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| René Magritte - Le blanc-seing (1965) |
Did Kate McCann read my Letter to her ? - 21.05.2011
Kate
McCann has a new book out, Madeleine, an incredible self-serving
propaganda piece which leads me to believe she must have read my letter
(below from October 4, 2007). But, as can happen to people who may have a
narcissistic personality disorder, they just don't know when to shut
up. For, in the book, Kate's explanations further lead me to doubt the
McCanns' claims of innocence in the disappearance of their daughter. One
simple example is the most peculiar speculation of Kate that all her
children may have been drugged by Madeleine's 'abductor' both the night
she went missing and the previous night. First of all, Kate, this would
serve no purpose to the 'abductor' except to waste time and it would be
difficult to accomplish. You must know that. So the only rational reason
you are claiming the children might have been drugged would be to
explain away the fact that, indeed, if it ever is proven they were, you
have covered that issue by explaining you were concerned about the
children's lethargy and someone else is responsible. However, the only
ones likely to have given the children drugs would be you and Gerry.
Any good lawyer will tell you to shut up, but, no, you keep talking, Kate, and we thank you for it.
Note: Some people have misinterpreted sarcasm as seriousness in some of my wording in the post. My reference to Kate having written the book" because she read my letter" is just a general nod to her reason for writing this book; to do damage control and "clear up" the questions people have asked about them and the things they have said about them. I am not actually saying that letter specifically was the reason for her book. Also, my offer to come profile the case, while something I would be happy to do, was more in jest than a serious request to be brought in. Obviously, Kate and Gerry are unlikely to be calling me anytime soon.
Note: Some people have misinterpreted sarcasm as seriousness in some of my wording in the post. My reference to Kate having written the book" because she read my letter" is just a general nod to her reason for writing this book; to do damage control and "clear up" the questions people have asked about them and the things they have said about them. I am not actually saying that letter specifically was the reason for her book. Also, my offer to come profile the case, while something I would be happy to do, was more in jest than a serious request to be brought in. Obviously, Kate and Gerry are unlikely to be calling me anytime soon.
Pat Brown said...
It is possible the police did say something like that although it is rubbish. What does it matter anyone what the perp feels? How is that really going to affect how he treats the child? Actually, it would be better for the parents to be emotional because it might distract him from abusing the child, that he is getting his jollies instead from the parent's suffering and goad the kid about it. In fact, pleading for the child's return is the worst thing to do because a psychopath doesn't care how the parent feels and might be most abused to "return" the kid in a body bag.
It is possible the police did say something like that although it is rubbish. What does it matter anyone what the perp feels? How is that really going to affect how he treats the child? Actually, it would be better for the parents to be emotional because it might distract him from abusing the child, that he is getting his jollies instead from the parent's suffering and goad the kid about it. In fact, pleading for the child's return is the worst thing to do because a psychopath doesn't care how the parent feels and might be most abused to "return" the kid in a body bag.
My
problems with the McCanns' behavior were less about how much emotion
they displayed on air but their often flippant attitudes and misplaced
emotions and peculiar behaviors.
Kate and Gerry are trying to repair their images. She is trying to prove she HAD the proper emotions at the time, but she apparently does not actually know what the proper emotions are. She has placed herself in a drama of her own writing and it is a fictionalized account, in my opinion, of the events.When people tell the truth, it feels like the truth. The facts don't change and get twisted around. This book does not feel like the truth because it likely isn't. And for those who think that maybe someone has come to believe what they say is truth, this in fact is pretty much a myth. What they are is comfortable with the story they have created and comfortable with the expected reaction. Therefore, they are now an actor in their play and can seem to be totally in the role. Works for actors on screen, works in real life.
Kate and Gerry are trying to repair their images. She is trying to prove she HAD the proper emotions at the time, but she apparently does not actually know what the proper emotions are. She has placed herself in a drama of her own writing and it is a fictionalized account, in my opinion, of the events.When people tell the truth, it feels like the truth. The facts don't change and get twisted around. This book does not feel like the truth because it likely isn't. And for those who think that maybe someone has come to believe what they say is truth, this in fact is pretty much a myth. What they are is comfortable with the story they have created and comfortable with the expected reaction. Therefore, they are now an actor in their play and can seem to be totally in the role. Works for actors on screen, works in real life.
A
rich childless couple can simply pay for a child; they don't need to
steal one and they certainly don't need to steal a child from tourists
and cause a major uproar. It is simply not practical. This also applies
to any theory that some sex ring abducted Maddie. They can easily buy a
child or grab one from a poor country where there will be little in the
way of police investigation. The only two possible theories are Maddie
was abducted by a child predator or Maddie was killed by her parents.
Almost all of children and adults abducted by sex predators are dead
within an hour; a few last a day or two, and a very, very, very few are
found alive years later. When this happens, we are stunned and thrilled.
I had a huge grin on my face when I heard Elizabeth Smart was alive -
in spite of the fact I said on television she was likely dead. Wow!
Amazing! It was a great moment but it also signified a bad turn of
thinking for parents and victim support groups. It has become the
fashion now to believe everyone is alive until proven otherwise and to
pressure detectives to search every nook and cranny of the world, track
down every sighting and tip, to leave no stone unturned, just in case,
just in case that missing abducted person is alive. If one stops looking
or spending a lot of money and time on the search, great anger erupts
at law enforcement and any other person who says the victim is likely
dead and the focus should be on body recovery and finding the
perpetrator.
In a perfect world, we would have unlimited resources. If this were true, I would say split the money and manpower in half and one half look for a body and the killer and the other half keep looking for a living victim. But this is the real world and money and manpower is in short supply. One must decide how to allocate the resources that are available. And the method is to follow that 99.9% rule. If all the evidence points to the missing person as being dead, one must focus on body recovery and finding the killer and getting him off the street. The longer it takes to find the body, the less evidence will exist for conviction. The longer it takes to find the killer the less evidence will exist to convict him. If we divert the money and manpower needed to get this evidence, we may not get the killer and then there is a murderer still on the streets who will commit another crime and another innocent person will die. If we spend all our time and money chasing leads that are likely to be worthless, we decrease our chances of catching the killer and we have to then live with the fact we helped create an opportunity for him to kill again. This is wrong. It also should be noted that if one is following the evidence trail, it doesn't matter if the victim is alive or dead; we need to get the perpetrator as quickly as possible anyway (so he can be convicted and the public is safer). If it happens when one gets to the property of the abductor that the victim is still alive, then, hurray! We are incredibly happy!
In a perfect world, we would have unlimited resources. If this were true, I would say split the money and manpower in half and one half look for a body and the killer and the other half keep looking for a living victim. But this is the real world and money and manpower is in short supply. One must decide how to allocate the resources that are available. And the method is to follow that 99.9% rule. If all the evidence points to the missing person as being dead, one must focus on body recovery and finding the killer and getting him off the street. The longer it takes to find the body, the less evidence will exist for conviction. The longer it takes to find the killer the less evidence will exist to convict him. If we divert the money and manpower needed to get this evidence, we may not get the killer and then there is a murderer still on the streets who will commit another crime and another innocent person will die. If we spend all our time and money chasing leads that are likely to be worthless, we decrease our chances of catching the killer and we have to then live with the fact we helped create an opportunity for him to kill again. This is wrong. It also should be noted that if one is following the evidence trail, it doesn't matter if the victim is alive or dead; we need to get the perpetrator as quickly as possible anyway (so he can be convicted and the public is safer). If it happens when one gets to the property of the abductor that the victim is still alive, then, hurray! We are incredibly happy!
"Madeleine" : Wherein lies the Truth – 15.06.2011
It is said there is often
a lot of nonfiction in fiction and a lot of fiction in in nonfiction.
Kate McCann's new autobiography, Madeleine, is a prime example
of this axiom. I say 'autobiography' because Kate's book is not so
much about what happened to her missing daughter, Madeleine Beth, but
about Kate McCann née Healy - her life, her loves and her losses,
her trials and her tribulations. In reality, very little of the book
is about the missing little girl who vanished in Praia da Luz, the
lovely vacation destination in the Algarve of south Portugal; it is a
carefully crafted revisionist history of one of the most puzzling
missing children's cases in recent years and a strident defense
of the characters and behaviors of Kate and Gerry McCann. Children go
missing every day around the world but few children get the level of
publicity that has surrounded the case of Madeleine McCann, who was
almost four-years-old the evening she vanished from the McCann's
Ocean Club apartment, allegedly snatched from her bed as she slept in
a bedroom with her two-year-old twin siblings, Sean and Amelie. What
set this case apart from so many is the fact that her parents were
not at 'home' with their children when this alleged abduction
occurred; they were off, in the (nearby) resort complex dining
and drinking with their seven friends for the evening. For that
matter, all of the infant and toddler children of the Tapas
restaurant party were left alone to fend for themselves while their
parents enjoyed their last night in town.
Madeleine and her
brother, Sean, had spent a good hour of the previous evening crying
for their parents and a couple of the other children were fussy or
ill, one to the point of vomiting while her parents were off having
dinner. Three of the families locked up their apartments while they
were gone, but the McCanns, Kate and her husband, Gerry, say they
left all the doors open so that someone, apparently anyone, could
have easy access to the children. The parents of these children were
hardly uneducated boobs. They were medical doctors and surgeons and
folks of relatively high status back home in their British
communities. The case made the tabloids, but, in fact, it was the
McCanns themselves that courted the media relentlessly, making
Madeleine the most recognized missing child in the world and,
themselves a target of a good deal of criticism and skepticism. They
claimed their campaign was to find Madeleine but a fair number of
people think it was a smokescreen to cover their own criminal acts.
When Madeleine turned up
missing at the end of the evening's revelries, the world was not only
shocked that the little girl disappeared but that her parents were
neglectful in their duties to provide a safe situation for her. Not
only that, but rumors began to fly that the McCann children may have
been sedated by their own parents so as to not be problematic again
when left unattended and with that additional bit of disturbing
information, the McCanns became victims and villains at the same
time. Over the course of the next few months, the police came to
believe that the only victim in this drama was Madeleine who they
surmised died accidentally while left alone and that the McCanns hid
little Madeleine's body somewhere in Praia da Luz, staged an
abduction, and with the help of their friends covered-up the crime.
Four years later, the case remains unsolved and the McCanns remain
under suspicion.
Which is why Kate McCann
wrote her book, Madeleine. Not, in my opinion, to re-energize the
search for her daughter as she claims, but to convince people of her
innocence and raise revenue. Considering the fact the book sold
50,000 copies of the very first day and was serialized for half a
million dollars and the Amazon reviews are mostly glowing and
supportive, I would say Kate has achieved her goals in quite a
smashing way. But, there are still hidden nuggets of gold to be mined
from within Kate's version of what happened in Praia da Luz on May 3,
2007. The one dangerous thing about telling yet another rendition of
events is that there is often truth among the lies or lies among the
truth; this is why police investigators always want
persons-of-interest to keep talking and defense attorneys keep
telling their clients to shut the hell up.
The added information in
Kate's book has enabled me to complete a Profile of the Disappearance
of Madeleine McCann (US) (and UK). I had been reluctant to offer one
for a long time because, in spite of the many police reports and
statements and television appearances of Kate and Gerry McCann, I
wanted to hear the story from one of their mouths, to know their
answers to some very pertinent questions. Kate finally did me the
favor when she wrote, Madeleine, and although most of the book is a
defense of her behaviors and actions, it is through this defense that
Kate has given me a much stronger insight into what likely happened
the night Madeleine went missing and why certain things happened or
did not happen. Even with time to meticulously choose what one wants
to say, it is amazing that what actually ends up coming out is
something that perhaps would be better left unsaid. However, personal
agendas, narcissism, and a lack of objectivity can cloud the judgment
and the end results might not be exactly what the person intended.
And I thank Kate for that.
Let me tell you two of
the biggest revelations in the book: Kate admits no one came through
the window of the children's bedroom. Yes, after years of insisting
that someone broke into the apartment by tampering with the shutters
and forcing the window open, Kate now backs down from that claim,
agreeing with the Policia Judiciara that an abductor did not climbed
into or out of the room. This is sort of a Bombshell Tonight. What
this means is that Kate does not claim the police botched the
evidence and while she still claims there was an abductor that opened
the window for reasons that make no sense, her admission changes how
I view what actually happened that night.
Another fascinating bit
in the book is Kate's incredibly generous forgiveness of Jane Tanner
for not telling her immediately that she saw a man carrying Madeleine
off from the apartment; she is instead thankful that "someone
had seen something." In other words, Kate is happy an abduction
was seen going down, not that she was notified of it in time to do
anything about it. This startling revelation tells me a lot about the
mindset of the McCanns and adds greatly to the profile in determining
what happened to Madeleine.
I hope Kate McCann does achieve her goal of re-energizing the investigation of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and that the truth of the matter will indeed finally come to light.
Why was my MMC Book Banned? - 30.07.2011Five weeks after my book, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann went up on Amazon, it vanished. I didn't receive word from Amazon that they were going to take it off the market nor did I receive word that they had taken it off the market. I learned of its disappearance from someone who went to buy it. I sent Amazon an email and receivde a vague response from someone without a last name (isn't that always the way they do it these days?) who told me the book had been removed from sale for "legal conflicts." I asked for clarification of said legal conflicts and I received this email:
Dear Pat,
We have received a notice of defamation from Carter-Ruck Solicitors that says the content of Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (UPDATED) B0055WYVCQ, contains defamatory statements regarding their clients, Gerry and Kat McCann.
Because we have no method of determining whether the content supplied to us is defamatory, we have removed the title from sale and will not reinstate it unless we receive confirmation from both parties that this matter has been resolved. Carter-Ruck can be reached at:
6 St Andrew Street.....
Best regards,
Robert F.
Oh, I see, Robert with-no-last-name. Amazon was threatened by the McCanns' legal team and Amazon preferred to drop my book rather than face a lawsuit for selling possibly libelous material. Now, I know a lot of people have become very angry about this, that anyone can just send a threat to Amazon about another person's book and without a shred of proof, the bookseller pulls if off the market. It does seem rather unfair; the McCanns do not have any paperwork proving my work is libelous nor are there any court actions against me and, simply at their word, my book is axed. But, there is the rub, actually. Amazon is a business and they do not by law have to sell anything they don't want to sell for whatever reason (garbage, pornography, libelous material, etc.). Of course, their customers can show their wrath over their choice to not include a book in their store by taking their business elsewhere (which some have done due to the removal of my book) or by giving them a lot of heat in the media.
