Madeleine Mccann

That remains to be seen. There's an outside chance that they've played an absolute blinder, but it's impossible to know yet.
 
Originally posted by Merlin the Magician@Sep 8 2007, 10:10 AM
If blood was found in the hire car 26 days after the abduction-death of this child, why as the blood not been analysed and the DNA sought to match the family????..
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Merlin, I think what they may have found in the boot of the car is the liquid that only dead bodies secrete. I am not 100% sure it was actually blood. Specially trained dogs from the UK evidently found this substance in a cupboard at the apartment that Kate and Gerry moved into and on some of Kate's clothing.

There is some bizarre story doing the rounds that Kate dealt with a lot of dead bodies in her line of work and that's why she says this sustance was found on some of her clothes.

OK, straws and clutching spring to mind but I am sure there will be many more bizarre rumours to follow abou this case.
 
She was/ is a GP, where as she will have come across dead bodies she was hardly forensic pathologist.

Who knows? I can't believe for the life of me they've kept a dead body in a cupboard for 25 days in temperatures of 90 degrees and no one noticed. The only motive I can see is an accidental death through parental negligence, and they've recognised the implications and constructed an explanation on the hoof. It would require a dexterous mind to pull it off, but it wouldn't be inconceivable.

Then again, whose to say that the local police aren't on matey, matey terms with the local newspaper who they issued proceedings against just a few days ok? One way of killing the libel case would be to declare them as suspects.

So far as I can see from this distance, there's more than reasonable doubt and the evidence isn't there to bring a successful prosecution.
 
Warbler hints at something I think may have been overlooked here, which is how deeply unpopular the McCanns have made themselves in this part of Portugal. It lives on tourism, and all this hoohaa has pretty well killed the tourist trade this summer, and 'broguth the village into disrepute' - which has been keenly resented by the Portuguese. If the McCanns had come home after say a month and tried to lead a normal life with/for their other children, I doubt they would be undergoing their present tribulations.

As to the tone of this thread, I too think we should be very careful to avoid peddling tabloid gossip, and any kind of voyeurism. Some of what's been written above risks falling over the edge, hence the sour tone of much of the response
 
It may be that regardless of the outcome of the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance, her mother stands accused in part of a lack of visible emotion. It's a charge women may find themselves facing whether they are victim or suspect. "You aren't handed a manual when you become a victim of crime. 'Dress like this, act like this, cry now.' I didn't know there were all these ways you were supposed to behave." These are the words of Joanne Lees, a Briton whose boyfriend Peter Falconio was murdered in the Australian outback in 2001. During the trial of Falconio's murderer, Lees, a crisp and unemotional witness, found herself standing trial at the hands of a hostile media who interpreted her composure as a sign of complicity. In 1982 in another case before the Australian courts, Lindy Chamberlain was convicted of the murder of her baby Azaria, whom she said had been taken by a dingo, a wild dog, during a family camping holiday. Her dry-eyed testimony was not believed. She was exonerated after 6 years in prison. :suspect:
 
Those two Australian cases were documented on Channel 4 on seperate occasions. The "Dingo" case was just heart breaking.
 
I think Merlin's making a very good point, I find myself reacting to her in something of that way. For example, all the press photos of her today leaving the police HQ show her wearing a pink cardigan, which almost exactly matches the 'Cuddlecat' toy she has carried everywhere. This toy, however, was neither in her hand, nor packed away in her shoulder holdall, but artfully zipped into one pocket of it, the outside pocket - so it's head was hanging out, face showing - and clearly visible to all the paparazzi. That makes me uncomfortable.
 
Originally posted by Headstrong@Sep 8 2007, 10:10 PM
so it's head was hanging out, face showing - and clearly visible to all the paparazzi. That makes me uncomfortable.
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Talk about reading too much into nothing.
 
I personally think they are innocent of any wrong doing...could be wrong but its just a gut instinct.

I have a niece who is the same age as Madeline and strikingly similar in appearance. I just keep thinking imagine losing her in similar circumstances, then accused of murdering her....knowing that all the attention is now off the actual abductor/murderer. Imagine for one split second they are innocent.....being wrongly accused of this (knowing the real abductor/murderer is out there) must just be suffocating.
 
