Madeleine McCann missing since 5/2007 from the Algarve region of Portugal/Breaking:10/13/13~Police release e-fits of mystery man.

Same here, Wrap! It doesn't sound like that large an area. Odd that the parents' attorney is against the digging.

If there was a pile of rubble during the earlier scans that is not there now, it is very possible that Birch's scans could show something that the earlier ones didn't...Let him dig and find out for sure!! What is wrong with these people!?

This is when I question the parents. I wouldn't care if the entire world told me not to dig. I'd probably be out there with my own crew come hell or highwater. Wouldn't care if they threw me in the clink..just dig the damned thing. What can it hurt??

Wrapitup wrote:This is when I question the parents. I wouldn't care if the entire world told me not to dig. I'd probably be out there with my own crew come hell or highwater. Wouldn't care if they threw me in the clink..just dig the damned thing. What can it hurt??

Feb. 7, 2013 10:59 AM
by By Kate Seamons, Newser

For the second time since Madeleine McCann went missing, the DNA of a lookalike is to be tested. New Zealand police insist that a girl spotted in Queenstown is absolutely not the same child who vanished in 2007. Still, they say that they've complied with Scotland Yard's request and have taken a sample of the girl's DNA, which will take weeks to conclusively test.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a New Year's Eve sighting of the child spurred a five-day police probe, which concluded with them announcing that they were "absolutely satisfied" that she is not Madeleine. But some aren't so sure: The child is reported to have a coloboma of the iris, the same rare eye defect Madeleine has, reports Time.

It is found in only about 0.007% of people, reports TVNZ, and it was enough to catch the eye of the shop owner who reported the sighting to police.

"She had the same eye defect as Madeleine. Only a very small percentage of the population have that, and I was just staring at it the whole time to the point I forgot what they had purchased," she said.

The Daily Beast notes that New Zealand police have been alerted to the presence of the lookalike five times over the last five years.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — DNA tests have confirmed a New Zealand girl is not missing British youngster Madeleine McCann, police said Wednesday.

Members of the public have twice mistakenly identified the New Zealand girl as Madeleine. The first sighting was last March and the second on New Year’s Eve.

Madeleine was 3 years old when she vanished nearly six years ago during a family vacation to Portugal. Her disappearance drew attention as well as false sightings around the globe. Portuguese police closed the case in 2008 after failing to find out what happened to her.

New Zealand police said in a statement they sent DNA samples to Scotland Yard at the request of British police still investigating Madeleine’s disappearance. New Zealand police say the unnamed girl’s family has requested privacy, so no more details about the girl were available.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Nite, Thanks for the update. Figured it was too good to be true.

Yes, thanks for that update. I truly think the little one is no longer alive.....so sad.

07/04/13


LONDON — British police say they have launched a full investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and want to trace 38 "persons of interest" in the case.

Detectives say it's possible that Madeleine, who vanished from a Portuguese holiday resort six years ago, is still alive.

Scotland Yard said Thursday that 12 of the individuals of interest are British, and the rest from a variety of European countries. The force says it is working with governments across the continent to find out more.

McCann vanished from a vacation home in Portugal's Algarve region on May 3, 2007, days before her fourth birthday. The case has generated intense media interest.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood said police "continue to believe that there is a possibility that Madeleine is alive."


[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Composite photos showing three-year-old Madeine McCann, left, with a computer generated age progression image of the missing child as she might look now, right, issued Thursday July 4, 2013. British police say Thursday July 4, 2013 they have launched a full investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and want to trace 38 "persons of interest" in the case. Detectives say it's possible that Madeleine, who vanished from a Portuguese holiday resort six years ago, is still alive. (AP Photo/PA, Metropolitan Police, Teri Blythe)

Oh, I hope they are right and that she is still alive---and well!

TR!! SO GREAT to see you!!

CBS NEWS/ October 13, 2013, 9:51 PM

British police investigating the 2007 disappearance of 3-year-old Madeleine McCann have released two new composite drawings of a man they want to question in her suspected abduction.

Man wanted for questioning in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Man wanted for questioning in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. / METROPOLITAN POLICE

Another sketch of the man wanted for questioning in the Madeleine McCann case.

The images were released ahead of the broadcast Monday night of a the BBC "Crimewatch" program about the case, which has made headlines around the globe.

