Why the McCanns Love Conspiracy Theorists
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| What is Even the Point of Photoshopping in Sunglasses? |
But, in reality, these theories do nothing but benefit the McCanns' assertions that Internet crazies and trolls are making ridiculous claims; it is the far more likely scenario, the simple one of negligence and a desperate cover-up that the McCanns would like to go away. This is why they want Amaral's book off the market, why they want my book off the market - the truth is what they fear being proven, not a myriad of farout theories promoted by people with no power to influence law enforcement. The more fantastical the theories, the easier it is to discredit those who create them.
In fact, the McCanns love convoluted scenarios so much, they hired a bunch of crooked private investigators to create all kinds of bizarre kidnapping scenarios because they know the public loves to latch on to fascinating puzzles and that keeps the money coming in. Can you imagine how few donations they would have received if their PIs only looked for a local pedophile who would have killed Maddie within hours of abducting her? Not many would have supported that kind of search....it is just sad and boring and even if it brings closure to the parents and saves other children's lives, there is just nothing very inspiring about searching for a dead child.
The McCanns also have to be happy about the complicated scenarios that Scotland Yard has managed to develop because, again, it takes the focus off of a simple crime that points to them being involved.
If only all the focus of everyone - the public, the police, and professionals - simply looked back at May 3rd, 2007 and analyzed what went wrong that evening, how the McCanns likely dealt with it, and what they could have done to destroy the evidence of their involvement and, most importantly, focused on where her body might be - the one piece of evidence that could lead to an actual conviction - maybe then, this case would have a chance of being solved and justice done.
I don't believe there is a snowball's chance in hell of this happening at this point, but it is a shame that more effort isn't put into just that.
Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
November 6, 2015
By Pat Brown
Rating: 
Published: July 27, 2011What 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.
92 comments:
I want to say, that I actually very much appreciate the great interest I have seen in this case and the efforts to understand it. Not all theories outside of mine are "incorrect" and my theory is not necessarily totally "correct" and, in general, there is nothing wrong with bringing up ideas and trying to see if there is something there. Unfortunately, though, along with some clearly good analyses of various anomolies in this case, as time has gone on, the overanalysis of certain issues has led to a much fantastical hypotheses. I believe in sticking to what can be proven as much as is possible and leaving alone anything that is too questionable; for example, the Payne statement is just not valid enough which is why it has been ignored by law enforcement and stuff like Maddie look-a-likes being carted about Praia da Luz to make it seem like she is alive and Brenda being murdered simply does not have any evidence to support the idea. It is the overfocus on theories with little evidence which has skewed this case toward conspiracyland and caused more damage than good.
Hi Pat, hope you are well, I agree that most cases are straight forward, but, the McCann case is not in that category.
How many cases have you been called upon, where such agencies have intervened, such as Top Government officials, Two Prime Ministers, Royalty, Secret Intelligent Services, MI5, MI6 & MOD, along with, Two countries top diplomats without mentioning Two excellent top police forces PJ & Scotland Yard, Interpol, and Twelve Million pounds expenditure signed off via United Kingdom PM, also, a world wide search.
Sorry Pat, I would hardly think (no matter how clever they are, a group of middle class doctors allegedly involved in an accidental death of a child; would call upon so much attention and urgency. Madeleine McCann case is so special it effectively shut down free press around the World. No Pat, this case is special and needs special attention by anyone who will put in the time & effort for justice for little Maddie McCann.
Pat do you really think there would be a cover up or are you in lalaland? I think perhaps you are.
By the way the year is 2015 not 2016! See I spotted that!
Anon 3:06
The problem, Anon, is there is STILL no evidence that supports anything but an accidental death on May 3rd....and, as I pointed out in my previous post, this is just not the way crime is committed. Yes, the McCanns have gotten unprecendented support but this does not mean that there is evidence supporting a conspiracy IN Maddie's disappearance, just that the McCanns got help after the fact for some reason or other. We must stick with the evidence and all this stuff about Maddie dying days earlier and a huge pile of people staging her an abduction on May 3rd just doesn't hold water...no evidence to that fact, none, and people are trying desperately to create such evidence and this is where it all goes off the rails and starts benefitting the McCanns tremendously.
The case is over. Scotland Yard is winding down and will put it to bed. I doubt Goncalo will win in court except maybe to have the losses reduced in some manner. This case will remain a mystery for years to come, not, in my opinion as to how Maddie died, but why the McCanns got so much help in the long run.
I entirely agree that there is so much ill-informed (albeit well-meaning) nonsense perpetually circulating as 'fact' it's no wonder those that question the official narrative relating to Madeleine can sometimes be considered 'conspiriloons'. The cause is that many people seem unable to discriminate between 'opinion' and a rational hypotheses based upon the most robust evidence. I consider the Last Photo to not have been taken on the day/time claimed (based upon the evidence of the weather and the sun position). However this does not automatically mean that Madeleine died before the night of the third... It could just as simply be that a cheery family photo was needed for the media to hype as a 'Last Photo' with nothing more sinister (n.b. Whenever someone dies the Media like to have a Last Photo for added emotional impact). The timing of the Last Photo can be assessed and debated, intelligently and rationally drawing upon the available evidence. Researchers may not agree on the interpretation of such evidence... and even if they did agree that the photo could not have been taken on the 3rd it is then simply guesswork as to the "why?" it was produced by the McCanns as a 'Last Photo'.
However, what is absolutely unarguable is that the Last Photo shows absolutely no evidence of any Photoshopping. The maxim "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" is a good one... and there is, in this photo, an absence of image manipulation. The biggest claim of 'evidence' are the vertical lines (as highlighted in the article'a header) in Gerry's sunglasses. The attached video shows very simply that vertical lines are exactly what you'd see. Anyone that claims the sunglasses are Photoshopped is, either unwittingly or intentionally, helping those implicated in the death and cover-up of Madeleine. In this regards Pat is spot on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAXqYthVcrM
Hi Pat, Don't you agree abduction was/is the simplest answer? I cannot get my head around the fantastical theories abounding on "social media" which is anything but social!
We were told from the very start via our news channels that people had witnessed a man and a woman watching 5a. If that is the case, and I believe it was, then the abductors would have got a clear pattern of the McCanns activities and easily have accessed the apartment in a swift and clean operation. Can you not see this?
What we find is various little cliques of people who come up with way out theories of parental involvement and cover up on some massive scale including governments, police forces x 3 and staff of the OC plus residents & the priest in Luz. Could this be feasible? Of course not. The McCanns are 2 very ordinary doctors from here in Leicestershire and as I know people who either know them or have seen them out and about, then what I garner is that they are a thoroughly nice but ordinary couple, not mastermind criminals.
I honestly think it is time people such as yourself refrain from starting more controversy. I'm positive the truth will be learned one day. I was inspired when the Sunday People journalists approached Wojciech Krokowski as my suspicions lie firmly in that man having involvement.
What do you say?
Pat I also wish to correct you on another claim you make above regarding Operation Grange winding down.
This is far from true. They had a huge amount of officers on the investigation in the beginning & up until recently because of the volume of work they had to do. Remember they didn't only have the mish mash of paperwork from the PJ investigation but also all of the information garnered by the PIs such as Metodo 3, Halligens men and Edgar etc. Now although Halligen was later proved to be a fraud his men did some good work on the case as did Metodo3 and Edgar etc. All this had to be collated by Operation Grange. It has taken this long to sort it out and I daresay to bin was they deem unnecessary. Remember OG have also interviewed a number of witnesses/suspects already.
We were given notice only a few days ago that although the size of the operation is now cut to 4 that the 60 leads they have left to follow is manageable with the number of officers left. We were also told by the police that they will NEVER give up on Madeleine and her file will remain open for as long as it takes so I feel you are misinforming your readers somewhat by saying it is winding up.
Anon 3:12
Coverups are done for lots of reasons: protecting national interests, politics, personal friendships, etc. Many times I have worked a case which ended in a railroading or coverup and people would comment that the reason was because there was some huge connection between the killer and the sheriff or whatever. A good portion of the time the coverup was due to funding, embarrassing investigative errors, political career enhancing (like solve a case on your watch) and all sorts of more mundane reasons. Sometimes these things tumble into something that looks huge but is just a bunch of smaller people looking out for themselves.
As to you comment on spotting my mistype of 2016 instead of 2015 (thank you; I have fixed it). People have jumped on all kinds of "evidence" about me and theorized what it meant -- like a typo means I am drunk or incompetant; when Scotland Yard fails to close the McCann case it is because of a conspiracy; when I fail to close a case it is because I am a "fake" profiler. The problem with so many theories is that they are not based on evidence and unless there is solid evidence to support a theory, then it should not make it into "proof" land.
If it weren't for the evidence which I believe supports their involvement in the disappearance of Maddie, I would feel sorry fo so many things I think are taken out of context and slanderous.
Anon 3:37 As I have stated for a long time, the Scotland Yard investigation is not run as a proper investigation should be run. The huge amount of information they supposedly had to go through is garbage; when I have worked on a case, I do not go through hundreds of boxes of worthless information - tips from psychics, etc. What I do is focus on the evidence and go from there and this is the part that Scotland Yard didn't bother to do; hence, they spent four years in nonsensical busy work. They only need four people to start with in order to review the real evidence of the case. So, yes, the case is winding down due to the outcry over wasted money and because they have nothing left to "investigate" and now will just putter around until the end.
Sonmi,
This whole thing about "The Last Photo" sunglasses is a great example of how silly this has become. Let's say there was a photo of Gerry sitting with one child by a pool but he isn't wearing sunglasses. So what? Why would that photo not have been good enough? Why would someone waste time adding sunglasses to his face just so that then someone could claim they were photoshopped? It is nonsense. For that matter, it doesn't even make a difference if there were no photos; some people just don't want to spend their time clicking pictures. And, again, the evidence points to May 3rd, not earlier, so all of this fakery is simply not necessary. Also, even IF Madeleine died before the 3rd, I can tell you as a profiler who has analyzed many cases, the theory of how her earlier death was covered up and May 3rd staged is just not something that happens; they would have dealt with it in a simpler, quicker way, just as we see on May 3.
Pat I am disappointed by your response to me to be perfectly honest. I find the whole concept of a massive cover up by 2 governments, 3 x police forces, OC staff and management, the Priest in Luz and the good people of Luz to be ludicrous and I don't believe it happened.
The simple facts are this, apartment 5a was watched for days and as stated by myself above it enabled a swift and clean operation in which Madeleine was lifted from her bed by a woman I believe and handed across the wall to a man and she was gone but this was witnessed by Jane Tanner. I don't believe she or any of the Tapas Group lied.
We know from Nuno Lourenco's statement that only days before his daughter was the target of a man who was firstly taking photographs of his daughter (who looked much like Madeleine) and others, furtively on the beach at Sagres. he later tried twice to snatch the child in a beachside café. Luckily for the little girl that failed and yet within days Madeleine was gone. Now to me that sounds very much like a child was ordered and when Nuno Lourenco's child escaped then another little girl was sought. You may think this unlikely but if so why? You know full well the ridiculous theories abounding on public forums such as facebook. Cruel and needless and being pushed out there by mindless people with over active imaginations. Perhaps they have suffered abuse themselves in their childhood, that is sad, but really the abuse the McCanns have had to endure has to stop. The poor couple get blamed for every darned thing that comes up in the daily rags as if they have organised it instead of realising that the rags know how much money they make everytime Madeleine's name is on their front pages.
