hiding in plain sight?
- Status
New to Tattle Life? Click "Order Thread by Most Liked Posts" button below to get an idea of what the site is about:
The story goes… Gerry put her body in a fridge/freezer (the one he replaced), moved her to the hire car (hence defrosting bodily fluids), and she was either buried or taken back to the U.K. by boat. The hire car had a lot of mileage but they denied driving anywhere far enough. They filled the car boot with rotting meat and nappies, and left the boot open overnight because of the awful smell. It sounds a plausible theory, but no one can know for certain. There is an urn on their mantelpiece.
something else that popped into my head from the early days, there was a local pet cremation service. Apparently one day an English person came in with a bin bag stating their dog had died and they wanted a cremation. They refused to show the staff what was in the bag. Doesn’t bear thinking about.
something else that popped into my head from the early days, there was a local pet cremation service. Apparently one day an English person came in with a bin bag stating their dog had died and they wanted a cremation. They refused to show the staff what was in the bag. Doesn’t bear thinking about.
Putting aside all the arguments for and against the McCanns, the thing that always sticks in my mind is that the local Priest says he was deceived by them. Why would he say that if he believed they were innocent of any wrongdoing?
that’s the issue. The Portuguese police were watching the McCanns closely at this point, to the extent that one of the police befriended them in the hopes of gaining their trust.
it’s a stretch that they somehow managed to conceal the body, then rented a vehicle and came back to retrieve and move the body again, all without being detected and without any third party witnesses. Not outside the realms of possibility, but not likely either.
evidential is more of a legal term yes, and obviously the real of a courtroom is different to actual real life, for good reasons.
but if something doesn’t meant the test of evidence, to allow it to be admissible in a court room.. then shouldn’t that same test be applied when the McCanns are being tried in the court of public opinion? If someone is happy to accept the professional opinion that sniffer dogs can be reliable, then surely the same person also needs to consider the professional opinion that they are too unreliable to be evidential. You can’t believe dogs can smell cadavers for weeks/months/years after they’d been there, without also accepting they can be unreliable, in other words.
the test of evidence is sound and imo, should apply outside of the courtroom. A court would feel that the alerts from the dogs, would be inadmissible as evidence on the basis that:
it wasn’t relevant/probative- the alerts the dogs gave, don’t prove any facts. They don’t prove the McCanns had a body in their car and they don’t disprove it either. Is this not relevant to the everyday observer as well as a court?
it isn’t non-prejudicial - to be non-prejudicial, evidence has to be factual and impartial. There is sufficient cause to believe that dogs’ behaviour can be affected by their handler, thus opening an argument that there can be biases. As above, it also isn’t factual. Is this not something worth considering too, by the layman reading into this case?
So if the dog’s alerts aren’t good enough for a court to take them seriously, is it fair they are commonly cited as proof of the McCanns’ guilt? Personally, I don’t think so. This isn’t about a trial, it’s about looking at the facts against the McCanns.
the trouble is, there are two things at play here. 1. The McCanns left their children unattended and 2. The tragedy of Madeleines disappearance and likely death.
you can condemn number 1 while acquiescing that number 2 isn’t likely to be the fault of the McCanns as the facts present it.
the problem is, many people allow their personal feelings on no.1 to equate to guilt to no.2. But they aren’t the same thing, and this leads to a lynch mob mentality. My view is - if you are looking at information and aren’t playing devils advocate in your head - then you are likely biased. If you look at the dogs’ alerts as confirming your feelings that the McCanns killed maddie, then you are bias. But if you are looking at the dogs alerts as potentially indicating the presence of a body but simultaneously thinking about how unreliable it is, then you’re a little more subjective.
so yes, I think the rules of evidence, should be something the general public think about. If it isn’t credible enough to meet that test then, IMO, it isn’t credible enough full stop.
The McCanns trying to control the narrative could be a way in which a guilty couple try and control the narrative and public perception of them. But equally, the Portuguese police decided fairly early on that they were the likely culprits and didn’t follow up on all other lines of enquiry. They botched the investigation so badly that by the time the met/Leicestershire police got involved, there was little hope of salvaging it. The evidential truth of maddie’s fate was lost in those first few days. Now, in light of that - is it not understandable that a couple would be cagey? That’d they’d be defensive and try and set out their own narrative to counteract the emerging narrative being set by the Portuguese police against them? In other words, controlling their image isn’t indicative of guilt. They were trying to explain the dogs reactions, surely, because they’d been asked to, by the media.
Last edited:
I don’t actually think they were being watched as much as people think? Didn’t they cross the boarder into Spain to do a leaflet drop And visited a Shrine and no one knew until Gerry Blogged about it?
of course the Police followed other lines of enquiry - the first person made arguido was done so after only 12 days. it was a joint operation from the start.
of course the Police followed other lines of enquiry - the first person made arguido was done so after only 12 days. it was a joint operation from the start.