To be fair to Amazon, I will say, there is a new problem with self-published books. There is no protective layer between the author and the bookseller as there has traditionally been with an actual mainstream publisher. When I sold The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths to Hyperion Voice, their lawyers went over every detail with a fine tooth comb and I had to send in all of my files to back each and every case in the book, in spite of the fact I used pseudonyms for everyone. By the time Amazon stocked the book in their online store, they knew the publisher had done its job and if anyone would then be sued it would be Hyperion and me. But, with my self-published book, they have no idea if what the McCanns say is true or not and, if it turns out the McCanns are correct, they might end up in a court themselves. As business people going up against one of the biggest libel attorney practices in the world, Carter-Ruck, they simply thought cutting me loose and getting a bit of bad press and angry emails was the lesser of two evils.
My book is now at Barnes and Noble and Smashwords (50% of royalties earned to go to the Madeleine Search Fund for Praia da Luz, Huelva, and Rothley) among a few other online venues. It will be interesting to see if these outfits also cave to any threat by the McCanns and their solicitors. In the end, the issue remains between the McCanns and Pat Brown and a court of law should either party wish to go there as to whether the Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann is libelous or their claims that my book is libelous are libelous!
My opinion? My book includes the facts of the case from the police files and the words from Kate's book, Madeleine, and the words of the McCanns from their radio and television interviews. From these facts, I lead readers through the various possibilities of what these facts might tell us and what hypotheses we might develop. In the end, I offer the most plausible theory I have derived from the known public facts. Clearly, it is not a theory the McCanns like and a theory they do not want people to read. I find it rather fascinating that they went to Amazon and had the book removed; this behavior in itself is very suspicious to many people. They believe the McCanns do not want my theory to be considered, that there is something in it that makes them very nervous, and there is more to their getting my book banned at Amazon than not liking stuff someone said about them because it wasn't complimentary. If I am just a nutter and my theory is rubbish, they should have rolled their eyes and laughed it off.
Now, I am sure we will see comments here that will say, "Aw, come on, Pat, the reason the McCanns don't want your crap book out there is because it is libelous, you accused them of murder or of covering up a crime, and you based your 'theory' on tabloid information." I will counter by saying no where in the book do I accuse the McCanns of a crime - other than leaving their three tiny children unattended and defenseless - and my theory is not based on the tabloids. Since my theory is an opinion to which I am entitled and because my opinion is based on facts (I am not making some outlandish off-the-wall accusations I took from psychics or Internet gossip) and because the McCanns are very public figures, I see nothing in this book that is libelous and, therefore, I have no problem sharing my profiling theory with the world.
If the McCanns are innocent of covering up a crime (following an accidental death), they should view my theory as a reasonable opinion as to what could have happened, but, simply know that, regardless of the strange happenings that would have led to such a hypothesis, this is simply not what occurred. The fact that there is no proof of an abduction - and this is a fact - does not mean an abduction could not have taken place. But, because there is no proof of an abduction , the McCanns should well understand why they might be considered persons-of-interest in the disappearance of the daughter, Madeleine. They should also recognize that their commission of child neglect also might make them persons-of-interest. In other words, rather than sue and threaten everyone with a theory that they, the McCanns, might be involved in the disappearance of their child, a more normal response would be to simply understand why someone might think that way and deal with it. Even better, the McCanns could return to Portugal and clear up the matter. Kate could answer the questions she refused to answer as an Arguido, they could do the reconstruction, and they could take polygraphs. If they pass the polygraphs, the answers make sense, and the reconstruction clears up what actually happened on May 3, they could stop all the speculation about themselves. But, as long as they refuse to cooperate with the Policia Judiciaria in Portugal, they have no one but themselves to blame for alternative theories to the abduction theory they would like us all to accept.
I have been getting a lot of questions about my search fund to be established with monies from the sale of my book, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Some of the stuff certain folks are saying is seriously ridiculous, so I thought it best I make a clear statement with simple points they can understand.
Robert F.
Oh, I see, Robert with-no-last-name. Amazon was threatened by the McCanns' legal team and Amazon preferred to drop my book rather than face a lawsuit for selling possibly libelous material. Now, I know a lot of people have become very angry about this, that anyone can just send a threat to Amazon about another person's book and without a shred of proof, the bookseller pulls if off the market. It does seem rather unfair; the McCanns do not have any paperwork proving my work is libelous nor are there any court actions against me and, simply at their word, my book is axed. But, there is the rub, actually. Amazon is a business and they do not by law have to sell anything they don't want to sell for whatever reason (garbage, pornography, libelous material, etc.). Of course, their customers can show their wrath over their choice to not include a book in their store by taking their business elsewhere (which some have done due to the removal of my book) or by giving them a lot of heat in the media.
To be fair to Amazon, I will say, there is a new problem with self-published books. There is no protective layer between the author and the bookseller as there has traditionally been with an actual mainstream publisher. When I sold The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths to Hyperion Voice, their lawyers went over every detail with a fine tooth comb and I had to send in all of my files to back each and every case in the book, in spite of the fact I used pseudonyms for everyone. By the time Amazon stocked the book in their online store, they knew the publisher had done its job and if anyone would then be sued it would be Hyperion and me. But, with my self-published book, they have no idea if what the McCanns say is true or not and, if it turns out the McCanns are correct, they might end up in a court themselves. As business people going up against one of the biggest libel attorney practices in the world, Carter-Ruck, they simply thought cutting me loose and getting a bit of bad press and angry emails was the lesser of two evils.
My book is now at Barnes and Noble and Smashwords (50% of royalties earned to go to the Madeleine Search Fund for Praia da Luz, Huelva, and Rothley) among a few other online venues. It will be interesting to see if these outfits also cave to any threat by the McCanns and their solicitors. In the end, the issue remains between the McCanns and Pat Brown and a court of law should either party wish to go there as to whether the Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann is libelous or their claims that my book is libelous are libelous!
My opinion? My book includes the facts of the case from the police files and the words from Kate's book, Madeleine, and the words of the McCanns from their radio and television interviews. From these facts, I lead readers through the various possibilities of what these facts might tell us and what hypotheses we might develop. In the end, I offer the most plausible theory I have derived from the known public facts. Clearly, it is not a theory the McCanns like and a theory they do not want people to read. I find it rather fascinating that they went to Amazon and had the book removed; this behavior in itself is very suspicious to many people. They believe the McCanns do not want my theory to be considered, that there is something in it that makes them very nervous, and there is more to their getting my book banned at Amazon than not liking stuff someone said about them because it wasn't complimentary. If I am just a nutter and my theory is rubbish, they should have rolled their eyes and laughed it off.
Now, I am sure we will see comments here that will say, "Aw, come on, Pat, the reason the McCanns don't want your crap book out there is because it is libelous, you accused them of murder or of covering up a crime, and you based your 'theory' on tabloid information." I will counter by saying no where in the book do I accuse the McCanns of a crime - other than leaving their three tiny children unattended and defenseless - and my theory is not based on the tabloids. Since my theory is an opinion to which I am entitled and because my opinion is based on facts (I am not making some outlandish off-the-wall accusations I took from psychics or Internet gossip) and because the McCanns are very public figures, I see nothing in this book that is libelous and, therefore, I have no problem sharing my profiling theory with the world.
If the McCanns are innocent of covering up a crime (following an accidental death), they should view my theory as a reasonable opinion as to what could have happened, but, simply know that, regardless of the strange happenings that would have led to such a hypothesis, this is simply not what occurred. The fact that there is no proof of an abduction - and this is a fact - does not mean an abduction could not have taken place. But, because there is no proof of an abduction , the McCanns should well understand why they might be considered persons-of-interest in the disappearance of the daughter, Madeleine. They should also recognize that their commission of child neglect also might make them persons-of-interest. In other words, rather than sue and threaten everyone with a theory that they, the McCanns, might be involved in the disappearance of their child, a more normal response would be to simply understand why someone might think that way and deal with it. Even better, the McCanns could return to Portugal and clear up the matter. Kate could answer the questions she refused to answer as an Arguido, they could do the reconstruction, and they could take polygraphs. If they pass the polygraphs, the answers make sense, and the reconstruction clears up what actually happened on May 3, they could stop all the speculation about themselves. But, as long as they refuse to cooperate with the Policia Judiciaria in Portugal, they have no one but themselves to blame for alternative theories to the abduction theory they would like us all to accept.
I have been getting a lot of questions about my search fund to be established with monies from the sale of my book, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Some of the stuff certain folks are saying is seriously ridiculous, so I thought it best I make a clear statement with simple points they can understand.
1. I am not giving or receiving any monies from the McCanns' search fund.
2. At present, 50% of monies received from the sale of the Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann will go to the Pat Brown Maddie Search Fund. The other 50% earned from the book is income, not donations. I am selling a product and do not have to donate all earnings (or any) to charitable causes (however, I do pro bono work on other cases as there are OTHER missing and murdered children and adults than Madeleine in this world, so part of my earnings through any means funds this). I have chosen to donate 50% of the book's earnings to my Maddie search fund since she is the focus of this book.
3. The Pat Brown Maddie Search Fund monies will be not be spent on a personal salary (any time spent will be pro bono). Monies will be used for expenses related to doing a search: travel, equipment, hiring of local PIs, or bringing in experts.
4. If I can cover any search expenses by another other method (media, work in the same location, etc.), then I will do so. I always endeavor to always keep costs low when I do pro bono work so that the funds will stretch further: inexpensive hotels, staying with local people, cheap meals, etc.). If I choose to spend above the cheapest rate I can achieve, I pay out-of-pocket.
5. The Pat Brown Maddie Search Fund will be transparent with all monies earned on the book tracked, all monies put into the account tracked, and all monies spent tracked. A full account will be made to the public of everything associated with my fund and my searches.
6. The Pat Brown Maddie Search Fund has no connection with the McCanns' search fund and the McCanns have not given my fund any endorsement. However, it would seem to me if I search in previously untargeted places and either locate Madeleine or eliminate those possibilities, then the search is nothing but beneficial to the McCanns and is following in the spirit of "Leaving No Stone Unturned."
7. There are four theories as to what happened to Madeleine which influence how one searches for the child; whether one thinks she is dead or alive.
One:, the child died accidentally in the apartment in Praia da Luz and there was a cover-up; then we are looking for a dead child in Portugal, Spain, or England.
Two: a local pedophile abducted Madeleine; then we are looking for a dead child in Praia da Luz, Portugal or nearby.
Three: A woman wanted a little girl and got a man to kidnap Madeleine. Then we are looking for a live child somewhere in the world.
Four: A pedophile sex ring kidnapped Madeleine and she is being raped and abused on a continuing basis. Then we are looking for a live child somewhere in the world.
Now, as one only has limited funds (even the McCanns, although they have been quite hefty), it behooves one to put the strongest efforts into the most likely scenario. If the McCanns were not involved in any way (other than neglect) in the disappearance of their daughter, they ought to be using kindhearted people's donations in the most proper way; looking for a pedophile who abducted, raped and murdered their little girl, get him arrested and convicted so that Madeleine gets justice, and prevent another little girl from the same horrible fate. They should be putting a good portion of their search and investigative efforts into locating a local child sex predator. Why? Because the methodology and descriptions of how Madeleine was supposedly kidnapped and by whom match a person from the area without even a vehicle to take her away in. There is zero evidence of any fancy plot nor even a person smart enough to park a vehicle in the car park right outside the window of Madeleine's bedroom in with which to make a quick getaway. Instead, we have the purported actions and descriptions of some creepy, not-so-bright fellow walking down the street with a child in his arms in full view of everyone. The chances of Madeleine being taken by a desperate wanna-be-Mom or a sex ring are minimal.
Should the McCanns still consider these rare possibilities and still look for a living Madeleine? Well, I can't blame the McCanns (if innocent) for wanting to believe their daughter is alive, so I can understand and accept that they want to put some efforts into that miracle possibility. However, they should be honest enough and good enough stewards of donated monies I(if innocent) to admit the likelihood of Madeleine being dead is very, very high and the likelihood of her being buried somewhere in Praia da Luz or environs is also very, very high. Their efforts should be concentrated there, with some monies set aside for the miracle. So, I will be focusing on the two top theories; that Madeleine died in an accident and her body was hidden somewhere, or a local pedophile took her and her body is buried locally. IF it turns out that I get ANY information that proves Madeleine was abducted or if any evidence turns up that points to her murder by a stranger, this information will go straight to the police and the McCanns. If Maddie was abducted and murdered by a child predator, I want justice for Maddie and I want that creep put away and I want other children to be safe from him.
2. At present, 50% of monies received from the sale of the Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann will go to the Pat Brown Maddie Search Fund. The other 50% earned from the book is income, not donations. I am selling a product and do not have to donate all earnings (or any) to charitable causes (however, I do pro bono work on other cases as there are OTHER missing and murdered children and adults than Madeleine in this world, so part of my earnings through any means funds this). I have chosen to donate 50% of the book's earnings to my Maddie search fund since she is the focus of this book.
3. The Pat Brown Maddie Search Fund monies will be not be spent on a personal salary (any time spent will be pro bono). Monies will be used for expenses related to doing a search: travel, equipment, hiring of local PIs, or bringing in experts.
4. If I can cover any search expenses by another other method (media, work in the same location, etc.), then I will do so. I always endeavor to always keep costs low when I do pro bono work so that the funds will stretch further: inexpensive hotels, staying with local people, cheap meals, etc.). If I choose to spend above the cheapest rate I can achieve, I pay out-of-pocket.
5. The Pat Brown Maddie Search Fund will be transparent with all monies earned on the book tracked, all monies put into the account tracked, and all monies spent tracked. A full account will be made to the public of everything associated with my fund and my searches.
6. The Pat Brown Maddie Search Fund has no connection with the McCanns' search fund and the McCanns have not given my fund any endorsement. However, it would seem to me if I search in previously untargeted places and either locate Madeleine or eliminate those possibilities, then the search is nothing but beneficial to the McCanns and is following in the spirit of "Leaving No Stone Unturned."
7. There are four theories as to what happened to Madeleine which influence how one searches for the child; whether one thinks she is dead or alive.
One:, the child died accidentally in the apartment in Praia da Luz and there was a cover-up; then we are looking for a dead child in Portugal, Spain, or England.
Two: a local pedophile abducted Madeleine; then we are looking for a dead child in Praia da Luz, Portugal or nearby.
Three: A woman wanted a little girl and got a man to kidnap Madeleine. Then we are looking for a live child somewhere in the world.
Four: A pedophile sex ring kidnapped Madeleine and she is being raped and abused on a continuing basis. Then we are looking for a live child somewhere in the world.