It is persecution and nothing else describes what the McCanns are being put through. There is nothing at all to say they were in anyway involved with Madeleine's disappearance except they were foolish to have left the children asleep in the apartment. They were not abusive parents Pat and the McCann children were a very happy trio and would be today if it wasn't for the predatory nature of some felons.
Here you are Pat. And please don't accuse Operation Grange of not conducting themselves professionally and investigating in a proper fashion. I know you are rather enamoured with Goncalo Amaral and Peter MacLeod but really you are skewed if you believe either of them over our top police force in UK:
http://www.policeprofessional.com/news.aspx?id=24696
There is no evidence that supports an "accidental death" either. What are you talking about? Are you sure you're not confusing this case with another?
Maybe Pat is confusing this case with another? There is no proof Madeleine died at all, in which case the decent thing to do is to continue the search for her and find out just what happened to her...surely? Or do we allow these felons to carry on stealing our children? What do you say Pat?
Can you explain what you mean by this outrageous claim:
"The McCanns also have to be happy about the complicated scenarios that Scotland Yard has managed to develop because, again, it takes the focus off of a simple crime that points to them being involved."
I'm not following you
What the hell would be "simple" about getting rid of your beloved daughter's body assuming she had had an accidental death rather than taking appropriate action, as I believe they would have done being doctors, and informing the authorities? Your deduction makes no sense at all.
And to say the parents must be happy with what Scotland Yard have developed? For God's sake Pat please come into the real world.
Here is something FYI Pat as maybe you aren't up to speed on what is happening in UK with our police and our press?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/madeleine-mccann-detectives-examine-former-6699750?ICID=FB_mirror_main
To anon above, you are wrong with your assumption about the webmaster. I happen to know who it is and the initials are quite wrong. There you go...false information yet again! Try harder next time!
Anon 3:25
I based my analysis on evidence, physical and behavioral, and as a profiler I can't ignore the evidence. The simplest answer that it would be an abduction is not necessarily the right answer; I can't base a profile on the simplest or even what seems to be an obvious answer. There is NO evidence of an abduction outside of the fact Madeleine missing and much physical evidence and behavioral evidence that supports and accident in the flat and an attempt to cover up that fact.
It matters not to me whether the McCanns are nice people or not-so-nice people. Psychopaths and narcissists have had their children abducted and murdered and seemingly nice people can be behind horrific crimes. This is why one must focus on evidence, not subjective feelings about the persons of interest.
Anon 4:07
A great example of calling something evidence that is not. There is no "fact" that the apartment was watched for days or that Maddie was lifted by a woman out of bed and handed to a man outside...so this shows why people claiming stuff that isn't true to be true or making up scenarios based on zero evidence is a problem.
I don't really wish to get into an argument over this and that but to answer quickly to some of the stuff above:
I am not "enthralled" by anyone: I am enthralled by the scientific method of profiling based on evidence.
I do have an issue with the abnormal handling of the case by Scotland Yard and I have worked with police departments that have mishandled cases before. Detectives and police departments are like any other professionals and organizations: sometimes excellent, sometimes terrible, sometimes mediocre, sometimes honest, sometimes not so honest...they are just human beings and organizations run by human beings. Scotland Yard has done excellent work in the past as have most police departments, but, on this case, something is amiss and being improperly handled. This is NOT the way you investigate a missing child case...and that is simply a fact.
Based on evidence, it is very likely Madeline was medicated and came to harm while she was under the influence of something she should not have been given during a time when her parents neglected to provide proper care. Calling the authorities and having this being public could ruin their careers and land them in jail. This is the reason for panicking and covering up what happened. There have been numerous cases similar to this where a parent killing a child is then staged as a stranger crime.
What evidence are you speaking of though Pat, there is none?
I still cannot believe that the McCanns would cover up the death of their adorable and beloved little girl rather than taking the appropriate steps had she accidentally died in 5a. So many very weird theories are being taken as fact. It is really a very poor reflection on society today when their minds go immediately to conspiracies and cover ups and boy I have read them all in connection to the McCann case.
The trouble is for a lot of people they believe Goncalo Amaral in his book. A man we should trust less would be very hard to come by I imagine. His track record is abysmal and he should NEVER have been let loose on the Madeleine case in light of what he was being convicted of the very next day.
You have to take on board that the McCanns were of impeccable character up to the point of Madeleine disappearing. Why would they suddenly change as people? I honestly don't think they did.
You look about the forums and although some groups number highly there are few who actually make comments and of those who do we get "Gerry is a slimy faced got I'd like to punch his lights out"...."God look at Kate in that awful dress and those sandals. What does she think she looks like" This sums up the kind of characters we see against this poor unfortunate family. There is one woman who accuses them of being paedophiles and training their daughter to Suck ****...I jest you not! Disgusting and disturbed individuals and these are the same people who back Goncalo Amaral, although when it came to a show of hands in their pockets for ready cash for him they were nowhere to be seen and your best friend Peter MacLeod ended up putting many donations in...he says some were from his lottery winnings. he strikes it lucky so often!
All in all it is frightening and concerning to see the kind of remarks left on "social media" forums and to be truthful you are not helping matters one little bit Pat.
Anon 5:05
Again, there is no evidence at all this man had a thing to do with Maddie's disappearance nor is there evidence of an abduction by anyone and all the evidence supports the child dying in the apartment and being removed.
Jane Tanner's claim does not hold water; she is not telling the truth about being on the street at the time she says; the man she described could match many men in the area and her description was neither clear or consistant.
So, here we go again, lets pull bits of info from everywhere, make up a story linking bits of info together, and call that a theory. Yes, it IS a theory but not a scientific one and investigation should be as scientific enquiry not a haphazard fishing expedition.
Anon 5:55
Another example of nonfactual commentary.
Neither you nor I have a clue to what kind of people the McCanns are except the one thing that IS a fact is these two people left small children unattended in a foreign country with no ability to contact their parents should they have any problems. The McCanns are guilty of being negligent parents. Another fact is the McCanns did not have a consistant story as to their actions that night. I DO agree with you that some people have been downright nasty about the McCanns' demeaner or attractiveness and said despicable things about them. In fact, I have people, including you, doing that right now to Amarla, Peter McLeod and me.
But, the whole point is, regardless of whether you like the McCanns or not, like Amaral or me or not, think it is an abduction or not, evidence is evidence and a scientific analysis of the case should be based on that.
Ad hominem and slanderous attacks will be deleted.
Pat there is as much evidence that this man was involved as there is that the McCanns were and I don't believe Jane Tanner lied about being on the street or what she saw before her eyes but she was very traumatised when she realised it was probably Madeleine she had seen being taken away. My heart goes out to her. To think she could have prevented the continuation of this very straight forward abduction.
I think Operation Grange need to interrogate the man in the article above because he has never been questioned thoroughly enough for my liking and you have to admit he is the spitting image of Jane Tanners efit of the man seen walking away with a child?
This is to Get 'em Goncalo,
Please read my previous post about compiling lots of pieces of information and then theorizing that these are real facts that have to do with the case and that they can be strung together into a theory when, in reality, they are NOT anything proven to be related to the case. There are many coincidences and unrelated things which we must not construe to have importance. What we must do in analyzing a case is to look at the real evidence, physical and behavioral, and base our conclusion on these pieces of information. For example, one of the most interesting FACTS is that the McCanns showed NO interest in Smithman and when Kate wrote her book made a statement that IF Smithman was indeed the abductor he had to be the same man Jane saw. Now, I can tell you from working many cases, the lack of interest in Smithman as a possibe suspect and then need to make him Jane's Tannerman is red flag and shows there is some reason the McCanns want to ignore Smithman. This is a behavioral FACT. Another fact is there is no physical evidence of a stranger in the flat. This is a PHYSICAL fact. That Tannerman exists is NOT a fact because Jane's story is questionable and Scotland Yard's claim that they identified him is even more questionable. That anyone was "watching" the apartment is NOT a fact. That Murat's house is close by to the flat is a FACT. That he took Maddie or that Maddie is buried on his property is NOT a FACT. And so on. Stick with the facts. This is what I did to build my profile and I am not going to change my profile because of rumors, innuendos, and guesses.
Anon 6:08
Jane's story is not truthful; I wrote a long post about this after I went to Praia da Luz and stood on the street where she made the claim she saw Gerry, Jez, and the suspicious man. What she said happened could not have happened.
If Scotland Yard were truly investigating this crime, they would not be interviewing every vistor to Praia da Luz and Portugal but focus on the evidence from the crime scene.
BTW, in response to why I have issues with the McCanns and I think this is important because there is a difference between slandering people and being nasty and pointing out a concern when it comes to crime, public resources, and asking for donations.
1) When the McCanns asked for donations, they had a public duty to be honest, honorable, and transparent. Instead, their have a questionable fund and hired criminals to work for them. They have bilked the public out of a huge amount of money and continue to do so.
2) The McCanns neglected their young children which lead to the very likely death of their daughter.
3) They did not cooperate with the police.
4) Evidence points to their involvement in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
I don't care a wit about what the McCanns look like or what they do in their spare time. I DO care that Kate McCann represents a missing children's organization when she clearly is a person-of-interest in a crime (at least for the Portuguese police). I DO care that a ridiculous amount of money is being improperly used on this case when it could be used legitimately for missing children and murderered children's cases in the UK.
I have had to change to moderating comments due to ad hominem attacks. If you would like to respond to my comment or post and be civil and make a valid comment, I will post it and respond.
I will not post your comment if you:
Some of the comments are evidence that people refuse to actually acknowledge what is evidence and what is not evidence, or don't understand what is evidence and what is not evidence.
1) The Gaspar Statement is interesting, not evidence, because the source and material is questionable. If one were investigating, one could keep this information in mind and even consider doing some investigating in that direction, but it is NOT a fact and it is NOT something one can include in an analysis of the case.
2) A bunch of different people saw other people "watching" the apartment; a commenter just got incensed that I don't believe these witnesses and she thought I was calling them liars. Any good investigator knows that witness testimony is susceptible to subjective interpretation and sometimes outright lying. Some people just want to be important and they claim they saw something they did not or they exaggerate. Others really think they saw something and, maybe they did, but it might mean nothing and they might be giving it some kind of meaning that it doesn't have. For example, a woman in a suburban neighborhood was about to call the police because she saw a stranger - a young man she didn't recognize - sitting in a car she thought didn't match him - for a period of time in the evening. She thought he was casing the area. That young man was my son...he was picking me up from a friend's house; he was driving my car. Or a man might be smoking a cigarette outside the McCanns killing time because he was waiting on a phone call for work and he didn't want to leave the area...or whatever. Just because someone is lurking doesn't mean they were watching the apartment...it is NOT a fact. Just something to look into.
3) A commenter said she didn't give a crap I had been on the same street as Jane Tanner. Well, I am sorry, but that is the best thing one can do when analyzing a crime is to actually be where it happened and know exactly the geography, lighting, circumstances, etc., of the area. Jane Tanner could not have walked by the two men without them seeing her and without seeing Tannerman; could not happen. But, yet, how many people analyzing this crime on the net have been to Praia da Luz?