They are innocent, Galileo and they will continue to be until a court proves otherwise or one of them confess to knowing what happened to her.

No one should ever lose sight of the fact that Madeleine is still missing, dead or alive she is still the totally innocent victim in all of this and the reason why her abductors, murderers or people that know what really happened to her must be found. Someone knows and someone is sat there as guilty as hell watching this all unfold and knowing exactly where she is and what happened to her.
 
Originally posted by Merlin the Magician@Sep 8 2007, 08:50 PM
It may be that regardless of the outcome of the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance, her mother stands accused in part of a lack of visible emotion. It's a charge women may find themselves facing whether they are victim or suspect. "You aren't handed a manual when you become a victim of crime. 'Dress like this, act like this, cry now.' I didn't know there were all these ways you were supposed to behave." These are the words of Joanne Lees, a Briton whose boyfriend Peter Falconio was murdered in the Australian outback in 2001. During the trial of Falconio's murderer, Lees, a crisp and unemotional witness, found herself standing trial at the hands of a hostile media who interpreted her composure as a sign of complicity. In 1982 in another case before the Australian courts, Lindy Chamberlain was convicted of the murder of her baby Azaria, whom she said had been taken by a dingo, a wild dog, during a family camping holiday. Her dry-eyed testimony was not believed. She was exonerated after 6 years in prison. :suspect:
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The most obvious one that comes to my mind was Louise Woodward who a stupid American jury found guilty based largely on the fact that she smiled when asked the question, "did you kill xxxx". Luckily for her, the judge recognised an erroneous verdict had been reached and sentanced her to time served on remand, effectively freeing her.

This case did spark yours truly into writing a sarcastic letter to the American Ambassador incidentally. I did actually get a reply, which if memory serves me right was very sympathetic and went as far as a leading diplomat could go in agreeing with me. :laughing: They'd clearly followed the case, and one was left with the impression that they were embarrassed by the decision, which did blunt my observation about the contribution that the New England commonwealth had given to the legal world circa 1692, as well as some of the mischievous reworking off the lyrics to the star spangled banner.

I haven't really formed an opinion on Kate McCann to be honest, but my gut reaction is that they haven't done it, even if there are some pretty lurid stories about them doing the rounds. The only thing I can possibly make stack up in my own mind is some kind of accident or error, followed by concealment, which must have required the participation of a third party. I'd be concerned about the pressure on the Portugese authorities to secure a resolution though. To my mind it's got unsolved written all over it, as there's clearly a 'reasonable doubt'.
 
When I read about Madeleine McCann and the whole trivial story about her disappearance it reminds me every day of the Azaria Chamberlain Case.

The Azaria Chamberlain Case still continues to haunt us and be remembered here in Australia, 27 years after the whole event happened. It is one of those cases that will remain without the truth being fully known. We will never know what really happened to Azaria Chamberlain at Uluru on the night of 17 August 1980.

The mother and father of Azaria were originally sentenced, the mother Lindy to life and father 18 months, however after a tourist found baby Azaria's jacket in a dingo lair, it was found that lack of evidence (including no body) could support a case against the Chamberlain's and they were released for being wrongly jailed, and awarded a million compensation payout.

In respect of the McCann's, whom honestly of us really knows? I guess at the end of the day it is human nature to accuse them of the crime, and evidence does show that most of these type of cases are family related. The whole circumstances to young Madeleine's disappearance has been nothing but strange, from leaving the children unattended in a foreign country, to the mass media outpour (including seeing Pope Benedict), the fund being set up, to the fact that nobody saw her disappear.

My only hope is they find this poor kid. Even if it means its a body, so they can bring those guilty to justice. There is not a more scarier thought than knowing that there is a 5yo child out there in the world missing, either dead or alive. That for me, is the most painful thing in this case, knowing that a child is out there somewhere lost in the kind of world we live in.
 
Beat me to it Warbler, was about to bring up the American reaction to Louise Woodwards calmness under pressure. Was also about to bring up the grotesque parents of the child at the centre of the case ....

That the Police may have taken many months to uncover the most relevant evidence that has led to intense questioning of the McCanns does not discredit that evidence nor make any charge of guilt against them any less deserved.

