Madeleine McCann

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Well, PI, I believe those suppositions you proffer are misguided and wrong. Therein lies the impasse at the heart of all of this. Operation Grange impeding Portuguese law courts and police procedures don't dampen cries of conspiracy either...

Which suppositions of mine?

[Fantomas]

Why should people bother to read Amaral's book, when he alleges that Madeleine's parents found her dead some time between 8.30 p.m. and 10 p.m. and during that time disposed of her body without anyone noticing them do it?

How could the McCanns and their friends have been checking that Madeleine was all right when she was no longer in the apartment and how could they have been able to make those checks as well as dispose of Madeleine's body?

How could they have been dining - the palpable evidence of their neglect of Madeleine - for one and a half hours and at the same time been both hatching a conspiracy to cover up Madeleine's death and concealing or disposing of Madeleine's body?

And don't tell me that the Tapas Seven lied that the McCanns were present at the dining table when they were not; they dined in the open and their absence would have been noticed by others.

Well, PI, I believe those suppositions you proffer are misguided and wrong. Therein lies the impasse at the heart of all of this. Operation Grange impeding Portuguese law courts and police procedures don't dampen cries of conspiracy either...

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Amaral and the PJ have been portrayed as slovenly 1970s UK sitcom stereotypes of foreigners - a deliberate move by whatever PR machine wished it. However, the MSM obliged and the BBC/ITV and Sky did nothing to dissuade the British public that the PJ were/are drunken incompetents. This is not the case if people bother to read Amaral's book - where, via good policing, the proposed circumstances, the conclusion that MM is sadly now deceased and who the main culprits most probably are, is convincing.

Why should people bother to read Amaral's book, when he alleges that Madeleine's parents found her dead some time between 8.30 p.m. and 10 p.m. and during that time disposed of her body without anyone noticing them do it?

How could the McCanns and their friends have been checking that Madeleine was all right when she was no longer in the apartment and how could they have been able to make those checks as well as dispose of Madeleine's body?

How could they have been dining - the palpable evidence of their neglect of Madeleine - for one and a half hours and at the same time been both hatching a conspiracy to cover up Madeleine's death and concealing or disposing of Madeleine's body?

And don't tell me that the Tapas Seven lied that the McCanns were present at the dining table when they were not; they dined in the open and their absence would have been noticed by others.

[Fantomas]

The PJ must have been investigated properties nearby the complex. Every dodgy character living nearby- which included Murrell it seems- was surely scrutinised. And that dragnet must have extended to the area of the Smith sighting and any surrounding properties. The PJ might have missed something, but they understood as well as any of us that a child had been removed and that must have left some sort of trail.

They drew a blank. They failed to find that trail. But whether that meant their working theory was misplaced is another matter altogether. Anyone who reads through all the statements made by the Tapas group, as the PJ did, becomes aware that the full truth is not being offered up.

Amaral and the PJ have been portrayed as slovenly 1970s UK sitcom stereotypes of foreigners - a deliberate move by whatever PR machine wished it. However, the MSM obliged and the BBC/ITV and Sky did nothing to dissuade the British public that the PJ were/are drunken incompetents. This is not the case if people bother to read Amaral's book - where, via good policing, the proposed circumstances, the conclusion that MM is sadly now deceased and who the main culprits most probably are, is convincing.

[DJA]

[mpriestnall]

Least you didn't put 'Muppet'.

[cobalt]

'Murrell' should read 'Murat.' Apologies to SNP supporters.

[cobalt]

The PJ must have been investigated properties nearby the complex. Every dodgy character living nearby- which included Murrell it seems- was surely scrutinised. And that dragnet must have extended to the area of the Smith sighting and any surrounding properties. The PJ might have missed something, but they understood as well as any of us that a child had been removed and that must have left some sort of trail.

They drew a blank. They failed to find that trail. But whether that meant their working theory was misplaced is another matter altogether. Anyone who reads through all the statements made by the Tapas group, as the PJ did, becomes aware that the full truth is not being offered up.

[Darryl Kenyon]

Just had a thought that the opened window could have been a ruse by the abductor to give the impression that's the way he/she exited down or up the main road with transport. When in fact the guilty party went the other way through the patio doors past the complex entrance , or up the side alley to where they were staying/living very nearby.

Seems doubtful but you never know.

Regards Darryl

[cobalt]

The two locked doors were not seen as a problem since it could be claimed an intruder entered and left through the window. It was only when that possibility was discounted by the PJ that the two locked doors created the problem you have identified.