Investigators with London's Metropolitan Police said they had completed a more detailed reconstruction of the events surrounding Madeleine's disappearance and that the timeline and version of events had "significantly changed."

Police did not say exactly what had changed, but said it was of "vital importance" that they speak to a man described by witnesses. The man is described as German. He is white, between the ages of 20 and 40 with brown hair, police said.

Another sketch of the man wanted for questioning in the Madeleine McCann case. Another sketch of the man wanted for questioning in the Madeleine McCann case. / METROPOLITAN POLICE

Madeleine, from Leicestershire, England, was on vacation with her family in the southern Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz when she vanished on May 3, 2007. Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, told police they left Madeleine and two younger siblings sleeping in their holiday apartment while they dined with friends nearby. When the parents returned to check on the children, Madeleine was gone.

Portuguese police named first a local man and then the McCanns themselves as suspects in the case, but backed off those allegations without filing charges. Portuguese police later closed the case, but British authorities began their own probe. Kate and Gerry McCann have said they will never give up looking for their daughter.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Updated 3 hours ago


Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan Police released two computer-generated images of a second man seen carrying a young girl near Praia da Luz about the time of Madeleine McCann's disappearance in May 2007.

By M. Alex Johnson, Elisha Fieldstadt and Henry Austin, NBC News
LONDON -- Police said late Monday they were “extremely pleased” after a television appeal about the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann that prompted two separate tipoffs giving the same name for a suspect.
More than 300 calls and 170 emails were received from viewers after the BBC aired a reconstruction about the girl, who vanished from her parents' vacation apartment when she was three years old.
Two witnesses independently provided police with the same name in response to a computer-generated image shown on the broadcast, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood said during the show.
The image represents a man seen carrying a child towards the beach near the the Praia da Luz resort in Algarve, Portugal, where Madeleine went missing at around 10 p.m. local time on May 3, 2007, London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement.  

The suspect is described as being white, aged in his 30s, with short brown hair, of medium build, medium height and clean shaven, cops added.
"We are extremely pleased with the response,” Detective Chief Inspector Redwood said. “We will now take the time to follow up these lines of inquiry.”
"Our appeal continues and later today I will be travelling to Holland, and tomorrow Germany, to continue the appeal for information,” he added. "Madeleine remains at the heart of everything we do and I will continue to update the McCann family as more information is received by the incident room."
Portuguese police closed the investigation in 2008, but after two years of reviewing case documents, London cops reopened the case which has transfixed Britain in July, saying there was a good chance Madeleine was still alive.
For years attention was focused on a man whom a friend of the McCanns said she saw carrying a small girl near the McCanns' apartment but investigators said they had effectively ruled out this sighting.
Instead Metropolitan Police released new descriptions and electronic images Monday of a different man, saying the man who was seen carrying the girl is now believed to have been a resort guest who likely had nothing to do with Madeleine's disappearance.
In an earlier interview on the BBC program "Crimewatch," DCI Redwood said  the resort where the McCanns were staying on vacation had a nighttime child-care center where eight families that week were boarding 11 children. He said investigators had tracked down the families — one of which told them that they believed they were seen taking their daughter to the child-care center for the night.

"I would say it was a revelation moment," Redwood said.
Madeleine's parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, put Madeleine and her twin siblings to bed about 8:30 p.m. in May 3, 2007, and went to have dinner with friends at the resort's tapas bar.
Because Kate McCann reported that she'd discovered that Madeleine was missing at 10 p.m., the investigation has focused on events that might have occurred during that 90-minute window, when the man carrying the child was spotted by one of the McCann's friends, Redwood said.
With that man now largely ruled out, police have widened the timeline they're examining, Redwood said, and in the last few months they have opened two other investigative trails.
"We're able to allow the clock to continue moving forward and allow things that have not been quite as significant or received quite the same degree of attention to be the center of our focus," Redwood said on "Crimewatch."