Many killers have been caught or exposed after a much longer investigation. They were not acquitted because, oh well the police were stupid and took ages so it doesnt count.

If the McCanns had been arrested on day 2 would we have even half of this support for them now ?
 
They are innocent, Galileo and they will continue to be until a court proves otherwise or one of them confess to knowing what happened to her.

No one should ever lose sight of the fact that Madeleine is still missing, dead or alive she is still the totally innocent victim in all of this and the reason why her abductors, murderers or people that know what really happened to her must be found. Someone knows and someone is sat there as guilty as hell watching this all unfold and knowing exactly where she is and what happened to her.
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Now thats more like it, Kathy.

Two closing points.

1. DNA in Car. The mother of the missing child takes that 'cuddlecat' soft toy everywhere. Until four months ago the same soft toy spent its days being cuddled against Madelines hair, or sucked and kissed by her. So a miniscule piece of her DNA turns up in the car. Wow.

2. The dog that barked at death. An apartment is populated by Doctors and Policemen, two professions that have corpses as raw materials for their work. So a dog gets a smell of death? As we say over here, "no sh1t, Sherlock."
 
Kathy,

Don't get all high and mighty with me. I found your speculation distasteful. I didn't try to boot you off the thread. You are entitled to type whatever you wish. But I am entitled to type my interpretation of your innuendo. You come across like somebody who doesn't like being challenged or disagreed with.

You need to relax.

Gearoid,

I only have a lunchtime pint on a Friday.

Kathy,

What's wrong with my admiring somebody with a nice ass? Would it have been more respectful to the memory of Madeleine for me to ignore nice asses until such time as she is found safe and sound?
 
Bar, feel free to disagree with me or challenge me until all your little bulls come home, I really, really don't care.

You also feel free to study as many asses as you want to and discuss these asses on whatever thread and as many as you want to. Personally, I don't care about that either.
 
A "superb" piece in The Times today:

Victims of the rumour mill?
After a dramatic twist, are the Portuguese police close to solving the most extraordinary disappearance of recent years?David James Smith, Steven Swinford and Richard Woods
As Gerry McCann emerged from Porti-mao police station at midnight on Friday, he stared unblinkingly into the distance while his lawyer read out a statement. The consultant cardiologist, said the lawyer, had just joined his wife as a prime suspect in the death of his daughter, Madeleine, who went missing four months ago.

Beneath his unflinching exterior, Gerry was in a state of turmoil and fury. “We are being absolutely stitched up by the Portuguese police,” he had told a friend after his wife Kate had earlier been named a suspect after hours of interrogation. “We are completely f*****, we should have seen this coming weeks ago and gone back to Britain.”

Barely six days earlier the McCanns had been preparing to do just that: to end their vigil in Portugal and return home to Rothley in Leicestershire. They had informed the police who had reacted calmly enough.

Detectives had warned their lawyer that the McCanns might be made arguidos - suspects - in the investigation, but had emphasised that it would be a purely “technical” move. The status would give the McCanns greater rights in interviews.

The couple were going to need them. Kate was the first to be summoned and on Thursday was questioned for 11 hours. Drained and exhausted she left the police station at 12.55am, only to be back for a further five hours of questioning on Friday, before which she was named an arguida (the feminine form).

The archaic procedures made her grilling all the more arduous. Instead of taping the interviews, an officer took hand-written notes in Portuguese of Kate’s comments, which were then translated back into English at regular intervals for her approval.

The police have said nothing publicly about the evidence they are reported to have. But according to friends of the McCanns who spoke to them after their interviews, the police told Kate they had found “bodily fluids” in a Renault Scenic car hired by the McCanns.

The police implied the forensic traces had come from Madeleine - yet the McCanns had only hired the car 25 days after their daughter disappeared. The implication was clear: Madeleine had died and the McCanns had later used the car to dispose of her body.

The police added that a sniffer dog brought in from South Yorkshire police to help with the inquiry had detected the “scent of a corpse”. During questioning they repeatedly played footage of sniffer dogs becoming animated around the Renault Scenic. They are also said to have found Madeleine’s DNA on items of clothing bought by Kate after her daughter’s disappearance.

