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Madeleine McCann cops search Algarve reservoir Christian B called his ‘little paradise’


POLICE have launched a new search for Madeleine McCann's body in the first major operation of its kind for nine years.

German cops investigating prime suspect Christian B are set to search a remote Algarve reservoir the convicted rapist is believed to have used.

It is approximately a 45 minute drive from the Ocean Club holiday resort of Praia da Luz where Maddie vanished from in 2007.

The area is where there was a sighting of a child being handed to a man days after the three-year-old disappeared.

Portuguese police are soon expected to start closing off roads soon leading to the man-made [Barragem do Arade] dam near the town of Silves.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22437...ll-cops-plan-search-remote-algarve-reservoir/

maximus otter
 
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Madeleine McCann cops search Algarve reservoir Christian B called his ‘little paradise’


POLICE have launched a new search for Madeleine McCann's body in the first major operation of its kind for nine years.

German cops investigating prime suspect Christian B are set to search a remote Algarve reservoir the convicted rapist is believed to have used.

It is approximately a 45 minute drive from the Ocean Club holiday resort of Praia da Luz where Maddie vanished from in 2007.

The area is where there was a sighting of a child being handed to a man days after the three-year-old disappeared.

Portuguese police are soon expected to start closing off roads soon leading to the man-made [Barragem do Arade] dam near the town of Silves.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22437...ll-cops-plan-search-remote-algarve-reservoir/

maximus otter
How many other young girls have gone missing in all this time? Has anything remotely equivalent been spent on tracing those other girls? This stinks, even if there is no hidden agenda.
 
It's possible that securing forensic evidence in an area associated with a particular suspect unearths evidence ... but concerning someone different! How probable, I don't know though.
If you were digging up a notorious 'disposal' area, you might come across a link to your subject ... or might accidentally unearth an unrelated crime. You have to seek evidence whatever it is as there's a danger of overlooking something because it doesn't fit your pre-conceived theory.
 
It's possible that securing forensic evidence in an area associated with a particular suspect unearths evidence ... but concerning someone different! How probable, I don't know though.
If you were digging up a notorious 'disposal' area, you might come across a link to your subject ... or might accidentally unearth an unrelated crime. You have to seek evidence whatever it is as there's a danger of overlooking something because it doesn't fit your pre-conceived theory.
This has happened a lot. For example, as you'll know, when reservoirs are drained or their levels drop drastically enough, all sorts of detritus are found, including vehicles and sealed barrels containing the bodies of long-missing individuals.

You'll remember the divers' search for the Bluebird speedboat in Lake Coniston which brought to light the corpse of murder victim Carol Ann Park.

All gruesome, and no doubt confusing.
 
I wonder if there's a little bit of the same thing as goes on with the Claudia Lawrence disappearance - in that the police periodically 'discover new evidence' and start a massive project in the hope that they've struck close enough to home for someone to be shaken into confessing.
 
The five chilling words that ‘made Christian Brueckner prime Madeleine McCann suspect’

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/christian-brueckner-madeleine-mccann-b2351460.html

‘…The Metropolitan Police took over the investigation, Operation Grange, in 2011 but they hit dead ends. There has not been another significant suspect in the case since 2007 until Brueckner.

Brueckner is in prison in Germany for the rape of a woman in Praia da Luz in 2005, and is suspected of further rapes and child sexual abuse committed in the area between 2000 and 2017.

During his time in prison, he is said to have written several letters in a bid to clear his name and complain about his treatment in prison.

According to a letter seen by the Daily Mail, Brueckner claimed he became a key suspect after his former friend told police he said “yes, she did not scream” when talking about the case around one year after Madeleine disappeared.

According to the newspaper, Brueckner said the claim is "not even worthy of comment”.

He said that he was then hunted by police after his friend made the allegation to police…’
 
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I have two pertinent observations.
1. Non-subscribers can only read the start of the article so we don't get as far as learning which words they were.
2. There may not have been a spontaneous succinct confession. The words may be very long indeed.
I'm not a subscriber and could read the whole article, no idea why. The words were reported by another prisoner when discussing the case and were "Yes, she did not scream." Seems a little flimsy, as evidence goes, but I suppose when you have no other suspects...
 
I have two pertinent observations.
1. Non-subscribers can only read the start of the article so we don't get as far as learning which words they were.
2. There may not have been a spontaneous succinct confession. The words may be very long indeed.
That’s why I copied it out after I found it was paywalled on the main link.
 
I'm not a subscriber and could read the whole article, no idea why. The words were reported by another prisoner when discussing the case and were "Yes, she did not scream." Seems a little flimsy, as evidence goes, but I suppose when you have no other suspects...
Do you have Apple News that’s how I managed to read it.
 
I'm not a subscriber and could read the whole article, no idea why. The words were reported by another prisoner when discussing the case and were "Yes, she did not scream." Seems a little flimsy, as evidence goes, but I suppose when you have no other suspects...
Hmm, a second hand report and words that are not exactly an unequivocal confession. It could even be an observation, since nobody actually did hear the little girl scream. Not sure you can pin it on him with this (I have my own pet theory on this case, elsewhere on the thread, so maybe I'm biased.)
 