The day Madeleine disappeared, several unknown people were observed near the McCanns' apartment — including a second man who was spotted carrying a young girl later that night. This man was heading toward the beach — away from the resort.
It is this man who is featured in the two new composite images made public Monday, he said.
"He was a white man with brown hair, and the child that he had in his arms was described as being about 3 to 4 years of age with blond hair, possibly wearing pajamas, a description very close to that of Madeleine McCann," Redwood said.
Two witnesses helped police compile detailed facial reconstructions of the man using a method called the Electronic Facial Identification Technique (e-fit). Police released those images Monday and asked anyone with any information about him to come forward.
Earlier in the day — before Madeleine was reported missing — two men were also seen on the balcony of an empty apartment two doors down from the McCanns', Redwood quoted witnesses as having said. A third man was spotted on the balcony about an hour later. And at 6 p.m., a man was seen loitering in a stairwell of the McCanns' apartment block.
Then, an hour after Madeleine was reported missing, two men were interrupted on the street having a discussion "in raised voices," after which they "walked away in hushed tones," Redwood said.

Taken together, the evidence indicates that Madeleine's disappearance has "the hallmarks of a preplanned abduction," Redwood said. "That would have undoubtedly involved reconaissance, and so we're really keen to understand who these people were."
The second new investigative thread is more pedestrian but possibly equally significant.

During the first half of 2007, burglaries jumped by 400 percent in the area around the resort, Redwood said. Two of them occurred in the McCanns' apartment block in the three weeks before the arrived.
The burglars, none of whom have ever been caught, entered and left through windows — the same way investigators believe Madeleine's abductor escaped.
"Possibly, there is a scenario where Madeleine could possibly have disturbed someone trying to commit a burglary," Redwood said.
Last week, officials said they were examining every cellphone number used in the area at the time of the girl's disappearance.
For a brief period, Gerry and Kate McCann were suspected of having had a role in their daughter's disappearance. In their interview Monday on "Crimewatch," they reiterated that their family were the victims and said it took them a long time to come to peace with their decision to leave the children behind when they went to dinner.
"These (things) can eat away at you," Gerry McCann said. "It's been like a mantra to me, to look forward, to always look forward and it still can be done."
Kate McCann said it took her "longer to get to that point, and I did persecute myself for the decision to eat at the tapas restaurant for weeks, months, years, I'd say."
"You know, why did we think that was OK?" she asked. "But it doesn't help. It doesn't help Madeleine. And ultimately it's not us that committed this crime. It was the person that's gone into that room and taken a little girl away from her family."

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

This is interesting...

The Daily Profiler
Hosted by The Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency
MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2013
Crimewatch and Scotland Yard Team Up to pull One Big One over on the Public




I just finished watching BBC's Crimewatch on the new findings in the Madeleine McCann case. With the cooperation of New Scotland Yard (Metropolitan Police), a new "reconstruction" was shown (that was little more than a condensed version of the previous pro McCann documentary "Madeleine was Here" and new theories were laid out (because Detective Andy Redwood seems to not have found enough evidence of abduction to really point to any particular motive). There is new "evidence" (and I put quotes around that because Scotland Yard wishes us to take them at their word) to eliminate one suspect, and there is "new" evidence (and I put quotes around "new" because there isn't anything new) putting another suspect in the top slot.

My immediate reaction to the show was this post to Twitter:

Distortion, Revisionist history. Ridiculous "reconstruction." Conveniently missing details.

Let me try to break down what was off with this show without having to completely explain the entire case. I do suggest for those that become confused to read Goncalo Amaral's book, The Truth of the Lie or see the documentary on it, or read my book, The Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann available at B&N and Smashwords (not at Amazon where the McCanns had it banned), and read my blogs that I wrote following my trip to Praia da Luz on The Daily Profiler.

Okay.

I will start with the conveniently missing details: any and all evidence or information in the police files that points to the McCanns' involvement, the death of the child in the flat, the cadaver dogs hits in the flat and the rental car, the inconsistencies in the statements of many of the Tapas 9, within their own statements and in relation to each others' statements, and the fact that the Mr. Smith of the Smith family said that the man they saw carrying the little girl toward the beach looked like Gerry. Also left out; that there was no evidence of an abductor or anyone breaking into the flat through the window, that Gerry thought an abductor was behind the door, and that Matthew Oldfield never really saw Madeleine when he did his supposed check. Oh, and while they show that Jane walked past the McCanns apartment and saw a man with a child, nothing was mentioned about her passing Gerry and Jeremy talking on the street (the narrow street that would caused her to have to cha-cha around the men but they never saw her).