The police declared that the elements were enough to make them believe that Madeleine was dead and to make Kate a suspect. They even offered her a deal: if she confessed to killing her daughter accidentally, she would receive a “lenient sentence” of just “two to three years”.

After all the weeks of grief and pressure, it might have been too much for some to bear. Kate, although worried sick, stayed strong. “How dare you,” she told the police. “How dare you use blackmail to get me to confess to something I didn’t do.” Gerry returned distressed and tired. His sister Philomena McCann, who spoke to him after his interrogation, said: “He’s adamant that he’s done nothing wrong. Every question he was asked, he answered. Gerry didn’t seem particularly worried. He’s more concerned that the investigation seems to have moved away from finding Madeleine alive.”

She added: “Kate and Gerry have not been charged. They are free to leave Portugal, which is what I would want them to do - because I am sick of seeing them persecuted in this shameful manner.”

This weekend their fate hangs in the balance. A source at Britain’s Forensic Science Service said that the whole edifice of suspicion against the McCanns may rest on sand. Forensic samples, he cautioned, may have been too small or too contaminated to prove anything.

A senior British police source said he was astonished by the decision to accuse Kate of killing her daughter just on the basis of the forensic tests. “It sounds over the top. What we do is to get an independent review of the forensic evidence and bring someone in from the outside. You independently review what is going on and you certainly don’t make an arrest off the top of one specific piece of evidence,” he said.

On the other hand, a Portuguese newspaper yesterday claimed that Kate is accused of homicide, negligence and “preventing the corpse from being found”. Reports also claimed that police sources said Kate is mentally unstable, displayed “aggression” and has been using her right to remain silent.

The Portuguese authorities are considering whether to suspend the McCanns’ passports - and the police may yet lay charges.

To appreciate the McCanns’ extraordinary predicament, you have to go back to the night in question, Thursday, May 3, and in particular the three hours between when Madeleine was last seen by a nonfamily member and when she was reported missing. What happened in this period is regarded by police as the key to solving the mystery.

AFTER a series of interviews in Praia da Luz in recent weeks, The Sunday Times has established new details of what happened that night and how the police inquiry took its dramatic twist this weekend.

The McCanns had travelled to the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz with a group of friends, predominantly doctors like them. Altogether, four families, comprising nine adults and eight children, set out.

At the Ocean Club all four families had apartments in Waterside Gardens Block 5, which overlooked one of two pool and restaurant areas on the resort. It was not a gated site and Gerry’s and Kate’s ground floor apartment, 5a, was on a street corner. The group occupied two of the neighbouring apartments, 5b and 5d, and another on the floor above.

On the first night, Saturday, April 28, the adults and children all ate together at the Ocean Club’s other location, some 10 minutes away, the Millennium Restaurant and Terrace. But the next night, and for all the nights thereafter, all four families settled the children in their apartments and then walked down to the nearby Tapas restaurant with its open air tables offering a clear line of sight to the apartments, about 50 metres away.

You could see the rear of the apartments where french windows opened out of the lounge and kitchen area. In the McCanns’ apartment there was a master bedroom next to the lounge, a bathroom and, furthest away from the Tapas restaurant, at the front, next to the front door, the second bedroom where the three children were put to sleep every night.

Each evening the group followed a pattern of giving the children tea together and then playing with them for an hour before putting them to bed. The children, worn out, were soon asleep.

For the adults, the evenings were fun, although not excessive, despite some of the more excitable reporting. The Portuguese magazine Sol, for example, claimed 14 bottles of wine were consumed on the night of May 3 - adding the supposedly persuasive details of eight bottles of red and six of white. In fact, according to Gerry, the group had drunk only four bottles; another two stood barely touched on the table.

Each set of parents took responsibility for checking on their own children, so there was fairly constant traffic up and down from the table, the parents often crossing paths. Gerry and Kate took turns to check every half hour.

On the evening of May 3, the last moment when Madeleine was definitely seen alive by anybody other than the McCanns was at about 7pm as the group put their children to bed.

As the adults dined, Gerry went to check on Madeleine and the twins Sean and Amelie at just after 9pm, perhaps at 9.05pm. He says all the children were safely asleep.

As he was returning to the table he encountered Jeremy Wilkins, an English fellow holidaymaker whom Gerry had befriended at the resort’s tennis courts. They chatted for a few minutes in the street outside the McCanns’ apartment.