Now, as one only has limited funds (even the McCanns, although they have been quite hefty), it behooves one to put the strongest efforts into the most likely scenario. If the McCanns were not involved in any way (other than neglect) in the disappearance of their daughter, they ought to be using kindhearted people's donations in the most proper way; looking for a pedophile who abducted, raped and murdered their little girl, get him arrested and convicted so that Madeleine gets justice, and prevent another little girl from the same horrible fate. They should be putting a good portion of their search and investigative efforts into locating a local child sex predator. Why? Because the methodology and descriptions of how Madeleine was supposedly kidnapped and by whom match a person from the area without even a vehicle to take her away in. There is zero evidence of any fancy plot nor even a person smart enough to park a vehicle in the car park right outside the window of Madeleine's bedroom in with which to make a quick getaway. Instead, we have the purported actions and descriptions of some creepy, not-so-bright fellow walking down the street with a child in his arms in full view of everyone. The chances of Madeleine being taken by a desperate wanna-be-Mom or a sex ring are minimal.
Should the McCanns still consider these rare possibilities and still look for a living Madeleine? Well, I can't blame the McCanns (if innocent) for wanting to believe their daughter is alive, so I can understand and accept that they want to put some efforts into that miracle possibility. However, they should be honest enough and good enough stewards of donated monies I(if innocent) to admit the likelihood of Madeleine being dead is very, very high and the likelihood of her being buried somewhere in Praia da Luz or environs is also very, very high. Their efforts should be concentrated there, with some monies set aside for the miracle. So, I will be focusing on the two top theories; that Madeleine died in an accident and her body was hidden somewhere, or a local pedophile took her and her body is buried locally. IF it turns out that I get ANY information that proves Madeleine was abducted or if any evidence turns up that points to her murder by a stranger, this information will go straight to the police and the McCanns. If Maddie was abducted and murdered by a child predator, I want justice for Maddie and I want that creep put away and I want other children to be safe from him.
My theory as I laid out in my Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann is just that; a theory. If evidence surfaces that changes my view of what happened to Madeleine, I have no problem disclosing this and adjusting my theory. Theories change based on available evidence; hence, they are called theories, not facts. Theories often change over time, even those postulated by law enforcement and the McCanns. Even Kate admits in her book, Madeleine, her theories of what happened that night have undergone change as she has spent more time analyzing the evidence or after receiving new information. Why the McCanns had Carter-Ruck threaten Amazon with legal action to get a theory removed from public view is curious as it is only a theory, an opinion, one person's take on probabilities based on what is known at this point in time. Perhaps we will find out why they went to these lengths when the McCanns get on the witness stand in a court of law (when my lawsuit for libel and tortious interference with business makes it to court; I have retained prominent attorney Anne Bremner of Stanford Frey Cooper). Perhaps, then, they will explain why one person's opinion is so concerning they need to go to extremes to get have it silenced.
Madeleine McCann is the most recognized missing child in the world, with the most media attention of any missing child in the world. Unless I am mistaken, more money has been donated to finding Madeleine McCann than any child in the world. My Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann should hardly affect such a large and successful (moneywise) campaign; so one wonders if the real issue the McCanns have with my profile is that my theory might actually be correct. I believe in Freedom of Speech. I don't object to the theories of others on cases even if they differ from mine. I don't even object to someone analyzing my theory and writing their opinion of it. I would never try to shut down their viewpoint (even when things are taken out of context and misrepresented in some way); I merely suggest that interested people go to the source and compare the two viewpoints and think for themselves about what theories and concepts are more supportable by evidence and logic.
Madeleine McCann is the most recognized missing child in the world, with the most media attention of any missing child in the world. Unless I am mistaken, more money has been donated to finding Madeleine McCann than any child in the world. My Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann should hardly affect such a large and successful (moneywise) campaign; so one wonders if the real issue the McCanns have with my profile is that my theory might actually be correct. I believe in Freedom of Speech. I don't object to the theories of others on cases even if they differ from mine. I don't even object to someone analyzing my theory and writing their opinion of it. I would never try to shut down their viewpoint (even when things are taken out of context and misrepresented in some way); I merely suggest that interested people go to the source and compare the two viewpoints and think for themselves about what theories and concepts are more supportable by evidence and logic.
The McCanns could simply have ignored this profiler's opinion on Madeleine's disappearance or made a statement that they do not think my analysis is very good. If the book was truly libelous as they claimed through their solicitors, Carter-Ruck, they should have informed me of this or sued me directly. Instead, they went behind the scenes and had the book pulled from the market. Inquiring minds wonder why. I will be in Portugal in February to support Detective Amaral's fight against the McCanns in court, to begin search analysis, and to hear just what Gerry and Kate McCann have to say. May the truth come out one day and justice for Madeleine McCann prevail.
The Truth about Criminal Profiler Pat Brown – 14.11.2011
I bet all my detractors will rush over to read this before anyone else. I am not posting here to try to win them over, however; I doubt my words will change many of my hater's viewpoints of me and, in fact, I will probably see some of what I say here distorted yet again on certain websites. However, I want truth-seeking people to have a place to get the actual facts so, I am going to clarify and correct the seven most oft-touted, incorrect, sometimes libelous claims about me that have traveled around the Internet. Anyone who is over the age of seventy in the United States probably remembers the days when local screwballs showed up at every town meeting, sent letters in to the town newspaper, and sp0uted off at the local coffee shop. The letters got vetted and rarely printed, saner citizens at the town meetings corrected their misinformation, and if they got obnoxious at Milly's Diner, they were asked to leave. Their mental disorders were obvious and their rantings dismissed as evidence of a disordered mind. They usually weren't enough like-minded loonies in one town to with the ability to get together and form a group. But, welcome to the year 2011 on the Internet! With a simple Google, Twitter, or Facebook search, the personality-disordered and extremist individuals have found a way to band together and spread propaganda, lies, and half-truths around Cyberspace; they have world-wide platform for their ravings and, worse yet, if a target of one of these groups becomes the target of another group, they come together to gleefully cheer on the other attackers. Let me be honest, though; not all folks who write negative things about me have psychiatric problems or are fabricators; they have heartfelt opinions about me and some are accurate about the facts. I will support their right to criticize me to their heart's content as this is what Freedom of Speech is all about.
Unfortunately, it is often hard to tell the difference between legitimate discussion - fair, if strongly felt criticism, of a person or their beliefs - and propaganda attacks. Who is standing up for truth and justice and who is just out to trash others to make themselves feel good, give themselves a sense of power, and to support their misguided agendas? How can you tell the difference? One, pay attention to the logic of the argument. Are they ignoring what the person is really saying and taking everything out of context? Two, are they making purely ad hominem attacks, veering off the topic to address various other negative suppositions about the person? Three, do they use angry and insulting language to describe the person they are denigrating when this person has not committed any kind of criminal or immoral act? Four, do your own research and go to the person's own websites, videos, Facebook, and Google, and learn what you can about that person from their own words. When I became a criminal profiler fifteen years, I had no experience in being the victim of hate campaigns, propaganda, and stalkers. Before I embarked on my new career, I had been an full-time at-home mother, I homeschooled my children, and, when they got older, I worked part-time interpreting for the Deaf at area hospitals. My world was fairly small and I did not even have email.
Then, when I rented a room to a new boyfriend of a female church friend, my life turned upside-down. Four weeks after moving into my home (and I had a background check done on him; he came back clean plus he didn't do drugs or drink), my girlfriend got creeped out by his behaviors and broke up with him. That evening, he left her home and walked down the bike path from her house to mine. The following day, a woman's body was found, naked and brutalized, in the stream next to the path. My renter acted strangely the next morning and made the odd comment that he had indeed walked down the path but right before the location where the murdered jogger was found, he decided to wade across the stream, going out of his way, making a big U of a detour instead of continuing on, as he usually did, straight down the path to my house. He then made a disturbing comment to my friend on the phone in response to her question about possibly hurting himself over their break-up. He said, "You don't know what I have already done." The next day while he was at work, I found he had thrown away all the clothes he had worn the previous evening; his brand new jeans, his brand new tennis shoes, and his new shirt which had a number of rips in it, all wet from having been in water. He also had thrown away a perfectly nice martial arts style of knife and a clump of mud wrapped in plastic.
I turned this evidence over to the police and turned him out of my house. The detective on the case never interviewed this man in spite of his admission he was on the path at the time of the crime, in spite of the fact there was a precipitating incident occurring right before the crime, and in spite of the fact he had thrown perfectly good clothes away. I was shocked by the lack of follow-through by this police agency. And the lack of publicity that this horrific sexual homicide of a beautiful 22-year old NASA intern received in the media. This was the start of my interest in criminal profiling, police investigations, and justice. We often hear we should not just whine about what is wrong with society, but do something about it, and I decided that this distressing failure of the criminal justice system was an area I might address as my children grew older and I had more spare time.
One thing I told myself going into this line of work was that I would always be open and honest and seek truth and justice regardless of whether it made me popular or not, upset those who didn't want to hear the truth or those that didn't want the reality of certain failures of the system exposed. It is this very pact I made with my conscience that has garnered me enemies and haters. I clearly have not played by the rules. Because of my outspoken manner, individuals and groups have risen up to discredit me - not just my viewpoint on a subject - but to attack me personally and take me down, so my opinions might be silenced or ignored. Here is where the Internet becomes open season for propaganda and disinformation, lies and half-truths that are spread without concern of any penalty, often spread by people whose names are never known. These untruths may be repeated over and remain on the Internet for decades.
It serves me little purpose to spar with each and every individual or group of like-minded people every time they post an untruth or blog a vicious attack on me. Anyone who is in the public eye is used to seeing all kinds of stuff about them spouted in various forums and one cannot engage in an ongoing battle with one's abusers. But, for the purposes of setting the record straight on some of the biggest claims made and spread about me, I will do so here this one time, so that people who want to know what is true and what is not true have a place to find out the facts. I will not name names or put links to the websites of the people who said certain things about me: they may have simply made an honest mistake or they may have said something in anger they cannot take back now that it is on the Internet or they may be aggressive individuals that don't need to get more publicity for their agenda.
Claim #1 Pat Brown is just a housewife who got her college degree from a paper mill. She is no more than a wannabe armchair detective who has never been in law enforcement and just read some books and hung out a shingle. This a bunch of half-truths. When I decided to become a criminal profiler, I was too old to join the police or FBI; they have age discrimination. I wanted to study criminal profiling but there were no college programs. I DID rather hang out my own shingle but I was always very clear on my background. I studied hundreds of books on every connected subject which is far more than I ever read for my MA in Criminal Justice from Boston University (hardly a paper mill). I also worked in the emergency room, psych wards, holding cells, and rape examination rooms for ten years which greatly helped my understanding of forensic pathology, trauma wounds, psychology, psychopathy, rape, victimization, and criminal behavior. I also went to many seminars attended by law enforcement in the areas of crime investigation, forensics, and criminal behavior. And, finally, I did take an online course in profiling that was available at the time. I have worked fifteen years in the field and haven't been a housewife or armchair detective for a decade and a half. I have developed the first Certificate in Criminal Profiling in the United States for Excelsior College.
Claim #2 Pat Brown has never worked with law enforcement or solved a case. I have worked with numerous law enforcement agencies over the years. I have "solved" cases in the sense that I strongly believe my profile of the case was accurate. Actually, criminal profilers don't really "solve" cases. As a deductive profiler I analyze cases, make determinations as to what most likely happened, why, and by whom, all of which I detail with the evidence that supports those determinations. It is the detectives' job to "solve" the case and the prosecutors job to take it to court. One of the most distressing things I was to learn in my many years of working cold cases is that cold cases without DNA almost never make it to court. Sadly, by the time a profiler comes in and finds a lead that went unnoticed or profiles the case in an entirely different (and possibly the correct) direction, it is almost always too late to get the evidence to pursue the case to any conclusion. Because of this problem, an outside profiler's work is usually then quietly filed away and the police agency will not discuss the fact that the profiler might have been right and that the investigation was wrongheaded for years. In my experience, a portion of cases that become cold do so because the investigative focus was incorrect early on. For this reason, I rarely work cold cases anymore. Instead, I am working to encourage the establishment of criminal profilers in police departments that will be part of the team when the case is fresh. I also am working to see that detectives get better training in profiling so that they can improve the analyses of their own cases. Detectives are often undertrained due to budget issues and overworked due to those same budget issues. Some are simply new on the job and lack skill and experience. Many detectives do a very good job on cases and these get solved. I want to see see the closure rate improve and that is the main goal of my career.
Claim #3 Other profilers - in the FBI and independent - don't respect Pat Brown. This is a half-truth. Some profilers like me a lot. Some can't stand me. There is a lot of professional jealousy and egos in the field, partially because there are not enough profilers in the field, so the few that exist fight to be the most known. I would like to see the day when there are hundreds of profilers across the country so that we can all just do our jobs without grandstanding. As to the FBI profilers who might not speak kindly of me, their issues with me are two-fold: one, the FBI used to be the only source of profilers and the advent of independent criminal profilers is competition, and two, the FBI employs inductive profiling while I use deductive profiling and there is a rift in the field over which methodology is better.
Claim #4 Pat Brown stalks people. This one started with my investigation of my renter, the person-of-interest in the sexual homicide and my second case as a profiler. Another profiler (whose well-written books I promote) was not happy with my rising visibility in criminal profiling field. He wrote on his website that I had stalked two men I suspected of sexual homicides. He claimed that there was no evidence in either crime indicating that my persons-of-interest had any involvement. This was blatantly untrue.
My renter (pseudonym Walt Williams in my book, The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths), is and has been for the past fourteen years, the one and only suspect in the sexual homicide of the jogger. It took me six years to get the case reopened after the first detective had closed the case administratively, blaming the murder on an 18-year-old boy who committed suicide in the area a few days after the crime. There was no evidence linking that young man to the homicide. In 1996, the new detective on the case, reviewed the physical evidence I had found and the behavioral evidence I had uncovered and Walt Williams finally became a person-of-interest. He was brought in and polygraphed and had his DNA tested. He fail the poly but because so much time had passed and there was no DNA from the perpetrator from the scene of sufficient quantity to test, there was not a good enough case for arrest and prosecution. However, the detective agreed with me that the evidence pointed heavily in the direction of Walt Williams and that he believed he Williams was likely the perpetrator.The case remains open to this day.