The new reconstruction is a bare bones version, which does not explain how an abductor might have gotten in and taken Madeleine, nor which way he might have gone with her, nor any other particulars. All we learn is that Gerry went to make his check at 9:15, saw Madeleine and that the door was not in the position he thought he left it and he set it back, that at 9:30 Matthew Oldfield made the next check, and then Kate made her check, saw the door was a bit off, the window open and Madeleine gone. That is it.

So, we don't learn how an abductor got in, how he got Madeleine out, and when he did this.

Without presenting a shred of evidence, Scotland Yard gives us two conclusions that push the abduction toward 10 pm. Now, for some who think the McCanns found Madeleine dead behind the sofa where the cadaver dog hit and then Gerry carried her off to the beach passing the Smith family who told the police of their sighting, they might think this might be a clever plan of Scotland Yard to finally close in on the McCanns, but I don't think this is what they are attempting to do.

Let's look at the big news on the show tonight; Jane Tanner's sighting is NOT the "kidnapper" of Madeleine McCann. He is some tourist who happened to be carrying his own child home from the creche where she was being babysat (mind you he was walking in the wrong direction, toward the creche, but....never mind). Also, he was wearing the exact clothes described by Jane Tanner because the man remembers precisely what he was wearing six years ago. Interestingly, with all the hoopla about this man at the beginning of the Portuguese investigation, he never came forward, but now Mr-whoever-he-is (and Scotland Yard is not going to tell us), suddenly pops up and admits it was him.

What does this very questionable "discovery" do? It validates Jane seeing someone and invalidates the crime occurring at around 9:15. On the face of it, this should be a bad thing for the McCanns because this man was really Gerry's alibi. But, the way this is being spun, it will not matter. Why? Because Jane was not believed to be telling the truth by the Portuguese police (the PJ) and they believed the Smith sighting was Gerry (although Redwood claims the PJ overfocused on Jane's sighting as the suspect and ignored the Smith sighting - serious revisionist history). So, if Jane is a liar, then she is lying for a reason and the PJ believed it was to prove an abduction had occurred and Gerry put her up to the lie.

Now, if Jane is telling the truth, then the McCanns didn't push her to cover for them. This puts them one step closer to innocence.

But, of course, now that the only real "proof" of abduction while Gerry is alibied - Jane seeing someone carrying the child away while Gerry is on the street chatting with Jeremy- is gone, there is a problem. The way to solve it is to make sure there is another abductor and that is going to be the Smith sighting. Hence, the fact Matthew Oldfield didn't see Madeleine in her bed at 9:30 is left out of the reconstruction, so it appears that the abductor struck later than that, closer to 10 PM. So, now we have the right time for the abduction to coincide with the Smith sighting. The simple fact there could have been an abductor that late, now allows for that sighting not to be Gerry. Redwood also clearly states the man had graying hair which, as far as I know, Gerry did not have at the time. Does anyone remember the Smiths stating they saw any graying hair on the man with child heading to the beach? I don't.


Many think the e-fits looks just like Gerry; I don't think so. I think they had to make e-fits look similar enough because Mr. Smith said the guy looked like Gerry. But, the e-fits are just enough off for another man to be "found" that looks enough like Gerry to say it is understandable why Mr. Smith was confused. Of course, that Mr. Smith said the man looked like Gerry wasn't mentioned in the show so most people won't know, but later on, this can be addressed when it is necessary.




I think that man will surface just like the Jane Tanner suspect surfaced. At some point, we will hear that an innocent fellow who looks like Gerry came forward and said it was him with his daughter. Then, Gerry is completely exonerated and Scotland Yard will just have to find another suspect who was never seen. OR we will hear that Scotland Yard has identified some person from a sex ring who sort of looks like Gerry but they cannot divulge more. OR we will hear that it was likely some dead predator who looked enough like Gerry to be mistaken for him. No proof will every be provided that any of these people really exist but it doesn't matter to the general public. If Scotland Yard says it is so and the media backs it, it must be so. It may sound convoluted but, the combination of vagueness and connecting dots that don't exist can be a successful method to use to convince people of something that they are not going to thoroughly research themselves. A magician calls this "misdirection."

Then, mission accomplished. The McCanns are "proven" innocent, the PJ incompetent, Amaral a libeler, and Scotland Yard a fine police agency that did a great investigation to find Madeleine and at least answer the question of what happened to her.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Yes, it does.

