If the Scotland Yard Review is Legitimate, Then the McCanns are Likely Innocent

This is going to be a very upsetting post for many of you and I am sure I am going to receive a whole bunch of unpleasant responses, but someone has to address this issue in a rational manner. It will be my last blog on the matter until we get the final determination from Scotland Yard.

A number of people are accusing me of "giving up on Madeleine and justice" because I stepped back from commenting after my post that I believed the Scotland Yard investigation was a whitewash. People were furious that I had the audacity to claim that a major police agency would not be on the up-and-up. The response was so nasty, that I decided to simply let things play out without comment. After all, it is not like my commentary at this point is going to get justice; I wrote a book and a whole bunch of blogs detailing the evidence, even a blog on where I think it is possible Madeleine's body is buried and I have not changed the course of events in the slightest. I don't see Scotland Yard or a mob of citizens digging up the barren area of Monte do Jose Mestre to see if her body really is buried there. I am enough of a realist to know that I am just one person, albeit a fairly visible one with profiling experience, but that doesn't mean my opinion can necessarily change the course of events; I am not even the ex-detective on the case who is David against a Goliath battling it out in a big court spectacle. So, since I have written my books and blogs, Scotland Yard is doing what they are doing and I am pretty sure I am not influencing them in the least.

So, what exactly is Scotland Yard doing? From the responses I have a received and from what I have read on boards and Facebook, a portion of you think the Scotland Yard review is a sham but a good portion of you think the last line of inquiry is the McCanns and they will soon arrest them. You believe the McCanns are in a cold sweat and all those police detectives who have worked this review/investigation would never be involved in a cover-up, that they would take all the evidence into account, that there never was a remit to only look at this case as an abduction and to exclude the McCanns as suspects. Some of you strongly believe that these police officers are dedicated to justice and they only think of the poor dead child - and not of their careers and politics of the department -- that their strong sense of fighting for the truth will dictate their behavior. I have to believe not a lot of you have spent much time with cops. I have. 

My daughter is a detective. My brother-in-law who I lived with for four years was a cop. My son-in-law used to be a deputy in the sheriff's department. And I have worked with cops for two decades. Cops are caring human beings and cops are cynics. Pretty much the same as me: do I care about the cases I have worked that involved children (and others)? Absolutely. Do I want justice for them? Sure. Can I accept that the case is screwed and walk away? Sadly, yes. If you work in this field long enough, you have to be pretty tough or you are not going to last. You develop a realist attitude, somewhat cynical, likely you have a black sense of humor, and you do what you can and that is that.

Cops deal with so much they know how to turn off the waterworks; if they didn't, they would go nuts. The stuff a homicide detective sees sucks. He fights to make sure cases go to court and when there isn't enough evidence or one of his fellow detectives screws up or the ass of a prosecutor refuses to go to court because he is protecting his win record, what does he do? He accepts the bad outcome and does what he can for the next case. Would you call him covering up for the police department so he can save his career? Okay, but if he starts some big fiasco about a case, he won't be helping any other murdered kids gets justice. You win some, you lose some. 

The detectives I have worked with on cold cases usually agree with my detemination and admit, while I am in house, that I am right. We go out and have beer. Then, I leave and the police tell the family and media I could not help them and they reshelve the screwed up case. That person and that family will never see justice. If you think those detectives who followed the wrong leads and lost time and evidence are going to admit I was right, tell the public that the department botched the case, you are out of your mind! All their careers would be over and they have families to feed. I have been stabbed in the back many a time over these cold cases and that is why I don't work them any more. I am instead working on training detectives so they do better work on fresh cases. I don't hold a grudge, I am not furious that they didn't get justice for a murdered child or adult; I know they are human, did their best, and they are constrained by training and reality and politics. And if you think I am going to go to the press every time and shout to the world that the department screwed up, I would never be able to work with a police agency again and then I will have wasted everything I have done to improve the closing of cases in police investigations.

Have you never heard of "The Thin Blue Line"? The police will hang together to support each other, have each other's backs because they are stuck within a system and the citizens really don't know what their world is like. If any British police supported Amaral, it is because they identify with him being screwed over. However, as you notice, if they did indeed support him, no one is giving their names or showing their faces.

So, basically, the detectives are going to do their job and investigate what they are told to investigate: they were either told to do a full and compete investigation in which everyone is a person-of-interest and no one has been excluded OR they are following a remit to investigate an abduction and only an abduction and the McCanns are not suspects, period.

