Madeleine McCann #4

[Lady_H]

I’ve always thought this interview was extremely odd.

3 weeks after losing their daughter and looking like they have no concerns at all.

In my opinion these are 2 people who are not worried about their daughter. They may be feeling terribly guilty and sad, and Kate’s reaction at 6.37 is completely genuine I think, but they are not wracked with worry about where she might be, what she might be going through, how she might be suffering.

They seem more concerned with talking about all the support they’ve had about how normal it is to leave 3 under-4s alone together while the parents go out to dinner.

 

[BettyCrockerr]

I’ve always thought this interview was extremely odd.

3 weeks after losing their daughter and looking like they have no concerns at all.

In my opinion these are 2 people who are not worried about their daughter. They may be feeling terribly guilty and sad, and Kate’s reaction at 6.37 is completely genuine I think, but they are not worried about where she might be, what she might be going through, how she is suffering.

Guilty as sin the pair of them. The first question - “why did you leave the children alone when the resort offers a FREE babysitting service?” - Gerry takes over and answers like a politician - doesn’t directly answer the question, waffles on, deflects and makes excuses.

This is the resort and the locations of the restaurant and their apartment - this is not even remotely akin to sitting out in your garden at home to eat while your children are upstairs sleeping.

THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO VALID INNOCENT REASON FOR THEM LEAVING THOSE CHILDREN UNATTENDED.

 

[Brigitjonesbuttcheek]

For a child madalines age, yous normally have some sort of child gate on the room at home incase they do get up in the night. I have the staiy get shut just incase.

She was in an unlocked apartment. Even if they were in the garden she could have still walked out the front. So it would still be a pretty careless move.

 

[mchammerr]

It’s the not even locking the door for me. Not only did they want to enjoy dinner without their kids but they were also too lazy to even lock the door and do the ‘checking’ themselves. They’d rather just leave the doors open to whoever so that anyone in the group could check without having loads of different keys.

 

[Pulltheotherone]

Leaving them not only alone and all under 4 but in a foreign country in an unlocked apartment that backed onto a road whilst they went out for drinks can NEVER be rationalised by that vile tw@t Gerry Mccann.
I loathe the pair of them. They deserve a lifetime of misery and I don’t say that lightly.

 

[PineappleQueen19]

Gerry is acting in that way narcs do.

I know not everyone reacts the same or expresses emotion the same but he comes across as so calculating.

Compared to the mother & stepdad of the little girl who went missing in Australia last year (she was found alive & well).

 

[Lady_H]

Gerry is acting in that way narcs do.

I know not everyone reacts the same or expresses emotion the same but he comes across as so calculating.

Compared to the mother & stepdad of the little girl who went missing in Australia last year (she was found alive & well).

That’s a very interesting comparison. The focus of the mother is all about Cleo - where is she, how frightened she must be - not about herself. She talks in very specific terms about Cleo and what happened. You can see their devastation and terror and the awful uncertainty they are living with.

I don’t ever recall a McCann interview where they appeared to be frightened or worried for Madeleine, or indeed one in which they actually centred Madeleine, rather than themselves. Gerry’s comment that “the holiday has been incredibly relaxing up to that point, the best family holiday we had ever had” is utterly bizarre. Who could even begin to think like that given that his 3 year old had (according to them) been carried off by god knows who? It’s like he’s talking about losing his car keys!

If you start from the premise that they knew what had happened and had no fear or worry for her because they knew she was already dead, the way they come across makes total sense.

 

[PineappleQueen19]

Agree with your observations @Lady_H.

For those interested in body language & language analysis, the longer interview with little Cleo’s parents is: (skip to 1m30s)

At that point she had been missing 10 days.

It really is like night and day. Like I said I appreciate not everyone is going to react the same in stressful situations but there are so many red flags with the McCanns particularly Gerry.

And for anyone invested in the story, this when Cleo was found - just incredible

 

[The Yoko Ono of GY]

That’s a very interesting comparison. The focus of the mother is all about Cleo - where is she, how frightened she must be - not about herself. She talks in very specific terms about Cleo and what happened. You can see their devastation and terror and the awful uncertainty they are living with.

I don’t ever recall a McCann interview where they appeared to be frightened or worried for Madeleine, or indeed one in which they actually centred Madeleine, rather than themselves. Gerry’s comment that “the holiday has been incredibly relaxing up to that point, the best family holiday we had ever had” is utterly bizarre. Who could even begin to think like that given that his 3 year old had (according to them) been carried off by god knows who? It’s like he’s talking about losing his car keys!

If you start from the premise that they knew what had happened and had no fear or worry for her because they knew she was already dead, the way they come across makes total sense.

If the McCanns know what happened to M, aussuming she died in an accident, they‘d still have to mourn the loss of her daughter. I also don’t find, they acted like mourning parents. Even if they themselves killed her by accident, they’d still be devastated and in shock, maybe even more.
Imagine you accidentally kill your child.