The second case in which the other profiler claims I pursued an innocent man for no justifiable reason, was brought to me by the son of the murdered woman who was frustrated with the detectives on the case who kept saying her fiance killed her. After profiling the case, I came up with a match to my profile; Bobby Joe Leonard, a man who had been doing temporary work on the woman's property three weeks prior to the crime and had been allowed into the woman's bedroom to remove an old computer she was giving to him. The woman was found strangled and her body hidden in her bedroom closet. This man, Bobby Joe Leonard, the man the other profiler says I targeted unfairly, is serving a life sentence for the abduction, rape and attempted murder of a 13-year-old girl he strangled and hid in a closet. Prosecutors on that case agree with me that Bobby Joe Leonard likely murdered my client's mother, but the police department on the case still refuses to acknowledge Leonard's probable involvement and the case remains open to this day.
The third stalking claim is that I went after a true crime author to find out if his dead wife had been truly raped. This is a half-truth. I was part of the author's blog, one of the regulars who posted every month. One Thanksgiving, this man posted a faux slasher video as a humorous item for the readers' "holiday enjoyment." The video showed a teenage cheerleader jumping on a trampoline who then did the splits and came down on a sword pushed through the trampoline up through her vagina. The second video showed a dead women trussed up like a turkey and served for dinner. Sweet, eh? Well, a few of us female authors on the blog were upset with this misogynistic offering, especially because many readers of that blog were victims of crime or families of crime victims. The blog owner's response was that we were a bunch of old ninnies and there was nothing wrong with gore and slasher films and even victims of crime thought they were cool. He said certain well-known victim's organizations liked him a lot and had no issues with his support in the making and promotion of violent gore and slasher films.
So, I contacted these organizations who all soundly denied approving of this man's placement of the Thanksgiving faux slasher video on the site and I received statements from these organizations that they in no way approve of misogynistic slasher/gore films. While in the midst of proving that victims of brutal crime do not think gore/slasher films are cool, I read that this true crime/blog owner's deceased wife supposedly was the victim of a brutal gang rape. I found that extremely bizarre; how could the husband of a woman who had suffered the horror and indignity of the worst kind of rape promote films which depict the rape and mutilation of women? So I sent an email to find out if this story about the deceased wife was true. It turned out it was. I am not sure if it would be better to believe someone had made up the story to have common ground with the victims of crime he interviews for the books he writes or to think he lacked empathy for women who have suffered the same sexual violence as his departed wife. I think I would have preferred the former as I have long been a strong voice against gore and slasher films; I think they encourage violent ideation in psychopathic individuals and are a sick form of amusement no society should be proud of or wish to see proliferate. Having said all of this, I will say that this particular author writes perfectly readable true crime books. My issue with him was over continued victimization of victims of violent crime and promotion of psychopathic criminal fantasy.
The fourth victim I supposedly stalked was the webmaster for the true crime author above. For the next four years, she posted derogatory things about me on many blogs and forums, on her MySpace page, on Twitter, on Facebook; she wrote whole pieces attacking me and even established a blog dedicated to proving me a fraud. She harassed me repeatedly on my own blogs and Facebook pages. I was able to preserves pages and pages of evidence in case there was every a point in taking action. Meanwhile, I never sent her an email or responded back except for one time on my own blog telling her to cease and desist. Yet, to this day she claims that I was the stalker, her stalker. Not only has she stalked me, but there is a long list of people she has harassed over the years causing them incredible stress and grief, especially to those not quite as high profile in the media as me, who are not used to ongoing attacks and abuse. Too bad she has taken this route because she actually is a very intelligent person and writes quite decently.
Claim #4 Pat Brown abuses victims. This accusation was actually started by the stalker above. She claimed the wife of the true crime author was a victim of my stalking (which is an odd label to be given for asking one question) and then she became the next victim stalked (purportedly because she wrote an unpleasant post about me. She claims I know that she has been the victim of domestic abuse and other horrific abuses meted out by others that have caused her emotional suffering and I wanted to do her in because she spoke up against me). Working to promote me as an "abuser of victims," she (and others have jumped on board) claim that my work to educate women on the dangers of certain behaviors, behaviors that put one in harm's way, is somehow victimizing victims. When I warn women that drinking too much can make one unable to fend off a date rapist, they claim I am blaming the woman, not the rapist for the crime. When I warn women not to go running in isolated places, they claim I am blaming the jogger, not the serial killer for the crime. When I warn young women not to meet with their ex-boyfriend alone so he can "get closure," they claim I am blaming the young women for their psycho boyfriend killing them. What I have said and will say again is that our criminal justice system is too soft on predators, that they ought to be locked up and not let back out or at least get long sentences, but, since they are soft and the predators are out there, we must warn women and teach them how to stay out of their clutches.
Claim #5 Pat Brown excuses criminality and is a big leftist. There is a new link to a blog making it way around the Internet which claims Pat Brown is soft on criminals and is some kind of pawn of the liberal media. This claim always make me laugh. I have no issues with people being liberal or conservative, or even far to the right or left. I may have a rousing discussion with them but I can still like a person with diametrically opposing views. I, myself, am a conservative, a constitutionalist, pro-Second Amendment, pro-carry, and pro-death penalty. The concept that I am a big liberal/anti-gun/soft on crime started in two places. Both came from the far right over the issues of gun control and terrorism. Some pro-gun folk on a particular site got all bent out of shape over a television commentary I did on men who kill their girlfriends. I pointed out that if you are a woman and you note these three things in your fellow, you might want to run the other way: a very controlling personality, an obsession with violence, and a massive gun collection. These pro-gun folks only paid attention to the last part and saw red; Pat Brown is saying all men with a gun collection are violent psychopaths who kill their wives and girlfriends. Of course, this is not true. (…)
And, finally, Claim #7 Pat Brown accuses innocent people of crimes for fame and money. Well, I have never been in this business for fame and money. I want to change profiling methodology. I want to see more killers put away for good. I want to see children not suffer at the hands of pedophiles and abusive parents. I have never cared much for a fancy lifestyle and anyone who knows me knows this is true. Staying home with babies and then homeschooling for a total of twenty years is not a great way to become rich! I have always done pro bono work for law enforcement (not because they won't pay me but because independent profilers have never been funded by police agencies to any degree) and I continue to do so. I do not object, however, to earning a living and what I do for a living is profiling, commentating, educating, and writing. If I don't accept money for any of my time spent working, I will be living under a bridge.
If I really wanted to get great publicity and make good money, I would have profiled the West Memphis Three (WM3) as innocent of the murder of three little boys and I would have profiled the Madeleine McCann case as nothing but an abduction. I would have sold a ton of those profiles and had a huge group to cheer on my analyses. Instead, looking at the evidence, my profiles question the innocence of the three convicted men in the WM3 case and the claim of abduction in the Madeleine McCann case. I have receive a massive amount of abuse for standing up for what I think the evidence points to instead of jumping on the bandwagon which would be the easy way out.
As I head into a legal battle with my attorney, Anne Bremner (read my Women in Crime Ink blog post on the issue) with Gerry and Kate McCann over having their solicitors, Carter-Ruck, threaten Amazon with a libel lawsuit (okay, it was a notice of defamation but if you get a letter from the biggest libel attorneys in the world saying a book is defamatory and the letter is a clear warning that there will be legal action if the book is not removed from sale, it certainly is a threat of a libel lawsuit) if they didn't pull my book, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, from the market (ebook still available at B&N and Smashwords), I am sure the attacks on me will increase. I have already received a label of publicity whore and scumbag who makes money off the blood of murdered and missing children; I'll live. But, there is something very important at stake here in my upcoming lawsuit against the McCanns; Freedom of Speech and Justice for Children.
First, Freedom of Speech. If we end up in a world where people connected to criminal cases can muzzle the detectives, profilers, the media, the public...anyone who disagrees with a particular line of thinking, anyone who might have a different theory of what happened, any citizen who might want to fight to see a case solved, see justice done and public safety upheld, then we will have a worsening situation for missing and murdered children. The McCanns insist that their daughter, Madeleine, was abducted and is not dead and they have a large following supporting their contentions and donating money to search for a living child. I have no issue with this. If Madeleine McCann turns out to be alive, living with some crazy family or being held captive by some pedophile ring, I want that ring shut down and that crazy family put away. I am glad there are some looking at these options; if the theory I believe has the most evidence to support it about Madeleine not being alive proves not to be what happened to Madeleine and the theory that she is alive turns out to be the right one, I will be glad someone was checking it out.
On the other hand, if my theory that Madeleine is not alive is correct, then shouldn't someone be looking for a local pedophile in Praia da Luz, Portugal, who has murdered the little girl and may be looking for the next child to torture and kill? Don't we want justice then for Madeleine and safety for other children? And, if it turns out that Madeleine died of an accident in the McCann's vacation apartment and there was a cover-up, shouldn't this be brought to light that the Portuguese Detective Amaral was correct in his analysis and the Fund is a scam rather than a resource to find Madeleine and bring her home? I see nothing wrong with discussing a number of theories and arguing their merits; however the McCanns threaten lawsuits any time someone questions what happened to Madeleine that night that doesn't agree with their particular theory. The McCanns committed serious child neglect leaving three toddlers alone to fend for themselves in an unsafe situation (no adults to help them in case of accident or illness, strange apartment, locked doors some nights which could cause them to die in a fire, and unlocked doors other nights that could cause them to be kidnapped or wander off) night after night and, since there is no evidence of an abduction and there is a possibility that an accident could have befallen one of the unattended children, the McCanns should not blame anyone for theorizing that maybe no one kidnapped Madeleine and that Madeleine is not alive.
If we look the other way when children are neglected and abused, if we excuse poor behaviors on the part of parents that threaten their children's health and welfare, if we ignore pedophiles and serial killers that may have killed a child just so we can pretend the child is alive, if we get mad every time someone points out reality and truth -especially if it means we sue them or remove their voice from being heard - we will not be able to improve our investigative methods or our criminal justice system, and we won't be able to focus on societal issues that need to be addressed and ameliorated. If we stop people from speaking up, we lose our freedom to challenge and defend, and our chance for each of us to make a difference in bettering this world. I hope my post enlightens everyone as to "The Truth about Pat Brown." You may love me or you may hate me, support me or wish I would go away, but, if nothing else, you have heard it from the horse's mouth and not the donkey's. And I won't infringe on your Freedom of Speech if you don't infringe on mine.
Personal and Professional Responsibility - The Leveson Inquiry – 26.11.2011
For those who don't know, the Leveson Inquiry that has been going on in the UK is essentially a hearing about media intrusion into private lives and grievous media abuse by way of printing lies and outrageous stories without basis in fact. I am not going to discuss any particular people who gave testimony at the Inquiry but I want to discuss where I feel both professional and personal responsibility has an impact on what ends up in the media and where those of us in the media need to point the finger - at others or ourselves - and under what circumstances. First, I agree with much that was said about the media's need to act in a professional and legal manner. No story should take precedence over the physical safety of those the news reporters are attempting to write about (running them down with a car, crushing them against a wall, tripping them, etc.) as all of these actions are clearly physical assaults which are crimes.Next, journalists are supposed to be writing news, not gossip, nor opinion. Therefore, they should have facts and legitimate sources to back up their stories. For example, some silly folks have been recently claiming on Twitter and Facebook that I am a drunk - I guess because I made a joke about how wine can't be sold before a certain time in the morning in Washington DC and a couple of times I made reference to having a wine with dinner. This is all quite ridiculous because anyone who spends time around me knows I rarely have more than a glass of wine or one beer a couple times a week, if that. I could count the times in my life on one hand when I have had more than two glasses of anything alcoholic in the same night.
But, suppose someone had caught a pic of me the day I got out of a car in front of CNN and sprawled into the road. I had stepped sideways and caught my tennis shoe on the edge, my ankle caved and I went down onto the pavement. Next we read in the press, "Profiler Pat Brown in Drunken Sprawl at CNN!" Okay, that really is libelous. It is NOT news because the reporter didn't actually bother to find out if I was drunk; he would have gotten a cool pic, linked it to Internet gossip, and published this bogus story. This is the kind of thing that has gotten out of hand in the tabloids and on Internet "news" sites (gather.com, examiner.com, etc) where there is no concern for actually reporting of facts and there is a dearth of editors and a lot of money to be made making up stuff and not worrying about its veracity.
There, however, is nothing wrong with printing that a professional person has a theory (as it is a fact that person has a theory) as long as it it made clear that this is what it is. A newspaper or news magazine is also supposed to be to a reasonable extent (although in reality this is often not true) impartial and merely reporting the news; the idea is there ought to be some even-handedness in reporting what is going on in the world or a particular story. The journalist is supposed to squelch his viewpoints and just reports the facts, ma'am. I do differentiate print news outlets and television news outlets which have clearly added a great deal of commentary to the news these days, and, as long as it is clearly commentary and is not mixed up with the actual facts of the news, I am okay with it.
So, I agree with many speaking at the Leveson Inquiry that the media is a bit out of control in its aggressiveness in getting a hot story or making one up that is simply not true. But, there is another aspect to some of this: excessive whining by those who court the media or who seek fame and fortune and then don't like ALL of the results. Or for those who end up in the media due to behaviors that have landed them in hot water. Look, sometimes we make mistakes, do stupid stuff, even outrageous shit, or even do something that is right but risky and we get stuck with the unfortunate results of said behaviors. I think we can all relate to this in some form or another. We all likely have humiliated ourselves at some time in our lives or lost a friend or a job due to some remark or bad behavior; we have suffered the consequences of our actions, regardless of whether we knew what was coming or got blindsided. If we did something foolish, we have to live with it. If we did something courageous but got slammed for it, we have to still live with it. This is called "life."
When it comes to people stepping into the media spotlight..hullo....yes, you did know you were playing with fire. If you have become ridiculously famous or rich or you take major risks in life, you gotta deal with it. If you a a rich businessman in Mexico, Central or South America, you cannot be unaware that kidnapping of your children could happen to you. If you are an international reporter in a war zone, you can't say you thought getting your leg blown off by an IED was as an impossibility. Police officers know they may get shot, mountain climbers know they may fall, boxers know they may get brain damage. Choices comes with consequences. Marilyn Monroe or J.K. Rowling were once unknowns and walked the streets without anyone paying them a bit of attention. Then they became rich and famous and they both had the media and fans bugging the hell out of them. Yes, that is what comes with the territory and it is bit annoying to hear the whining about "I have no private life," and "News people follow me around." No shit, Sherlock. Lucky for you, you can buy a billion dollar house with massive walls and security and you can ride in a limo with bodyguards and you can afford to fly to some isolated tropical paradise for your vacation.
