Madeleine McCann #2

[Savewaterdrinkgin]

They weren’t being watched until they were made arguidos. The U.K. believed their version of events that a child had been abducted, no one here suspected them until the inconsistencies were revealed. They were free to do as they wish, as the hire car mileage proves. Plus there may have been more people involved that we know nothing about. The Portuguese police suspected them based on the facts in front of them upon arrival, and as evidence came to light it just added to their suspicions. The police officer Amaral wrote a book detailing everything, Kate and Gerry paid huge amounts of money to stop the book being released in the U.K.

Off the top of my head they said she shared clothes with Amelie so they were unable to get full dna from them, same for the toothbrush. Children’s clothes were found dumped, they believed there to be a dna link to Maddie on them but not enough to use as real evidence.

I also remember someone finding evidence the McCanns had been on that same holiday the year before, yet claim they’d never visited before. That made many speculate the photos released on the holiday were from the previous trip and slightly edited to make the twins look older/weather discrepancies etc.

 

[monga]

I think if there hadn’t been Madeleine there wouldn’t have been Shannon. I wonder how Shannon is doing these days? Poor kid.

Her mums having a surrogate baby with her weirdo partner . I hope that kid is removed at birth for it's own sake

 

[TwooTwooTwitTwitTwoo]

At 15 I'm sure they're curious. They must get asked about it at school. I'm sure if they haven't already googled, they will eventually.
I'm impressed they've been kept so private. I have to commend the parents for that.... have we even SEEN the twins since Maddie went missing? Knowing what british press can be like I'm really impressed by that. No clue how they managed it.

I presume there are legal orders in place.
Some celebrities can ask for a blank out of their children's faces. I would think that given the McCann's aren't 'celebrities' it would have been fairly easy to secure this under a protection of minors order. The same as siblings of other high profile murder cases. Holly and Jessica, Sarah Payne etc.

 

[monga]

To me leaving a toddler to fend for themselves in any place alone is as bad as throwing them to the wolves .

 

[Tigger1]

So with this latest suspect, has anyone heard/read whether they have enough to charge (am assuming not) or what the situation is? Seems like they have given out a huge amount of personal info about the inspect which is really unusual. Surely he could sue if it turns out he doesn’t have anything to do with it? I feel like they must be pretty certain?

 

[Consumerism_fatigue]

Am I allowed to post this?

I’d imagine a prosecutor wouldn’t be able to share the case details but wanted the family to know? That being said, why not go through the police liaison teams...

I served on the jury of a horrific murder trial last year and the family of the victim didn’t know any of the details until it all came out in court. Truly awful to see their pain. Anyway, I digress! That’s the only reason I can think of as to why they can’t know yet. Unless they’re trying to double bluff the parents into slipping up (if they think they’re guilty)

 

[Sara_M]

Unless of course they were never that friendly in the first place. We know for a fact that the Gaspars had never met the other couples before the holiday. That to me is quite weird in itself.

What I thought was a little interesting is, it was David Payne who seemed to be the organiser of these big holidays. Now, I realise some people are just good organisers, but, after their official statement about him, it would make you question his intent behind these large group, family holidays, of people who do not seem to know each other that well.

 

[Tigger1]

How do they find suspects 13 years after it’s happened. It always amazes me. I just hope they find out what happened.

If they ever do get to a definite answer I hope there is a time when we get to see all the evidence. Does that sound bad? I just find it all so interesting.

 

[Tots]

Irrelevant the grand scheme of things but why oh why were the children sharing toothbrushes?

I know, I’ve never understood that! Even though they were sisters, it’s terrible dental hygiene to share a toothbrush!

 

[LittleMy]

Maybe a video OF him bragging about what he did with Maddie's body and thats whats taken the police to the wells? If theres no body, the video could be dismissed as insignificant?



Thats interesting, I read he bragged about it to a friend and thats who reported it which made German police look in to it. There are so many conflicting reports!!

I’ve read both of those reports. Apparently he mentioned about “knowing what happened” to Maddie to a friend, and then proceeded to show the friend a video of him raping a 72 year old woman. I then read a few days ago that he allegedly overheard colleagues discussing the Maddie case and said, “The child is dead, and that’s a good thing” or words to that effect. Then he apparently shouted about how pigs will eat human flesh. Maybe he said both those things, maybe he didn’t say either. It’s all very odd and the tabloids don’t help, it’s like Chinese whispers.

