Madeleine McCann

[caz]

Hi Caz,

re: your post, is that why people make the sign of the Cross when they see you?

I once shared an office with a bloke who decided to do his family tree. All went well until he discovered that an ancestor (I think on his father's side) had been hanged for murder some time in the early 20th century. Obviously, this episode had been a well-kept family secret. He felt that his family therefore had a shadow hanging over it, and became quite oddly introverted as a result.

Graham

Hi Graham,

People do tend to back away slowly when I tell them of all my coincidental 'famous crime' connections. Adding my interest in cases like Jack the Ripper and James Hanratty only speeds up their retreat.

Love,

Caz
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[caz]

Watching famous murder cases in the U.S. unfold, I think the media there is just as bad or worse, though. Remember the OJ circus? Michael Jackson didn't murder anyone but I think the media practically interviewed everyone but Bubbles the chimp around the time of those first molestation allegations!

If only he'd stuck to blowing Bubbles...

Love,

Caz
X

[MayBea]

I've never thought much of that quote. What it basically says is "everything that isn't impossible is true". I know there are some on these boards who use that approach, but I'd expect better from Sherlock.

Maybe he's also saying everything that isn't impossible is possible or may still be probable, regardless of what or how one thinks.

People are biased when they rate probability.

I might be biased against the Portuguese and say panicked Portuguese thieves disturbing Maddy could still pull this off, or the thieves could have partnered up with human traffickers. I have to ask myself, How probable is that really?

Someone might be biased for or against the parents. Again, How probable is it that they did it?

People forget the German-speaking suspects. I've yet to see the efits. But one has a shaved head. Lindbergh job?... Certainly far from impossible. Maybe even probable.

http://www.thelocal.de/20131014/52375

[Mayerling]

I thought I saw an ape interview bubbles

To get that interview the ape had to bribe bubbles with four crates of bananas.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Maybe he's also saying everything that isn't impossible is possible or may still be probable, regardless of what or how one thinks.

People are biased when they rate probability.

I might be biased against the Portuguese and say panicked Portuguese thieves disturbing Maddy could still pull this off, or the thieves could have partnered up with human traffickers. I have to ask myself, How probable is that really?

Someone might be biased for or against the parents. Again, How probable is it that they did it?

People forget the German-speaking suspects. I've yet to see the efits. But one has a shaved head. Lindbergh job?... Certainly far from impossible. Maybe even probable.

http://www.thelocal.de/20131014/52375

Hi MayBea,

You may recall a strange variant on xenophobia in the Ripper Case. Most of the anti-foreign feelings were directed to the East End populations from Eastern Europe, especially Jews (it was only a year after the Lipsky Poisoning Case). But during the investigations some Customs Official kept sending suggestions to Scotland Yard that not only said the murderers were foreign born, but two Spanish born sailors who worked on cattle boats that had schedules allowing one to land in England (so that it's Spanish born killer could commit a murder) and when it left the other came in to harbor (so it's Spanish born killer could commit a murder). In fact the Customs Official even named the two sailors. In one of his more useful actions in the case, Sir Robert Anderson contacted the chief over this Customs Official and told him to silence this idiot.

I've thought about that incident many times - not that I believe it. Why was this Custom's Official so against Iberians? Then I discovered that in 1876 there was a murder of an entire family in Llangibby, Wales by a Spanish-born sailor named Garcia. He did it for robbery purposes. He was caught, tried, found guilty, and hanged. Somehow, because it was the murder of about five people (all with cut throats) the story may have remained in the mind of that Custom's Official. But we'll really never know.

Jeff

[Harry D]

If the McCanns had been Wayne and Waynetta Slob off t'estate and not middle-class doctors with friends in high places, no doubt they would've been busted by social services for leaving small children alone in an apartment, with the door unlocked, in a strange country, while they were boozing up 120 metres away. Instead, they got to visit the Pope, the Prime Minister, go on major TV chat shows, and use a charity fund for Maddie to pay off their mortgage. There's just something very surreal about the whole thing.

[MayBea]

That's a terrific story of extreme bias muddling things up, Jeff. A personal bias can make you believe the impossible and the improbable, and reject the possible and probable.

I found the e-fits of the blonde, "German-speaking" suspects. I had seen them before but they didn't look like the blonde type.

Although I find one to be similar to the smirking, square-head e-fit by the Irish family witnesses who saw a man carrying a child toward the beach.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-1...ccann-/5022270

[Joshua Rogan]

Hi MayBea,

You may recall a strange variant on xenophobia in the Ripper Case. Most of the anti-foreign feelings were directed to the East End populations from Eastern Europe, especially Jews (it was only a year after the Lipsky Poisoning Case). But during the investigations some Customs Official kept sending suggestions to Scotland Yard that not only said the murderers were foreign born, but two Spanish born sailors who worked on cattle boats that had schedules allowing one to land in England (so that it's Spanish born killer could commit a murder) and when it left the other came in to harbor (so it's Spanish born killer could commit a murder). In fact the Customs Official even named the two sailors. In one of his more useful actions in the case, Sir Robert Anderson contacted the chief over this Customs Official and told him to silence this idiot.