I am no where in the league of Monroe or Rowling with fame and fortune, but I have to deal with the downside of being on television, being an author, and being vocal about issues I believe need to be addressed, sometimes the less popular side of the debate. I get hate email, I have libelous garbage and vicious rumors spread about me on the Internet, I have pages dedicated to trashing my work and my reputation, and I have unflattering pictures that show up (some taken by people I have met at a public function, some from bad days on television, and some that have been Photoshopped). I have had the media report things incorrectly, repeat libelous stuff, and write less than flattering stories about me. These things are not exactly pleasant, but if you step into this kitchen you better learn to take the heat and find ways to minimize its negative effects. Some celebrities have assistants that only pass on fan mail and block everything else. Some celebrities have entourages to cheer them on and tell them how wonderful they are day and night. Some celebrities go to therapists.
I have found my own ways to deal with negative assaults on me. I have a "Hate Mail" file in my Outlook box. As soon as I see nastiness seeping out of the words in front of me, I say, "Bye!" and toss it into the hate file. I block stalkers and harassers from my site on Facebook and Twitter (no, this is not curtailing your Freedom of Speech). Mostly, I keep a sense of humor and humility about negative opinions of me: some actually have a bit of validity( I am not a perfect person and sometimes I think, well, yeah, he is kind of right about that...) and others just are so ridiculous, you really can laugh about what they say. So far I have been called a drunk, a liar, a fraud, a narcissist, a psychopath, a media whore, a moneygrubber, a sadist, a neglectful mother, an abusive mother, a vicious fishwife, a menopausal psychotic, a stalker, a fugly bitch...am I forgetting something? (Don't worry, someone will show up in the comments and fill in the blanks). Luckily, after a while, you kind of get used to it, especially in the days of Internet communications where it is essentially the Wild Wild West again with everyone and his brother taking potshots at you..
I also have to be careful of what I do. I surely will not be on a nude beach anytime soon or that pic will show up on Facebook within minutes (being my age, quite frankly, I am not too happy about ANY photo showing up of me in a bathing suit). I have to be careful in any public location and in any relationship. God knows, with cell phone cameras, you better know who you are alone with or you are going to end up on YouTube in a sex video. When you come right down to it, you DO lose your private life when you become a public figure and you have to work overtime to protect those private moments by going to very well controlled private situations (your own home, a trusted friend's home, etc) or a far off place where no one has a clue who you are or you have to go in disguise. Not always an easy life, but if one wants out of the limelight, one can get out of the limelight.
Another important thing for people at this Leveson Inquiry to recognize (as well as all others who are getting media attention) is that the people matter the most don't pay that much mind to the media garbage out there. My family and friends know exactly who I am, as do the people I work with; my interactions with them are the same as they have always been because when we are together, we have our same personal and professional relationship which depends on just me and them and not on all the stories that run rampant out in the papers and on websites. So, does the media need to get its act together? I say, "Yes," as far as properly reporting the news and not crossing the line of libel and physical assault. But, media personalities also need to get their acts together and acknowledge their own responsibility for the life they have chosen, accept the pros and cons of that lifestyle and stop blaming everyone else for the downside of fame and fortune. If it really is too much, give away all your money and go live in Bangladesh.
By the way, ask most people who receive a lot of media attention if they would rather give up their high profile life and I doubt you will find many who would wnt to.. There are definitely negatives that come with media visibility but I can tell you that the opportunities that come with that visibility are most often worth the downside of fame - and I am not talking about money, but the ability to do things that would never have been possible without that media boost - increased communications, achieving goals in one's field that would be impossible without a high profile, having an impact on important issues - so many advantages come from the limelight, that those who are lucky to be the rare ones to get any amount of it should refrain from complaining about being famous. They should thank their lucky stars.
Are Cadaver Dogs saying You're Lying? - 13.12.2011
Kate and Gerry McCann at
launch of 'Madeleine'
Gerry and Kate McCann, parents of the missing child, Madeleine McCann, dismiss the fact that Eddie, the cadaver dog, hit in their vacation apartment and in their rental car in 2007 (but not in any of their friends' vacation apartments nor early suspect Robert Murat's house or property) as meaningless because cadaver dogs are "rubbish." In that same year, a cadaver dog also alerted to the smell of death in Adrian Prout's UK home after his wife, Kate, vanished. Although he claimed he was innocent and her body had not been found, Prout was convicted. After having a fan club that protested steadily that Prout was railroaded, Prout confessed and indicated the area where the body was buried; then more cadaver dogs helped police in the search and Kate's body was found on his farm.
Now, cadaver dogs have
hit again in a missing child case. Two-year-old Bianca Jones went
missing in Detroit on December 2. Her father, D'Andre Lane, who was
babysitting her at time, claimed on the day he was to return the
child to her mother's home, he was carjacked at 10 in the morning by
two men with guns. Now, his story stinks worse than a decomposing
body. First of all, the "carjackers" choose him (a
streetwise felon) driving a 1994 Mercury Marquis (not exactly a hot
car from the most carjacked automobiles list). Daddy, seeing two
thugs are about to drive off with his little girl puts up no
resistance. Instead he calls 911 and the police go searching for the
car.
Bianca Jones father plea
Oddly, it is found just six blocks away (and one block from Binika Jones' house, the mother of Bianca), with no child in it. So, let me get this straight. These two carjackers went to the trouble of ousting D'Andre Lane from a car with a toddler in the car seat, don't take the car somewhere and strip it, don't sell it, don't use it for committing robberies (a common use of a carjacked vehicle) and don't take it for a joyride. They drive just six blocks and dump it. Maybe they didn't realize there was a child in it and, therefore abandoned the car? Maybe, but then why would they take the child? The story blows. And so did Dre's attempt to pass the polygraph. Not only that, but two witnesses saw the action: one saw D'Andre driving alone down the street and the other, standing by a window overlooking the alley, saw Lane pull the vehicle into it and walk away. No baby seen with him or in the car. D'Andre Lane is swearing up and down he didn't have anything to do with his daughter going missing, but everything about his story has been pretty much been annihilated by the circumstances and witnesses. The cadaver dogs hitting in his apartment and in his car pretty much puts a bow on his story as being a crock. D'Andre Lane is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but he isn't a suspect for nothing. In the words of Gerry McCann, "Ask the dogs."
Why Madeleine McCann is Likely Dead – 15.12.2011
40% of children in stereotypical kidnappings are killed.
4% of children are never found.
79% kidnappings are carried out by strangers and 21% by acquaintances. In 46 percent of non-family abductions, the child was sexually assaulted.Of abducted children who are ultimately murdered, 74 percent are dead within three hours of the abduction
Okay, so what do we actually have here? Of the 115 stereotypical kidnapped children, a good portion of these are pre-teens or teens that sex predators took and killed or enslaved as their little wives. A bunch are babies that some women wanted to pretend were their own. Some of these children were found quickly, within hours, and were saved from a worse fate. Some were kidnapped by a close acquaintance who was angry with the family for some reason.
Very few are toddlers or little girls from ages three to five. There seem to be no exact statistics on the age of the children abducted, by whom, and what happened to them. So, in lieu of finding these, I put out a challenge to the folks that believe statistics support Madeleine McCann being alive. I asked people to give me the names of little girls who had been abducted by total strangers who were found alive after months or years. So, far I have had only one name given to me; Tara Burke, a toddler who was found alive ten months after she was abducted by a sexual predator duo. This crime was 29 years ago in 1982.
I can, however, name little girl after little girl who was abducted by a stranger and was found dead in the following days, weeks, months, or years. But, so far, I have only been given the name of one child victim over a period of three decades who was found alive. I am sure there are a few more but the point I am making is there are incredibly few of these cases with a "happy ending" in comparison to little abducted girls who have been murdered by their kidnappers. Yes, a few preteen and teen girls have been found alive after being abducted: Jaycee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart, Natascha Kampusch - these girls were kept as sex slaves and were at an age the rapist viewed them as "young women" who should enjoy being taught sex techniques and could learn how to please the captor. Little three-year-old girls like Madeleine McCann are not going to do well in the "girlfriend" department and will lie there and cry and scream. Little girls are raped and murdered almost 100% of the time. Sad but true. Therefore, if Madeleine McCann was indeed kidnapped by a stranger, there is very little possibility she was alive even three hours later. Does that mean a truly good tip should be ignored that points in the direction that she is alive and held captive somewhere? Of course not. She could be the one in whatever high number that wasn't murdered. But, detectives have to be realistic when it comes to using resources. They can't waste millions of dollars and massive hours of manpower running down ridiculous sightings and unlikely scenarios.
Likewise, Gerry and Kate McCann should tell donators that, although they hope Madeleine will be the miracle child recovered alive this decade, they recognize the chances of that happening are very, very slim. Then, if people want to contribute to finding a perpetrator who might have taken Maddie and killed her (to get justice and save other little girls), they can do that. If they want to give money in spite of the horribly poor odds of finding Madeleine alive, this is their choice. But the McCanns should tell the truth and donators should know it. The McCanns, if they didn't have anything to do with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and want to find her and who took her, they ought to be using donations to look for a dead child in Praia da Luz buried in someone's backyard.
Gerry and Kate McCann, parents of the missing Madeleine McCann, find themselves for the first time at the other end of a potential legal action. Top defense attorney, Anne Bremner, counsel to the Friends of Amanda Knox and the families of Rebecca Zahau and Susan Cox Powell, has issued a cease-and-desist letter (content posted below) on behalf of American criminal profiler Pat Brown whose book, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann was removed from sale by Amazon following a claim by the McCanns that the book was defamatory. In recent years, the McCanns have instructed their solicitors, Carter-Ruck, to send numerous cease-and-desist letters to people who have publicly questioned their possible involvement in their daughter’s disappearance nearly five years ago while on family holiday in Portugal.
Next week on February 8th, retired solicitor Tony Bennett faces English prison as the McCanns’ fight to shut down his efforts to bring focus to aspects of the missing child case that point to the parents’ possible involvement. Also, the McCanns have sued the detective on their daughter’s case, Dr. Goncalo Amaral, for libel and have had his book, Truth of the Lie, pulled off the worldwide market. The trial is scheduled in Portugal for April. Now, Pat Brown has fought back for the cause of freedom of speech and justice, alleging that the McCanns have interfered with her right to conduct business and have damaged her professional reputation with their successful removal of her book from sale. On Monday, Pat will leave for Portugal to continue her quest for truth and justice in the case of Madeleine McCann. The Find Madeleine Campaign operated by Gerry and Kate McCann has spent some 2.5 million pounds on the supposed search for their daughter, Madeline, who vanished in Praia da Luz, Portugal while on vacation with the family nearly five years ago and come up empty handed. Since last May, a 37-man team headed up by Scotland Yard has spent 1.5 million pounds on salaries plus many more pounds following up supposed leads with no sign of success. Altogether, four million pounds has been forked out to locate a missing child with zero results. What, then, does American criminal profiler Pat Brown hope to accomplish with her two week trip to Portugal, beginning next week on February 6, with her small band of assistants and a few hundred euros of her own money? She could find the truth. She could find Madeleine. She could find nothing but at least she won’t be costing the taxpayers millions or draining the pocketbooks of kindhearted donators chasing useless leads.
The Truth about Criminal Profiler Pat Brown – 14.11.2011
I bet all my detractors will rush over to read this before anyone else. I am not posting here to try to win them over, however; I doubt my words will change many of my hater's viewpoints of me and, in fact, I will probably see some of what I say here distorted yet again on certain websites. However, I want truth-seeking people to have a place to get the actual facts so, I am going to clarify and correct the seven most oft-touted, incorrect, sometimes libelous claims about me that have traveled around the Internet. Anyone who is over the age of seventy in the United States probably remembers the days when local screwballs showed up at every town meeting, sent letters in to the town newspaper, and sp0uted off at the local coffee shop. The letters got vetted and rarely printed, saner citizens at the town meetings corrected their misinformation, and if they got obnoxious at Milly's Diner, they were asked to leave. Their mental disorders were obvious and their rantings dismissed as evidence of a disordered mind. They usually weren't enough like-minded loonies in one town to with the ability to get together and form a group. But, welcome to the year 2011 on the Internet! With a simple Google, Twitter, or Facebook search, the personality-disordered and extremist individuals have found a way to band together and spread propaganda, lies, and half-truths around Cyberspace; they have world-wide platform for their ravings and, worse yet, if a target of one of these groups becomes the target of another group, they come together to gleefully cheer on the other attackers. Let me be honest, though; not all folks who write negative things about me have psychiatric problems or are fabricators; they have heartfelt opinions about me and some are accurate about the facts. I will support their right to criticize me to their heart's content as this is what Freedom of Speech is all about.
Unfortunately, it is often hard to tell the difference between legitimate discussion - fair, if strongly felt criticism, of a person or their beliefs - and propaganda attacks. Who is standing up for truth and justice and who is just out to trash others to make themselves feel good, give themselves a sense of power, and to support their misguided agendas? How can you tell the difference? One, pay attention to the logic of the argument. Are they ignoring what the person is really saying and taking everything out of context? Two, are they making purely ad hominem attacks, veering off the topic to address various other negative suppositions about the person? Three, do they use angry and insulting language to describe the person they are denigrating when this person has not committed any kind of criminal or immoral act? Four, do your own research and go to the person's own websites, videos, Facebook, and Google, and learn what you can about that person from their own words. When I became a criminal profiler fifteen years, I had no experience in being the victim of hate campaigns, propaganda, and stalkers. Before I embarked on my new career, I had been an full-time at-home mother, I homeschooled my children, and, when they got older, I worked part-time interpreting for the Deaf at area hospitals. My world was fairly small and I did not even have email.
Then, when I rented a room to a new boyfriend of a female church friend, my life turned upside-down. Four weeks after moving into my home (and I had a background check done on him; he came back clean plus he didn't do drugs or drink), my girlfriend got creeped out by his behaviors and broke up with him. That evening, he left her home and walked down the bike path from her house to mine. The following day, a woman's body was found, naked and brutalized, in the stream next to the path. My renter acted strangely the next morning and made the odd comment that he had indeed walked down the path but right before the location where the murdered jogger was found, he decided to wade across the stream, going out of his way, making a big U of a detour instead of continuing on, as he usually did, straight down the path to my house. He then made a disturbing comment to my friend on the phone in response to her question about possibly hurting himself over their break-up. He said, "You don't know what I have already done." The next day while he was at work, I found he had thrown away all the clothes he had worn the previous evening; his brand new jeans, his brand new tennis shoes, and his new shirt which had a number of rips in it, all wet from having been in water. He also had thrown away a perfectly nice martial arts style of knife and a clump of mud wrapped in plastic.