Facts. Evidence. Stick to these. Please.
One commenter whose comment I will not publish went on about how I said I was stopping running commentary on this case and then I have written this post (and a couple others), so I am a liar. This is the kind of silliness that goes on and makes people appear like trolls because they kind of act like trolls! Clearly, anyone who has followed me for a while knows that I have said very little over the last year since I posted that since I consider the case dead in the water and a whitewash, I was no longer going to spend a lot of time discussing the matter.
However, once in a while when I see something big happen - like Amaral losing the his case, Scotland Yard cutting down their OG team, and now I see the theories about this case getting ever more and more outlandish, I write a piece because I want to make a statement concerning what I see in relation to missing children and police investigation. I wrote these last two posts - not because I believe the case will ever go to court - but because I would like the legacy of those who fought for the truth not to get bogged down in excessively bizarre theories that just end up making people who believe there is evidence that the McCanns had something to do with their daughter's disappearance appear as nuts and total conspiracy theorists. Many people have worked hard to keep this story out there and to pressure the government to do a proper investigation and I appreciate that....I just don't want to see this whole case go down in history as crazies against the McCanns.
Someone wrote that there are NO facts and NO evidence implicating the McCanns and that is why they are not in jail. This is patently untrue. Of course, this case has FACTS and it has EVIDENCE but the problem is that there has to be a high level of facts and evidence to go to court which is why this case has not been prosecuted nor will be barring a body being found with sufficient evidence to prove anything. There are many cases where the investigators are pretty darn well sure who did it but the prosecutor isn't sure he has an airtight case to win in court.
Excellent post
If I have learned one thing from this case it is that there are many idiots out there.
I agree that most crimes are quite simple. I suspect that if this one is ever solved it will prove to be just the same.
The chief conspiraloons operate via a series of tenets which they hang on fast to, brooking no challenge, hence you end up with people like Textusa and her ''They were all in on it'' idiocy, or Tony Bennett and his ''This man saw that man, then he got on a plane and meanwhile all these people are the same person because they have the same number of legs'' looning.
And in case anyone feels left out, there is as much looning on the other side, what with Heriberto and the man with the 15ft arms....
It drives me up the wall.
Hello Pat...why did you post a comment to me at 6:20 PM when I haven't posted one single opinion about your post? All I've done is post your blog article on the CMOMM forum here: http://jillhavern.forumotion.net/t12128-pat-brown-why-the-mccanns-love-conspiracy-theorists
Jill Havern aka Get 'em Gonçalo
To the poster above, Heriberto never implied you'd need 15ft arms what he as a Master Criminologist was trying to say is that the abductor could have opened the window and called to Madeleine and she walj=ked across to see who it was and she was lifted out. Heriberto has theories as we all do but in this instance I tend not to agree with him, but he is "thinking" about possibilities which is good.
Far more likely the window was used as a lookout because anyone coming around the corner would be seen and whoever was inside warned to make a break for it. We were informed the keys to Block 5 went missing for some days so perhaps keys were taken to be cut. It is very possible this is partly an inside job. The keys having either been copied or just used the front door being used is my hunch and then Madeleine was just there to the right and lifting her and passing her out to someone on the other side of the wall would be a swift and clean operation. Madeleine was then taken by Tannerman in the direction of Murat's villa where I believe the car was waiting. I am just saying Murat's because anyone who has any idea on the case will know where he lives, within a few yards of 5a. Certainly this man seen was not a crèche dad taking his daughter home because he was walking in the wrong direction.
Compare this simple operation to the unbelievable theories we hear from those against the McCanns including Goncalo Amaral but then his theory on Madeleine was very like his theory on the one other missing child who went missing on his watch, Both are implausible sorry and the stuff of B grade movies.
Textusa and HobKnob can blog all they want on the subject but not many people hold what they have to say in any store and most don't even bother reading their opinions any longer. It is a hobby for them and they are people who grasp at a moments fame but only fame within a small part of the world who are against the McCann couple. Thankfully most people still sympathise/empathise with their plight and above all the plight of their daughter Madeleine and wish them well and all the luck in their quest to find her or at least what happened to her and that they can get some closure. Wouldn't all decent human beings wish this for them? I believe we would and do.
May I remind Pat that Operation Grange have told us quite categorically that the McCann couple and their Tapas friends are NOT SUSPECTS in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann neither are they persons of interest so how come you seem to know better? And just this week Natasha Donn posted an article in the Portugal Resident saying the PJ have never had any idea how Madeleine disappeared nor who may or may not have been involved which to me says that Amaral's hypothesis was his and his alone and not the general consensus of the PJ nor Portugal's Attorney General.
You also have to profile/factor in the fact the McCanns were eager to get home to UK to get something done to help them get the answers to these questions and all credit to them they succeeded. I really don't see this as the way guilty people would behave, bringing the attention of the British government/police/population onto themselves plus the attention of the world. You know that Portugal having closed the file and put it up on some dusty shelf would never have bothered with it again, therefore, the McCanns to all intents and purposes could have let it all drift away but that is not what they chose to do.
I agree with Anon @ 3:06 that this has turned out to be an extra special case and it is my firm belief that in our Prime Minister calling for the review and it being granted by the Home Office that intelligence has come their way and that there is something dark and troubling they are discovering and if by unravelling this other little children are found safe or just found or their fate is learned then I'm all for the money being spent and would say it is well spent. It is a drop in the ocean when one considers how many tax payers we have in UK and realise how much each has contributed to this special funding....not a lot of cost to the individual. If it safeguards other children in the future from this particular band of felons, so be it and I give them my prayers and thanks for all they are achieving.
Pat,if Maddie have stayed in that apartment for 5-6 days how do you explain the lack of Maddie´s DNA in apartment 5A?
Hello Pat,
My name is jean monroe. a 'poster' on CMOMM.
You probably haven't heard of me, why would you, but i have read your 'comments', over the last eight years, on the, imo, 'anything but normal'case/investigation' of a three years old child, 'disappearance' from PDL, in Portugal, in May 2007.
I am a 'stickler' for 'facts'
Here is a 'fact' from an Assistant Chief Constable of the Leicestershire Police Force, UK.
And i quote:
""While one or both of them (the McCanns) may be innocent,there is no clear evidence that eliminates them from involvement in Madeleine's disappearance"
Was he 'wrong'?
Hi Pat
"Let us not tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories" (president G.W. Bush, a propos 9/11)
Ironic really when one considers that the US government's own conspiracy theory was by far the most outrageous of all.
As to the McCann case:
"If only all the focus of everyone - the public, the police, and professionals - simply looked back at May 3rd, 2007 and analyzed what went wrong that evening".
Focussing attention specifically on the evening in question was the core of the Operation Grange endeavour - DCI Andy Redwood said so.
You'd think therefore that 30+ staff and a five-year investment programme of £10m should be sufficient to reach some sort of reasonable conclusion, if, as you maintain, this case were relatively straightforward. That it is seemingly insufficient might suggest otherwise.
However, we are agreed, I take it, that 'Grange' has never been a 'normal' operation. In which case, how is one to account for such a doomed directive - and by whom? Is a government, any government, likely to sponsor an undertaking with the apparent purpose of exonerating erstwhile prime suspects simply because they have since gone on to achieve matinee idol status in certain quarters? I think not.
Much as I too subscribe to the idea that crimes in general are fairly simplistic affairs, both in terms of motive and execution (of the crime that is, not the criminal) there are occasions when I believe it justified to 'think outside the box'. This is one such. There are simply too many indices pointing away from the McCanns to be ignored.
Regards
Martin R.
Get 'em, Goncalo,
My apologies! I was tired and I accidentally attributed the commentary to you. And, because the claim was I have made a big mistake in my thinking, I wanted to respond and I did so here since I do not participate in any group's message board.
So, while I am at it, I will also respond to those over at the board concerning the claim that I am somehow miffed that not all people buy my profile that Madeleine died on May 3rd. Again, I don't mind other theories and I don't mind the interest and examination in the case. However, I DO believe that the analysis has gone off the rails with more convoluted and complicated scenarios which are being created NOT based on evidence; I believe people are conjecturing on this and that because there are things they can't explain and an analysis should never be based on the holes instead of the evidence. For example, I don't know why the McCanns have gotten so much support from the government; it is a mystery to me, but I will not theorize some grand pedophile conspiracy involving high level people when I have not a shred of proof this exists. I can't claim everyone is a swinger when I have no proof of swinging. What I can do is base a profile on the EVIDENCE that DOES exist and that is what I have done. In earlier days, I saw much more support for Goncalo's general profile and my general profile but as time goes on, people think the case would have been solved if we were basically right, so now people are looking for more nefarious explanations and this is what is causing the case to be mired in what people call "conspiracy theories." And I think it is harmful in the long run to the memory of this case and its handling.
Anon at 5:00
It is a very true fact that in many criminal cases evidence you expect to exist simply cannot be found for a number of reasons. It IS also possible that an abductor came into the flat and left no DNA, also. However, I did not eliminate the abduction theory simply because there was no physical DNA but because all the evidence in total points to an accident and coverup on May 3rd.
Marting,
I agree with you that there is nothing normal about the way OG has operated and the directive. However, while thinking outside the box is fine for brainstorming, it is still a necessity to base one's conclusions on EVIDENCE and FACTS, not "what if's?" That is what defense lawyers do. Take for example the Casey Anthony trial in the US. There was mound of evidence to convict Casey Anthony, but the defense lawyer through out, "What if her father sexually abused her?" There was not a shred of evidence that this happened, but since Casey is a psychopathic whack job, the jury started thinking, well, that could be so. Then, essentially, the lawyer concocted some scenario that Casey's father could have contributed to his granddaughter's death and forced Casey into silence, and the jury thought, "Well, that could have happened." And they voted not to convict. In doing so, they allowed "thinking outside the box" to overrule all the actual evidence. Same in the OJ case. So, thinking outside the box is fine in searching for evidence, but the analysis should be based on the evidence that exists. IF new evidence is truly found, then an analysis can be updated. But, in a goodly amount of the thinking outside the box, I find that conclusions are being based on "what ifs" and stuff that isn't really proof. For example, the Gaspar statement has not been proven to be true. If I were an investigator, I might look further into what was said but, unless I could verify this really happened and there was any validity in it, I would not conclude that Gerry and his friend were molesting Maddie. Also, for example, I consider Murat to be a rather good person--of-interest in general because of his house being so close to the McCanns' flat, his knowledge of the area, and some of his behaviors. However, I have no EVIDENCE that Murat went into the house that night or brought Maddie to his property or did anything else criminal. All I have is a character who is in the vicinity who COULD have gotten into the house. So, I can think outside the box all I want; I have not a shred of proof connecting him to the crime. Then, there is the totality of the evidence. When one looks at ALL the evidence, it points to the McCanns and May 3rd. Just because Murat is a good person-of-interest can't erase the evidence that DOES exist. My analysis is based on EVIDENCE, not conjecture or possibilities. Like I said in my last post, Sandy Hook COULD have been some weird government op to get rid of guns in the US, but there is not a shred of proof to conclude this and ample proof that a lone psychopathic gunman committed mass murder. I truly appreciate all the efforts of Tony, Hideho, and others, but I am concerned that, over time, the thinking outside the box has gone over-the-top, with very complicated scenarios based on stuff that is not true evidence and I think this is damaging to how people view those who believe Maddie was not abducted.