 

[birdiefly246]

Same here. I was brought up Catholic. I'm 40 now. Last time I went to confession was years ago in school when we were forced to go. Only time I go to mass now is for weddings and funerals. I don't know anyone of my generation who is a devout Catholic or a regular massgoer.
A lot of people who aren't Catholic seem to think that if you are then you must be a devout, very religious person. I can only speak for myself and people I know, but that's really not the case. I've seen that said lots of times about Coleen Rooney and how she'll never divorce Wayne 'because she's Catholic'. I very much doubt that has anything to do with her. More like she'll never divorce Wayne because she'd have a lot less free holidays!

I have Catholic friends who are divorced. My sister in law is Irish and Catholic (albeit very lapsed like the rest of us) She voted in favour of same sex marriage and in favour of abortion in Ireland a couple of years ago, even though the Catholic church is against both. 2/3 of Ireland voted in favour of abortion. Realistically at least 2/3 of Ireland is probably Catholic.

Apologies, I know I've gone way off topic there, but my point is that the McCann's may well be Catholic, but that doesn't mean that they're regular mass goers or that they're anyway devout, and as @birdiefly246 said, they wouldn't be the first people to turn back to religion in a time of crisis either.
Also, my (Irish) sil's uncle is Catholic and is also a mason.

You articulated that way better than I could so thank you!! My grandmother (84) is and has always been devout but she's very liberal in views in terms of same sex marriage, tattoos, babies outside of wedlock. She's just aware that times have changed. My cousin is a lesbian and there's a picture of her and my nan on her wedding day smiling and my nan is genuinely loving and accepting of her, her wife and her wife's kids who my nan classes as grandchildren.
What I was trying to say was that you can be catholic and not necessarily abide by all the rules and traditions.

 

[paigelemonade]

Ngl they’ll need some pretty damning evidence against him in order to have him prosecuted for it, due to all the other ‘evidence’ that is against the McCanns, which makes people believe it was them. And like other people have mentioned, it may be claimed it’s an unfair trial if it goes to that because so much of his past crimes are in the media. Either way he needs to rot in hell but still wouldn’t like to see this pinned on him just for the sake of it, purely because it means the real abductor/the McCanns are still at large, but if it was him and they have secure enough evidence to prove it was, I hope they lock him up and throw away the key.

 

[hnoz]

The thing that makes the parents theory fall apart imo is all the friends being in on it. I have had some close friends since childhood that I love, but I would never in a million years cover for them killing their child, accidentally or otherwise, and cover that up. I find it totally unbelievable that they have all kept that a "secret" for so many years.

 

[Scubasf]

My thoughts and suspicions about this case are based on what is reported in the police files (which I traveled through during a very long period of illness years ago).

They lead me to believe that EITHER the McCanns had a hand in her disappearance OR they lied, created confusion and acted strangely for another reason. The lies, inconsistencies and strange behaviour are there to see in the files. Either way, they were trying to cover something up. Whether that is that they disposed of their daughter’s corpse or something unrelated that they needed to not come out I don’t know. The dog evidence backs up the theory that they disposed of Madeleine’s body, but dog evidence can it be used in court, so although it colours my opinion, I try to look at the evidence without taking that into account.

 

[Apple In My Pie]

Good point. Much of this kind of information doesn't get mentioned today.

There was no DNA of Maddie's to be found by forensics when they combed the place. DNA is practically impossible to eliminate.

In the end, the Police flew back to the UK with one of the parents and secured her DNA from her pillow and other items.

Another fact that always left out is they found spinal fluid on the floor behind the curtains but had none of her DNA to compare it to. They later confirmed it was hers.

As the Police said at the time, it was like she was never in the apartment. That, is a lot of cleaning.

Yes - glad I’m not the only one to remember this. IIRC they found blood under tiles as well but it was minuscule amounts, not enough to conclusively say whether it belonged to Madeleine. There was no drool on her (hotel) pillows to extract, hairs from the hairbrush were inconclusive, and she was apparently sharing Amelie’s toothbrush so that was inconclusive too. I’ve heard reports that it was as though she was never in the apartment because there was just... nothing - the most conclusive DNA evidence of Maddie came from the hire car that came days and days after her disappearance.

Of the parents, apparently the fridge freezer in their apartment broke down and Gerry disposed of it and bought a new one - very kind of him, isn’t it!