I turned this evidence over to the police and turned him out of my house. The detective on the case never interviewed this man in spite of his admission he was on the path at the time of the crime, in spite of the fact there was a precipitating incident occurring right before the crime, and in spite of the fact he had thrown perfectly good clothes away. I was shocked by the lack of follow-through by this police agency. And the lack of publicity that this horrific sexual homicide of a beautiful 22-year old NASA intern received in the media. This was the start of my interest in criminal profiling, police investigations, and justice. We often hear we should not just whine about what is wrong with society, but do something about it, and I decided that this distressing failure of the criminal justice system was an area I might address as my children grew older and I had more spare time.
One thing I told myself going into this line of work was that I would always be open and honest and seek truth and justice regardless of whether it made me popular or not, upset those who didn't want to hear the truth or those that didn't want the reality of certain failures of the system exposed. It is this very pact I made with my conscience that has garnered me enemies and haters. I clearly have not played by the rules. Because of my outspoken manner, individuals and groups have risen up to discredit me - not just my viewpoint on a subject - but to attack me personally and take me down, so my opinions might be silenced or ignored. Here is where the Internet becomes open season for propaganda and disinformation, lies and half-truths that are spread without concern of any penalty, often spread by people whose names are never known. These untruths may be repeated over and remain on the Internet for decades.
It serves me little purpose to spar with each and every individual or group of like-minded people every time they post an untruth or blog a vicious attack on me. Anyone who is in the public eye is used to seeing all kinds of stuff about them spouted in various forums and one cannot engage in an ongoing battle with one's abusers. But, for the purposes of setting the record straight on some of the biggest claims made and spread about me, I will do so here this one time, so that people who want to know what is true and what is not true have a place to find out the facts. I will not name names or put links to the websites of the people who said certain things about me: they may have simply made an honest mistake or they may have said something in anger they cannot take back now that it is on the Internet or they may be aggressive individuals that don't need to get more publicity for their agenda.
Claim #1 Pat Brown is just a housewife who got her college degree from a paper mill. She is no more than a wannabe armchair detective who has never been in law enforcement and just read some books and hung out a shingle. This a bunch of half-truths. When I decided to become a criminal profiler, I was too old to join the police or FBI; they have age discrimination. I wanted to study criminal profiling but there were no college programs. I DID rather hang out my own shingle but I was always very clear on my background. I studied hundreds of books on every connected subject which is far more than I ever read for my MA in Criminal Justice from Boston University (hardly a paper mill). I also worked in the emergency room, psych wards, holding cells, and rape examination rooms for ten years which greatly helped my understanding of forensic pathology, trauma wounds, psychology, psychopathy, rape, victimization, and criminal behavior. I also went to many seminars attended by law enforcement in the areas of crime investigation, forensics, and criminal behavior. And, finally, I did take an online course in profiling that was available at the time. I have worked fifteen years in the field and haven't been a housewife or armchair detective for a decade and a half. I have developed the first Certificate in Criminal Profiling in the United States for Excelsior College.
Claim #2 Pat Brown has never worked with law enforcement or solved a case. I have worked with numerous law enforcement agencies over the years. I have "solved" cases in the sense that I strongly believe my profile of the case was accurate. Actually, criminal profilers don't really "solve" cases. As a deductive profiler I analyze cases, make determinations as to what most likely happened, why, and by whom, all of which I detail with the evidence that supports those determinations. It is the detectives' job to "solve" the case and the prosecutors job to take it to court. One of the most distressing things I was to learn in my many years of working cold cases is that cold cases without DNA almost never make it to court. Sadly, by the time a profiler comes in and finds a lead that went unnoticed or profiles the case in an entirely different (and possibly the correct) direction, it is almost always too late to get the evidence to pursue the case to any conclusion. Because of this problem, an outside profiler's work is usually then quietly filed away and the police agency will not discuss the fact that the profiler might have been right and that the investigation was wrongheaded for years. In my experience, a portion of cases that become cold do so because the investigative focus was incorrect early on. For this reason, I rarely work cold cases anymore. Instead, I am working to encourage the establishment of criminal profilers in police departments that will be part of the team when the case is fresh. I also am working to see that detectives get better training in profiling so that they can improve the analyses of their own cases. Detectives are often undertrained due to budget issues and overworked due to those same budget issues. Some are simply new on the job and lack skill and experience. Many detectives do a very good job on cases and these get solved. I want to see see the closure rate improve and that is the main goal of my career.
Claim #3 Other profilers - in the FBI and independent - don't respect Pat Brown. This is a half-truth. Some profilers like me a lot. Some can't stand me. There is a lot of professional jealousy and egos in the field, partially because there are not enough profilers in the field, so the few that exist fight to be the most known. I would like to see the day when there are hundreds of profilers across the country so that we can all just do our jobs without grandstanding. As to the FBI profilers who might not speak kindly of me, their issues with me are two-fold: one, the FBI used to be the only source of profilers and the advent of independent criminal profilers is competition, and two, the FBI employs inductive profiling while I use deductive profiling and there is a rift in the field over which methodology is better.
Claim #4 Pat Brown stalks people. This one started with my investigation of my renter, the person-of-interest in the sexual homicide and my second case as a profiler. Another profiler (whose well-written books I promote) was not happy with my rising visibility in criminal profiling field. He wrote on his website that I had stalked two men I suspected of sexual homicides. He claimed that there was no evidence in either crime indicating that my persons-of-interest had any involvement. This was blatantly untrue.
My renter (pseudonym Walt Williams in my book, The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths), is and has been for the past fourteen years, the one and only suspect in the sexual homicide of the jogger. It took me six years to get the case reopened after the first detective had closed the case administratively, blaming the murder on an 18-year-old boy who committed suicide in the area a few days after the crime. There was no evidence linking that young man to the homicide. In 1996, the new detective on the case, reviewed the physical evidence I had found and the behavioral evidence I had uncovered and Walt Williams finally became a person-of-interest. He was brought in and polygraphed and had his DNA tested. He fail the poly but because so much time had passed and there was no DNA from the perpetrator from the scene of sufficient quantity to test, there was not a good enough case for arrest and prosecution. However, the detective agreed with me that the evidence pointed heavily in the direction of Walt Williams and that he believed he Williams was likely the perpetrator.The case remains open to this day.
The second case in which the other profiler claims I pursued an innocent man for no justifiable reason, was brought to me by the son of the murdered woman who was frustrated with the detectives on the case who kept saying her fiance killed her. After profiling the case, I came up with a match to my profile; Bobby Joe Leonard, a man who had been doing temporary work on the woman's property three weeks prior to the crime and had been allowed into the woman's bedroom to remove an old computer she was giving to him. The woman was found strangled and her body hidden in her bedroom closet. This man, Bobby Joe Leonard, the man the other profiler says I targeted unfairly, is serving a life sentence for the abduction, rape and attempted murder of a 13-year-old girl he strangled and hid in a closet. Prosecutors on that case agree with me that Bobby Joe Leonard likely murdered my client's mother, but the police department on the case still refuses to acknowledge Leonard's probable involvement and the case remains open to this day.
The third stalking claim is that I went after a true crime author to find out if his dead wife had been truly raped. This is a half-truth. I was part of the author's blog, one of the regulars who posted every month. One Thanksgiving, this man posted a faux slasher video as a humorous item for the readers' "holiday enjoyment." The video showed a teenage cheerleader jumping on a trampoline who then did the splits and came down on a sword pushed through the trampoline up through her vagina. The second video showed a dead women trussed up like a turkey and served for dinner. Sweet, eh? Well, a few of us female authors on the blog were upset with this misogynistic offering, especially because many readers of that blog were victims of crime or families of crime victims. The blog owner's response was that we were a bunch of old ninnies and there was nothing wrong with gore and slasher films and even victims of crime thought they were cool. He said certain well-known victim's organizations liked him a lot and had no issues with his support in the making and promotion of violent gore and slasher films.
So, I contacted these organizations who all soundly denied approving of this man's placement of the Thanksgiving faux slasher video on the site and I received statements from these organizations that they in no way approve of misogynistic slasher/gore films. While in the midst of proving that victims of brutal crime do not think gore/slasher films are cool, I read that this true crime/blog owner's deceased wife supposedly was the victim of a brutal gang rape. I found that extremely bizarre; how could the husband of a woman who had suffered the horror and indignity of the worst kind of rape promote films which depict the rape and mutilation of women? So I sent an email to find out if this story about the deceased wife was true. It turned out it was. I am not sure if it would be better to believe someone had made up the story to have common ground with the victims of crime he interviews for the books he writes or to think he lacked empathy for women who have suffered the same sexual violence as his departed wife. I think I would have preferred the former as I have long been a strong voice against gore and slasher films; I think they encourage violent ideation in psychopathic individuals and are a sick form of amusement no society should be proud of or wish to see proliferate. Having said all of this, I will say that this particular author writes perfectly readable true crime books. My issue with him was over continued victimization of victims of violent crime and promotion of psychopathic criminal fantasy.
The fourth victim I supposedly stalked was the webmaster for the true crime author above. For the next four years, she posted derogatory things about me on many blogs and forums, on her MySpace page, on Twitter, on Facebook; she wrote whole pieces attacking me and even established a blog dedicated to proving me a fraud. She harassed me repeatedly on my own blogs and Facebook pages. I was able to preserves pages and pages of evidence in case there was every a point in taking action. Meanwhile, I never sent her an email or responded back except for one time on my own blog telling her to cease and desist. Yet, to this day she claims that I was the stalker, her stalker. Not only has she stalked me, but there is a long list of people she has harassed over the years causing them incredible stress and grief, especially to those not quite as high profile in the media as me, who are not used to ongoing attacks and abuse. Too bad she has taken this route because she actually is a very intelligent person and writes quite decently.
Claim #4 Pat Brown abuses victims. This accusation was actually started by the stalker above. She claimed the wife of the true crime author was a victim of my stalking (which is an odd label to be given for asking one question) and then she became the next victim stalked (purportedly because she wrote an unpleasant post about me. She claims I know that she has been the victim of domestic abuse and other horrific abuses meted out by others that have caused her emotional suffering and I wanted to do her in because she spoke up against me). Working to promote me as an "abuser of victims," she (and others have jumped on board) claim that my work to educate women on the dangers of certain behaviors, behaviors that put one in harm's way, is somehow victimizing victims. When I warn women that drinking too much can make one unable to fend off a date rapist, they claim I am blaming the woman, not the rapist for the crime. When I warn women not to go running in isolated places, they claim I am blaming the jogger, not the serial killer for the crime. When I warn young women not to meet with their ex-boyfriend alone so he can "get closure," they claim I am blaming the young women for their psycho boyfriend killing them. What I have said and will say again is that our criminal justice system is too soft on predators, that they ought to be locked up and not let back out or at least get long sentences, but, since they are soft and the predators are out there, we must warn women and teach them how to stay out of their clutches.
Claim #5 Pat Brown excuses criminality and is a big leftist. There is a new link to a blog making it way around the Internet which claims Pat Brown is soft on criminals and is some kind of pawn of the liberal media. This claim always make me laugh. I have no issues with people being liberal or conservative, or even far to the right or left. I may have a rousing discussion with them but I can still like a person with diametrically opposing views. I, myself, am a conservative, a constitutionalist, pro-Second Amendment, pro-carry, and pro-death penalty. The concept that I am a big liberal/anti-gun/soft on crime started in two places. Both came from the far right over the issues of gun control and terrorism. Some pro-gun folk on a particular site got all bent out of shape over a television commentary I did on men who kill their girlfriends. I pointed out that if you are a woman and you note these three things in your fellow, you might want to run the other way: a very controlling personality, an obsession with violence, and a massive gun collection. These pro-gun folks only paid attention to the last part and saw red; Pat Brown is saying all men with a gun collection are violent psychopaths who kill their wives and girlfriends. Of course, this is not true. (…)
And, finally, Claim #7 Pat Brown accuses innocent people of crimes for fame and money. Well, I have never been in this business for fame and money. I want to change profiling methodology. I want to see more killers put away for good. I want to see children not suffer at the hands of pedophiles and abusive parents. I have never cared much for a fancy lifestyle and anyone who knows me knows this is true. Staying home with babies and then homeschooling for a total of twenty years is not a great way to become rich! I have always done pro bono work for law enforcement (not because they won't pay me but because independent profilers have never been funded by police agencies to any degree) and I continue to do so. I do not object, however, to earning a living and what I do for a living is profiling, commentating, educating, and writing. If I don't accept money for any of my time spent working, I will be living under a bridge.
If I really wanted to get great publicity and make good money, I would have profiled the West Memphis Three (WM3) as innocent of the murder of three little boys and I would have profiled the Madeleine McCann case as nothing but an abduction. I would have sold a ton of those profiles and had a huge group to cheer on my analyses. Instead, looking at the evidence, my profiles question the innocence of the three convicted men in the WM3 case and the claim of abduction in the Madeleine McCann case. I have receive a massive amount of abuse for standing up for what I think the evidence points to instead of jumping on the bandwagon which would be the easy way out.
As I head into a legal battle with my attorney, Anne Bremner (read my Women in Crime Ink blog post on the issue) with Gerry and Kate McCann over having their solicitors, Carter-Ruck, threaten Amazon with a libel lawsuit (okay, it was a notice of defamation but if you get a letter from the biggest libel attorneys in the world saying a book is defamatory and the letter is a clear warning that there will be legal action if the book is not removed from sale, it certainly is a threat of a libel lawsuit) if they didn't pull my book, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, from the market (ebook still available at B&N and Smashwords), I am sure the attacks on me will increase. I have already received a label of publicity whore and scumbag who makes money off the blood of murdered and missing children; I'll live. But, there is something very important at stake here in my upcoming lawsuit against the McCanns; Freedom of Speech and Justice for Children.
First, Freedom of Speech. If we end up in a world where people connected to criminal cases can muzzle the detectives, profilers, the media, the public...anyone who disagrees with a particular line of thinking, anyone who might have a different theory of what happened, any citizen who might want to fight to see a case solved, see justice done and public safety upheld, then we will have a worsening situation for missing and murdered children. The McCanns insist that their daughter, Madeleine, was abducted and is not dead and they have a large following supporting their contentions and donating money to search for a living child. I have no issue with this. If Madeleine McCann turns out to be alive, living with some crazy family or being held captive by some pedophile ring, I want that ring shut down and that crazy family put away. I am glad there are some looking at these options; if the theory I believe has the most evidence to support it about Madeleine not being alive proves not to be what happened to Madeleine and the theory that she is alive turns out to be the right one, I will be glad someone was checking it out.