To Jean-Monroe ...I read all that you write on Jill Haverns and will say this in response. The Leicestershire police said this at the start of the case and were right to do so because in the beginning the closest kin would be looked at as a matter of course. Roll forward now to 2014 when Operation Grange have told us the McCanns are not under their radar.
Hi Jean,
I do not think he is wrong, but the whole OG operation speaks volumes that the McCanns are not considered suspects.
Anon at 4:35, yes OG DID categorically say they were not suspects. How do I know differently? Because the EVIDENCE says they should be.
Anon 4:42, I am all for police departments bringing in child predatrors, but there are two problems with OG's behaviors. First of all, the evidence does not point to a child predator. Secondly, money and manpower is not unlimited and it has to be spent wisely. The massive money spent on this case is ridiculous in terms of finding a stranger who abducted Maddie. First of all, even if there were a child abductor, it would not have been a sex ring...this is absolutely false. So, they would be looking for a local man who kidnapped and killed a child years and years ago and has not done so again, a man no evidence leads to, so no prosecution can ensue. Back home in the UK, there are dozens of fresh cases WITH evidence of a child predator that Scotland Yard could put more effort into investigating and save children's lives. The Madeleine McCann case has been a boondoggle of wasted taxpayer's money.
What evidence points to a death in 5a Pat? I'm certainly not following you. Please don't come out with "the dogs" because even Grime tells us without corroborating evidence to back them up (which doesn't exist) they are meaningless.
Let me propose a "fictonal" crime and how profiing based on evidence works.
A woman suspects her husband of cheating on her. The facts and evidence of the matter are this:
1) She found a pack of condoms in her husband's pocket, one missing. She has been infertile for years and she and her husband have not used condom for over a decade.
2) She found a handkerchief in his pocket with perfume on it that is not hers.
3) Her husband has been coming home late from work two or three times a week from work.
4) Her husband's behavior has changed. He is not interested in sex with her, he has a new hairstyle, suddenly likes different music, and updated his wardrobe.
When she asked her husband about the condoms, he said that a guy at work who was cheating on his wife asked him to get rid of the confoms for him and he forgot to do so. He says the handkerchief with the perfume is from an old lady at the office who gave him it when he was sweating. He says he has lots of business meetings because of a new project. His change in behavior is related to stress at work and a desire to appear younger so he can compete with new young male hires at the company.
This woman at this point cannot PROVE that her husband is cheating on her but the evidence is pretty strong that he is. His explanations are not very believable so it seems he is hiding something. If I profiled this case, I would likely conclude her husband is most likely in a relationship with another woman, but, if she had to go to court and accuse him, we could use some more evidence to put the case away, like photos of him with a woman at a motel or emails or texts of a sexual or romantic nature between the two of them. Without this info, while I could profile that the evidence points to the man having an affair, I could not prove it in court.
Likewise, with the McCanns. I think a profile based on evidence points to them, but there is not enough proof to prosecute.
Now, let's go back to that likely cheating husband. The woman hires a PI but the PI cannot unearth another woman. Maybe the man has stopped playing around since his wife is suspicous. The PI can't find emails or text...maybe the man has erased them. For whatever reasons, he can't find proof. But, being an enterprising PI, he would like to keep the money flowing in, so he suggest to the woman that maybe there is another explanation for his behavior; the PI is thinking outside the box now, thinking past the evidence. So, the woman agrees to allow him to keep investigating. Soon, the PI comes back with two new pieces of evidence; he has a photo of the husband outside of Narcotics Anonymous meeting and a photo of him with a man outside his office who is handing him a brown envelope. The PI now speculates there could be drugs in the envelope and he is an addict secretly sneaking off to NA meetings to cure his addiction. The PI speculates that he might be snorting cocaine which would lead to a reduced sex drive with his wife and youthful, energetic behaviors. The condoms may have been a way for him to store the cocaine.
Okay, this is how a theory NOT based on evidence grows and becomes a problem. The PI is assigning meaning to things without proof. Being outside an NA meeting might simply mean he was walking from a store down the street and stopped for a minute to answer his phone or check for gum on his shoe. The envelope might have been related to business. The PI is trying to explain away the more likely reasons for the condoms and the behavior change by making up a less likely alternative scenario. This PI, if he keeps hunting, will come up with a dozen more opportunites to support a different theory all the while ignoring the obvious evidence of an affair. He will make a lot of money.
Analysis should be based on evidence, not thinking outside the box.
Anon 8:15
The dog findings are not meaningless; they are quite solid. However, their findings cannot be used in a court of law without further evidence to back them up; this is one reason why the McCanns cannot be prosecuted. I do not base a profile - and one should not base a profile - on one piece of evidence - it is the totality of the evidence that a profile should be based on. If you read my book and posts, you will see why I believe ALL the evidence - both physical and behavioral - leads to my conclusion that the evidence supports the death of Maddie on May 3 and a coverup of that death. However, in no way do I believe there is enough proof to take the McCanns to court which is why the investigation to them should have continued.
To the commenter with the ad hominem attack on profiing, deductive profiling IS scientific (not the stuff you see on TV or that is often donw by the FBI) and is based on evidence, not generalities and statistics. Good police detectives also do deductive profiling. Amaral did this. When one profiles a case, the conclusions lead to the best investigtive avenues to pursue; it is not a conclusion of guilt which can only be reached when enough evidence is gather to go to court and prove that guilt.
Pat Brown @7:59
Thank you for your detailed response. Just two quick points:
First, to dispel any ambiguity attaching to my last statement("There are simply too many indices pointing away from the McCanns to be ignored."), I did not mean to imply that the McCanns are totally innocent. The indices I have in mind are inclusive, not exclusive.
Second, my own 'outside the box' thinking has more to do with arriving at an explanation for the evidence of which I am aware than searching for the latter in support of the former (I am by no means desperate to locate the Aliens' landing site in PdL).
You'll see what I mean here currently: http://onlyinamericablogging.blogspot.com/
Regards
Martin R.
Tony,
My concern, and the reason I wrote this post and the last one, is that people seeking the truth are losing credibiity. Back in the day before all these theories got really complicated and involved a huge number of people and a really bizarre coverup of immense proportions (and I am talking about faking photos and children and forging documents and carrying on for days as though a child was alive when she wasn't and then planning the most messed up scenario on May 3rd as a premediated coverup, you and Hideho, Amaral, Joana, myself, etc, etc, basically tried to point out the facts and evidence that clearly existed and I think this was excellent. After Scotland Yard came in and things continued to fail to come to a conclusion, now that people are FINALLY seeming to realize that Scotland Yard is really not looking at the McCanns, more and more complicated theories are being created - including Richard Hall's films (and I did like how the first one began) - and now the theorizing has the appearance of conspiracy theories like Sandy Hook, 9/11, there never was a man on the moon, etc. All of these have in common what I wrote about in my last post; extremely bizarre theories based on questionable "evidence." Overdoing the "what if" and "thinking outside the box" leads down a very dangerous path of veering far from reality and into fantasy land and this is what I see happening and I am sad that instead of focusing on what is clear and known and evidence, the theories are getting wilder and wilder which leads to us all being labeled conspiracy theorists. Now, I am not trying to say high level conspiracies don't exist and sometimes the truth is really unbelievable, I am just saying that I wish those seeking the truth in the Madeleine McCann case would not allow conjecture and fanciful possibilities to take over clear and logical thinking. Thinking outside the box does draw in many people because people are always fascinated with exciting concepts but that is not always a good thing. More people are thrilled and talk about the theory that Jack the Ripper was the Prince of England or a famous painter than that he was a local, psycho butcher who died of syphillis which is why my conclusions on the case are so muted and silly theories like that of Patricia Cornwall show up on hundreds of message boards; her theory is much more interesting than mine; mine just makes sense based on the evidence.
I am not saying I am absolutely correct in all my conclusions and that everyone else is wrong, but I do wish we would stick to evidence and facts that really exist and not veer so far off into creative possibilities. Nothing we do now is damaging to the actual investigation of Madeleine McCann, but it is a problem for posterity and I would like to see those who fought so hard to prove there was no abductioon not to be labeled as nutters and conspiracy theories and have it end that the McCanns were right in their assessment of us after all.
To everyone:
Please understand I still like many of those with other ideas than me, who have worked very hard analyzing this case. Some I consider friends! I don't take differing opinions personally; everyone does have a right to them. I am not angry or bitter, just concerned where I see the ideas on this case heading. To me, yes, the case is done and dusted legally and politically, but, still I wish to see a positive result from everyone's hard work in the end.
As a profiler, this has been one of the most fascinating cases I have ever encountered; hence, my interest in it. I didn't make money on this case (the small book royalties hardly amount to anything) and most of the publicity I have gotten from this case is not the good kind, but the case is very important as to how profiling works and how police investigation works, and how missing children's cases work. All three of these issues are important to me which is why I have spent time analyzing and discussing this case. I didn't do it for fame, money, obsession, or out of boredom; it is simply the missing child case of the century and this cannot be ignored.
I doubt we will ever have a final answer of worth on this case; none of us are likely to ever be able to prove which of our conclusions were actually correct, but I do continue to urge people to stick to real facts and evidence and keep away from too fantastical theories that do more damage than they do good.
BTW, if you wonder why I won't post your comment, it is either because it is an ad hominem attack, contains libel, or is yet some other bizarre theory which I am not going to put out the energy to respond to.
In fact, I have stopped discussing the case for the most part because rarely does it serve any purpose any longer, but I will put out te effort, on occasion, because I think it is important enough to do so. For those who are still questioning why I think this and that, all of this is explained clealy in my book and on my posts - do the reading; I am not going to reexplain every one of my points!
Here is a classic example of conspiralunacy
''He says he met them on the way down...at the CORNER outside the McCann's apartment..
Fiona claims to have met him further down the street at the McCanns GATE with the steps leading up to the patio doors.
David claims to have met him inside the complex near the POOL''
These are described as discrepancies.
But are they? No. They all confirm that the people in question met that evening. They differ only in the precise location, to the yard, where they ran into each other, and that is because people will have slightly different recollections of the same event
A discrepancy would be two of the three saying they met, and the third claiming he was never there.
The police expect there to be discrepancies between statements. Versions which match in every regard suggest collusion.
Likewise, there are appalling allegations made against some witnesses that they ''lied''
It is not a lie to have a different recollection to the next person. Many of these accusations rely on extrapolations - ''why didn't she say they did A?'' - when the witness in question may not have even been asked about it.
The only ''lies'' I have seen have come from some of the commentators themselves, when they persistently misrepresent known facts in order to bolster their scenarios, even when it is pointed out to them. Those ARE lies.
Not Textusa,
What you say is very accurate about witnesses. Some have poor memories, some allow certain subjective issues to color their perception, some are drunk, some are tired, some tend to exaggerate, some do lie - to cover up something unrelated or to be important or because they are guilty of something.