Pat knows her shit!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
I have worked on enough cases to know that if a child is abducted by a stranger and stays missing, that means there is simply no evidence for the police to follow to the suspect. So, if Portugal is now saying they have evidence proving abduction of Maddie, they would actually have to have a suspect in hand. I don't believe they do. Hence, we are not being told the truth and this is a political move for Portugal to save face, blame the previous investigative team (that is quite common), make them (and Amaral) the scapegoats, and make Scotland Yard and all the bad publicity go away. The case will be shelved again with some dead kidnapper or some already jailed kidnapper, some "confession" that will never be proven to be true, or some "lead" that goes to a child sex ring where Maddie's life was ended long ago, maybe even "by accident" during the abduction so the parents don't have to think she suffered. Call me cynical, but I don't believe that Portugal and Scotland Yard are working a clever ruse to bring the McCanns back and force them and their friends into a reconstruction that will lead to finally charging them with the death and disappearance of their daughter.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2013

One of the interesting occurrences after a mystery goes so long unsolved is the cropping up of many fantastical theories about what might have happened, in this case, what might have happened to Madeleine McCann. Complicated theories usually result from two issues: one, the disbelief that the mystery could still be unsolved if it weren't some diabolical plan and two, some pieces of evidence are missing, unexplained, or confusing which leads people to create scenarios based on supposition. I want to say that fantastical theories have cropped up on both sides of the McCann divide and have led to a lot of out-there discussion and sometimes unnecessary suspects. The theories have been promoted by the public, the media, professionals of varying sorts, and the police. Mind you, I am not saying you should not consider these theories, even if slightly farfetched because doing so could inspire other avenues of investigation which have not been considered, but if one is going to conclude that something is likely to have happened, that conclusion should be based on good evidence, not on things that "could be" or "seems like it could be." In the end, one should play Devil's Advocate and knock down all theories that have a lack of evidence to support them and one should focus on the theory that does have strong enough evidence to consider it a strong likelihood of being the scenario which actually happened..

Let me present firstly what I think should be the reasonable scenario for the McCanns' involvement and the most reasonable without the McCanns' involvement.

With) The children were left alone so that the McCanns could enjoy their evening out. Because of the problem of the children crying for them the previous night and Maddie being so agitated over this, the children were given medication to quiet them. The McCanns put the children to bed, thought they were out for the evening (as in asleep) and went to have a drink on the veranda and then they went out for the next couple of hours. They did not check on the children again until Gerry came back to the flat at 9:15. Either before or after they left the apartment, Maddie came out, climbed on the sofa, and fell behind it. Because there is a question of timing as to how long a body must remain in a place for cadaver smell to develop that is good enough for the dogs, I cannot say when this accident would have exactly occurred. (the timing seems to be narrowing with further scientific experiments in the matter from one and a half hours to far less than that. At around 9:15, Gerry finds Maddie missing from bed, searches for her, and finds her behind the sofa. Then Kate returns and all hell breaks loose. Gerry takes Maddie away, Kate raises the alarm, some amount of staging is done, but very little as everyone is in a panic.

Without) Some local creep has noted that the McCanns have three little kids and that they are leaving them in the flat alone every night. He notes the McCanns going out again that night and waits until he thinks he has an opportunity to slip in through an open door or pull up an unlocked window. He sees Maddie, puts a hand over her mouth and rushes from the flat. He realizes she isn't reacting at all to being abducted (because she has been medicated) and he carries the quiet child off easily. He would have taken Maddie to his home, raped and murdered her and buried her body on the property or out in the brush somewhere. I want to point out, there is no evidence at all to support this scenario, but if Maddie were actually abducted this would have likely been what happened.

Now, time has gone on and so the scenarios get crazier Because the pedophile abduction scenario does indeed seem a bit too lucky, now we have kidnapping masterminds enter the picture; sex rings or baby selling rings, professionals who plotted this whole crime out with incredible brilliance; hence, the reason no evidence was left and they got away with Maddie into the night without being discovered and why they and what happened to Maddie has remained undiscovered for six years.

Likewise for the scenarios in which the McCanns are involved. People can't understand how the cover-up of an accident was accomplished in so short a time and why the Tapas 9 have never broken and why the body has never been found. In other words, it is hard to believe they got away with a cover-up if it was so haphazard to have had to be done in a moment's notice. Therefore, there are theories that Maddie was never in Portugal, that she was given away days earlier, or that she died the previous night or at least that afternoon and that the children were never neglected and the whole dinner was staged and that Gerry was running about with his younger child to make it look like an abductor had taken his child.

