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escargot1 said:
My mind is open though. While I feel that the McCanns were wrong (in the sense of asking for trouble) to leave the children alone, that doesn't make them murderers.

Plus, they had no opportunity to dispose of a rapidly-decomposing corpse in the time after the disappearance as their every move was followed by the press. They have invited publicity at every stage -very dangerous behaviour for people trying to keep such a secret,

While it is true that most murdered children have been killed by their parents, guardians or step parents, not all are. A few, a very few, are abducted and killed by strangers, and this appears to have happened here.

I'm not dogmatic about this - I will be happy to eat my words if necessary.

Until we hear something new, though, there's no point in discussing it, so I'm off to teh fluffeh kitteh site.

I'm with you Esc and for the same reasons.

Someone pointed out of R4 yesterday that the police who keep talking to the Portuguese press about all these "leads" and so on are breaking the law and could be jailed for it. Which makes me wonder whether the Police really hate them so much its worth it or whether the press are just making the claims up entirely.
 
Maddy 'Drugged' Says Grandmother

Yet more speculation... :roll:

Maddy 'drugged' says grandmother

The grandmother of missing Madeleine McCann believes the four-year-old may have been drugged by whoever abducted her in Portugal.


Eileen McCann said the child must have been drugged or she would have screamed as she was taken.

Mrs McCann, 69, who owns a pub at St Johnston, County Donegal, said the family was going "through hell".

Madeleine was reported missing from the McCann's apartment in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve, on 3 May.

Her parents, Kate and Gerry, both 39, have been declared official suspects in their daughter's disappearance.

Mrs McCann, who now lives in Scotland, told the Belfast Telegraph: "I really believe they (whoever took her) gave her a drug.

"There is no way they carried her out of there without her wakening.

"If she was taken when she was sleeping by somebody she did not know, she would have screamed the place down."

Mrs McCann said her son and daughter-in-law were innocent and would never even slap their children.

She said claims that DNA evidence had been found in the McCann's hire car were "nonsense".

"Little Amelie is wearing Madeleine's sandals and she is in and out of the car. Cuddly toys are in it. Madeleine's toys are in it. Madeleine's tops are in it that Amelie is wearing. It's nonsense," she said.

Sunday marked the 150th day since Madeleine's disappearance.

Television adverts in Arabic appealing for sightings of Madeleine will be broadcast in Morocco.

Her parents hope she may be there. However, there was disappointment last week as a photograph of a blonde girl in Morocco proved not to be her.

Story from BBC NEWS:

Published: 2007/10/01 08:58:26 GMT

© BBC MMVII
 
"The new theory emerged after a report from Britain said specialist sniffer dogs had detected the "smell of death" on the steps"

What? The smell of death? What the hell are they talking about? What exactly does death smell like, or how did the dogs inform the handlers it smelled like death? A rotting corpse would certainly give a smell, but if Madeline fell down the stairs I hardly doubt she was left there for long enough to start decomposing. Someone is making things up.
 
"The new theory emerged after a report from Britain said specialist sniffer dogs had detected the "smell of death" on the steps"

What? The smell of death? What the hell are they talking about? What exactly does death smell like, or how did the dogs inform the handlers it smelled like death? A rotting corpse would certainly give a smell, but if Madeline fell down the stairs I hardly doubt she was left there for long enough to start decomposing. Someone is making things up.

Well, from what I've read about the case, it seems that specialist "cadaver dogs" can detect the scent of a dead body even some time after it has been there. The body does not have to be decomposed, but it does apparently need to have been dead for at least two hours. As you say it seems unlikely that a dead child would have been left on the steps for that length of time.
 
How many people were at that resort? How long before it's their turn to be accused? Use the Laws of Probability to work out your answer. Rolling Eyes

you've lost me there, i'm afraid. what's your point?

Plus, they had no opportunity to dispose of a rapidly-decomposing corpse in the time after the disappearance as their every move was followed by the press.

i thought there were no independent witnesses that saw madelaine later than mid afternoon? plenty of time if she didn't 'dissappear' when she's alleged to have... and a well telegraphed dissappearance at that...

Eileen McCann said the child must have been drugged or she would have screamed as she was taken.

what about the two other children that were supposedly in the room with her? were they drugged too?
 
Given that the McCanns allegedly left the children every night to go out with their friends, it would be quite easy for a predator paedophile to know their movements.

I think the McCanns (increasinly detailed) stories just don't add up, and I think there is something they're not telling us; probably that they didn't actually check on the kids at all, for one thing. That doesn't necessarily mean they killed her though.

I thought the whole point of making them official suspects was to protect them from the press? I thought their solicitor had been arguing for weeks for them to be given the protection of being official suspects? Yet as soon as they are, they complain about it?

Either way, I think it's fairly safe to ignore whatever story the press are currently peddling. They don't even have to be talking to the police; they could just be making the whole thing up (perish the notion! :shock: )
 
I think the McCanns (increasinly detailed) stories just don't add up, and I think there is something they're not telling us; probably that they didn't actually check on the kids at all, for one thing. That doesn't necessarily mean they killed her though.