Last edited:
a local priest never said he was deceived by them. The priest in question is Father Pacheco, who became close to the couple as they are devout catholics.
it was a story initially run by the daily express I believe, and picked up by the daily Mail.
he was quoted as saying he was “deceived” but never quoted in a whole context, as to who he was referring to. Lest we forget, these are english reporters speaking to a Portuguese police. Miscommunications can happen, and that’s being kind to the journalist and giving them a benefit of the doubt.
Was he deceived by the police, who were convinced Kate had confessed a murder to him and wanted him to relay the content of her confessions (as a catholic priest he absolutely could not do this).
Was he deceived by them somehow when they decided to dig up the church yard, convinced maddie had been buried there by her parents?
was he deceived by his boss, a bishop, who basically stepped in and said he shouldn’t be so close to the couple? He claimed he was just trying t help a grieving couple and that he didn’t do anything wrong.
an investigative journalist would’ve probed to answer these questions. That’s their job. But this journalist had no interest in doing so. The report never explored this in depth - why? Because it is sensationalist reporting and a lesson why critical reading skills are so important.
It’s been misinterpreted by many, and added to the stash pile of “evidence” that supposedly infers guilt on the couple.
except in reality all it ever was, was a short, vague, biased news story designed to create sensation, mislead readers and sell a story by a shoddy journalist writing for a poorly regarded paper.
Blood was found in the car they hired 25 days after her disappearance..if she was stored in the fridge where do people think the fridge was kept?
... and without wanting to be too graphic, can you imagine the odour from a body that has been dead for a month? Even if the body is stored in a fridge it would be awful
The evidential truth of Maddies fate was lost in the last few days helped by the McCann's and their friends contaminating a crime scene and unwillingness to cooperate with the Portuguese police, As for bungling Police you fail to mention the Leicester Police and their failure re the Gasper statements and why they didn't find their way to Portugal until the McCanns were safely back in Blighty!
I think most people are capable of understanding that leaving kids alone in an apartment during dinner does not = being guilty of killing them. This point seems to pop up repeatedly every 10 pages or so and it would be nice to move beyond it. Lots of us are fully capable of separating in our minds the fact of kids being left unattended, and the fact of Madeleine's disappearance, and to see that one does not automatically result in the other.
I agree that it doesn't add to their likeability, but I absolutely don't condemn them because of it. In fact for years I was of the school of thought that they were wholly innocent of any involvement in her disappearance.
The thing is that if you start reading stuff outside the UK press coverage, and look at the PJ files, Amaral's book, Kate's book, Gerry's blogs, the Embedded Confessions interview, the work of people like Pat Brown, Richard Hall's documentary, James Bogart's work or the fascinating Cracked Mirror reflections linked above, a different picture starts to emerge about everything to do with this case. Some of that may be right or wrong and in some cases there are rabbit holes I find pretty pointless, but the totality of it gives an entirely different picture to the one I had been accustomed to reading in the UK press. I usually find that people who have read beyond the UK press headlines have a much more nuanced and complex view of this case, even if they're still unsure of what finally happened to Madeleine.
As far as the dogs are concerned, presumably the point of them is that they point investigators in a certain direction and that they're taken seriously enough to be given that job. From a scientific point of view I guess either they were wrong, or they were right, in alerting to the cadaver and blood in the places they alerted to. Your view, and the legal view I guess, is that they're possibly wrong, or that even if they were right it doesn't matter. I think we'll have to agree to disagree that the work of the sniffer dogs exists, that people can view the video of that work and read the report if they wish, and that they can decide for themselves what to do with what they've seen or read.
It's completely wrong to portray the McCanns as passive victims of the media, having to be "cagey" as the mean journalists (finally!) asked them difficult questions. They themselves generated the vast majority of that interest on their own in the first few hours of Madeleine going missing, acting completely against the stated requests and instructions of the Portuguese police who absolutely didn't need hundreds of people from the international press descending on a small village and hanging out around an apartment complex where they were trying to collect evidence. THEY made it harder for the police to get that evidence. They very quickly hooked up with Clarence Mitchell to get control of the PR narrative and in many ways they succeeded. THEY started the narrative that the case was botched, THEY were actively briefing against the PJ that a "British style response" would have been superior. That came from THEM, and the UK press happily went along with it. The irony is that a British style response in the UK would probably have resulted in arrest on the grounds of child negligence. A lot is made of their middle-class status and how that helped them, but I think they benefitted hugely from being abroad when this happened, and being able to develop a narrative of how useless foreign police are and how much better at this the Brits would be.
I am curious about your assertion that the PJ "botched the investigation so badly", and the implication that the British police were so superior. How do you know that's true? Or, to apply your own standards: if you are looking at information and aren’t playing devils advocate in your head - then you are likely biased. How do you play devil's advocate with your certainty that the Portuguese botched the investigation?