So, IF the McCanns are guilty and had enough political influence to have control over the investigative remit, then the cops are going to do the job of the remit and search for an abductor. They will reach a conclusion that she was abducted and likely this is who did it although there is not enough to take said perpetrator or perpetrators to court.

If the McCanns are guilty and did not have enough political influence to assure them a review by Scotland Yard wouldn't end up biting them in the ass, they hardly would have stumped for a review of a case already shelved by the Portuguese. Of course, the question would be why any guilty party would WANT a review of a crime they committed; my answer would be, in this case, to refute Gonçalo Amaral's determinations. I think all that publicity of Scotland Yard looking for an abductor was something they hoped would influence the court case, and, even if it didn't, the final blessing from Scotland Yard would effectively override the conclusions of Amaral in much of the public's eye and that would be a satisfying conclusion for the McCanns. 

So, since they ASKED for this review; they put their trust in the outcome. If there wasn't some political collusion going on when the McCanns asked for this Scotland Yard review, if nothing has changed politically to overturn a remit, if they went in without such a remit and Scotland Yard is completely following the evidence, I will say right here, I have been wrong about the McCanns and the evidence of the dogs must be undependable and all their weird behaviors are just odd behaviors of two very ununusual people, not two guilty people. The McCanns must then be innocent.

As I have said before, my profile has been based on the known evidence and leads me to the determination that the McCanns should be top suspects and further investigation should confirm that they are guilty or find evidence that they are not. So, I for one, can accept that the McCanns could be innocent IF evidence comes to light to prove so (there are rare times when all the evidence points to a specific party but it turns out it its not them which is why you want to have as extremely convincing evidence before you go to court for prosecution). Therefore, if the McCanns did not politically manipulate the outcome of this investigation, if it is a tried and true investigation, if Scotland Yard determines it is an abduction, we have to conclude the McCanns are innocent. 

So, you can't have it both ways. Unless the political tide has massively turned and the McCanns are now being hung out to dry (which I find extremely unlikely), Scotland Yard can only be one of two things: a farce and the McCanns are guilty and are never go to be convicted of a crime or legitimate and the McCanns have been innocent all along.

Update:

Since some people can't seem to understand what my post is about, I will simplify it.

1. If you believe the McCanns had no political power to enforce a remit, then they are most likely innocent.
2. If you believe the McCanns had the political power to enforce a remit, then they are most likely guilty.
3. If you believe the McCanns had the political power to enforce a remit yet Scotland Yard after wasting three years looking for an abductor is now doing an about face and moving in on the McCanns, then there has either been a huge political upheaval in the UK or you are in the land of wishful thinking.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
May 3, 2016




By Pat Brown

Rating: 

Published: July 27, 2011

What really happened to Madeleine Beth McCann in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007? Was she abducted as the Gerry and Kate have claimed or did something happen to Madeleine on May 3 in the vacation apartment and the incident covered up? Criminal Profiler Pat Brown analyzes the evidence and takes the readers through the steps of profiling, developing a theory that is intriguing and controversial.


Posted by Pat Brown to  The Daily Profiler at May 3, 2016 at 9:12 AM

Why Parents who Kill the Their Children may not be Prosecuted and Why the McCanns Won't Be

There are two kinds of parents of responsible for their missing and murdered children when it comes to prosecution: careless and careful, unsympathetic and sympathetic.

Careless and unsympathetic parents get charged with the crime because a) the evidence is clear, and b) a jury will hate them. For example, a meth-using five time felon beats the living crap out of his little baby girl while the mother is at work. The girlfriend comes home and finds her mashed up child barely breathing and rushes her to the hospital where she dies. The father claims at the hospital, that the one-year-old got out the door of the apartment and fell down the steps. However, all the damage is consistent with being beaten and x-rays show previous damage to the child's body. Police arrest the creep and he is found guilty in a court of law.

Parents of a missing a murdered child who are more careful to cover-up after the crime and a bit more sympathetic don't get charged with a crime because a) the evidence is not totally clear, and b) a jury won't necessarily hate them. In other words, unless there is overwhelming evidence of guilt - overwhelming - no prosecutor will take the case to court and have a jury not be totally convinced of the guilt of the parent or parents; after all, imagining condemning the innocent mother and father of a missing a murdered child to prison, further torturing the victims of a crime, and taking them away from their remaining children so that they effectively not only lose one child to the crime but all of them. And think about the remaining children; they not only would lose a sibling, but then their parents as well.