Yeah. The most charitable explanation is that they - and their friends, who also seemed to leave their children unattended late at night - had not in fact been checking on the kids very often, or at all. The alleged 14 bottles of wine the group apparently downed seems like a rather heavy session if they had been there for only an hour and a half as they claimed - however, if they had been boozing for several hours it is more understandable.

It may simply be that the McCanns and their mates were in the habit of leaving their kids for hours on end and, for fear of the inevitable criticism that would follow, after Madeleine's disappearance they claimed that they had only been gone just over an hour and had been checking regularly throughout. The police find holes in that story and then start to doubt the rest of it.

But I'm still dubious about the unlocked apartment, which only seemed to become unlocked when there was no sign of forced entry and the window had been opened from inside.
 
Eileen McCann said the child must have been drugged or she would have screamed as she was taken.

Why raise this now...? Is it because forensic tests on the hair found at the apartment is due soon?

Is Clarence Mitchell's advice worth the money, if it just boils down to 'Get your retaliation in first!'...? I could have told them that for free!
 
"...Friends said that the McCann family were now so desperate for information about Madeleine’s whereabouts that they were considering employing a psychic. Mr and Mrs McCann have already consulted a book by Gordon Smith, who claims to be Britain’s “most accurate medium”, and are being urged by other members of the family to seek his views directly."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 569943.ece

Yep, it'll be space aliens next!
 
:shock:

Just when you think it can't get any more bizarre...
 
Why raise this now...? Is it because forensic tests on the hair found at the apartment is due soon?

maybe granny was feeling a bit left out and decided it was time she got some media attention too... :?
 
"Find Madeleine" is appropriate as a title because she isn't there, it is just all about the parents.

that kind of sums up blog culture in general... they're usually about the people writing them rather than what (if anything) they're meant to be about... though in this instance, after everything that's gone before, it doesn't surprise me too much at all :(
 
We dont know anything about her, do we? Shes just an object, a symbol

This is kind of odd, in retrospect. Isn't the advice given to parents of abducted children supposed to be to 'humanise' them to their captor - talk about their likes & dislikes, what their favourite toys are, etc? :?

Why has this not been done?
 
spiritdoctor said:
Well okay. But you go to the website 'Find Madeleine' and there is nothing religious on there. There's no quotes from the Bible, no poetry, no prayers , no asking people to pray, nothing like hoping God will protect Madeleine, whatever. I've lost children in terms of having several miscarriages and it just doesn't seem natural. This is the sort of thing you turn to when your child is dead. I just don't think there is very much genuine religious sentiment there.

I haven't really looked at it but yes that does appear odd.

One of the things which did strike me though was that one of the supposed "clues" was Mrs McCanns bible which was examined for evidence. How many people carry a bible with them on holiday?
 
How many people carry a bible with them on holiday?

Indeed. Why bother, when there is usually one in your hotel room, courtesy of the Gideon Society :)
 
JuliaM2 said:
How many people carry a bible with them on holiday?

Indeed. Why bother, when there is usually one in your hotel room, courtesy of the Gideon Society :)

These were apartments not a hotel. I stayed in a hotel in The Hague recently and there was no Gideon bible in my room nor in the rooms of my colleagues.
 
I stayed in a hotel in The Hague recently and there was no Gideon bible in my room nor in the rooms of my colleagues.

You should complain. I guess, unlike their boss, they are not omnipresent... :D

(waits for lightning to strike)
 
JuliaM2 said:
I stayed in a hotel in The Hague recently and there was no Gideon bible in my room nor in the rooms of my colleagues.

You should complain. I guess, unlike their boss, they are not omnipresent... :D

(waits for lightning to strike)

Hmm, I should have asked for a reduction perhaps. Or I could have asked for a Koran. Hmm, thats something for the busies to get going on: having the bible in the room is offensive to Muslims, Hindus etc.

As an agnostic I'm not annoyed by finding a bible in a drawer.
 
JuliaM2 said:
How many people carry a bible with them on holiday?

Indeed. Why bother, when there is usually one in your hotel room, courtesy of the Gideon Society :)

Hehe. I was thinking more along the lines that I bet your average church goer doesn't carry a bible round with them on holiday, you'd have to be extra-religious. ;)
 
As an agnostic I'm not annoyed by finding a bible in a drawer.

me neither... those thin little gideon pages are quite nifty when you've run out of rizlas...

Hehe. I was thinking more along the lines that I bet your average church goer doesn't carry a bible round with them on holiday, you'd have to be extra-religious. Wink

it may not be relevant to this case at all, but quite a comparitively high proportion of nurses and doctors have evangelical leanings... don't ask me why...
 
ramonmercado said:
JuliaM2 said:
I stayed in a hotel in The Hague recently and there was no Gideon bible in my room nor in the rooms of my colleagues.

You should complain. I guess, unlike their boss, they are not omnipresent... :D

(waits for lightning to strike)

Hmm, I should have asked for a reduction perhaps.
I'd have thought they'd charge extra. Kind of like the difference between an ad-supported service and ad-free.