Last edited:
The mccanns were not being watched. It wasn’t for some time that they were considered suspects. Before that they were free to go as they pleased. They had a lot of privacy, it was only when they left the new hotel that the press would hound them, but they were left alone initially.
the fridge theory is that they weren’t
actuallystaying in the hotel Madeleine went missing from, they apparently had a villa elsewhere for the duration. I can’t confirm that as fact obviously, but realistically it was an odd choice of apartment for a supposedly well off group of doctors. A fridge or freezer would delay the decomposition so if done properly there wouldn’t be a smell. Doctors know that.
the priests’ comment led to people thinking Kate had confessed all to him. A priest isn’t allowed to disclose a confession to anyone. They had keys for the church and would go there for privacy. Many people believed they’d hid Madeleine there. After the comment he took the keys away, removed the missing posters from the church and stopped supporting them, so I’m pretty sure it was something the mccanns directly done that upset him.
All theories that have been thrown around for many years, but if they did remove her body and kept her out of sight from the world all this time then whatever plan they had obviously worked. Either helping hands from powerful people or they were just very lucky at getting away with it.
also the police didn’t notice the bleached bloodstain marks until the dogs alerted. They pulled back the furniture as the room had been rearranged and found them. The blood splatters correlate to a certain medical procedure.
the fridge theory is that they weren’t
actuallystaying in the hotel Madeleine went missing from, they apparently had a villa elsewhere for the duration. I can’t confirm that as fact obviously, but realistically it was an odd choice of apartment for a supposedly well off group of doctors. A fridge or freezer would delay the decomposition so if done properly there wouldn’t be a smell. Doctors know that.
the priests’ comment led to people thinking Kate had confessed all to him. A priest isn’t allowed to disclose a confession to anyone. They had keys for the church and would go there for privacy. Many people believed they’d hid Madeleine there. After the comment he took the keys away, removed the missing posters from the church and stopped supporting them, so I’m pretty sure it was something the mccanns directly done that upset him.
All theories that have been thrown around for many years, but if they did remove her body and kept her out of sight from the world all this time then whatever plan they had obviously worked. Either helping hands from powerful people or they were just very lucky at getting away with it.
also the police didn’t notice the bleached bloodstain marks until the dogs alerted. They pulled back the furniture as the room had been rearranged and found them. The blood splatters correlate to a certain medical procedure.
From the minute the alarm was raised she was missing the press ect were everywhere anything that got done to her ( if it was them) would have to have got done before, and if it was a accidental drug overdose where would the blood have came in to it ?
Wonder are Kate and Gerry still friendly with the Tapas 7/9? Would the kids of those parents have some stories to tell as they reach adulthood?
The priest made a statement saying that he had never taken confession from them nor spoken to them alone due to the language barrier:
The priest is American there's no language barrier
Haynes Hubbard
Haynes Hubbard
Last edited:
The priest who is supposed to have made the "deceived" comment is Portuguese.
even if they had confessed to something he wouldn’t admit it would he, as that’s confirming there’s something to withhold and therefore guilt
One of the theories is that Madeleine woke up but was very drowsy due to her parents sedating her. She climbed up on the settee (to look out of a window I think) lost her balance (due to being drowsy) fell awkwardly and died. This would explain the blood (injury) and the dogs alerting in that spot.
So many slightly odd aspects to the case. Like it’s interesting that Kate & Gerry weren’t really friends with any of the Tapas 7 except the Paynes and didn’t do anything with any of them during the days, only for dinner in the evening. None of the others really even knew them. (More about that: https://madeleinemccannaffair.blogspot.com/2009/03/absent-friends.html?m=1)
Also Gerry saying it was the best holiday they’d ever had but the weather was tit and nearly the entire group had a vomiting bug? Wtf, sounds dire - which some holidays are, why not acknowledge that? Again it’s just odd.
The PJ had every right to be suspicious of the McCanns right from the start - even just going by the fact they left their patio doors unlocked and lied about how often they were checking on the children. That they reacted the way they did - courting tabloid media with accusations of Portuguese incompetence - instead of holding their hands up to their errors - it’s unforgivable. Madeleine paid the ultimate price for their precious egos (and that’s under an abduction scenario).
Also Gerry saying it was the best holiday they’d ever had but the weather was tit and nearly the entire group had a vomiting bug? Wtf, sounds dire - which some holidays are, why not acknowledge that? Again it’s just odd.
The PJ had every right to be suspicious of the McCanns right from the start - even just going by the fact they left their patio doors unlocked and lied about how often they were checking on the children. That they reacted the way they did - courting tabloid media with accusations of Portuguese incompetence - instead of holding their hands up to their errors - it’s unforgivable. Madeleine paid the ultimate price for their precious egos (and that’s under an abduction scenario).
The McCanns courting the media, and Gerry making hundreds of phone calls in that first day to get the word out, caused havoc for the PJ on so many levels. I think it’s fair to say that they didn’t know how to handle the sudden massive influx of media attention, but why should they? Working out that there was a PR assault going on, that the McCanns were effectively undermining their efforts and then having to work out how to deal with that - let alone the influx of people into the area - all an enormous distraction from the actual investigation.
- Status