For example, I really don't blame inconsistencies in the statements of the Tapas 9 as to exact timing of anything. When one is vacationing, time loses meaning. Also, alcohol, distractions, and commeraderie lend to a lack of focus on time.
However, some statements like Jane Tanner seeing Gerry and Jez and Tannerman while the two men did not see her or Tannerman, is a statement that should be questioned. Either Jane is lying or Gerry and Jez are lying because on that narrow, short street if Jane saw the men and Tannerman, it is hard to swallow that they saw neither her or him. Exactly where they were on the street doesn't matter so much as does the fact Jane would have a very hard to going by them without them noticing her. They would at least see her coming or going. It really is a very quiet narrow street.
This is just one example. But, even this, should not be taken alone. It is the totality of the evidence that matters and quibbling over stuff that really doesn't prove anything is counterproductive.
Tried to comment yesterday Pat, and lost it doh!
Totally agree, While the conspiracy theories have made fascinating and at times bizarre, reading, they remain in the Cluedo zone. I have always had a golden rule when sorting the wheat from the chaff, if they disregard the evidence of the dogs or come to believe they are 100% right, I stop reading, it saves a lot of time!
I am huge fan of yourself btw, several of your blogs stay in my mind, most notably your affirmation that this tragedy did not change the characters of the main players, they remain the same people they always were. It gave me much to ponder.
I'm rather more optimistic than yourself on the way in which this case will end. Many cold cases have dogged detectives who will never give up. Unfortunately for Kate and Gerry, they have probably lost count of the number of real and armchair detectives who remain hot on their tail. It may be that some will take Kate's 'we are finishers' statement as a direct challenge. I find the parents need (I don't think they can help it) to give their enemies the smug middle finger quite odd. It is almost as if they are saying 'bring it on'. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
I'll do this in two parts if you don't mind in case it gets lost again!
As to whether there will be a cover up, nothing would surprise me with this case. Quite literally, nothing! However, as Kate unfortunately said, 'its not as much as 50% who don't believe them' - it is now hovering near a whopping 90%!
I know that doesn't equate to a prosecution or even a conviction and there have been many similar cases in the USA where the main suspects continue fundraising and asking the public to search for their missing child. I have to say, I much prefer the much more open, in your face, style of American reporting Pat, I am an avid watcher of crime documentaries such as 48 Hours, 20:20 etc. I most recently watched the tragic story of little Somer Thompson, and I could physically feel the mother's agony, and bless her, even though it was plainly obvious that her little daughter was loved and cherished, she still blames herself for not protecting her. The blame of course lay with the police department who did not act immediately on the horrifying tip off they had about the imminent danger that community was in. Somer's mom has nothing whatsoever to blame herself for, I hope one day she will be able to accept that.
But I digress. I think where people like the Irwins and the Cellis's will succeed and the McCanns will fail, is the fact that they have maintained an unbelievably high profile for 8 years. Their Fund took off, the Funds of the aforementioned didn't. They had the ear of the great and the good, again, the aforementioned, afaik, have never had VIP support. However, access to the Great and Good can never be a lifetime guarantee (unless you a member of the peerage), the Fall From Grace club will always beckon. Watch The Tudors or ask Paul Burrell. Or to quote that great line from Carry on Cowboy 'one minute it's peace on, the next i's peeeece off'.
As I see it at the moment, the ball is in the Portuguese court. I have a feeling that David Cameron is trying to make amends for the actions of the 2007 British government, that basically resulted in the case of missing Madeleine remaining unsolved. Whilst I am no fan of the tories many carry those old school tie values of 'it's just not cricket'. Especially when they are judging people who are only temporarily part of the establishment.
That's not to say that the case won't be shelved as 'abducted by a stranger' or simply unsolved. I think there are many similarities with the Jonbenet Ramsey case. The authorities simply did not have enough evidence, nor it seems, the will to prosecute. Though of course, the McCanns were not in the same league as the Ramseys socially or economically. Do the Portuguese have the will to take this to a conclusion? The British have basically said, 'well, we have done our bit', they have covered their backs and ticked all their boxes. No-one, is saying thus far, not even the parents, that they could have done more.
Sadly, I do not have the knowledge or connections to understand what Britain might be doing for Portugal, or what Portugal might be doing for Britain in this case. In my opinion, the Portuguese government has an obligation to its citizens to repair the damage done to their tourist industry and the reputation of its police. This mother of all lies has cost hundreds of people their jobs and enriched an unscrupulous few for their vindictive actions. It is an affront to their justice system. There is probably a battle going on right now between pride and power.
Anyway, apologies, I have waffled. If you are right I will have to send you a bottle of something cold and sparkly, or alternately something chocolate and edible! Kindest wishes.
Rosalinda,
You bring up some very interesting questions and points that I do not think have absolute answers but I can share some of my thoughts from my experience which few people have: one, being in the public eye via television and via being an author, and two, being a criminal profiler who has worked with police departments and had a behind the scenes view of how things actually work.
Your optimism (which is nice...heh...someone has to have it) about dogged detectives who solve very cold cases. I actually stopped working cold cases because it is one of the most worthless endeavers in the world (outside of the fact that actually doing the work is my most favorite thing in the world, which makes me sad). Worthless why? Because it the extraordinarily rare, rare, cold case that actually finds its way to court
1) The most likely way a cold case every gets prosecuted is simply due to this: the case happened way before DNA testing, the evidence is brought out of storage, they are able to find viable DNA, and it is run through CODIS and hits on a felon in prison. Case finally solved with geezer who kept on committing his crimes for decades before hhe was caught. Though it is nice to have a DNA match and close the case, in reality, the investigation was a failure because it took so long to solve the case.
2) The killer makes a deathbed confession. Case closed but again, total investigative failure.
3) This case is closed by linking it behaviorally to an already convicted serial killer just to close the case down. Often, it is questionable that this is truly the perpetrator of that crime. If he isn't, then the perp is still out there.
4) Public pressure or embarassing criticism causes the police department to find a patsy; this is usually someone the community doesn't care about, some lowlife thug with a long criminal record. He is easy to convict and he can't afford a good defense lawyer. A good example of this is the Chandra Levy case in which the Congressman was the original suspect. The police department got so much criticism they found a lifer and got him convicted on a) a jailhouse snitch's statement and b) he had committed a crime in the same park. There is no real evidence and the crime scene details do not match this man's MO or does what happened to Chandra and where it happened indicate a serial rapist or killer. The crime matches the Congressman killing Chandra elsewhere, bundling her up and into the boot of a car, and dumping from the road above. So total railroad.
5) One lone detective does keep investigating and, for whatever rare reasons, is able to figure it out and actually come up with evidence that will convict the perp. I have seen maybe one or two cases in my life where I can say of his years of work that won out (and usually there is DNA to convict), hurray! My hero!
What tends to happen with cold cases is that the reason they are cold in the first place is that the detectives had the wrong theory and went down the wrong investigative path which meant the time wasted allowed al the evidence tying the crime to the perpetrator to be erased one way or another. Then, even if you go back like I have many time and profile the case correctly and point to the correct suspect, the case is screwed and can never go to court. At this point, the department almost always hides their errors and pretends they are still searching for some unknown suspect or they claim they know who did it and close the case on a dead guy or a lifer in prison or they railroad some unliked guy with ridiculousy bad circumstantial evidence or falsified evidence reports and the jury convicts. Rarely does the public have a clue they are being hoodwinked. In fact, usually they are please the police department finally "solved" the case. Only they (and I if I worked on it) know it is a lie.
Rosalinda (Part Two),
As to Kate and Gerry's attitude, I think I can understand them a bit more than many because I am in the public eye and have been stalked (literally), slandered, had people obsess over me, and so on.
Kate and Gerry likely have mixed feelings about the whole mess and also may often care less than many think. Here is how it works. When I was new on television, I remember get my first hate email. I was stunned and felt like I had been physically beaten. I was a bit devastated that someone took what I said so wrongly or out of context or just that their disagreement with me would lead to such vicious words and meanness. I remember my sister reading that first email over my shoulder and being horrified. Then time went on and each time I got some nasty email, I would sigh (but not feel as devastated as the time before) and my sister would say, "I don't know how you can stand it." Now, after over fifteen years of a very public life, these verbal attacks on me barely cause me a moment's dismay. I just got so used to it and I also learned that a good portion of the time the person attacking me had serious psychological issues (the same with the stalkers) that it wasn't about me, it was about them. (I will say that, sometimes, I do get thoughtful criticism and that is the only thing that does cause me to stop and feel a bit bad because it may be that they are right...in those cases, I usually accept the critique and write back and tell them they have made good points.)
So, mostly I ignore nasty attacks on me, simply such people on Twitter (in fact, since I have banned the meanies, I think everyone loves me! ::laughs::). I also ban people off my FB page....it is my house and I don't tolerate people making my life miserable. I do not post on message boards, other's FB pages, or on other's blogs because I do not wish to get embroil in mostly useless arguements. And this is likely somewhat of the experience of Kate and Gerry. In the beginning, they probably kept a sharp eye out and felt the blows, then they hired good lawyers and went after the worst offenders, and now, even though it is true that there seem to be more people fed up with them, they are very used to the Internet commentary and probably pay little attention to most of it. So while many online think Kate and Gerry and spending hours reading our theories and such, they are probably just down at another Tapas having a nice evening!
What it comes down to whether you can give someone the finger is whether the commentary and/or slander is doing any real damage. Most stuff on the Internet has ZERO impact on the people that those attacking people in the public eye THINK it does. For example, I have heard many times by my haters, that they wrote to the networks and got me thrown off television. Or they believe people's comments on the Internet finally caught the eye of producers and they won't work with me any more. All of this is totally false. I have never been thrown off television and I am still on great terms with every producer I have ever worked with. Just last month, I was on MSNBC, FOX, CNN, HLN, etc.....all the networks I am supposedly not allowed on any more. The REAL reason I don't do as much television now is 1) I took two years of TV to care for my parents who both had Alzheimers, and 2) I took a stand and refuse to do any commentary on individual mass murderers which was a large part of my appearances and 3) the networks have cut back across the board on using commentators like me because they are cutting their budgets; they will still have us on but they don't want to pay us or provide a limo to the studio; they want us to just go on Skype which I refuse to do.
Rosalinda (Part Three)
I have had very specific commentary on my book on Madeleine which has had no impact on whether my book sells or not. I have had negative commentary by some blog guy on my Cleopatra book which has has no effect on it. What REALLY effects books sales is not Internet commentary, but whether your publisher puts any effort into selling your book, whether it is IN the bookstores or just on Amazon, and how famous you are and what the topic is. My Madeleine book DID do extremely well on Amazon for the five weeks it was there but that was entirely do to lucky placement under Kate's book which is why she wanted it gone.