One of the party, Russell O’Brien, was away from the table for much of the evening, caring for his sick child. At about 9.15pm Jane Tanner, his girlfriend, went to their apartment to see how things were. As she did so she passed, right on the street corner by the McCanns’ apartment, a man carrying a child wrapped in a blanket.

The man was crossing the road, walking away from the apartment complex. At the time Tanner thought nothing of it; it seemed a perfectly normal spectacle in a family resort.

At 9.30pm Kate was due to check on her children, but another of the party, believed to be Matt Oldfield, was getting up from the table to make his own check. Oldfield said he would look in on the McCanns’ children, according to a source close to the McCanns.

When Oldfield reached the corner apartment he entered through the closed but unlocked french windows and checked on the sleeping children. Afterwards, with the terrible agony of hindsight, he could clearly recall seeing the twins lying there, but could not say for sure that he had seen Madeleine. But that was afterwards. The evening went on.

O’Brien rejoined the table shortly before 10pm. Not long afterwards Kate got up to make the next check on her three children. The walk must have taken her less than a minute. Madeleine was not in her bed.

Left behind was Cuddle Cat, Madeleine’s comfort toy. She was never separated from it, especially at night.

According to Kate, the bedroom window was open and the shutter up, yet they had been closed and down when Gerry checked at 9pm. Kate searched the apartment and the area immediately outside.

She ran down the hill and into the restaurant, where Gerry recalls her shouting or screaming either “Madeleine has gone. Somebody has taken her” or “Madeleine has gone. Someone has taken her”. Other reports suggest she shouted, “They've taken her.”

Gerry thought “that can’t be right, that can’t be right”. He went running up to the apartment with Kate and checked everywhere she had already looked, and made a quick run around the apartment block.

They decided straight away to call the police but had no idea what the emergency numbers were and, anyway, could not speak Portuguese.

They asked one of their friends in the group to go down to the main reception, which is manned 24 hours, and call the police. The call was made at 10.14pm or 10.15pm, according to the McCanns.

Two officers from the GNR local police arrived at 11.10pm, nearly an hour after the call. They could not speak English and a member of the Ocean Club staff had to translate.

The immediate assumption was that Madeleine must have wandered off, but Gerry and Kate were adamant that this could not have happened. Besides there were, apparently, obvious signs that an intruder had been there. What they were, however, is not clear. Apart from the open window and shutter, neither the McCanns nor the police have confirmed any other evidence of a break-in.

At midnight the local police called the Policia Judiciaria, the PJ, who investigate serious crimes. The PJ arrived at 1am, according to the McCanns. There was substantial searching involving tourists and locals for some hours. Kate remained in the apartment hoping for news, while Gerry went out and looked.

By 3.30am the police had packed it in for the night. The searching was pretty much over. Gerry and Kate were frustrated and desperate. Gerry went out at about 4am with David Payne, another of their group, hoping to find something.

Later, at about 6am, the McCanns went out alone and walked around the scrubland on the outskirts of the village, holding hands and calling Madeleine’s name. There was nobody else around and they felt utterly alone.

FROM the beginning the McCanns felt that they must keep faith with the Portuguese detectives who were investigating their daughter’s disappearance. Others around them were ready to criticise but, in public at least, the McCanns expressed their support.

They were also advised not to betray any emotion when making public appeals for help, which accounts for the even face which Gerry has presented to the media. Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, told them that if the abductor was watching he or she might take pleasure in the McCanns’ distress.

Behind the scenes, however, tensions festered on both sides. It was not always easy for the McCanns or their friends to maintain the veneer of confidence in the police. One forensics officer spent a long time in the McCanns’ apartment collecting exhibits, but wore the same gloves the whole time. The gloves should have been replaced regularly to avoid cross-contamination.

The Portuguese police were unused to the intense media interest and the McCanns’ highly successful and in some ways controversial strategy of keeping Madeleine’s story and image in the public eye in the hope that someone would recognise her. The PJ, steeped in a culture of secrecy dating back to Portugal’s dictatorship, which ended in 1974, resented the media attention and having to give a press conference.