I admit two things; it IS amazing that the McCanns could have gotten away with such a mess of a cover-up and it would be an incredibly lucky abductor who managed to get so lucky to have an easy way in, a sedated child, not to have left a bit of evidence, and never been caught.

Yes, both are rather incredible but one of them happened because Maddie is missing. Which brings me to which scenario is supported by evidence. The abduction scenario has zero evidence of having occurred and the neglect/accident/cover-up has much evidence in its corner.

And it is here I would like to shoot down those fantastical scenarios put out about how the McCanns gave away or killed Maddie (even if accidentally) long before the Tapas dinner that evening. There are four good reasons why the simplest scenario is the likely one. Other than Occam's Razor being taken into account, these four bits of evidence support the theory I gave above: the body (assuming you believe the cadaver evidence which I do) behind the sofa, the window showing no signs of tampering, a man being seen carrying off Maddie towards the beach, and the mass confusion that evening. Let's look at them.

1) The body behind the sofa. If the dog evidence is accurate, Maddie fell behind the sofa. No one hides a body behind a sofa, so why is it there? The odd location indicates to me that Maddie fell there, she died there, and she lay there until her body was discovered. This adds up to an accident while no one was around or at least while no one was paying attention.

2) The window not being tampered with. If you have enough time to plan a complicated scenario, you have enough time to put a few tool marks on the window. It takes but a minute or two to stage the window being used to break into the flat. The McCanns appear to have been in a frenzy when they told relatives the flat had been broken into, that the window had been "jimmied;" this is what people say when they are panicked and trying to cover themselves in a hurry.

3) If Gerry was seen carrying a child off towards the beach, I guarantee you that this was not on purpose. Staging an abduction by pretending to BE the abductor is foolhardy. First of all, the face of the man was not covered. He could have been identified. Then, once he got down toward the beach, he has to come back with the child....to what...to be seen again bringing her back? No, if that man was Gerry the Smiths saw, then what we have is a desperate man carrying off his deceased child to dump her body some place. Now, he could have put the body closer to the flat, but it makes sense that he wants the body hidden at least long enough for a predator to have had time to rape and kill his daughter and dump her body. It wouldn't do to have the body found five minutes into searching for her, just behind the flat in the bushes, would it? And, if the death of Madeleine happened a day or so ago, there is far more time to carefully plan the removal of her body in such a way as to not have been seen doing it.

4) The mass confusion that evening. Some folks think that the McCanns staged the neglect so there would be an opportunity for an abductor to take Madeleine. I do not buy this line of thinking at all. This is not the way humans make up lies. They don't make up a lie that makes them look bad unless it is one of lesser bad behavior that people already know about. This is then is an attempt to appear contrite and honest. Like the guy who gets caught drunk driving and admits to having a couple. He KNOWS the officer can tell he has been drinking so he admits to doing so but the lesser of the evils..just a couple rather than the twelve drinks he actually had.

A husband gets caught in an affair might confess to oral sex but not intercourse because he thinks his wife might buy that and it is the lesser of the two that she might be able to forgive him for. BUT, a guy doesn't get caught kissing a woman and then tell his wife, "Hey, that's not ALL we've done!"

Likewise with the McCanns. If something happened to Maddie and they had to get rid of her body, they don't then set up a scenario making themselves neglectful parents because no one has accused them of committing any kind of criminal behavior at that point. And there are so much simpler ways to stage the crime and still look like a decent parent which keeps you from getting investigated.



How about getting rid of her body, doing some damage to the window, and pulling it open (with gloves on) or. hey, just having it be open for a nice breeze, and then just say "We decided to stay in that evening and we were on the veranda having drinks while the kids slept. We told Maddie we would be right on the other side of the sliding door and we left the sliding door open an inch so we could hear if anything had gone wrong inside. We must have just sat out there for an hour or so and when we came back in and opened the door to the children's bedroom, we found Maddie gone! We never considered that someone would open the window and slip in while we were just outside (or just slip through the window if left open for that healthful breeze)."

I think that is a plausible story and considering the parents are well-off doctors, I don't know whether I would have questioned the story as long as nothing else stood out.