Copying something from behind a paywall to make it publicly available free is unequivocally breach of copyright. This can give the mods here a headache.

Is that a paywall?

I simply clicked 'stop' before the page fully loaded and read the whole text.

More generally: extracts are fine for critical purposes, regardless of origin; just don't copy the entire text.
 

Madeleine McCann: Soil from Portuguese reservoir ‘to be compared to samples from prime suspect’s van’

Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are reportedly cross-examining soil from a reservoir searched a fortnight ago with samples from a camper van belonging to the prime suspect.

Police are now testing samples of soil taken from the site, and comparing them to traces of dirt found in a VW camper van belonging to convicted rapist Christian Brueckner.

The Sun reported that investigators previously found photos and video of Brueckner at the reservoir.

May’s search came as the Home Office granted an extra £110,000 in funding this financial year for the Metropolitan Police to assist with finding Madeleine, down from just over £300,000 last year.

The total funding given to the probe, named Operation Grange, has been just under £13.1 million since 2011.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/wor...hristian-brueckner-suspect-soil-b1085584.html

maximus otter
 
I have two pertinent observations.
1. Non-subscribers can only read the start of the article so we don't get as far as learning which words they were.
2. There may not have been a spontaneous succinct confession. The words may be very long indeed.
Looked at it on a different Mac and could see it all.

'Yes, she did not scream.' Not exactly the confession one hoped for.
 
Police are now testing samples of soil taken from the site, and comparing them to traces of dirt found in a VW camper van belonging to convicted rapist Christian Brueckner.

The Sun reported that investigators previously found photos and video of Brueckner at the reservoir.
Am I missing something here? They already know he has been at the reservoir so what do they expect to prove by comparing soil samples?
 
Am I missing something here? They already know he has been at the reservoir so what do they expect to prove by comparing soil samples?

They may be trying to prove the presence of the vehicle, rather than simply the individual (assuming the photos/video may just show the latter).

If it is going to be claimed that someone transported something from one place to another, prosecutors are going to have to indicate how this was done. On their own, images of an individual at the site will not be enough.
 
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If he hadn't cleaned the interior of the vehicle in sixteen years he deserves to be caught.
I'd suppose they might be after trace evidence which can remain in situ for years. But I still feel they are throwing everything against the wall to see if they can get anything to stick.
 
I agree with you Catseye. According to that article, his friend said, in a conversation a whole year after the disappearance - "It is indeed strange that she disappeared without a trace" and Brueckner replied:’’Yes, she did not scream.’’ Well that was common knowledge wasn't it, that no screaming was heard - any one of us could have said that. In English the 'yes' implies agreement with the previous statement. It wasn't like the friend claimed he asked 'did she scream when you abducted her?' and Brueckner said 'No she did not scream'.

Anyway, like you I have many suspicions raised by other circumstances of the case and given all the time, money, and input from well-connected people, even after all this time the pressure to pin it on someone anyhow must be there (and who better than a vile criminal who no-one's going to protest about). £13m is a flabberghasting amount of public money.

It's not like they didn't have a vehicle that dogs alerted to already. Just saying.
 
If he hadn't cleaned the interior of the vehicle in sixteen years he deserves to be caught.

lt probably wouldn’t be the interior of the car that would be of interest. One of the factors that convicted Ian Huntley of the Soham murders was a distinctive mix of road surfacing materials from the body deposition site that was found in his car’s wheel arches.

The problem with that is that the reservoir seems to have been a popular place of resort, so even if such trace evidence was found, it would be only circumstantial.

maximus otter
 
I agree with you Catseye. According to that article, his friend said, in a conversation a whole year after the disappearance - "It is indeed strange that she disappeared without a trace" and Brueckner replied:’’Yes, she did not scream.’’ Well that was common knowledge wasn't it, that no screaming was heard - any one of us could have said that. In English the 'yes' implies agreement with the previous statement. It wasn't like the friend claimed he asked 'did she scream when you abducted her?' and Brueckner said 'No she did not scream'.

Anyway, like you I have many suspicions raised by other circumstances of the case and given all the time, money, and input from well-connected people, even after all this time the pressure to pin it on someone anyhow must be there (and who better than a vile criminal who no-one's going to protest about). £13m is a flabberghasting amount of money.

It's not like they didn't have a vehicle that dogs alerted to already. Just saying.
Also, presumably the conversation between Brueckner and his friend took place in German, where words like 'yes' don't have the positive connotation that they do in English, they can (as sometimes in English) just be an acknowledgement. I've noticed a lot of non-English speakers use 'of course' instead of 'yes', for example. When I ask my Hungarian friend if she'd like something, she will say 'of course', which can sound rather abrupt and rude to English speakers ears, as though we're already supposed to know, when it's really just an acknowledgement that, yes, she would like that.
 
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