There were further complications, too. The McCanns knew, as few others did, that the PJ had adopted a local expat called Robert Murat, who spoke English and Portuguese, as an official translator.

Murat lived in a villa with his mother just across the road from the Ocean Club and only a few hundred yards from the McCanns’ apartment - in the very direction that Tanner had seen a man with a child wrapped in a blanket. Yet he was given a position of trust by the police: when Murat told the police that some members of the press already suspected him, the PJ told him not to worry. He should keep away from the press, the PJ said, and help them as a translator.

He began informally translating for the PJ on Monday, May 7, and on the Wednesday signed an agreement as an official interpreter. He translated the interview of the McCanns’ holiday companion Rachel Oldfield, among others.

On the night of Saturday, May 12, he left the PJ offices in Portimao and realised that he was being followed by an unmarked police car as he drove home. On Sunday he tried in vain to find out from the PJ why they had changed their minds about him. He has still never been told why he became a suspect but the next day, at 7am, the police raided his house and took him off for questioning.

How could he be trusted one day and suspected the next? It made little sense, least of all to Murat. Police investigations into his movements and associates produced little of interest. Excavations at his mother’s villa turned up no sign of a body. The police investigation appeared to be going nowhere.

From the beginning the McCanns had been warned by the PJ that they could not speak about the details of the investigation or the circumstances of Madeleine’s disappearance. The “secrecy of justice” laws prevented anybody involved, including all police officers and witnesses, from talking about it to the press or anyone else. Both Gerry and Kate were meticulous in observing this rule.

The McCanns lived - and continue to live - on hope. They knew their daughter could have been abused and killed but, in the absence of certainty, they could have hope. When a German journalist asked in June whether they had had anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance, it seemed an insulting aberration. The McCanns maintained their composure.

For many weeks even the identities of the McCanns’ holiday companions remained secret - nobody except the police knew who they were. Suddenly the friends began receiving telephone calls in England from a Portuguese journalist. It was a woman from Sol magazine who knew the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all the friends. It appeared that she could have obtained that information only from the police. Had the PJ, whose competence was being questioned by the British media, been stung into some sort of riposte?

Those first invasive telephone calls were the opening round of the campaign of speculation and suspicion that seems to have culminated in the extraordinary events of the last few days. Sol ran a series of articles that cast doubt on the behaviour and probity of the McCanns and their friends.

The articles were a mixture of straight facts from the police files and random inaccuracies, such as the 14 bottles of wine. Where Sol led, the rest of the Portuguese media followed - except they did not seem to be so well connected to the police and their information was even wilder.

The internet became rife with rumour and gossip. The holiday group were “swingers”, apparently, and had lied and contradicted themselves in their statements to the police. The McCanns had accidentally killed Madeleine and conspired with one or more of their friends to dispose of her body.

The most powerful rumour was that they had used their medical knowledge to sedate their children – presumably so they could go “swinging”.

There was no evidence to support any of the claims. The McCanns insisted they had given their children nothing more potent than Calpol, which is a painkiller and has no sedative effect. It is also paracetamol based so an overdose would take days to have an effect, with the child likely first to show signs of jaundice.

The febrile atmosphere persisted. In mid-August the Portuguese papers, apparently following a line from Sol, began to point suspicion at O’Brien, the friend who had been absent from the dinner for most of that evening.

In some cases the Portuguese stories became the next day’s British stories and the Portuguese journalists, seeing this apparent corroboration of their own work, would then report the stories again with an additional layer of speculation. In this way O’Brien went from innocent holidaymaker to prime suspect facing imminent arrest in less than a week.

He had driven Madeleine’s body to the coast to be disposed of, went the terrible fantasy. One morning the media descended on his Exeter home in the belief that he was about to be arrested. Not only was he not about to be arrested, the whole thing was an invention– based, it appears, on leaks to Sol from the PJ.

Was it possible, in some bizarre circle of fate, that the PJ had started to believe the exaggerations of the local press and decided that Gerry and Kate were not so innocent after all? In early August a Portuguese newspaper reported that sniffer dogs brought in by British police had found traces of blood on a wall in the McCanns’ apartment. It claimed that detectives believed that Madeleine had been killed accidentally. The blood traces are now thought to be those of a man, not of Madeleine (although the police have issued no confirmation either way).