But, admitting to leaving the children unattended for five nights in a row? That is a bloody stupid story to make up if it isn't true. The problem the McCanns were dealing with was they couldn't make themselves look like better parents because they weren't. But they could try to play down neglect which is a whole lot better than admitting to medicating your kid and having her die behind the sofa while you were off drinking.

The simplest thing is indeed likely to be what happened. Selfish parents neglected their children thinking nothing would really happen. They medicated their kids because they saw no harm in giving them a little something to quiet them. The unthinkable then happened and in a panic they staged a simple crime: they removed the evidence of their child's death from the apartment and they claimed the window had been jimmied so an abduction scenario could be believed. Then they added a man seen by a friend carrying off the child and they hoped they would get away with it. And things were going quite well until they became arguidos. After that occurred, they made another desperate decision; to bolt Portugal and hope they would never be extradited back should the case remain open.

Sometimes people DO get away with crime. The proof of this is the many unsolved, cold cases in every country in the world. Criminals are not often brilliant, so it is not a complicated scenario that kept them from getting arrested and convicted. It is simply the nature of crime that it is usually occurs without witnesses and often the physical evidence isn't strong enough to convince a jury. I know of a lot of criminals who are living contented lives today having gotten away with horrible crimes. If the McCanns are guilty and never convicted in a court of law it isn't necessarily because they are innocent nor is it because they planned a brilliant oover-up, it is because they got lucky, they got rich (off the fund which enable them to Carter-Ruck any troublemakers and hire PIs to do whatever they really did), and they got help from people in high places.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Her theory makes perfect sense.

I say stop speculating (it's cheap) and give us some facts to go on.  Sometimes speculating is as bad as an out and out lie!

I don't really buy the theory that Madeline would have "fallen" behind the couch and died though. Unless she was heavily drugged and fell on her face and couldn't breathe. I think either mom or dad found her dead in bed from an overdose of whatever they gave her to keep her sleeping (and I do believe they gave her Benadryl or something stronger to keep her from crying) and they hid her body behind the couch until they could figure out what to do.

Like  ?????

LONDON Jan. 13, 2014
By LAMA HASAN

London police appear poised to make an arrest in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the girl who was 3 when she vanished while on a Portuguese vacation with her family nearly seven years ago.

The arrests of a trio of alleged burglars who had been active in the neighborhood would be the result of Operation Grange, the reopening of the McCann investigation three years ago.

"We can confirm that a second International Letter of Request has been sent to the Portuguese authorities by the Crown Prosecution Services this week... in connection with Operation Grange,'' Scotland Yard told ABC News in a statement. The authorities would not discuss any further details.

The McCann family spokesman refused to comment about the investigation.

"I'm afraid we are saying nothing about any aspect of Operation Grange whilst the police work continues, least of all about any tabloid speculation surrounding it,'' the spokesman told ABC News.

Scotland Yard is reportedly working with Portuguese police to find, detain and question three men believed to be burglars who were operating in the area where Madeleine and her family were on vacation in Portugal.

After pouring over records containing hundreds of cell phone numbers used during the time Maddie vanished, police found a high number of calls were made between these men in the hours after her disappearance.

Last year, Scotland Yard said one of their significant lines of inquiry was the four-fold increase in burglaries in the resort where the McCanns had been staying, peaking in April 2007. Madeleine disappeared in May 2007. Two of the burglaries took place in April in the apartment block where the McCann family was staying. In both of the April burglaries entry was gained via a window.

Madeleine was just days away from her fourth birthday when she vanished from her hotel room bed while her parents dined at a nearby restaurant. Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were immediately named suspects by Portuguese police, but were eventually cleared.

For the past seven years since her disappearance, the McCanns have campaigned to keep her name and picture in the news, most recently making a heartfelt plea to anyone who has any information on her disappearance on Britain's version of America's most wanted late last year. The show featured a re-enactment of the most detailed sequence of events the night she went missing, generating more than 300 phone calls and 170 emails with specific lines of inquiry relating to Maddie's case.

Last July, when Scotland Yard decided to move from a review to an investigation, Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood said he believed there is a possibility she is alive.

''There is no clear, definitive proof that Madeleine McCann is dead, so on that basis I still genuinely believe that there is a possibility that she is alive,'' Redwood said.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Sounds like BS to me. ;-)