Madeleine McCann #8

[CariettaWhite]

I don’t think the McCanns had anything to do with Madeleines disappearance. I feel desperately sorry for them. I can only begin to imagine their pain.

However… at the same time I also can’t imagine leaving my children alone in a strange place, so far away, in an unlocked apartment. Feeling sorry for them doesn’t mean I don’t also think they were disgustingly negligent and they’re certainly unlikeable.

That poor little girl. I think the most likely scenario is that she wandered off and was snatched by an opportunistic wrongun. If she didn’t end up in the sea I suspect her remains will be found at some point.

 

[Tangerine Dream]

What makes them continually seek publicity? Is it out of guilt? God forbid but if my little girl disappeared on holiday, partly due to my negligence, I would grieve in private and not keep reminding people what a tit parent I had been.

I think they just like the attention. It stood out to me right when the case first started how eager they were to be on camera and have the media do their bidding in general. There's trying to find your lost child and then there is going on a 'world tour' like they did.

 

[Serene Serena]

That's the saddest thing. I don't have children, but when I've been on holidays to resorts in Spain and Portugal, they have always had very family friendly places. It's so common for kids to be eating out with their families of an evening, and it's not unusual to see them asleep in buggies/pushchairs or having a little dance/play around even when the adults are enjoying a drink or two afterwards.

We go to Spain regularly and our children come out with us in the evening. My little girl will usually doze off in the buggy and my little boy will play with other children also out with their parents. Children are made welcome everywhere. The McCanns have no excuse for what they did.

 

[Tangerine Dream]

Italy culture is the same, kids are absolutely adored and are welcome to be with adults at dinner. At least, that's what my semi Italian family was like and what the country was like when I last visited 20 years ago.

They had no excuse whatsoever to leave literal babies and a little girl who was still almost a toddler herself in an apartment alone. I can't find sympathy for them at all, only for the children.

 

[catsandsoup]

It promoted this culture of fear at the time too, I remember working with a little girl who was absolutely terrified by it and all this 'A stranger will steal your children!'

(When statistically, its more likely the parents. Ironically, if you trust their statements that they were checking the children every 20 minutes - and not the statement of the neighbour who said it took an hour before Maddy stopped crying the night before - a stranger pretty much has to be working on a schedule of minutes to 'jemmy the windows' - or not! - sneak in, decide on the child of speaking age, rather than either gender of infants, sneak out again, all while leaving no physical evidence.)

This wee one had had a rough start in life, and her dad said she'd cried over Maddie and kept asking if they'd looked under the bed etc.
I had to tell her in the end that Maddie's mum and dad weren't looking after her, and that her dad wouldn't do that and leave her alone because she'd fixated on the idea that a stranger would come into her house and take her or her brother.

 

[griftalo]

I don’t think the McCanns had anything to do with Madeleines disappearance. I feel desperately sorry for them. I can only begin to imagine their pain.

However… at the same time I also can’t imagine leaving my children alone in a strange place, so far away, in an unlocked apartment. Feeling sorry for them doesn’t mean I don’t also think they were disgustingly negligent and they’re certainly unlikeable.

That poor little girl. I think the most likely scenario is that she wandered off and was snatched by an opportunistic wrongun. If she didn’t end up in the sea I suspect her remains will be found at some point.

This begs the question of who died in the apartment though.

 

[Nelly's mum]

This begs the question of who died in the apartment though.

Er, how about nobody?
There were some degraded microscopic samples of blood in the apartment that closest matched to an adult male, they were inconclusive with no match to Madeleine.

Samples were taken from the car contained degraded DNA components. British and Portuguese authorities confirmed the data was too incomplete and complex to state with certainty that it belonged to Madeleine.

 

[cazellie]

This begs the question of who died in the apartment though.

That is what makes me suspicious about it all. The dogs picked up the scent, their hire car disposed of a mini fridge from the apartment and they left the boot open to get rid of a smell. The main detective leading the investigation had his book banned from this country too. Lots of questions which we will never get the answer to. If they were really innocent she would’ve answered all the questions put to her when she was taken in for questioning

 

[Superdude]

I believe the fridge disposed of came from the house they moved to for the remainder of their stay in Portugal, not the apartment.
They didn't have the hire car when Madeleine disappeared.