I've thought about that incident many times - not that I believe it. Why was this Custom's Official so against Iberians? Then I discovered that in 1876 there was a murder of an entire family in Llangibby, Wales by a Spanish-born sailor named Garcia. He did it for robbery purposes. He was caught, tried, found guilty, and hanged. Somehow, because it was the murder of about five people (all with cut throats) the story may have remained in the mind of that Custom's Official. But we'll really never know.
Jeff

Hi Mayerling,
That's interesting, I'd not heard that before. Do you have a link to the source for that story? I'd like to find out more.
I was reading up on the Pinchin St Torso case yesterday, and came across an article that mentioned that within hours of the discovery of the body, police were searching cattle boats. And that was in 1889.

[Joshua Rogan]

Maybe he's also saying everything that isn't impossible is possible or may still be probable, regardless of what or how one thinks.

Hi MayBea,
You're probably right. I certainly didn't mean my post to criticise the original poster, merely to point out the somewhat woolly logic of the Sherlock Holmes / Conan Doyle quote itself.

[Limehouse]

If the McCanns had been Wayne and Waynetta Slob off t'estate and not middle-class doctors with friends in high places, no doubt they would've been busted by social services for leaving small children alone in an apartment, with the door unlocked, in a strange country, while they were boozing up 120 metres away. Instead, they got to visit the Pope, the Prime Minister, go on major TV chat shows, and use a charity fund for Maddie to pay off their mortgage. There's just something very surreal about the whole thing.

That's a fair point. However, Ben Needham, a 20 month old toddler, was abducted from the front of a house his grandparents were renovating on the Island of Kos in the 1980s and, as far as I know, his parents have never been subjected to the same amount of suspicion that the McCanns have been subjected to, even though Ben was left to wander about unsupervised outside the house.

It seems to me that there are people who will wait and watch for an opportunity to abduct small children and they will do so for some time if they believe that the child will, at some point, be left alone for long enough to snatch unseen.

[Ginger]

Hi Mayerling,
That's interesting, I'd not heard that before. Do you have a link to the source for that story? I'd like to find out more.

Hi Joshua. http://www.casebook.org/ripper_media...orley/112.html will give you enough to get started with.

[caz]

Coming up to another sad anniversary...

Some now believe there is no 100% reliable, independent sighting of Madeleine after this date in 2007 - 29th April - the first full day of the holiday, and four days before she was reported missing.

I still have no idea what to think about this case, but I have a strong feeling we haven't heard the last about it. One question that sticks in my mind is why the McCanns chose not to take advantage of the baby monitoring service offered while dining at the Tapas restaurant each evening, which had been block booked in advance for them and their friends. This service was apparently free of charge and would have saved all the trouble of interrupting their meals to check the children weren't crying.

Love,

Caz
X

[MsWeatherwax]

Coming up to another sad anniversary...

Some now believe there is no 100% reliable, independent sighting of Madeleine after this date in 2007 - 29th April - the first full day of the holiday, and four days before she was reported missing.

I still have no idea what to think about this case, but I have a strong feeling we haven't heard the last about it. One question that sticks in my mind is why the McCanns chose not to take advantage of the baby monitoring service offered while dining at the Tapas restaurant each evening, which had been block booked in advance for them and their friends. This service was apparently free of charge and would have saved all the trouble of interrupting their meals to check the children weren't crying.

Love,

Caz
X

This is an absolutely crucial question in my opinion. My understanding is that they have said that they did not wish to leave their children with strangers, but to me it's beyond belief that the arrangement they put in place seemed like a better idea.

If anyone in the world should know how quickly a small child can come to harm (even with supervision) it's a doctor, particularly a GP.

[Harry D]

She wasn't abducted. Of that I am 99.9999% certain.

Kate McCann's reaction to the 'kidnapping' was my first red flag. If she thought her baby had been stolen, why would she run back to the bar and leave behind her two younger children? McCann apologists try to explain it away by saying that people do unpredictable things in stressful situations. Nope, not good enough. Every maternal instinct in her body should've compelled her to gather the remaining children, as in her own words she suspected an abduction, but instead she left them behind when for all she knew the abductor(s) could still be nearby.

And that's far from the only dodgy thing about this case, believe me.

[Joshua Rogan]

I'm sure speculation will continue, but it looks like the official police investigation may be nearing the end;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36138504