After weeks of the McCanns’ publicity drive there was a drought of hard evidence and a flood of speculation about every suspected new twist.

The lawyer for Murat upped the ante by criticising the McCanns’ “strange” behaviour in leaving Madeleine alone. Then the police acknowledged for the first time that she could be dead.

The ugly mood culminated in a Portuguese newspaper claiming outright that the McCanns had killed their daughter with an overdose of a sedative. Stunned, the McCanns, who had already decided to start winding down their media campaign, said they would sue for libel.

Last week the results of forensic tests conducted in Britain were passed to the Portuguese police. Newspapers reported that Madeleine’s “blood” had been found in the McCanns’ hire car - rented 25 days after Madeleine had vanished. But it is not clear whether it was blood or some other substance, how much was found, where it was found - or indeed how it was found.

The car has remained in Portugal - bizarrely, it was returned to the McCanns after it was examined and they are still using it - and the tests were done in England.

Could Gerry or Kate, or both of them, have killed their daughter and later disposed of her remains using the car? The scenario has to be considered - if only because there have been previous cases of apparently grief-stricken parents turning out to be killers.

A forensic psychologist suggests it is unlikely that the McCanns could have kept up their united front for four months in the face of such attention if they were guilty.

“It is very difficult for two people to lie over a death, however that death occurred, whether it was accidental or deliberate,” said Mike Berry, senior lecturer in forensic psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University. “I cannot see two parents lying and lying consistently.”

A friend of the McCanns makes a more practical point: “Where would they have hidden the body for three weeks in front of the world’s press?”

In the meantime it is day 129, Madeleine is still missing and, as her parents keep reminding anyone who will listen, there is someone out there who knows.
 
Originally posted by an capall@Sep 9 2007, 08:56 AM
Two closing points.

1. DNA in Car. The mother of the missing child takes that 'cuddlecat' soft toy everywhere. Until four months ago the same soft toy spent its days being cuddled against Madelines hair, or sucked and kissed by her. So a miniscule piece of her DNA turns up in the car. Wow.
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In this scenario (transfer of DNA from an object) it would be impossible to have enough DNA to actually test, so that's not a possibility.


Q: Why was Cuddle Cat not confiscated as forensic evidence in the first place...?


I do think this whole case is just a very sad one and unfortunately has been marred by the media coverage, it was over the top at first and has since become rather sinister. I honestly don't see there will ever be a satisfactory conclusion to this case, especially if a body is never found. It's extremely hard to solve a case and know what really happened without a body, circumstantial evidence can help but often leaves a lot unclear and thus room for reasonable doubt.

I can only think (personally) of one case which resulted in a clear conviction without a body ever being found (though I am sure there are more). This was the US case of Thomas Capano, found guilty of murdering Anne Marie Fahey and originally sentenced to death (now serving life without parole). They never found her body; the main forensic evidence was minute blood stains in Capano's house. But they were able to call witnesses to the disposal of the body, and that (together with Capano's insistence on taking the stand and coming across very badly) clearly convinced the jury.

Edit: also this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Danielle_Jones

I would be surprised if they had anywhere near enough to convince anyone in this case, though obviously I don't know what evidence they DO have, and I believe it will never be solved. Whoever is actually guilty, that remains the saddest thing of all... I don't think anyone will ever know what happened to Madeleine.
 
Interesting how the Times piece ostensibly pieces together the story by presenting the uncontrovertible facts of the case. Unfortunately, fact isn't always fact as the following paragraph indicates:

"For the adults, the evenings were fun, although not excessive, despite some of the more excitable reporting. The Portuguese magazine Sol, for example, claimed 14 bottles of wine were consumed on the night of May 3 - adding the supposedly persuasive details of eight bottles of red and six of white. In fact, according to Gerry, the group had drunk only four bottles; another two stood barely touched on the table."

This para is pointless ~ either the Sunday Times can substantiate the amount of wine consumed by getting a statment from the restaurant or it can't. It can't denounce Sol's claims as fanciful just because they are Portuguese media and the ST are the British media.
 
Upon finding her daughter missing, did Kate McCann really run back to the restaurant leaving her two other children behind her on their own?
 
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