 

[Nelly's mum]

their hire car disposed of a mini fridge from the apartment

Is there a source for this? An actual source, not just 'someone said they heard' heresay?

 

[Mardymermaid]

Kate’s book and wording before she edited it even if it wasn’t them that were involved beyond being neglectful is beyond odd to me.

 

[Glencoe]

It took a good few days for Gerry and Kate to even admit they had left the apartment unlocked, only once their ‘jemmied window’ narrative had been ruled out. All creating a lot of confusion.

See this is the bit I'll never understand, your baby daughter is missing and the first thing you think of is making up lies to save your own skin and potentially pushing the investigation in the wrong direction in critical hours.

 

[Serene Serena]

See this is the bit I'll never understand, your baby daughter is missing and the first thing you think of is making up lies to save your own skin and potentially pushing the investigation in the wrong direction in critical hours.

I reckon they deliberately misled the police because they wanted the younger two kids to be drug free if they decided to test them and it takes a few days for sedatives to leave the system.

 

[Nelly's mum]

I reckon they deliberately misled the police because they wanted the younger two kids to be drug free if they decided to test them and it takes a few days for sedatives to leave the system.

Where any sedatives or empty medication packages found in the apartment?

 

[catsandsoup]

See this is the bit I'll never understand, your baby daughter is missing and the first thing you think of is making up lies to save your own skin and potentially pushing the investigation in the wrong direction in critical hours.

At the very least, they lied about the windows and the time they took to check, unless their neighbour was a fantasist who imagined Maddy and Sean crying for an hour the evening before.

Refusing a drug test on the twins also seems questionable (especially as they would know it can be done with hair).

You'd think people with no involvement, even ones who felt guilty and aware of the censure they might receive or afraid in a foreign country, would want the police to be absolutely sure on the time space in which Maddy disappeared. Lying could have been the difference between life and death at that point. Ditto the twins - unless you have knowledge otherwise, wouldn't you want to know if your babies, who didn't wake throughout the entire furore, were safe?

They also told the media about Maddie's eye, despite the police warning them that this could mean the alleged kidnapper would realise she could be swiftly and easily identified, and harm her.

 

[PineappleQueen19]

Couldn’t agree more @Glencoe

A plausible scenario is that they found the door wide open and Madeleine missing, and in the pressurised situation decided that they HAD to make it look like a break-in in order to set themselves up as victims of a bogeyman intruder and/or Mark Warners faulty window.

Gerry in particular strikes me as the cold, rational type to realise quickly they would be looking at losing their medical licences, jobs, careers, home, reputation, the twins etc. Possibly a conviction. There needed to be someone (even nameless and faceless, for a while) in the frame, otherwise it’s them.
It does fit with how selfishly they behaved prior to Madeleine’s disappearance.

It’s tricky for many of us to contemplate that mindset because logically it means you wouldn’t have left them in the first place.

 

[Emsie]

I find the neighbour saying Maddie was crying for an hour quite hard to believe. An hour is an extraordinary long time for a child to cry without comfort. Surely, she would have just passed out from emotion.

 

[Serene Serena]

Where any sedatives or empty medication packages found in the apartment?

Not that I’ve read. They had plenty of time to tidy up though.

 

[Freda Fandango]

Theres something off about it to be sure. I could have got my head round a terrible accident and cover up, but logically I cant see where and when a body could be hidden by holidaymakers in a strange country so well its never been found.

Like the poster above I think they've thought oh tit weve ducked up here how do we shine the best light on it, weve been negligent and so have most of the others in their company, so lies were told about timelines. Why did they delete so many phone messages for example, why lie about a jemmied window. And other things.

I think the most likely thing is she went out looking for them after being left before, and "something" happened after that. What it was I don't know, but her parents let her down yet again by not being truthful at the outset.

 

[Freda Fandango]

And while we go round in circles again im arguing with myself because my mind goes back to Kate shouting "they've taken her"....who?

And if she thought shed been taken the last thing I would do was LEAVE my twins vulnerable by running out of the apartment to tell my mates at the tapas.

Confusing and no wonder people's minds go to the nefarious.