In Indonesia, when I was there 20-something years ago, they had the Gideon Bible and the Koran. Nothing for the Hindus or Buddhists, though.
 
DNA Tests 'Reveal Traces of Madeleine's Body On Beach'

Forensic DNA tests 'reveal traces of Madeleine's body on resort beach'

Mark Townsend and Ned Temko

Sunday October 7, 2007


Traces of Madeleine McCann's body were found on a Portuguese beach weeks after she was reported missing, during tests by a former detective renowned for locating abducted children.

Forensic analysis by retired South African police superintendent Danie Krugel claimed to reveal Madeleine's body had either been temporarily buried or was still beneath the beach at Praia da Luz, the resort from where she disappeared on 3 May.

Based on a combination of Madeleine's DNA sample and GPS satellite technology, Krugel's findings were taken so seriously by Portuguese detectives that officers twice searched the beach.

Krugel, of the University of Bloemfontein, claims that his technique is able to locate a missing person anywhere in the world using only a single strand of hair. He became famous in South Africa after helping a television crew locate the whereabouts of five South African girls who went missing during the Eighties. Last July the retired detective spent four days in Praia da Luz following a request for assistance from Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

'He clearly identified an area of the beach where Madeleine may have passed through or was buried,' a close friend of the McCanns said yesterday.

Krugel's report of his findings to Portuguese detectives eventually led to British officers being asked to bring in sniffer dogs to supplement the search for Madeleine. The subsequent reaction of the dogs to Kate's clothing - the so-called scent of death - led to the couple being declared formal suspects over the death of their daughter.

The results of Krugel's investigations come amid mounting concern that the Portuguese-led investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine has stalled with an increasingly exhausted core of 'half-a-dozen' CID officers awaiting potentially crucial final forensic results from laboratories in Birmingham.

Reports in the Portuguese press claim that the original team of more than 200 police who were involved in the frantic early days of the investigation has now been whittled down to a small core who have been working without holidays and are 'completely exhausted'.

The inquiry, increasingly managed by UK-based detectives, appears once again to be focusing on trying to find a missing child rather than on the role of Madeleine's parents in their daughter's disappearance.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
 
Krugel, of the University of Bloemfontein, claims that his technique is able to locate a missing person anywhere in the world using only a single strand of hair. He became famous in South Africa after helping a television crew locate the whereabouts of five South African girls who went missing during the Eighties. Last July the retired detective spent four days in Praia da Luz following a request for assistance from Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

This raises more questions than answers.

Reports in the Portuguese press claim that the original team of more than 200 police who were involved in the frantic early days of the investigation has now been whittled down to a small core who have been working without holidays and are 'completely exhausted'.

And Im not sure what to say to this.
 
...South African police superintendent Danie Krugel...

is also a dowser and "inventor of a device that can supposedly find anyone, anywhere, with merely a snippet of their hair".

I'm guessing that this is the pisskick the McCan'ts are using.

Google him. Not good.
 
I'm getting increasingly annoyed with the way the forensic evidence is being completely dismissed in the press with regards to any shadow of guilt falling on the sainted McCanns. Which is unlike the press, who seem to think that forensic evidence is the Holy Grail of criminal investigations and proves guilt 100% :roll:

So - one rule for one, and one for another, perchance?
 
Article in today's Evening Standard, mainly rehashing what we already know but a few interesting paragraphs:

British scientists have found new DNA evidence which could link Kate and Gerry McCann to Madeleine's disappearance, it has been revealed today.

The results, obtained at the Forensic Science Service laboratory in Birmingham, support earlier forensic findings sent to Portugal by British scientists which led to the McCanns being named as official suspects.

Sources also said the further tests cast into question explanations offered by the McCanns for the original results which are believed to have shown traces of Madeleine's blood in the family apartment and of her bodily fluids in the couple's hire car, rented 25 days after her disappearance.

British scientists are understood to be fully confident in their ability to distinguish between Madeleine's DNA and that of her siblings or parents.

Similarly, it is understood that the widely touted theory that her DNA could have been transferred via her toys or clothes in substantial quantities has been fully taken into account.
 
Taken from M & C
A report by the Daily Mail has said findings by scientists working at the Forensic Science Service laboratory in Birmingham supported earlier evidence which had led to the naming of the McCanns as suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

The newspaper reported sources close to the investigation as saying, "There is no reason to change the direction of the investigation and everything that has emerged indicates that it is focusing where it should."

"This is a very complex case and forensics are rarely conclusive on their own, but the new material adds to the existing picture that has been built up by police and fills in a few more pieces of the jigsaw."
 
Sounds as much like an indictment of the police as of the McCanns, that they only find bloody footprints after 4 months.
 
True Crime TV afficionados will expect the footprints to have been revealed by being sprayed with Luminol and then lit up with ultra-violet light.
Highly dramatic. 8)
 
I hope this is not going to go on as long as the Diana thing.

Why the fudging over the DNA issue? I thought that kind of evidence guaranteed a clear cut case. It does in most cases.
 
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