On the other hand, if my theory that Madeleine is not alive is correct, then shouldn't someone be looking for a local pedophile in Praia da Luz, Portugal, who has murdered the little girl and may be looking for the next child to torture and kill? Don't we want justice then for Madeleine and safety for other children? And, if it turns out that Madeleine died of an accident in the McCann's vacation apartment and there was a cover-up, shouldn't this be brought to light that the Portuguese Detective Amaral was correct in his analysis and the Fund is a scam rather than a resource to find Madeleine and bring her home? I see nothing wrong with discussing a number of theories and arguing their merits; however the McCanns threaten lawsuits any time someone questions what happened to Madeleine that night that doesn't agree with their particular theory. The McCanns committed serious child neglect leaving three toddlers alone to fend for themselves in an unsafe situation (no adults to help them in case of accident or illness, strange apartment, locked doors some nights which could cause them to die in a fire, and unlocked doors other nights that could cause them to be kidnapped or wander off) night after night and, since there is no evidence of an abduction and there is a possibility that an accident could have befallen one of the unattended children, the McCanns should not blame anyone for theorizing that maybe no one kidnapped Madeleine and that Madeleine is not alive.
If we look the other way when children are neglected and abused, if we excuse poor behaviors on the part of parents that threaten their children's health and welfare, if we ignore pedophiles and serial killers that may have killed a child just so we can pretend the child is alive, if we get mad every time someone points out reality and truth -especially if it means we sue them or remove their voice from being heard - we will not be able to improve our investigative methods or our criminal justice system, and we won't be able to focus on societal issues that need to be addressed and ameliorated. If we stop people from speaking up, we lose our freedom to challenge and defend, and our chance for each of us to make a difference in bettering this world. I hope my post enlightens everyone as to "The Truth about Pat Brown." You may love me or you may hate me, support me or wish I would go away, but, if nothing else, you have heard it from the horse's mouth and not the donkey's. And I won't infringe on your Freedom of Speech if you don't infringe on mine.
Personal and Professional Responsibility - The Leveson Inquiry – 26.11.2011
For those who don't know, the Leveson Inquiry that has been going on in the UK is essentially a hearing about media intrusion into private lives and grievous media abuse by way of printing lies and outrageous stories without basis in fact. I am not going to discuss any particular people who gave testimony at the Inquiry but I want to discuss where I feel both professional and personal responsibility has an impact on what ends up in the media and where those of us in the media need to point the finger - at others or ourselves - and under what circumstances. First, I agree with much that was said about the media's need to act in a professional and legal manner. No story should take precedence over the physical safety of those the news reporters are attempting to write about (running them down with a car, crushing them against a wall, tripping them, etc.) as all of these actions are clearly physical assaults which are crimes.Next, journalists are supposed to be writing news, not gossip, nor opinion. Therefore, they should have facts and legitimate sources to back up their stories. For example, some silly folks have been recently claiming on Twitter and Facebook that I am a drunk - I guess because I made a joke about how wine can't be sold before a certain time in the morning in Washington DC and a couple of times I made reference to having a wine with dinner. This is all quite ridiculous because anyone who spends time around me knows I rarely have more than a glass of wine or one beer a couple times a week, if that. I could count the times in my life on one hand when I have had more than two glasses of anything alcoholic in the same night.
But, suppose someone had caught a pic of me the day I got out of a car in front of CNN and sprawled into the road. I had stepped sideways and caught my tennis shoe on the edge, my ankle caved and I went down onto the pavement. Next we read in the press, "Profiler Pat Brown in Drunken Sprawl at CNN!" Okay, that really is libelous. It is NOT news because the reporter didn't actually bother to find out if I was drunk; he would have gotten a cool pic, linked it to Internet gossip, and published this bogus story. This is the kind of thing that has gotten out of hand in the tabloids and on Internet "news" sites (gather.com, examiner.com, etc) where there is no concern for actually reporting of facts and there is a dearth of editors and a lot of money to be made making up stuff and not worrying about its veracity.
There, however, is nothing wrong with printing that a professional person has a theory (as it is a fact that person has a theory) as long as it it made clear that this is what it is. A newspaper or news magazine is also supposed to be to a reasonable extent (although in reality this is often not true) impartial and merely reporting the news; the idea is there ought to be some even-handedness in reporting what is going on in the world or a particular story. The journalist is supposed to squelch his viewpoints and just reports the facts, ma'am. I do differentiate print news outlets and television news outlets which have clearly added a great deal of commentary to the news these days, and, as long as it is clearly commentary and is not mixed up with the actual facts of the news, I am okay with it.
So, I agree with many speaking at the Leveson Inquiry that the media is a bit out of control in its aggressiveness in getting a hot story or making one up that is simply not true. But, there is another aspect to some of this: excessive whining by those who court the media or who seek fame and fortune and then don't like ALL of the results. Or for those who end up in the media due to behaviors that have landed them in hot water. Look, sometimes we make mistakes, do stupid stuff, even outrageous shit, or even do something that is right but risky and we get stuck with the unfortunate results of said behaviors. I think we can all relate to this in some form or another. We all likely have humiliated ourselves at some time in our lives or lost a friend or a job due to some remark or bad behavior; we have suffered the consequences of our actions, regardless of whether we knew what was coming or got blindsided. If we did something foolish, we have to live with it. If we did something courageous but got slammed for it, we have to still live with it. This is called "life."
When it comes to people stepping into the media spotlight..hullo....yes, you did know you were playing with fire. If you have become ridiculously famous or rich or you take major risks in life, you gotta deal with it. If you a a rich businessman in Mexico, Central or South America, you cannot be unaware that kidnapping of your children could happen to you. If you are an international reporter in a war zone, you can't say you thought getting your leg blown off by an IED was as an impossibility. Police officers know they may get shot, mountain climbers know they may fall, boxers know they may get brain damage. Choices comes with consequences. Marilyn Monroe or J.K. Rowling were once unknowns and walked the streets without anyone paying them a bit of attention. Then they became rich and famous and they both had the media and fans bugging the hell out of them. Yes, that is what comes with the territory and it is bit annoying to hear the whining about "I have no private life," and "News people follow me around." No shit, Sherlock. Lucky for you, you can buy a billion dollar house with massive walls and security and you can ride in a limo with bodyguards and you can afford to fly to some isolated tropical paradise for your vacation.
I am no where in the league of Monroe or Rowling with fame and fortune, but I have to deal with the downside of being on television, being an author, and being vocal about issues I believe need to be addressed, sometimes the less popular side of the debate. I get hate email, I have libelous garbage and vicious rumors spread about me on the Internet, I have pages dedicated to trashing my work and my reputation, and I have unflattering pictures that show up (some taken by people I have met at a public function, some from bad days on television, and some that have been Photoshopped). I have had the media report things incorrectly, repeat libelous stuff, and write less than flattering stories about me. These things are not exactly pleasant, but if you step into this kitchen you better learn to take the heat and find ways to minimize its negative effects. Some celebrities have assistants that only pass on fan mail and block everything else. Some celebrities have entourages to cheer them on and tell them how wonderful they are day and night. Some celebrities go to therapists.
I have found my own ways to deal with negative assaults on me. I have a "Hate Mail" file in my Outlook box. As soon as I see nastiness seeping out of the words in front of me, I say, "Bye!" and toss it into the hate file. I block stalkers and harassers from my site on Facebook and Twitter (no, this is not curtailing your Freedom of Speech). Mostly, I keep a sense of humor and humility about negative opinions of me: some actually have a bit of validity( I am not a perfect person and sometimes I think, well, yeah, he is kind of right about that...) and others just are so ridiculous, you really can laugh about what they say. So far I have been called a drunk, a liar, a fraud, a narcissist, a psychopath, a media whore, a moneygrubber, a sadist, a neglectful mother, an abusive mother, a vicious fishwife, a menopausal psychotic, a stalker, a fugly bitch...am I forgetting something? (Don't worry, someone will show up in the comments and fill in the blanks). Luckily, after a while, you kind of get used to it, especially in the days of Internet communications where it is essentially the Wild Wild West again with everyone and his brother taking potshots at you..
I also have to be careful of what I do. I surely will not be on a nude beach anytime soon or that pic will show up on Facebook within minutes (being my age, quite frankly, I am not too happy about ANY photo showing up of me in a bathing suit). I have to be careful in any public location and in any relationship. God knows, with cell phone cameras, you better know who you are alone with or you are going to end up on YouTube in a sex video. When you come right down to it, you DO lose your private life when you become a public figure and you have to work overtime to protect those private moments by going to very well controlled private situations (your own home, a trusted friend's home, etc) or a far off place where no one has a clue who you are or you have to go in disguise. Not always an easy life, but if one wants out of the limelight, one can get out of the limelight.
Another important thing for people at this Leveson Inquiry to recognize (as well as all others who are getting media attention) is that the people matter the most don't pay that much mind to the media garbage out there. My family and friends know exactly who I am, as do the people I work with; my interactions with them are the same as they have always been because when we are together, we have our same personal and professional relationship which depends on just me and them and not on all the stories that run rampant out in the papers and on websites. So, does the media need to get its act together? I say, "Yes," as far as properly reporting the news and not crossing the line of libel and physical assault. But, media personalities also need to get their acts together and acknowledge their own responsibility for the life they have chosen, accept the pros and cons of that lifestyle and stop blaming everyone else for the downside of fame and fortune. If it really is too much, give away all your money and go live in Bangladesh.
By the way, ask most people who receive a lot of media attention if they would rather give up their high profile life and I doubt you will find many who would wnt to.. There are definitely negatives that come with media visibility but I can tell you that the opportunities that come with that visibility are most often worth the downside of fame - and I am not talking about money, but the ability to do things that would never have been possible without that media boost - increased communications, achieving goals in one's field that would be impossible without a high profile, having an impact on important issues - so many advantages come from the limelight, that those who are lucky to be the rare ones to get any amount of it should refrain from complaining about being famous. They should thank their lucky stars.
Are Cadaver Dogs saying You're Lying? - 13.12.2011
Funny thing about those
cadaver dogs; they haven't got a bone to pick with the person being
investigated, no interest in closing a case or in railroading anyone.
They just do what they have been trained to do. They may not be
perfect in that they miss hitting on a spot, but they don't hit on
spots for no reason. They are trained to locate where dead bodies of
humans have been, not live human beings, not dirty diapers, not on a
package of meat, nor a hundred other unseen types of biological
items. There is only one thing that trips them up; the body of a
decomposing pig (because of the similarity it has to a human body).
Unless you can prove you had a dead hog lying about in you living
room or in your car, the hit a cadaver dog makes is going to be on
human remains. Actually, I am the one of very few people who could
actually have a cadaver dog hit in my house for that very reason
since my beloved potbelly pig, Gwendolyn, did indeed expire on my
living room floor; however, most people can't make that claim.
Gerry and Kate McCann, parents of the missing child, Madeleine McCann, dismiss the fact that Eddie, the cadaver dog, hit in their vacation apartment and in their rental car in 2007 (but not in any of their friends' vacation apartments nor early suspect Robert Murat's house or property) as meaningless because cadaver dogs are "rubbish." In that same year, a cadaver dog also alerted to the smell of death in Adrian Prout's UK home after his wife, Kate, vanished. Although he claimed he was innocent and her body had not been found, Prout was convicted. After having a fan club that protested steadily that Prout was railroaded, Prout confessed and indicated the area where the body was buried; then more cadaver dogs helped police in the search and Kate's body was found on his farm.
Lisa Irwin
Next we have cadaver dogs
hitting in the case of missing baby, Lisa Irwin, who supposedly was
abducted in the middle of the night while her intoxicated mother
slept. They hit on one spot in the Kansas City home of the parents,
Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin, right on the floor next to the bed
in the master bedroom. Deborah, the mother, claims she changed
diapers there, but if the dogs were hitting on dirty diapers in the
home, I would gather they would hit in more places than that one
spot.Bianca Jones father plea
Oddly, it is found just six blocks away (and one block from Binika Jones' house, the mother of Bianca), with no child in it. So, let me get this straight. These two carjackers went to the trouble of ousting D'Andre Lane from a car with a toddler in the car seat, don't take the car somewhere and strip it, don't sell it, don't use it for committing robberies (a common use of a carjacked vehicle) and don't take it for a joyride. They drive just six blocks and dump it. Maybe they didn't realize there was a child in it and, therefore abandoned the car? Maybe, but then why would they take the child? The story blows. And so did Dre's attempt to pass the polygraph. Not only that, but two witnesses saw the action: one saw D'Andre driving alone down the street and the other, standing by a window overlooking the alley, saw Lane pull the vehicle into it and walk away. No baby seen with him or in the car. D'Andre Lane is swearing up and down he didn't have anything to do with his daughter going missing, but everything about his story has been pretty much been annihilated by the circumstances and witnesses. The cadaver dogs hitting in his apartment and in his car pretty much puts a bow on his story as being a crock. D'Andre Lane is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but he isn't a suspect for nothing. In the words of Gerry McCann, "Ask the dogs."
Why Madeleine McCann is Likely Dead – 15.12.2011
No one likes to think of an abducted child as being dead, least of all the parents. Even detectives on a case hold out hope that a kidnapped juvenile will be found alive and returned home to his or her family. Police officers deal enough every day with sad endings and they cross their fingers and hope that this time, they will save a child's life, not find her skeleton in the weeds along the side of a road. They would like to triumphantly reunite the child with her parents, not knock on the door and deliver the dreaded message to the poor mother and father. But, then there is reality. Most stranger abductions don't end well unless you stop them in progress. Unfortunately, the statistics out there on child abduction are vague and distorted. In spite of stranger child abduction being a major fear of parents the world over, it is hard to the actual facts on the issue. Here are the only bits I could find on the statistics:
115 children were the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. (These crimes involve someone the child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.) 40% of children in stereotypical kidnappings are killed.
4% of children are never found.
79% kidnappings are carried out by strangers and 21% by acquaintances. In 46 percent of non-family abductions, the child was sexually assaulted.Of abducted children who are ultimately murdered, 74 percent are dead within three hours of the abduction
Okay, so what do we actually have here? Of the 115 stereotypical kidnapped children, a good portion of these are pre-teens or teens that sex predators took and killed or enslaved as their little wives. A bunch are babies that some women wanted to pretend were their own. Some of these children were found quickly, within hours, and were saved from a worse fate. Some were kidnapped by a close acquaintance who was angry with the family for some reason.
