers and magazines. It will be interesting to see if anyone does dare to write a less than favorable review of this book, but there was a deafening silence in reviewland when this book hit the stands and one has to wonder why.

As I stated a few posts back, I will not be doing any more running commentary on the McCann case. I feel this book is the final spin to the public of the McCann's innocence, the trial will finish up (and I doubt in a very positive way, but I hope I am wrong), and Scotland Yard will wind down with either a dead suspect or a statement that they have a good idea of who kidnapped and killed Maddie but they can't get enough cooperation with Portugal or enough evidence to pursue the evildoers to prosecution.   Whether the truth will ever out remains to be seen.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

September 19, 2014

"Looking for Madeleine" by Summers and Swan: A Book Review by Profiler Pat Brown - Part Three

"Looking for Madeleine" by Summers and Swan: A Book Review by Profiler Pat Brown - Part One

Published: July 27, 2011

By Pat Brown

Rating: 

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.

"Looking for Madeleine" by Summers and Swan: A Book Review by Profiler Pat Brown - Part Two

One of the rules of statement analysis is to pay very close attention to what is the first thing to come out of a person's mouth because that is the the most important piece of information the person wants to convey. For example, in the 911 call place by Darcie Routier on June 6, 1991, she told the operator this: "Somebody came here....they broke in...they just stabbed me....and my children."

Darlie did not immediately scream for help to save her children (two boys who were stabbed to death). What she most wanted the police to know was that someone else committed the crime. The next most important thing was to convey the attack came from outside the home. Then she wanted to make sure it was known that she was a victim. Oh, yeah, and, by the way, the children were stabbed as well. Darlie is on death row as of today.

Now, what struck me the minute I opened up Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan's book was the Author's Note. Pay attention to the very first thing these authors want you to believe, the very first thing. Then, note the second most important point, and the third. I will reproduce the Authors' Note in full.

The authors wish to make clear at the outset that, after more than two years studying this controversial case, they have seen not a shred of evidence to indicate that Gerry and Kate McCann, any member of their holiday group, or Robert Murat, were at any stage - in May 2007 or subsequently - guilty of malfeasance of any kind in connection with Madeleine McCann's disappearance or the repercussions that followed.

Allegations or innuendos about their role made or published by others, when referenced in the text of the book, are published only in the interests of reporting the history of the case- and to demonstrate the very point that such allegations are based on no factual evidence or are simply egregious.

This book has been researched and written independently of Gerry and Kate McCann.

So, the most important thing is NOT that the authors are going to be objective and allow the reader to hear all the theories, all the expert opinions, and allow them to deduce where they believe the truth lies. No, the most important issue is to shout out that the McCanns are innocent, so innocent, in fact, that there is not even the smallest scintilla of evidence that should raise an eyebrow. The second most important point they want people to get is that anyone who dares to question the McCanns is egregious in doing so because - although police detectives and profilers and numerous other professionals doubt the McCanns' innocence - these two journalist know better than any of them that there is not a shred of evidence that should have led any of these professionals to such a conclusion. Hence, they are all hacks and haters.

And, the third most important reason for this book is that the authors want the readers to believe that the McCanns in no way influenced their decision to write this book, did not influence what they researched and who they interviewed, nor did they influence what was written or have any say in the final manuscript. This is what they want readers to believe although this final sentence of the Authors' Note does not actually say that; the sentence simply says they did some work on their own as doing something independently does not mean that there is not a directive, there is not oversight, and there is not a final approval.

For supposedly objective journalists, this opening speech is markedly bizarre for two peoople who just want to tell a story, to report what happened, to lay out the facts.

These two people are on a mission to exonerate the McCanns and crush any opposition. I wonder if they were cheaper than Carter-Ruck.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

September 19, 2014

"Looking For Madeleine" by Summers and Swan: A Book Review by Profiler Pat Brown - Part One

By Pat Brown

Rating: 

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.