The first reference I can find mentioning an unlocked patio door was in Oldfield's statement of 4th May, the day following the disappearance. Strangely, Gerry McCann does not mention this unlocked patio door in a statement he made the same day.

The claimed visit by Oldfield at around 9.30pm was the only reported instance of a Tapas person checking inside an apartment on another family's children. It was unique. In his statement Oldfield seems vague about why this double check (he was also checking on his own children) took place. He had already conducted, by his account, an aural check outside the McCann children's bedroom window at around 9.05.

If Oldfield's 9.30 check inside the McCann apartment was an invention, as I suspect it was, then what purpose did it serve? On a basic level it takes the edge off the parental neglect of the children since it creates the impression that regular checks were being made. That was clearly a concern shared by all the Tapas group who had produced two versions of their timeline before the PJ arrived. The alarm was raised at around 10pm but the local police were not informed of the situation until 10.41.

Oldfield's 9.30 check also introduces, rather tentatively, the possibility of kidnap in that he mentions the bedroom being brighter than he would have expected. Since he did not actually see Madeleine McCann on this check it helps expand the possible time during which such a kidnap could have taken place. Given the amount of activity allegedly taking place by parental checks between 9pm and 10pm this is important since any abductor would have been working within a very narrow 'window' of opportunity.

And of course it opens up the possibility of an abductor entering and exiting through the unlocked patio doors, just as he claims he did himself.

[FrankO]

FrankO,

It's always a problem when evidence and supposition are mixed in together, as happened in my previous post.

Regarding the window, there was no forensic evidence of entry or exit. Given the police awareness of this as a possible burglary method and the tests they conducted on the outside of the window, the window itself and the interior bedding which lay directly underneath the window then I think it is fair to say the PJ discounted this possibility. If anyone entered and then left the apartment, it was not via the window.

We have no evidence of how Gerry McCann entered the apartment on his 9.05 check save his own accounts, which are at variance. In his first PJ interview he remembers entering by using a key in the front door. In his second interview he recalls entering via an unlocked patio door. This is all we know.

The importance of his first statement, made the day after the disappearance, is that, given what was later established about the window, it required any intruder to have entered the property by means of a key since there were no signs of forced entry. This does not of itself implicate the MCanns: any employee such as cleaner could have obtained a duplicate key or a pass key to their apartment.

However his first statement (4th May) was my focus. First of all, this was the last occasion on which he saw his daughter so one would expect his memory of that visit to have been very clear, especially the day after. In his statement of 4th May he said he entered by means of a key. Secondly, despite their bizarre checking system, no other members of the Tapas group reported leaving their doors unlocked so it is not clear why the McCanns did this. Thirdly, McCann himself did not offer this information about unlocked patio doors during his first interview, and it only emerged (10th May) after the PJ discounted the window as a means of entry/exit. So on balance, I put more weight on Gerry McCann's first statement.

Thanks for your response, Cobalt.

Gerry McCann did say in his interview of 4^th May that the terrace door was kept unlocked: “At about 21.30 his friend Matt (member of the group) went to the apartment, where his children were and on his way went to the witness' apartment, entering by means of a glass sliding door that was always unlocked and was located laterally to the building.”

So, according to the statements made, the patio door was left unlocked and the window & shutters were only found opened at around 10 pm. That’s what we have to deal with.

So, either 1) the McCanns opened and closed the window & shutters themselves or 2) they never opened & closed them but lied about having found them open or 3) someone else opened them from the either the outside or inside.

Why would the McCanns need to have found the window & shutters open? The only thing I can think of is to divert attention away from the fact that they’d left the patio door unlocked and to save a bit of face. But they didn’t strictly need it as, obviously, leaving the patio unlocked would have given an intruder the chance of getting in and out without leaving much of a trace, if any at all.

Another point against the McCanns inventing the open window & shutters or opening them themselves, as far as I see it, is that it would have been quite stupid to tell anybody that the shutters had been forced open or words to that effect. Why do that when they knew for a fact that they hadn’t been forced? It would have served no purpose.

The fact that they did initially tell people that the shutters were broken open, however, is understandable if you’d assume they didn’t stage anything and that they had assumed the shutters could only be opened from the outside by using quite a bit of force.

Why would an intruder need to have opened them – supposing he didn’t enter or exit through it?

One possibility is the one offered by Caz, to see if the coast was clear. This possibility doesn’t convince me much if it was only to see if the coast was clear, unless, of course, the front door was locked and a key was needed to open it. Otherwise, opening the front door would seem a more logic solution. Less chance of noise that could wake up the children & draw attention from anyone in the street and a bit further back from the street.