 

[Lady_H]

If the McCanns know what happened to M, aussuming she died in an accident, they‘d still have to mourn the loss of her daughter. I also don’t find, they acted like mourning parents. Even if they themselves killed her by accident, they’d still be devastated and in shock, maybe even more.
Imagine you accidentally kill your child.

I know what you mean and it's all very odd to be sure, but I find their behaviour somewhat easier to explain as parents of a child who has died, rather than parents of a child who is missing. The panic and fear and urgency of parents whose child is missing is just not there. My feeling is that Gerry was able to detach and distance himself from the guilt and grief much more easily than Kate. Perhaps he is incapable of feeling those things, or perhaps like your average cardio surgeon he was just better able to focus on the task in hand without being distracted by emotion. There is a bit in the video above where Kate says to the interviewer "I can't even think about leaving Portugal without Madeleine". I think she meant that whole-heartedly, with grief, while also knowing that leaving without her was inevitable.

 

[cee-bee]

shoddy Police work you say! mmm strange that the Gasper statements didn't make their way to the Algarve until after the MaCanns were back in Blighty!
Read the case files
oh and to add Dogs Don't Lie!

of course dogs don’t lie. Lying applies some sort of morality to what the dogs do.

dogs don’t lie or tell the truth, they’re dogs.

but they categorically do give incorrect signals sometimes.

 

[albertman]

If the McCanns know what happened to M, aussuming she died in an accident, they‘d still have to mourn the loss of her daughter. I also don’t find, they acted like mourning parents. Even if they themselves killed her by accident, they’d still be devastated and in shock, maybe even more.
Imagine you accidentally kill your child.

And that’s the great mystery of this case. How they acted in those initial days (and since) doesn’t tally with seeming worried about their daughter’s whereabouts or her safety but it also doesn’t tally with having either witnessed her demise or even having caused it. I think this is where the “Maddie didn’t exist” theories stem from.

 

[Lady_H]

Anyone interested in the dogs:
1 hour 37 to about 1 hour 53 of this video gives a good overview of the role of the cadaver dog and the blood dog in the case, and their handler Martin Grime.

 

[Lady_H]

of course dogs don’t lie. Lying applies some sort of morality to what the dogs do.

dogs don’t lie or tell the truth, they’re dogs.

but they categorically do give incorrect signals sometimes.

I'm sure they do, but the amount of evidence they produced in this case is certainly interesting. The cadaver dog alerted to the apartment, on cuddle cat, on Kate's clothes, and in the back of the hire car (and a couple of other places I can't remember). And equally interesting was the McCanns' determination to undermine the evidence of the cadaver and blood dogs. It wasn't just Gerry being irritated by questions about the dogs - they ended up giving about 8 different excuses as to why the dogs were wrong, including: Kate having proximity to a lot of dead bodies at work in the 2 weeks before they went on holiday; Kate sometimes taking Cuddlecat to work with her; the dogs being influenced subconsciously by their handler; and the dogs getting confused by rotting meat or dirty nappies; the blood being a result of Madeleine's scraped knee or nosebleed. Obviously sniffer dogs aren't enough to convict anyone, but I think the amount of evidence produced by the sniffer dogs in this case can't be ignored.

 

[Boring Monday]

of course dogs don’t lie. Lying applies some sort of morality to what the dogs do.

dogs don’t lie or tell the truth, they’re dogs.

but they categorically do give incorrect signals sometimes.

To be fair, for at least some of the alerts it isn’t yet known if they were right or wrong.
just because no one has managed to find or ascertain what it was alerted to doesn‘t make them wrong
unless and until what happened to Madeleine is actually known they remain what they always have been … something for the investigators to note and put into context.
It certainly doesn’t make them incorrect, categorically or otherwise.

 

[Pulltheotherone]

Disclaimer …. This is a very long read but interesting.
Has been knocking about on the internet for years.

The Cracked Mirror

Reflections on the McCann affair

madeleinemccannaffair.blogspot.com

 

[cee-bee]

I'm sure they do, but the amount of evidence they produced in this case is certainly interesting. The cadaver dog alerted to the apartment, on cuddle cat, on Kate's clothes, and in the back of the hire car (and a couple of other places I can't remember). And equally interesting was the McCanns' determination to undermine the evidence of the cadaver and blood dogs. It wasn't just Gerry being irritated by questions about the dogs - they ended up giving about 8 different excuses as to why the dogs were wrong, including: Kate having proximity to a lot of dead bodies at work in the 2 weeks before they went on holiday; Kate sometimes taking Cuddlecat to work with her; the dogs being influenced subconsciously by their handler; and the dogs getting confused by rotting meat or dirty nappies; the blood being a result of Madeleine's scraped knee or nosebleed. Obviously sniffer dogs aren't enough to convict anyone, but I think the amount of evidence produced by the sniffer dogs in this case can't be ignored.

but that’s my point.

the dogs didn’t provide evidence. They haven’t produced any evidence in this case. Their indicating, wasn’t evidence. The McCanns didn’t seek to undermine the dogs as evidence, because the dogs were never evidential.

To an unbiased observer, they don’t add much - their signals could be completely on the ball and there was a body where they signaled, or they could equally just be because the dogs were reacting to the high stress environment their handler was under (or any number of things).