(as you can see by my posts I am wedged firmly on the fence. Wish I could hurry up and pick a side, my arse is getting splinters)

 

[Twinkleyeyes]

The Tapas 7. Strange how 7 ADULT friends were all ok dining a few days in a row (8pm dinner meetups?) knowing 3 toddlers were alone in an apartment.
I know NONE of my friends would be OK with that

 

[LittleMy]

Is that you Kate?

I don’t think it’s fair to have those little digs at people who don’t believe the parents had any involvement in her death. You can be of the mindset that they didn’t do it, without actually being them you know...

The fact that the parents have been written to by the German prosecutor and told that she is dead and it’s likely their suspect is responsible is just truly awful, no matter what wild theories you throw out there; they must have substantial evidence in the first place to even do that, I’d imagine.

 

[Pra09]

Or potentially she loved her children so much that she decided losing one in a horrible accident/drugging was awful enough that she covered it up to protect her other two children? She didn’t want to lose them due to Maddie dying whilst left unattended, or from drugging, or signs of abuse being found on her dead body? I.e the Gaspar statement. As sad as it was to tragically lose one child, perhaps she didn’t want to lose the other two in potentially being arrested or them being taken off her? It’s not surprising because once she knew Maddie was dead, her focus must’ve been on how to protect her other two, alive children. Just a suggestion before people jump down my throat and call me sinister...

absolutely.
From an investigative viewpoint also;

Sometimes you know the individual is guilty as hell. But there’s a difference between “intelligence” and “evidence”

even when you find evidence, it has to be properly handled or else it becomes inadmissible - you’d be shocked at how draconian this can be. for example, in her youth Hillary Clinton managed to get a non-guilty verdict for a guy who’d had sex with a child. The child’s underwear had been cut up - the semen/dna piece had been kept and served as evidence. The leftover bits were lost. Hillary successful argued that the chain of evidence therefore, had been broken. the DNA/Semen sample wasn’t presented in court as a result, so the jury never heard about it’s existence. It was a clear cut case, The man had sex with an underage girl, but the evidence wasn’t handled in accordance with draconian rules and thereby because pretty much irrelevant - it’s an example of how the law really is an ass.

even when you have evidence, and youve handled it properly; it has to be agreed in advance of any trial and the prosecuting body has to agree it is sufficient to progress - due to the high court costs this isn’t any easy feat.

I often hear people say that juries “hear all the evidence” but actually, they usually only hear a proportion thats been agreed in advance. Evidence that is very damning sometimes doesn’t get heard at all - because it might bias the jury.

another thing that is misunderstood about criminal trials - they don’t just seek to get a guilty/non guilty verdict. They must also be “safe verdicts” aka not one that can be appealed later down the line - and again, people would be truly shocked at the mundane things people successfully appeal over.

so in summary - the Portuguese police might’ve known something no one else does, hence their conviction and assuredness in pursuing the McCanns. Or they might have just decided to go down the easiest, seemingly most obvious route.

logically, I would concur that the McCanns could absolutely have been responsible, even accidentally, and there could’ve been a wealth of information in existence that isn’t in the public sphere.

intuitively though, I don’t think they are involved.

 

[Sara_M]

Those who support the McCanns, what are your thoughts on the Gaspar statement?

They seemed to be a pretty close, normal mother daughter.
Ever since then I’ve been convinced Kate didn’t do anything to harm Maddie. I work with a lot of criminals and I get an “off vibe” with wronguns. I didn’t get that from Kate. I got vibes of a mother who very very much loved her child.

If the mccanns are guilty, I dont think they deliberately killed her. I think it was a complete accident. Kate looks absolutely haunted. I don't think she intentionally killed her daughter.

 

[RedMagnolia]

He should be lynched to be quite honest

Still say the parents did it.

Also who leaves their kids on holiday alone? My family always dragged me out even if I was tired to the family bars on holiday as a kid. They never chanced it.

Also you’d always see babies or kids asleep on the chairs when they got sleepy at karaoke bars after like 8pm anyway and the parents chatting

I have endless photos of my children conked out in the buggy, or snoozing in a chair with a cushion and jacket over them, in various bars and restaurants throughout Europe, on our family holidays when they were little. No way would I have left my children alone in a strange apartment. If for whatever reason, we didn't go out in the evening, we'd self-cater and sit on the balcony with a bottle of wine and have a game of cards, while they slept in bed.