Another possibility would be that there were 2 abductors: one entering through the unlocked patio door and then passing Madeleine through the opened window to the second abductor who put her in a car parked right in front of the apartment or close by. The first one then leaving either by the front door (if not locked) or the patio door, as the window was small.

And a third possibility, similar to the one with 2 abductors, is that there was only one abductor, who entered through the patio door, subdued Madeleine in one way or another, opened the window to first check if the coast was clear, then put her outside under the window, whereas he then exited either through the front or patio door. That way he had his hands free to open any door and wouldn’t have to carry the girl through the apartment, which would have slowed him down somewhat. In short, it would have been slower/less practical. When outside, he picked up the girl and put her in a car parked right in front of the apartment or close by.

Just some of my thoughts…

[caz]

'So I'm confused, cobalt. Was the patio door locked or unlocked?'

We simply do not know. We have two accounts by Gerry McCann that are contradictory, and I have explained my reasons for preferring his original (4th May) version whereby he entered by using a key on the front door. Only when the shutters/window entry point was dismissed by the police did the unlocked patio door come into play. That leads me to believe that the McCann apartment, like all the other Tapas apartments, was locked.

The Oldfield check at 9.30 also requires the patio door to be unlocked, since Mr. Oldfield had volunteered to make a check on the McCann children en route to check on his own. There must be doubt about whether such a check ever happened, since there is no record so far as I recall of parents checking on other members' children. Oldfield claims he saw the twins but not Madeleine when he peeked through the bedroom door, so not much of a visual check. More likely, I would contend, he listened outside the bedroom window of the locked McCann apartment and heard no crying or movement thus assumed all was fine inside. That is the best gloss I can put to an unconvincing piece of testimony.

The unlocked patio door also makes an appearance in David Payne's statement. His visit, which may have occurred just after Kate McCann had taken a shower, mentions him entering (she does not remember him crossing the threshold) through the unlocked patio door. At 6.30pm I would assume most patio doors in a holiday apartment would be unlocked if there were persons inside, but Payne thinks this an important enough detail to insert into his account.

I'm still confused, cobalt. Sorry.

If you are right that both the front door and back patio doors were locked, with the three children alone inside, and there was no forced entry, or possibility of an intruder entering via the window, how do you believe Madeleine was taken from the apartment? If one of the parents had done it, why on earth would they have locked the front and back doors behind them, leaving a locked door mystery that would have had but one solution: whoever locked both doors must have removed the child first?

Love,

Caz
X

[Aethelwulf]

'Gerry entering via the front door or via the patio doors is a red herring. Either way the main aspect was the open window.'

As is Darwin's Theory of Evolution a red herring.Darwin's theory is based upon best evidence and in the last 150 years has actually become reinforced. But that does not stop zealots, self styled 'Creationists,' who quote the Old Testament, of dinosaurs and humans walking in two by two into Noah's Ark, confident that gaps in the fossil record 'prove' that the world is only around 4,000 years old. These cranks normally avoid microphones for obvious reasons.

However they are well represented on this site. They quote discredited evidence of windows and the MET, an organisation so disgraced it will surely soon have to be renamed. They talk of phantoms and personifications of evil, such as Breuckner. There is not a scintilla of evidence to support their wild theories, in fact most of the established evidence points in the opposite direction. And that evidence, like Darwin's in its time, points towards something unpalatable for many. The available evidence in the McCann case attacks their sense of security and identity, as Gordon Brown recognised from the outset. That middle class doctors are bad parents and might bring harm to their children is simply taboo in western culture and must be denied. More comfortable to focus on the criminal 'class' or casual workers which the likes of Brown see as overlapping, hence the attention on Breuckner and the underpaid skivvies at the holiday resort. In fact some of the early iPJ investigation checked out 'gypsies,' that well established bogey man of snobs, middle class property owners and Enid Blyton stories.

My favourite example of Creationism recently was the observation on this site that that 'perp' who was 'scoping' the crime scene- American expressions I imagine- would never park a car near the scene of their crime. Which is news to every bank robber who ever escaped with the loot but sufficient for any Creationist who ever picked up their FBI Offender Profile bible. Amaral made mistakes no doubt, but then he had never read The Famous Five.

I see you are brining your conspiracy nonsense from the JFK thread here. Some people just like that sort of thing I guess.

[Sunny Delight]

'Gerry entering via the front door or via the patio doors is a red herring. Either way the main aspect was the open window.'