In reality, if I look back on my twenty years as a profiler, my decade and a half on TV, my life as an author of seven books, my career and income have not suffered a bit from any of my haters or stalkers on the Internet. Sorry, guys! So, I think much is the same with Kate and Gerry. They have figured out how to deal with the Internet and when to waste time worrying about it. I think Kate's book shows the early phase where she was bugged by haters and commentators and now, after having Carter-Ruck at her beck and call, she probably isn't all that worried any more. Just because she may comment now and then about "trolls" and such, doesn't mean she is losing sleep over them. Kind of like when people say I am desperate for attention which is why I write blogs on this case or I am obsessed or bored or super rageful at Kate and Gerry....none of this is so; I have found the case to be one of the most fascinating cases of the century and as a profiler I want to comment on it. I have a full, happy life - I don't need attention (especially some of the kind I get for bothering with this case at all!) - I am financially and career-wise in a perfectly fine place - and I do not suffer from personal rage toward Kate and Gerry, not even when they got my book removed from the market - it is what I expected them to do and I couldn't even blame Amazon for caving...they didn't make enough money off my book to risk a lawsuit. And, for those who slander me over having my lawyer fight back, we tried, but the problem was we couldn't get the McCanns into a US court and I couldn't afford to fight them in the UK (also I took too much of a risk losing there under that system).
So, Kate and Gerry, being a long time in the public eye and people with personality disorders (imo), probably do not really have much fear anymore of Internet stuff; the simple fact that everything has pretty much gone their way in court, the media, and with the present investigation, they are likely on top of the world thinking they have won out, whatever number of people don't believe them. And, which is why I wrote this blog, the wild theories and crazy behavior has helped totally discredit "antis" and that the McCanns must be smiling about.
Rosalinda (Part 4)
As to you buying me a drink if I am right, I prefer it to be the other way around and I would buy drinks for being wrong! One of the stands I took when I got into profilling and public commentary was that I would always call things they way I saw them and not bend my commentary or profiles to cater to politics or career or fame or to being liked. My work on this case has never been career enhancing or financial beneficial. I have interacted with wonderful people and I personally and professionally have found the case fascinating and I enjoyed my time in Portugal very much. I have no regrets. However, I DO wish this case would be solved properly because 1) it would be justice and 2) it would be vindicating personally and professionally for me! and 3) I want to see all the good people who have put out so much effort on this case, see that their work has been worth something. I DO wish it would go this way; I would rather have my profille be right and justice served than have my belief that Scotland Yard is committing a whitewash to come true. But, I hold out little hope because all the signs - ALL the signs - are that Scotland Yard is pursuring the remit of an abduction which either means it IS a cover-up or the McCanns are innocent and then we are all dead wrong, eh? I don't believe they are innocent, I DO believe Scotland Yard and Portugal for political reasons and investigative failure will never close this case properly, and there is NO way that OG is doing some bizarre four year pretend-we-aren't-looking-at-the-McCanns game and then suddenly saying, haha, we were just wasting time and money and we are now going to go after the parents!
The only possible way that anything good could happen here would be for the politics to change, an investigation of the fund lead to conviction of the McCanns for fraud and then that would allow the PJ to make the McCanns suspects again, But, even then, they need a body and evidence. So, Gerry is really right, "Find the body and prove we killed her. Good luck with that!
It does not help when people like Tony Bennett manipulate their readers. One way he does this is by the use of polls where he 'steers' people toward his preferred answer. I refer to his most recent poll about the Last photo. Again.
If we look at answer No3, this is clearly Tony's preferred answer
It says
''I agree with the two experts consulted by PeterMac that the Last Photo is a genuine photograph, and probably taken on Sunday or Monday that week"
There are two components to that answer
1) That the photograph is genuine
2) That it was probably taken on the Sunday or Monday
However, the question is deliberately designed to mislead, suggesting as it does that the experts agree the picture was taken on the Sunday or Monday.
They do not. That is simply Bennett's theory, based on nothing more tangible than those days were supposedly sunnier, and manufactured to fit his own scenario.
The poll is, therefore, entirely dishonest.
I have no doubt the photo is genuine. But there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest it was taken on a different day
Well, @ Nottextusa You are probably the only one who says that. There's loads of evidence. Please do get information
Anon 4:15 And this is the problem. You are calling "conjecture" - evidence. There is NOT loads of evidence for many of these theories which is why I have written the last two posts.
Here is the alternative 'view' regarding the reflection in Gerry's sunglasses.
http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/LAST_PHOTO.htm
Anon @4.15
I am far from the only one who says so, and there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to suggest that:
a) The photo was taken earlier in the week, and
b) Madeleine disappeared prior to Thursday 3rd May.
I have read the nonsense from HIdeHO claiming that there is no conclusive evidence anyone saw Madeleine after Sunday. That is also complete rubbish. Yes, we know a couple of catering staff confused the other members of the party, who were using the restaurant for breakfast, with the McCann family, but that is to be expected. It in no way negates the overwhelming evidence that Madeleine was still about until teatime on Thursday.
Conspiracy theorists conveniently ignore the 95% of the evidence which concurs in favour of the 5% which appears not to. It has always been so.
So please, if you have EVIDENCE that the photo was taken on another day, then let's see it. The fact that it was sunnier is not evidence. A photo captures a single moment in time; it does not measure the number of hours of sunshine. Seriously, never has so much cobblers been written about a photo. "where is the sun lotion, why does Gerry look fed up, where is Amelie's arm, how come Madeleine is wearing her best clobber?" All total nonsense.
Well said, Pat.
One could spend hours pointing out what few facts there are and it would not make a whit of difference to some people. They are unable to produce an ounce of evidence in support of their arguments that 1. Maddie was abducted by a stranger and 2. that her parents are not involved in covering up what happened to her.
If there is evidence to support their arguments then I just wish that they would show us where and what it is.
Not Textura and Leslie,
I think one of the problems is people believe things are evidence that really are not evidence, so when you ask them to show you the evidence to support what they say is so, they point out a bunch of stuff they believe is evidence. Analyzing physical, behavioral and witness evidence is extremely tricky even for experts, so sometimes people think thinks are facts that are not, therefore they think there is evidence where there is not, and, sometimes they create theories that make sense to them even if, in reality, that is not how things work. But, if you don't know that isn't how things work, you think you could be right.
For example, Jack the Ripper's victims were prostitutes killed on the street in a very frenzied attack, all within a reasonable proximity to each other. In real life, serial killers who do this almost always live in the area, know the area well, have low-level jobs, and are not patient types. So, when someone thinks that, hey, maybe it was the Prince of England, it makes no sense because that is not who would slash up and disembowel prostitutes on the street. So, when I hear that the McCanns were behind the composite of Smithman, I have to say, when in criminal history would someone create a fake kidnapper that looked just like him? When I hear that Maddie died earlier and they spent five days or so faking her being alive and then staging the worst scenario ever for people who have time to plan, I have to say, when in criminal history has this been the way anyone would deal with this? It would be one hundred times more likely that if there wasn't a panic, they would have come up with a much simpler, less questionable, more plausible scenario.
So, it is hard to convince some that what they think are smoking guns are really nothing at all and that meaning that has been assigned to things, in fact, is meaningless. But, I do hope people stop and think and try to tone down the most ridiculous of theories and focus on that which is much more obvious.
Here is a great example of misinterpretation:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153795111493324&set=p.10153795111493324&type=3
At this link, there is the portion of the Last Photo with just Madeleine which was shown on Crime Watch behind the host. The commenter pointed out that Gerry's elbow is not in the photo and s/he hoped the investigating team noticed this. So, this person somehow thinks this is the original photo used to make up the Last Photo where Gerry was photoshopped in Nah, this is The Last Photo cropped with Gerry's arm photoshopped OUT because they wanted to use that part of the photo on the show and it looks silly with and elbow coming out of the last side of the frame.
This is how "evidence" is concocted and then theories developed based on this.
Leslie, yeah, I have read that alternative view of the sunglasses reflection and it makes no sense and is illogical. First of all, WHAT exactly is reflected in the sunglasses we do not know. The person doing this analysis is presuming what each color means in the reflection. Unless this person can go to Praia da Luz and sit in that exact spot with the same sunglasses and come up with that exact reflection (I guess he would have to hang the sunglasses down), then it might be more convincing. But, in fact, we have no idea exactly what is reflected in the sunglasses, what exactly was there that day; there could have been something there that made up that reflection that we don't know about.
But, here is what is really so clear to me:
Why would anyone bother to photoshop sunglasses on to Gerry's face? Suppose he were sitting there without Maddie or sitting there five days earlier or sitting somewhere else and he didn't have sunglasses on, why would the photoshopper feel a need to find a photo in another picture, one with supposed landscape going the wrong way (because the sunglasses would have to be hanging down and not on a face) and photoshop it onto Gerry? Why? Someone please tell me? Why can't Gerry just be there without sunglasses? The only reason I could think of is that a guy that looks like Gerry except in the eyes was photoshopped in and then sunglasses were photoshopped on to him so that we couldn't tell it wasn't actually Gerry! (Oh, please, folks, do not let me see this 'in jest' scenario start making the rounds as a new theory). This is the problem with this sunglasses analysis; it just makes no damned sense at all.
It would make far more sense that the photo was real but taken earlier in the week. Then, yeah, one could say it is a REAL last photo, but the reason they claimed it was later in the week was to pretend she was alive then. Yeah, okay, I still think that is far fetched but at least it makes more sense than photoshopping a photo for no reason.
Totally agree
It's also important to discern between what is potentially important, and what is so utterly trivial it beggars belief that it even rates a mention.
Examples:
Tony Bennett frequently claims that Robert Murat ''lied'' 17 times in his first statement. This is nonsense. What's more, he created a narrative where he inserted passages such as ''Oh yes sorry, I lied through my teeth about that too'' in a rather feeble attempt to gain credence.
Murat volunteered a number of changes to his statement, but these were mostly of no consequence, consisting of things like ''I said we set off at 9, I now know it was more like 8.30'' and ''I have remembered that we stopped for a coffee at about 10.00'' - these are not verbatim, but you get the idea.
If someone hauls you in for questioning and asks you about events that happened weeks before, there will doubtless be events you cannot instantly recall, but after going away and checking your diary, or credit card receipts you remember you called somewhere for lunch, and so you amend it when you are next questioned. Simple as that. Not lies at all. But it has been repeated so often, it's probably entered folklore by now.
As for Textusa, she wrote an entire blog about the supposed significance of a flower doodle in the corner of a page. God give me strength.
Many thanks for your replies Pat. Much food for thought. Like yourself I am bored silly with discussing the minutiae of this case, for me that the parents are involved is beyond reasonable doubt - but I'm not the jury.
As for the way in which the 'antis' come across as conspiraloons, I'm afraid I gave up caring long ago. My mantra is I only have control over of my own conscience and my own actions, which is why I have never affiliated myself to any group. As for the antis looking like hate filled cranks, I'm afraid that ship has long sailed Pat, from the very early days the most prominent antis were guilty of stalking and harassing the family, it wasn't difficult for the McCanns to make the 'hater' tag stick.
Like yourself, I think this case is the most fascinating crime of the century. I was gripped from the very beginning. I was looking after my sick mother when the news broke, and we were glued to the news reports 24/7. My mother had an uncanny gift of being able to sum a person's character up within seconds, she could see 'bad' quite literally, as if it were tangible. She would have made a great mentalist! I of course, pulled her leg and called her a terrible woman, but as we watched the story unfold, I could find nothing to prove her wrong.
In the early days there were thousands of people commenting on this case, the forums of the national newspapers were buzzing and dedicated Madeleine forums and websites were in abundance. I think at that time the Team McCann Media Monitoring Machine were in overdrive. It was full scale war! The arguments were about the distance between the apartment and the tapas bar, the shutters, the changes to Gerry's statement and the last photograph. Pretty much the same things that some are still discussing 8 years later. Like yourself, I do not venture into the 'if' area, I am only interested in the facts.