,
 Sabrina Eisenburg, Lisa Irwin, Gabriel Johnson are still missing and many do not think they were abducted by strangers. These children have never been seen again and their bodies have never been found. The Eisenburgs claim their daughter was taken from her crib although there is no proof of an abduction. The Eisenburgs were never charged. Baby Lisa went missing from her crib. Her parents were never charged in spite of the fact cadaver dogs hit in their house. Gabriel Johnson's mother actually told the father of her little boy that she killed the baby and threw him in a dumpster. Later, she told the police that she actually gave the baby away to a couple in the park. In spite of the confession to the father of the child and the fact there is no evidence of an abduction, Elizabeth Johnson (a pretty woman who came across as a stressed and emotionally disturbed mother) has not been charged with the murder of her child; she got five years for custodial interference and unlawful imprisonment and she was released from prison in 2014.

And this is why the McCanns won't be charged with any crime, even neglect. Rarely is a parent of a missing child charged with neglect because, even if it is true, the police and many in the public feel they have already received enough punishment for their carelessness; their child has been kidnapped or murdered. As for the McCanns being prosecuted for the death of their child, barring an incredible miracle in the evidence department, the McCanns fall into the second category, a) the evidence is not totally clear, and b) a jury won't necessarily hate them.

First, let's look at the evidence for prosecution: the dog evidence is not admissible in court without something else to support it. So, there is no proof Madeleine died in the apartment. And, since there has been no body found, there is no proof the child is dead at all. There is no witness sighting of either of the McCanns removing the child from the apartment or disposing of her body. The Smith sighting is of a man who COULD be Gerry McCann, not proof that it was Gerry McCann. Neither of the parents have confessed and none of the others in the Tapas group have implicated them in harming their daughter or disposing of her body. So just as their is no solid proof of an abduction, there is no solid proof of the McCanns involvement in their daughter going missing. This does not mean there aren't many pieces of evidence that make them good suspects; my profile of the case includes many facts which support their involvement in what happened to Maddie. But, a profile (which is an analysis of facts) is not equivalent to the level of proof needed to prosecute someone for a crime.

Secondly, putting one's feelings about the McCanns aside, let's look at the couple in the eyes of the jury. The McCanns are not the scum of society; they are not welfare abusing, unemployed druggies who live in the slums, and have seven other children they neglect and abuse. What the jury will see are a respectable couple who are both doctors, who give their time to worthwhile projects, and one of them is even an ambassador for missing children. They have worked night and day to find their missing daughter (a defense attorney will make this seem true), went through the the process of setting up a fund to finance private investigators, and begged the government to sent in Scotland Yard to investigate the case. They have taken excellent care of the other two children (barring the one horrible night where their one poor parenting choice led to their daughter going missing). They have the support of their family, friends, and many in the governement, so they are upstanding citizens, people the jury can relate to.

So, without that absolute proof that the McCanns did something to Maddie, the jury is not going to take the risk of wrongly imprisoning an innocent mother and father, further punishing a suffering set of parents and leaving Maddie's brother and sister effectively orphaned. Even I, after having studied all the facts of the case and having traveled to Praia da Luz to analyze the area of the crime scene, and even after having written a profile which identifies Gerry and Kate McCann as the top suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, would have to find the McCanns "not guilty" in a court of law.

There is a big difference in believing someone has committed a crime and proving it. Scotland Yard can't prove Maddie was really abducted and we can't prove that she wasn't. Scotland Yard can give their profile of the crime, you can give yours, I can give mine....but, in the end, no one will be able to prove anything because there simply isn't enough evidence to do so, and, this case, like many other cases of missing and murdered children will remain unprosecuted.

The truth may come to light sometime in the far future and I hope it does. But barring a miraculous appearance of new evidence that will allow someone to be taken to prosecution, we will have to settle for documenting the case for posterity and hope that all of our efforts - Goncalo Amaral's, mine, and everyone who put so much time into studying and publicizing the case - will have done some good.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
May 2, 2016




By Pat Brown

Rating: 

Published: July 27, 2011

What really happened to Madeleine Beth McCann in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007? Was she abducted as the Gerry and Kate have claimed or did something happen to Madeleine on May 3 in the vacation apartment and the incident covered up? Criminal Profiler Pat Brown analyzes the evidence and takes the readers through the steps of profiling, developing a theory that is intriguing and controversial.