As is Darwin's Theory of Evolution a red herring.Darwin's theory is based upon best evidence and in the last 150 years has actually become reinforced. But that does not stop zealots, self styled 'Creationists,' who quote the Old Testament, of dinosaurs and humans walking in two by two into Noah's Ark, confident that gaps in the fossil record 'prove' that the world is only around 4,000 years old. These cranks normally avoid microphones for obvious reasons.

However they are well represented on this site. They quote discredited evidence of windows and the MET, an organisation so disgraced it will surely soon have to be renamed. They talk of phantoms and personifications of evil, such as Breuckner. There is not a scintilla of evidence to support their wild theories, in fact most of the established evidence points in the opposite direction. And that evidence, like Darwin's in its time, points towards something unpalatable for many. The available evidence in the McCann case attacks their sense of security and identity, as Gordon Brown recognised from the outset. That middle class doctors are bad parents and might bring harm to their children is simply taboo in western culture and must be denied. More comfortable to focus on the criminal 'class' or casual workers which the likes of Brown see as overlapping, hence the attention on Breuckner and the underpaid skivvies at the holiday resort. In fact some of the early iPJ investigation checked out 'gypsies,' that well established bogey man of snobs, middle class property owners and Enid Blyton stories.

My favourite example of Creationism recently was the observation on this site that that 'perp' who was 'scoping' the crime scene- American expressions I imagine- would never park a car near the scene of their crime. Which is news to every bank robber who ever escaped with the loot but sufficient for any Creationist who ever picked up their FBI Offender Profile bible. Amaral made mistakes no doubt, but then he had never read The Famous Five.

So you believe that all the Police Forces who have cleared the McCanns are doing so under Political pressure because it is too unpalatable to believe that two middle class doctors could be bad parents or involved in the killing of their daughter and the subsequent cover up. Only the plucky Amaral (who has made plenty of money from the case and pushing his bonkers theory) managed to get to the bottom of it all. Much like the Joanna Cipriano case here he settles on the McCanns using a refrigerator to store the body before later transporting it. I suppose the only difference between Cipriano and the McCanns was they couldn't beat the confession out of British holidaymakers. As RJ states even Sandra Felguiras stated she had been 'lied to' by the PJ. They were peddling false info through her. She felt very strongly she had been left high and dry once the actual truth began to leak out.

Much like Robert Anderson who had no doubt of Kosminski's guilt Amaral convinced himself that he had solved the case. He hadn't been bettered nor had he been incompetent. Rather he was the victim of a Political cover up. Sacrificed so that two middle class doctors would be dismissed as suspects. And what did the McCanns do with this bit of good fortune? They campaigned the world over to garner information on their missing daughter. They appeared on TV shows etc. They campaigned for a new investigation to be opened. Hired their own private investigators. Strange behaviour for a couple who had seemingly got away with everything scot free.

[cobalt]

'Gerry entering via the front door or via the patio doors is a red herring. Either way the main aspect was the open window.'

As is Darwin's Theory of Evolution a red herring.Darwin's theory is based upon best evidence and in the last 150 years has actually become reinforced. But that does not stop zealots, self styled 'Creationists,' who quote the Old Testament, of dinosaurs and humans walking in two by two into Noah's Ark, confident that gaps in the fossil record 'prove' that the world is only around 4,000 years old. These cranks normally avoid microphones for obvious reasons.

However they are well represented on this site. They quote discredited evidence of windows and the MET, an organisation so disgraced it will surely soon have to be renamed. They talk of phantoms and personifications of evil, such as Breuckner. There is not a scintilla of evidence to support their wild theories, in fact most of the established evidence points in the opposite direction. And that evidence, like Darwin's in its time, points towards something unpalatable for many. The available evidence in the McCann case attacks their sense of security and identity, as Gordon Brown recognised from the outset. That middle class doctors are bad parents and might bring harm to their children is simply taboo in western culture and must be denied. More comfortable to focus on the criminal 'class' or casual workers which the likes of Brown see as overlapping, hence the attention on Breuckner and the underpaid skivvies at the holiday resort. In fact some of the early iPJ investigation checked out 'gypsies,' that well established bogey man of snobs, middle class property owners and Enid Blyton stories.

My favourite example of Creationism recently was the observation on this site that that 'perp' who was 'scoping' the crime scene- American expressions I imagine- would never park a car near the scene of their crime. Which is news to every bank robber who ever escaped with the loot but sufficient for any Creationist who ever picked up their FBI Offender Profile bible. Amaral made mistakes no doubt, but then he had never read The Famous Five.