In the early days, I think it is fair to say that most of the nutters moved onto the 'next one' through their own choice, many were driven away by the possible legal implications, but far too many were bullied and scared away by the thuggish tactics of the MMMM. For me this type of online media campaign was a new phenomenon, though I understand there was a similar media war going on with the Jonbenet case, possibly the cases of Amanda Knox and Pistorius too. I know the infamous 'Jayelles' was an active participant in the Jonbenet case, though I think she was against the parents on that occasion. To be fair, I haven't actually looked, I have enough crazies on my tail as it is, lol.
For me, the media campaign is almost as fascinating as the human behavioural aspects. The myth that Kate and Gerry have the support of the majority of the public has kept them riding on the crest of the wave. Political researchers are as lazy as journalists, they will only look at statistics. Right now its McCann Facebook page 650k+ likes, Antis: Tiny Minority. There is no anti lobby per se, no credible group putting pressure on their MPs and ministers. Sadly, in political situations such as these laissez-faire usually wins.
I know I am arguing against my own case here, but I still have enough faith in human nature to believe that justice will be done. Apart from that the McCanns have been extremely reckless. They have left a huge trail of lies that can easily be disproved. And they have hurt people, and continue to hurt people. This is not a victimless crime. I have no doubt whatsoever that they have accumulated many enemies along the way and the huge drop in their support suggests they have lost friends rather than gained them. Many will hold grudges. Many won't let it drop.
continues
Part 2
Again, supporting your cover up argument, I was surprised that the Portuguese did not respond to Scotland Yard's recent announcement. But we know from past experience that when the PJ are investigating a crime then are bound by judicial secrecy. They aren't giving anything away, and if the McCanns are not 'assistants to the process' (or whatever the phrase is), then they know as much as we do. Neither Scotland Yard nor the PJ are doing very much, if anything, to protect the parents, they haven't thrown them any crumbs and that is significant if a cover up were on the cards. It would be horribly cruel for the police to withhold information from genuinely distraught parents who were desperate to find their child.
Again, I refer to the tragic case of Somer Thompson, imagine how inhumane it would have been for the police not to have told her mother what happened to her child? The poor woman was tortured with guilt, even though she had no cause to be, but most of us can empathise, because that is how we would feel. Sadly, that is what we don't see, and have never seen, in either Kate or Gerry. They were guilt free within 48 hours! They have never blamed themselves and they will slay anyone who does.
What I do not understand about your theory Pat, is why would this government authorise and finance such a large investigation to cover up a crime that would have been forgotten in a relatively short space of time and virtually cost free? Workers in the public service industries in the UK are drowning under an avalanche of forms to fill in and boxes to tick, there are watchdogs everywhere. It is probably all to do with our escalating blame and claim culture that makes the legal profession so lucrative. The police probably come under more scrutiny than most and in a controversial case such as this one, there will be no room for error. When the dust settles the buck will stop with Theresa May and David Cameron. They very publicly gave the authorisation to open Operation Grange.
Why go to so much trouble? If things had been left as they were when Kate published her book, we would 4+ years on, be saying who are the McCanns? Actually, most regular people already are. The pleading letter from Kate and Gerry to David Cameron made the Sun front page at the same time as the book launch. How lucky was that? Why open Operation Grange with a fanfare to send it out under a cloud of suspicion?
Every politician and indeed celebrity knows that any minor past indiscretion can be blown up out of proportion to become their legacy. Life can be cruel like that. As I am sure the wonderful Mr. Clinton and the very odd, Mr. Grant know only too well. Sadly for them it is the sexual indiscretions that stick in our minds, because they are funniest.
I just don't see David Cameron risking his reputation (and legacy) for the sake of two doctors. Politicians and their spin gangs spend approximately 50% of their time supressing news they don't want their voters to hear. No spin doctor in their right mind (ok, I will give you that one, most of them are not)would advise their boss to jump into the political quagmire that was the missing Madeleine case. I imagine all Mr. Cameron's advisors were holding up the carpets and begging him to sweep the shit under them. Unless there is a future hero role for DC, then I can see no reason why he would have taken the risk. He can never deny knowledge - both and his Home Secretary took a personal interest.
Ok Not textusa, so everything in this case is completely normal - no inconsistencies whatsoever. What actually do YOU believe happened to Madeleine Beth McCann?
I'm an undecided but going by the Daily Mail's and The Sun's Facebook comments over these last two weeks I would say the majority of the public, 95% according to my math, feel the McCanns were very much behind the disappearance. So I think your most people are sympathetic isn't true.
To Anon and Rosalinda,
As to how many of the public believe the McCanns are innocent vs. those that don't, it is hard to tell. What happens with commenters is that those who are most obsesses or rabid about an issue are the majority of the commenters. Depending on the times, one group or another could most speak out. What I DO know is that there has been NO major show of citizen force on the matter; there are no marches and protests as to the government spending or the injustice of the case. The media is running 100% in favor of the McCanns' innocence. The only change is that recently, debate about whether money should be continued to be spent on this case...and I believe that was allowed to then shut it down. In the long run, most Internet interest is not what controls how things go; any protest must be taken up by some very strong political or social party for any difference to be made. I worked on one unsolved case in which the only hope for the case would be the removal of the Sheriff in charge. I told the parents they would have to organize a group that would examine the Sheriff's record and publicly, as a LARGE group, work to remove his from office. They did not follow up on my advice; they continued to post on FB and do a radio show here and there; the case has not moved forward even though there actually is an excellent suspect and hope to go to court. Been over a decade now.
Rosalinda,
As to why there is such governmental support, I have no clue...it is odd, no question. But, here is the problem. The crime scene points to an accidental death and cover-up. If this is so, the government is not going to come in full force to protect such people if that is what happened. And this is why so many think there is a more mysterious cause of Madelene's disappearance; hence, a massive coverup both by the guilty parties (pretending Maddie was alive for days, doctoring signin sheets, faking a whole evening of pretend negligence to stage an abduction, fake photos, etc). If the government interest is SO huge, the crime must ALSO be huge. The thinking on this I understand, but this requires ignoring the evidence at hand. So, if the evidence DOES support an accidental death and coverup, then the help from the government must have come in stages for reasons other than a more mysterious crime. I think this is so. In the beginning, the McCanns got some support (and this could be because they were doctors losing a child in a strange land), perhaps, more than many because they were upscale citizens and the the child was a cute little white girl. Then the tables turned and the media got very nasty. Clearly, at this point no politician was helping with media control. Then, the mood changed completely with Carter-Ruck, the media and the governmental help by way of Scotland Yard. This REALLY was the turning point; up until then I thought there was a chance of this case being solved. So, I think there were stages of political involvement that may have more to do with the UK/Portugal foreign relations, people's careers, and then media intrusion.
The only other real answer to why the McCanns got so much support and why they ask for Scotland Yard and why they got it with the remit in place is that they ARE totally innocent. Is this possible? Well, I find that the evidence is overwhelmingly against this BUT, weird things can happen in the world. The dogs could be totally wrong, the McCanns could have personality disorders that led to them behaving in extremely bizarre ways, the could have lied to cover up even worse behavior like leaving the window open themselves with Maddie actually under it or leaving the front door totally open....whatever..heh....but stuff that made it ridiculously easy for someone to walk away with a totally drugged Maddie (drugged by the McCanns so he didn't have to deal with a screaming child). He could have looked JUST like Gerry and, wow, wasn't that lucky! Anyway, probably not, but anything is possible, if not probably, My profile is based on what the evidence supports at this point but is not proof of guilt; more evidence is needed for that.
So, to me the support is either something that built for numerous reasons over time or the McCanns are innocent. What I don't bellieve is that there is a shred of evidence to point to some reallly bizarre crime involving important people and the government, a dozen people running about doing strange things, and an early death of Madeleine. Personally, I will stay with the first conclusion.
@ Pat, 5.11
I agree with your analysis. It's easy to look at the responses to a newspaper column and extrapolate from the percentage of positive and negative comments, but that group has already self-selected as they have chosen to comment. It's a bit like trying to work out the percentage of diabetes in the general population by asking those who think they might have diabetes to come forward and be tested, ie it is not a random sample.
I think of those still interested in the case there is a majority who suspect the McCanns of involvement,but that might mean 95% of 1% of the population, with the remainder not caring much either way, although I think they care a little more now that the full costs of the investigation are in the public domain, and that may be even more apparent if the newspapers pick up on the cost of Operation Grange in comparison to Operation Yewtree and others.
I hadn't seen this before, but a briliant analysis as to why the sunglasses nor the Last Photo were photoshopped.
http://jarum.webcam/watch/i2ZhyjTG3SU/i2ZhyjTG3SU
The problem is, Pat, that those who are shouting loudest about this have absolutely no expertise or knowledge, just a belief that they are right. You could get hold of a Harry Potter timeturner and take them back in time to the moment the photo was taken and they would still say it had been photoshopped
I agree that the McCanns are the guilty party, just like the Ramseys in the Jon Benet case. Interesting to me that wealthy people do not cooporate with authorities, make up unbelievable stories, and keeps it going for years. A regular poor person in both of the cases would have been arrested the first day/night.
Rob,
This is not always true; the parents of Baby Lisa were never arrested nor was the father of Hayley Cummings or his lying girlfriend. However, you ARE correct that the status of the suspect can influence the detectives mostly because they have a harder time imagining certain people committing a crime than others. Many a serial killer suspect has been overlooked because he "seemed normal" and some detective think a serial killers would be an obvious creepy guy. With children whose parents are suspects, another problem arises and this is that the detectives feel horrible accusing a grieving parent of doing something to their child, questioning them when they are so distraught. The best way to approach this is issue is to tell the parents that they MUST go through this difficult process because it is important for the parents to be eliminated early on so that no accusations will come back on them later and so that the investigation can focus on other suspects as soon as possible.
I don't think the McCann investigation was that wrong or terrible in the beginning. The police WERE suspicious of the McCanns but they also were keeping open the possibility of an abductor. Murat seemed a good suspect so they spent a good deal of time on him and then, due to the parents' continuing odd behavior and the results of the dogs and other evidence, they made the McCanns suspects. But, then something went horribly wrong and the McCanns were able to leave the country and suddenly get really great backing from the government. Portugal was screwed at that point, and in my opinion, remains so, for whatever reasons.
Here is a classic example of a myth created out of poor research
Tony Bennett in his recent post says the following
''There are many many mysteries about the cameras used on that holiday and what happened to the many photographs on them.
I think the incident you are thinking of is how an Olympus camera, almost certainly belonging to the Paynes, plus two SD memory cards, ended up at the home of Hampshire police officer Detective Constable Martin on the evening of Tuesday 8 May, less than 5 days from Madeleine's disappearance.''
This is total nonsense. The cameras in question were nothing to do with the McCann party. They belonged to a family holidaying at the same resort, who contacted the police on their return when the appeal for photos went out. They were from Hampshire. Which makes the next claim look even more ridiculous:
''I think it is probable that a very senior British police or security services officer from MI5 or Special Branch jetted from Portugal to England earlier that day carrying the camera, the memory cards and the video film with him.''