I can’t find the sources which quote that Kate and Gerry made excuses, but even if they did… it doesn’t really hold much weight. Because the dogs indicating don’t prove, or disprove, anything.

even if a body turned up exactly where the dogs indicated.. that still wouldn’t make the dogs evidential. The body itself would be the evidence. The witness statement produced by a handler would be evidence.

I don’t just mean that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict the McCanns overall. I mean on their own merit, those dogs weren’t evidence. They aren’t recognised as being reliable enough to be evidential. It doesn’t meet the rules of evidence.

(and the threshold for something being evidential, isn’t the same thing as a burden of proof in a court of law as a side note.)

Now, a court of law obviously has a high threshold and just because someone isn’t convicted, or if they are tried and found not guilty - that doesn’t mean they actually didn’t commit a crime. It means the threshold of “beyond all reasonable doubt” wasn’t met. But that’s different to what I’m referring to here.

I’m referring to the dogs and the scent lineup, I’m not making a comment on how guilty or innocent I believe the McCanns likely to be. I’m stating that the dogs might as well be forgotten about, because they don’t offer or take away much from this very tragic case, I’m saying it’s unfair to point to the dogs as evidence of their guilt - because they simply aren’t evidence of anything.

 

[PineappleQueen19]

Disclaimer …. This is a very long read but interesting.
Has been knocking about on the internet for years.

The Cracked Mirror

Reflections on the McCann affair

madeleinemccannaffair.blogspot.com

That is a riveting read, thank you for posting.
It has so many sharp observations, eg

“Their [the Tapas 7] feelings are reflected to a greater or lesser extent by the entire group: how, they ask, could “anyone in a million years” – a frequent phrase - have predicted what would happen on May 3? Any sense of having helped shape events by their decisions, however well-meaning, or that their own personalities might have played a role in what happened, is absent: instead there is a slightly strange, teenager-like, attitude that the world has let them down. They are, genuinely, innocents abroad.”

 

[Lady_H]

but that’s my point.

the dogs didn’t provide evidence. They haven’t produced any evidence in this case. Their indicating, wasn’t evidence. The McCanns didn’t seek to undermine the dogs as evidence, because the dogs were never evidential.

To an unbiased observer, they don’t add much - their signals could be completely on the ball and there was a body where they signaled, or they could equally just be because the dogs were reacting to the high stress environment their handler was under (or any number of things).

I can’t find the sources which quote that Kate and Gerry made excuses, but even if they did… it doesn’t really hold much weight. Because the dogs indicating don’t prove, or disprove, anything.

even if a body turned up exactly where the dogs indicated.. that still wouldn’t make the dogs evidential. The body itself would be the evidence. The witness statement produced by a handler would be evidence.

I don’t just mean that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict the McCanns overall. I mean on their own merit, those dogs weren’t evidence. They aren’t recognised as being reliable enough to be evidential. It doesn’t meet the rules of evidence.

(and the threshold for something being evidential, isn’t the same thing as a burden of proof in a court of law as a side note.)

Now, a court of law obviously has a high threshold and just because someone isn’t convicted, or if they are tried and found not guilty - that doesn’t mean they actually didn’t commit a crime. It means the threshold of “beyond all reasonable doubt” wasn’t met. But that’s different to what I’m referring to here.

I’m referring to the dogs and the scent lineup, I’m not making a comment on how guilty or innocent I believe the McCanns likely to be. I’m stating that the dogs might as well be forgotten about, because they don’t offer or take away much from this very tragic case, I’m saying it’s unfair to point to the dogs as evidence of their guilt - because they simply aren’t evidence of anything.

Fair enough, interesting post. I retract the word "evidence" as a description of the.... work?.... of the sniffer dogs.

But presumably "evidential" is a legal term related to trying cases, and as this isn't a courtroom and we're not bound by those rules I don't think you can stop people from having the idea in their heads that highly trained sniffer dogs alerting to cadaver and blood in a variety of different places in the McCanns' apartment and the car they rented is, at the very least, interesting. For sure, it doesn't make the McCanns guilty and it wouldn't stand up in court, but it's one more piece in the huge misshapen jigsaw of this case, and something else that raises many more questions than answers.

As for Kate and Gerry and their determination to prove that the dogs don't mean anything (by the way her own book is source for this, as were Gerry's blogs if they're still around), if that is indeed the case then it's even more odd that they'd be so determined to discredit them. That speaks to their determination to prioritise controlling the narrative and proving themselves innocent in the court of public opinion - a pattern of behaviour that started within hours of Madeleine's disappearance when they were actively briefing against the PJ, and has lasted for years. And I realise that doesn't prove them guilty in any way and it's most definitely not evidential. But it IS interesting. At least to me.

 

[Hot_Dogs_Or_Toes]

Is there a reasonable explanation out the dogs alerting in the hire car? This is the same hire car that was hired after the whole story broke and the press were swarming all over the McCann's 24/7. How have they managed to move a body, drive off somewhere, dispose of it and drive back all without raising any suspicion?