"Looking for Madeleine" by Summers and Swan: A Book Review by Profiler Pat Brown - Part One

I have finally received my copy of Looking for Madeleine by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan and I promised that, in spite of my moratorium on commenting on the Madeleine McCann case, I would review this book because my name shows up in it and I predicted months ago that this book was going to be pro-McCann and written cleverly enough to convince anyone unfamiliar with the police files to believe what is contained within this supposedly first "independent and objective" account of the case.

Today I will address the author's claim to be objective and to have done extremely thorough research. I will start with the bit in the book about me because....well, naturally, that was the bit I just had to read. You will find the part about me on pages 196-197.

First of all, it is hard to exactly know where they got their information from because these supposedly professional journalists failed to include any footnotes in their book nor did they have a bibliography at the end. I surely included footnotes when I wrote The Murder of Cleopatra...how else would people verify what I researched and be able to learn more about what others had written on her history? When I read people complaining online, I saw Summers and Swann's reply that these folks need only to read the source notes. Well, I have the book in front of me and they meant this literally. There is a chapter called "Source Notes" within which is explained the they had read from the police files and Gonçalo Amaral's book and they also noted a number of media sources. THIS is NOT a bibliography. Although Summers claimed in his email to me that he had read my blogs and book, he doesn't mention these in his "source notes".....oh, yeah, well, he probably actually didn't read them at all. He mentions my blog, The Daily Profiler, in one of the chapters on haters, but he doesn't directly quote me (because I refused him permission) so he instead paraphrases what I said and does not footnote where he got this information from. I actually had to Google some of the key words to find out exactly which of the 72 blogs I have written on the McCann case they came from and, interestingly, what I came up with was the Stop the Myths site.

As a matter of fact, from what I could Google, most of Summers and Swan's questions to me came directly from the Stop the Myths, a, vicious pro-McCann site, which is why I got warning bells that I was about to be put in a conspiracy theorist or hater section of the book. It would seem to me that when the authors did research, they only did their research on the pro-McCann sites. I got no feeling through our email conversation that the authors had studied my profile of the case and they never asked for an interview early on (they only called me for quote permission right before publication) so that they might really pick my brain for my professional analysis of the case. After refusing to allow Summers and Swan to quote my blog, I suggested that they ask me questions about my take on the case and my profile and they could quote from my answers. They did ask me a few vague questions and these were my answers:

1) When a child goes missing from home, the police are faced with four possibilities: the child ran away, the child wandered away and met with an accident, the child was abducted, or someone in the home removed a live or dead child and is not telling the truth to the police. As Madeleine was not yet four years old at the time of her disappearance, it is obvious she was not a runaway. Although it is possible she could have wandered out of the vacation flat, her body was never found nearby nor was there any evidence she opened either door and walked into the street to then be abducted. The third possibility is that of a predator breaking in and abducting the child which there has never been any evidence to support. The fourth possible cause of Madeleine's disappearance is that something happened to her inside the vacation flat and the parents removed her body and are covering up a crime. 

In spite of the lack of evidence supporting an abduction, the Portuguese police immediately focused on the child being taken by a local predator; this is not uncommon as well-healed distraught parents rarely become suspects in the early days as detectives tend to feel sympathetic toward parents who appear to be a noncriminal type. Because Robert Murat lived only a block away from the flat and exhibited some concerning behaviors, he became an Arguido, a suspect, which is not unreasonable at that point in the investigation. However, it would have been best if the parents had also been considered suspects from the early days of the investigation and then both avenues could have been investigated until evidence narrowed the focus down to one theory. Later on, statements and behaviors from the McCanns and their friends raised the detectives' suspicions that they might have had something to do with what happened to Madeleine, and when no evidence of abduction was able to be found and cadaver and blood dogs hit in the vacation flat and in the McCanns' hire car, the police had no choice but to declare the McCanns Arguidos. To this day, Gonçalo Amaral believes the evidence points to the McCanns' involvement with the death and disappearance of their daughter, as do I. The three-year-long Scotland Yard review has not provided one shred of evidence that any abductor removed Madeleine from the flat and it is concerning that they have never gone back to the beginning of the case and reinterviewed that parents and their friends nor done a crime reconstruction of the night in question.