No, Tony. They travelled home with their cameras, like normal people.
It's disturbing because all this information is in the files. It's been 8 years. There is no excuse.
Not Textura,
I think what we see happening is an inability to let it go...like dog chewing a bone. I have had to let a number of very concerning cases go because I just didn't have the power to fight for justice or truth. A couple of these are particularly problematic because law enforcement closed them wrongly in order to do damage control...that means my profile pointed out case failures. I don't like these results - for myself, for anyone wrongly accused as a fall guy (even if they are a scumbag, anyway), for the families being lied to, and for the fact the real killer is still out there to prey on the community. This is why I refuse to work cold cases anymore and am working on training law enforcement so that cases don't go cold as often and so politics won't be such an issue.
But, letting go when there is no point on going home really is learning when to fold them before you lose everything especially credibility and one's own mind. Good people sometimes have a terrible time calling it a day when they know something is wrong but sometimes it really is the smart thing to do. I try to look at it this way; there are many wrongs in this world I cannot right; I can't be everyone and help everyone, so if what I am working on is getting to the point of hopeless, better to spend my time where I can do more good.
Hi pat, just a thoght on the subject in question, and the way these cases are dealt with? Lets imagine for a second the mccanns were witness to a diferent family whos child went missing in exactly the same stories the mccanns alleged? Do they not spot the contradictions if this was another family making those claims? There is double standards over what is perceived as neglect had the boot been the other way around in a family court where their statements are often made for the state and not the family in question? So in effect their fighting a system that often favors them in court when giving evidence in family court? As many know at civil level who have experienced a injustice made by a doctor? But find it disstressing they carnt challenge those descisions in civil cases? Just curious to why people defend such hypocracey because their doctors?
Anon 9:28
Not exactly sure if I understand your question, but I think how we view things depends on if it is us or not us or how close to us it is. For example, recently in the US, a poor mother and her boyfriend went out partying leaving two three year olds and a one and a half year old home alone. The three year olds put the baby in the oven and turned it on. Horrific story. No one is being nice about this mother because she was a) poor and single and easy to mark as a careless person, and b) the outcome was so gruesome, she couldn't make up a good story and no one can feel sorry for her. The McCanns are people more can relate to in that they seem to be good citizens and until that moment in PDL, doing right by their children. Gerry's repeated "like being in the garden" strikes a chord with many as often parents put their kids to bed and sit out on the porch or step over into the neighbor's yard for a bit. The distance and the length of time is what makes one more or less comfortable with the arrangement. But, because the McCanns seem to be a respectable couple, the belief for many that they weren't that far away and they were checking regularly enough works for them. As for the McCanns, their error in judgment MUST work for them to be able to live with the consequences.
Hello Pat I have read your book on the McCanns with interest and I cant help but think your theories make sense, something just doesn't feel right for me with the abduction theory. It is the worst thing to think that her parents may have been involved, and only one aspect makes me wonder if they were really involved - if they were, and have "got away with it" why would they still be putting themselves in the public eye all of time, getting Scotland Yard involved, media involved etc. All these years later to still be looking for her if they know what happened doesnt make sense to me, why would they stay in the media - surely that is a bigger risk to them of the truth eventually coming out rather than just let the story fade away? Hope my question makes sense!
Anon 8:03 AM
I very much agree with you that it would have been far smarter to stay away from the media and, as you say, it would seem a guilty person would not want the attention; therefore, could they actually be innocent?
I have to answer this with the most important fundemental of profiling and crime analysis; one must look at the TOTALITY of the evidence and not veer off on one peculiarity and analyze that in isolation from the rest of the evidence.
First of all, the McCanns have acted over and over in a manner inconsistant with innocent parents of missing children. Even more, they have acted in ways that are totally bizarre for innocent parents of missing children. If they are truly innocent, they have personalities and behaviors that are off the charts; on the same hand, if they are guilty, they still have behavior that is off the charts! Therefore, we can conclude that their wish to run a massive media campaign is not necessarily an indicator of innocence; just an indicator of bizarre personalities.
The McCanns are both either irresponsible and not very intelligent (to leave their children unattended, to offend everyone, to refuse to cooperate with the police, to hire crooked detectives, to allow massive sums of money to be wasted, etc) OR they are intelligent and highly narcissistic. I believe the latter is true. They choose what they are doing with keen minds but are so narcissitic that they care little for how what they do affects others or what others think of them.
Along with personality, the totality of the evidence supports an accident and the McCanns covering it up. The evidence does not point to an abduction. So, regardless of their public appearances, the evidence points to their involvement.
One other point: nothing happens all at once. People start small, start down a road, and then stuff compounds (like telling a lie and then having to tell more to keep the truth from coming out). For whatever reason, the snowball effect is here with the McCanns. Sometimes it is like a hurricane where elements come together to create a storm. What if the McCanns weren't doctors? What if they weren't relatively attractive (especially Kate). What if it didn't happen in Portugal? What if politics weren't somewhere involved? What if the UK media wasn't so outrageous? What if? What if? But, all of these things came together and the McCann story became what it has become
Pat, thank you for your reply & so promptly too. (I am your fellow Sherlock fan from UK btw!) What you say makes a lot of sense in my opinion.
I Completely agree with you Pat! At first when Madeleine hit the news I was completely with McCanns and slowly thing's were just not adding up in my mind or making any real sense. Having read the book Madeleine and tapas statements, watched hours of documentaries and interviews I just struggle to believe the McCanns have told the truth. I also agree that whatever really happened to Madeleine will remain buried (possibly literally?). The Gaspar statement stands out in my mind alongside DP's interview...I believe in mothers instincts and the whole case does not sit well with me!
I have looked at this in detail recently and you have held the most grounded view of what happened to Madeleine.
You are right in that Tony, Lizzy, Jill etc have some excellent information available and have done sterling work but there is little or no grounding there and thats because as you say there is a difficulty in 'letting go'.
I think based on the evidence that Occams Razor applies - all the evidence points to an accident and a removal and a hiding of the body. Smithman also puts Gerry in the frame and this is only countered by Tannerman but I agree with your analysis that he probably doesn't exist although interesting Andy Redwood recently informs us that he's found him!!
The govt angle is a perplexing one though and one that its difficult to answer. That I believe is also fuelling a lot of the conspiracy stuff by simply defying the evidence. The most illuminating thing for me was way back in 2007 when a well know media player Clarence Mitchell was brought in. Even then I remember thinking 'huh?' - why would a normal middle class family need or want a media spokesman? It didn't make sense. After what has happened though looking back it made perfect sense. As you found the McCann's have been simply able to rewrite the laws on free speech. This is all very strange. Hasn't anyone one on the pro side questioned this story? Or are they all 'players'? This is hard to understand.
A lot of people though myself included bought into the abduction theory as this was the meme pushed but the media. It has been incredible to think that this exercising in brainwashing the British public has been so successful though. And it continues.
I hope Goncalo is successful with his appeal but I think there are too many political and financial interests now in the UK for this story to reach a satisfactory conclusion. I only hope I'm wrong.
Anyway just wanted to say thanks Pat for some really consistent views.
Awfully late to this, but the recent comments made by the mother reminded me of this case and I did a bit of googling to see what happened with this case and landed here.
I couldn't agree more that this was most likely an accidental death and panicked parents covering it up with an abduction story. The only other possible answer is that, yes, it was an abduction, although if so I fear the intense media scrutiny would have led to the child's death quickly after the abduction. In either case, it's an awfully big ocean and I don't think we'll ever find a body, so barring a death-bed confession of some kind, we'll never have a definitive answer.
The most logical speculation (if there is a such a thing, lol!) would be a scenario where a sleepy or perhaps cough-syrup-sluggish Maddie woke, went looking for her parents and tumbled down those steps and was discovered dead when Kate went to check on her at 10 p.m. That malarky RE the constant checkings by various adults is just not believable and it's obvious they tried to create a working timeline they could all stick to before the police showed up. I suspect Gerry went around 9, and Kate went around 10, and that's that -- if other parents checked, they only checked on their own kids, IMO.
Only question is where did they stash the body and how did they dispose of it when there was so much attention on them at the time.
What is also obvious is that whatever tensions existed between the vacationing British community and local police, the arrogance of the McCanns and their pals, and, frankly, a poor response on the part of both the resort and the police led to a situation in which it was nearly impossible to conduct a proper and thorough investigation. I cannot imagine an American resort where the manager would not call in the police immediately upon hearing a child on the property had gone missing, nor a police department that wouldn't have responded within mere minutes to seal off any potential crime scenes.
All the crazy theories and red herrings can be attributed to the usual unreliable witness/suggestible witness scenarios, plus the usual loonies coming out of the woodwork with concocted sightings and so forth.
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the clear-headed thinking!
N, thank you for your kind words and common sense!
As to your question about how they could have stashed a body, this blog addresses this issue:
http://patbrownprofiling.blogspot.com/2012/03/criminal-profiling-topic-of-day-find.html
But, also, when it comes down to when something could happen with so much attention and eyes on them, it is what is called a "window of opportunity." Sometimes when a girl disappears out of a busy shopping center, people can't figure out how someone could have grabbed her and no one saw anything. What I try to explain is that if one had to name an exact time - say 8 pm - and then try to grab the girl - it might be a busy time and twenty people would have seen the abduction. But, what a serial killer does is strike when there is a "window of opportunity," a moment when suddenly there is just no one watching. Mind you, he may have kept his eyes open for such an opportunity for the last month and been disappointed many times that he couldn't snatch this girl or that girl. But, then one day, a girl walks out of a store and the place is empty and he pounces. And no one saw a thing. Likewise, with the McCanns. They may have had no opportunities day in and day out, but, then, there came a "window of opportunity" and they grabbed it. Of course, desparate people do desperate things; if they get caught, we call them stupid. If they get lucky, we can't figure out how they accomplished it.
Hi Pat,
I ended up at your blog googling about the 'last photo'.
My feeling is that if Garry or Kate found Maddie dead in the apartment the evening of May 3rd that, apart from having little time to hide a body, it would also be quite hard to for them to discuss a cover up in such a short time. Especially keeping in mind the panic that must have been there. I am not saying it couldn't have happened that way, but Maddie dying earlier that day seems to me to explain better why a body wasn't recovered during the searches later that night and why they managed to make it appear as an abduction.
That is why the 'last photo' is so intriguing to me, but I agree that most theories about the photo are too farfetched and judging shadows and reflections is just too hard to draw good conclusions.
But the same photo with Maddie by the pool (without Gerry and Amelie) seems to have been used by the McCanns in the 2008 Chrismas appeal (see the video at 0:34 http://www.mccannfiles.com/id194.html). It seems strange to me that hardly anyone mentions this.
Of course this is still no evidence the 'last photo' was forged, the part with Maddie could have been cut out and photoshopped and put in the Christmas video. But before that time the cutout was already present on the Internet with the elbow from Gerry partly in it, so why photoshop it out for the Chrismas video? But then again, if it was the original photo (later pasted into a staged photo with Gerry and Amelie), why would they put it I the Chrismas video?
Any ideas on this? The only evidence here, if they made the video themselves, is that the McCanns know how to photoshop.
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