2) After seven years of analyzing this case and traveling to Portugal and Praia da Luz to study the crime location, it is my conclusion that there is no evidence of stranger abduction and the physical and behavioral evidence continues to support my theory that the McCanns were involved with the death and disappearance of their daughter. It is clear after visiting the location of the vacation flat, the the statement of Jane Tanner that she saw both Gerry McCann chatting with a friend on the street at the very time a man carrying a small child away from the flat is unlikely to be truthful. On a street as narrow as that one is between the McCanns' flat and the Tapas dining area, there is no possible way Gerry and his friend did not see either Jane or the possible kidnapper. Scotland Yard's claim on CrimeWatch that Jane really did see a man carrying a child, that this man was a vacationer carrying his child back to his apartment after an evening of childcare provided by the hotel, is not credible  - as the man would have been walking in the wrong direction. Furthermore, this man never came forward for seven years and Scotland Yard has not given out the name of this supposed tourist.

After examining the crime scene and statements and behaviors of the parents and their friends and taking into account the evidence of the cadaver and blood dogs, the evidence points to Madeleine being overmedicated by her parents and having an accident while they were not in the apartment. The sighting by the Smith family of a man carrying a child toward the beach from the direction of the vacation flat has a high likelihood of being Gerry McCann. It is my theory that he temporarily housed Madeleine's body near the beach and in the early morning hours, moved her body to a gravel and rock filled crevice on the Rocha Negra, the large rock that soars above Praia da Luz. Such a burial spot is easily accessible from the beach and a excellent location to hide a body without the necessity of a shovel. Later, when Kate McCann told a Portuguese detective of a dream she had in which she saw Madeleine dead on a slab of rock and the cadaver dogs were going to be brought in, I theorize that Gerry McCann then moved Madeleine's body to a more remote location, possibly a desolate area just west of Praia da Luz near where Gerry's phone pinged over a couple of days, a hilly, shrub area known as Monte do Jose Mestre. Unless Scotland Yard or the Portuguese police search this area in the manner in which they searched three locations (based on the residences and work locations of local criminal suspects) fruitlessly near Praia da Luz, then it is clear Madeleine's body will never be discovered except by accident.

It is the totality of the evidence that leads me to believe the McCanns should be reinstated as suspects. With no evidence of abduction, there is no reason to spend millions of pounds chasing bogeymen all over the world and digging up acres of ground in Portugal when there is not a shred of evidence to warrant such actions.

Summers responded with this:

  I've now read and digested. There will be a problem with length, but I promise you what will emerge will be faithful to what you've written

Lying. Dog. As I suspected, nothing of what I wrote in answer to his questions was included in his book. Instead, he pulls stuff out of context that he found on the Stop the Myths site and then
 ignores my statements that I permitted him to quote. Finally, he libels me by stating "The adventure (my trip to Praia da Luz) produced only substantial self-publicity." (Summers,A, Swann, R., Looking for Madeleine, page 197 - this is a footnote). I learned a good deal in Praia da Luz which could forward the case if investigators took my findings into account.

It seems obvious to me Summers and Swan's only goal in including me in their book was to prove my profiling of the case had no merit and that I was one of the haters. Although they mention my blog on the case, I am quite certain it is to present me something less than a professional profiler and more of a blogger. After tearing apart Nancy Grace, it is then mentioned I was a regular on her show. No where is my book, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann mentioned or the fact that the McCanns Carter-Rucked it. And since there are no footnotes, no one can double-check the veracity of the authors version of my commentary nor see in what context such commentary was made.

One of the advantages of being included in the book is that I know more than the innocent reader that not all is as it seems. Any reader unfamiliar with the police files or Gonçalo's book, The Truth of the Lie, or my book, or Tony Bennett's What Really Happened to Madeleine McCann: 60 reasons which suggest that she was not abducted (or informative blogs like that of Joana Morais or Hideho) will likely believe that these two investigative journalists are presenting factual information and not a very slanted, subjective, and possibly commissioned version of the Madeleine McCann case.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

September 18, 2104




Published: July 27, 2011

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

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.