Very few are toddlers or little girls from ages three to five. There seem to be no exact statistics on the age of the children abducted, by whom, and what happened to them. So, in lieu of finding these, I put out a challenge to the folks that believe statistics support Madeleine McCann being alive. I asked people to give me the names of little girls who had been abducted by total strangers who were found alive after months or years. So, far I have had only one name given to me; Tara Burke, a toddler who was found alive ten months after she was abducted by a sexual predator duo. This crime was 29 years ago in 1982.
I can, however, name little girl after little girl who was abducted by a stranger and was found dead in the following days, weeks, months, or years. But, so far, I have only been given the name of one child victim over a period of three decades who was found alive. I am sure there are a few more but the point I am making is there are incredibly few of these cases with a "happy ending" in comparison to little abducted girls who have been murdered by their kidnappers. Yes, a few preteen and teen girls have been found alive after being abducted: Jaycee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart, Natascha Kampusch - these girls were kept as sex slaves and were at an age the rapist viewed them as "young women" who should enjoy being taught sex techniques and could learn how to please the captor. Little three-year-old girls like Madeleine McCann are not going to do well in the "girlfriend" department and will lie there and cry and scream. Little girls are raped and murdered almost 100% of the time. Sad but true. Therefore, if Madeleine McCann was indeed kidnapped by a stranger, there is very little possibility she was alive even three hours later. Does that mean a truly good tip should be ignored that points in the direction that she is alive and held captive somewhere? Of course not. She could be the one in whatever high number that wasn't murdered. But, detectives have to be realistic when it comes to using resources. They can't waste millions of dollars and massive hours of manpower running down ridiculous sightings and unlikely scenarios.
Likewise, Gerry and Kate McCann should tell donators that, although they hope Madeleine will be the miracle child recovered alive this decade, they recognize the chances of that happening are very, very slim. Then, if people want to contribute to finding a perpetrator who might have taken Maddie and killed her (to get justice and save other little girls), they can do that. If they want to give money in spite of the horribly poor odds of finding Madeleine alive, this is their choice. But the McCanns should tell the truth and donators should know it. The McCanns, if they didn't have anything to do with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and want to find her and who took her, they ought to be using donations to look for a dead child in Praia da Luz buried in someone's backyard.
Gerry and Kate McCann, parents of the missing Madeleine McCann, find themselves for the first time at the other end of a potential legal action. Top defense attorney, Anne Bremner, counsel to the Friends of Amanda Knox and the families of Rebecca Zahau and Susan Cox Powell, has issued a cease-and-desist letter (content posted below) on behalf of American criminal profiler Pat Brown whose book, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann was removed from sale by Amazon following a claim by the McCanns that the book was defamatory. In recent years, the McCanns have instructed their solicitors, Carter-Ruck, to send numerous cease-and-desist letters to people who have publicly questioned their possible involvement in their daughter’s disappearance nearly five years ago while on family holiday in Portugal.
Next week on February 8th, retired solicitor Tony Bennett faces English prison as the McCanns’ fight to shut down his efforts to bring focus to aspects of the missing child case that point to the parents’ possible involvement. Also, the McCanns have sued the detective on their daughter’s case, Dr. Goncalo Amaral, for libel and have had his book, Truth of the Lie, pulled off the worldwide market. The trial is scheduled in Portugal for April. Now, Pat Brown has fought back for the cause of freedom of speech and justice, alleging that the McCanns have interfered with her right to conduct business and have damaged her professional reputation with their successful removal of her book from sale. On Monday, Pat will leave for Portugal to continue her quest for truth and justice in the case of Madeleine McCann. The Find Madeleine Campaign operated by Gerry and Kate McCann has spent some 2.5 million pounds on the supposed search for their daughter, Madeline, who vanished in Praia da Luz, Portugal while on vacation with the family nearly five years ago and come up empty handed. Since last May, a 37-man team headed up by Scotland Yard has spent 1.5 million pounds on salaries plus many more pounds following up supposed leads with no sign of success. Altogether, four million pounds has been forked out to locate a missing child with zero results. What, then, does American criminal profiler Pat Brown hope to accomplish with her two week trip to Portugal, beginning next week on February 6, with her small band of assistants and a few hundred euros of her own money? She could find the truth. She could find Madeleine. She could find nothing but at least she won’t be costing the taxpayers millions or draining the pocketbooks of kindhearted donators chasing useless leads.
Pat Brown will be following up on the theory she purported in her Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, her eBook which was pulled by Amazon at the request of the British solicitors Carter-Ruck on behalf of Gerry and Kate McCann. Amazon was told the book was defamatory in spite of the fact Ms. Brown clearly stated facts in the case, developed a theory based on those facts, and repeated numerous times that she makes no claim that the McCanns are guilty of any involvement in their daughter’s disappearance (other than leaving three children unattended night after night in the resort apartment). Since Gerry McCann clearly stated during the Leveson Inquiry, “I strongly believe in freedom of speech” and “I don't have a problem with somebody purporting a theory,” it is difficult to understand why the McCanns wanted the book to be repressed except that it was selling well and that the theory she presented was being considered credible by a number of readers.
During her trip to Portugal, Pat Brown will study the town of Praia da Luz and environs, reconstruct the crime, and examine possible locations as to where Madeleine might have been taken, dead or alive. If she discovers evidence to support a theory other than the one that was the focus of her book, she will pursue that information. She is looking forward to meeting with Dr. Goncalo Amaral, the ex-detective on the McCann case. Meanwhile, it is her hope and that of her lawyer, Anne Bremner, that the McCanns rethink their actions regarding the Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann and instruct their solicitors to have Amazon return the book to the market (now available at Smashwords and Barnes & Noble online).
Is Scotland Yard really about to Interview the Tapas 7? - 05.02.2012Very fishy, if you ask me. I find this whole story bogus as hell.
1. What timing! Less than 48 hours after the news goes out that I have issued a cease-and-desist letter to Gerry and Kate and 24 hours before I leave for Portugal, suddenly big breaking news in the Madeleine McCann case! The headline reads: Tapas 7 Will Help Madeleine McCann Detectives! I know many think that since the news organizations haven't exactly rushed to print a story about what I am doing, there is no need for diversion. This may be true, but the timing is so coincidental, I think Clarence Mitchell may be attempting to make sure the story doesn't gain any momentum, to quickly turn heads away and say, see, something is happening over at Scotland Yard; they are really making progress and the Tapas 7 are cooperating.
2. Of course, let's say that isn't true. That Clarence Mitchell doesn't really want anyone even pointing at the Tapas 7 because, after all, what do they even know what would be helpful if the McCanns are innocent? If Scotland Yard wants to interview them, hmm, that can't be good for the McCanns, can it?
3. So okay, let's suppose this has zip to do with me and Scotland Yard is planning to interview the Tapas 7. So they warn them? What? They want to give them time to get their stories down pat and perfect? What police department warns co-conspirators (if they are) that they are gearing up to interrogate them?
4. Why aren't the McCanns being interviewed?
5. Why would you spend millions of pounds and nine months going over the minutia of every tip before doing a crime scene analysis and a reconstruction and bringing in the main players for interviews? Why wouldn't you have required in the beginning that the McCanns and the Tapas 7 to do be interviewed, polygraphed, and to participate in a reconstruction if the McCanns want the review?
6. Which brings me to this: Either this is all smoke-and-mirrors and a distraction or Scotland Yard took nine months and a shitload of taxpayer money to grow a brain and conduct a homicide investigation as even the smallest police department would, in a proper investigative manner starting at Square One.
7. But, then, let's go back and really reread the article. You will find the only time Scotland Yard says anything is with this statement “We are not going into that level of details,” he said. “We are not at the stage of speaking to individuals yet. We are laying the groundwork.” Which means they have made no plans to interview anyone at this point in time and have told no one they would.
Reread what was really said: The friends of Kate and Gerry McCann, who accompanied them on their holiday to Portugal almost five years ago, are expecting interview requests as soon as officers feel they could assist the investigation. After nine months of information gathering, officers are checking statements from key witnesses. In other words, the article simply says the officers are checking statements (well, duh, they have read them in the police reports so this is merely stating the obvious) and the friends expect they might be interviewed if the officers feel they could be helpful. This is a story from their point of view, not Scotland Yard's.
8. The news story is a non-news story. It is pure spin and, in my opinion, nothing but a distraction so the cease-and-desist order to the McCanns and my trip to Portugal will be continue to be ignored by the media.
What I Hope to Accomplish in Portugal – 05.02.2012
Many of you are wondering what I expect to accomplish in Portugal for the two week period I will be in the country. Some have scoffed on Twitter that I am on a fool's errand or some egotistical fantasy trip, that I think I am going to pop over to Praia da Luz and solve the McCann case in a snap. Hardly. I am not that unrealistic nor am I so blind to reality and my abilities that I think I am going to do any such thing. What I am trying to do is learn a bit more. Since my book, Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann did earn some dividends (although not much since it was pulled from Amazon under threat of Carter-Ruck and the McCanns) and I stated I would put fifty percent of the earnings toward searching for Madeleine, I am doing that with the money. I am approaching this case as I do others I have profiled. I plan to survey the area and then reanalyze the crime based on what I learn. Then, I plan to search in locations I believe Maddie may be.
I can accomplish the first part of the plan within ten days. The second part is unlikely to be fully accomplished and may require me to return to Portugal if I think another search has merit. I also may run into the "unknown factor" while I am in Praia da Luz. I may come across new information that will add to what is publicly known of the case or something that could change my profile. Although my top theory is that the evidence points to the McCanns involvement, the next most likely theory is that a local pedophile grabbed Madeleine and walked off with her to his lair. I do not at all believe Madeleine's disappearance had anything to do with a sex ring or someone who wanted a child. I do not believe Madeleine was taken away alive in a car. I believe Madeleine is not alive, whether the McCanns are involved or not. Could I change this view? Sure. If I get to Praia da Luz, start analyzing the layout of the area and, suddenly, say, "Well, hell, if I had known that...." I don't expect this will happen but you never know. Being at the crime location is extraordinarily valuable when analyzing any case and this can change everything. If I do a one-eighty, I will not shirk my duty to disclose this and I will revise my profile as necessary.
What I won't be doing in Praia da Luz is going around questioning people. I am not a private detective and I don't have the right to do so in Portugal anyway. I won't refuse to talk to people but I am not knocking on doors and demanding people answer my questions. I will be analyzing and reconstructing the crime by way of the locations I can publicly access or have permission. I will do some experiments as to how long it takes to walk from A to B, check to see how easily something could be accomplished or how easily one can be seen carrying a child in certain places, and where a person could stash a body or not. I will be searching for Madeleine in locations I believe have some merit. I am not going to discuss on this blog exactly where and how. I will tell you that when I get back. Do I expect to find Maddie or the big clue that will lead me to her? The odds are not great that I will leave Portugal having accomplished that. I hope to increase my knowledge of what exactly happened to Madeleine. And, if I am really, really lucky, maybe I will unearth something of great value. I am looking forward to my two weeks in Portugal. I am very curious to see what I will learn. I will try to blog daily on what I am doing and finding out (that I can release) and I hope all goes well. If, when my two weeks is up, I feel the trip was productive and I could use more time in Portugal, I will make a second trip to Praia da Luz in the coming months and continue my work.
A Picture Worth a Thousand Words – 13.02.2012
“Martha? I’m stepping out on the balcony for a smoke. Hey, Martha, come here! What the hell is that man doing at that window? You see right there? He’s busting in the window? Martha, go call the police! Hey, he’s crawling in flat….must be planning to steal…oh, my god, Martha! Tell the police he’s carrying out a child! I’m running downstairs! Maybe I can stop him!” (The above is an imagined scenario for those who are pretended to not understand this...clearly I am just trying to make a point).
Yes, you are looking at Apartment 5A, the very apartment the McCanns were renting on May 3rd, 2007. The time is 10 pm on February 12, 2012. The photo was taken from the third floor of the building across the street. There was some shrubbery along the left wall of the parking lot that has been removed but the view of the McCanns door and window would not have been obscured (I must add since I have been rightly corrected and I have doublechecked the photos at that time, there are trees also lining the back side on the street, it is difficult to say today if one is high up looking down from one balcony or the other, who can see the window). My purpose of this photo was to show that the window and door of 5A was not a location that was as hidden from view as one might think.
Predators who crawl in and out windows tend to choose windows that look out on dark empty spaces or are nowhere near other buildings. For example, a predator might break in on the back side of an apartment building that has no lights and nothing but a deserted lot behind. A predator might crawl in the back window of an isolated house. But the 5A window was on a corner with traffic going by, on a parking lot which people are driving in and out of, under other apartment windows, across from other apartments and next to other apartments. Partially obscured from some angles, the predator knows the window is not obscured at other angles. He may not know exactly who can see him and who can't. For example, there is a break in the trees where the drive comes into the parking lot and through which the window can be seen. Just knowning that there is an apartment building looming over one's crime area for people to look down on you (either breaking in or out or leaving the area with a child) would be unnerving. Any predator would be smarter going in the back door which is far easier to slip in and out of and not be seen.
The lights on the buildings and in the streets turn the building into a veritable fishbowl (some claim massive lighting improvement since that day but I have heard that it has not changed much). What idiot would think breaking in the window at Apartment 5A or carrying a child out of that window or even the door next to it would be a terribly bright idea? One thing kidnappers know is there are enough human fish in the sea that one doesn’t have to abduct someone under such risky conditions.
There are those who note the style of lamps in town have changed (from globe-shaped to the more boxy style now seen) and there are a couple of added lights to the McCann building. True, but this does not mean that the location was dark and dismal and a predator would be able to skulk around unseen. From my third floor apartment, I can clearly see the windows in the building on the other side of the road from the McCanns and it has no added lights at all. It is not clear that the change of street lamp has significantly increased lighting (some say it has and some say it hasn't - I haven't found statistics on this) but, suffice it to say, if it was good enough light for Jane Tanner to see a man carrying a little child off at a distance and be able to describe his clothes and hers, then it is possible for many others to see this man as well. He would know this and choosing so public a location to abduct a child would be unusual. Finally, it was a full moon night, so the lighting may have been even better than normal (though not necessarily that early, but a predator may not be thinking of that because the night before moonrise was earlier and we don´t even know if he might have not gotten an opportunity - if he did - until two hours later.
The next picture shows the front side of the apartment building with close-up of the window of Apartment 5A. I am standing in the doorway. Can you see how bright it is at night? (Again that light may be deceptive as it was added , but you can see how exposed the window is on a path people are coming out of their apartments on and at the end of that wall is the entrance from the parking lot, not to mention a full moon shining down on white buildings and light-colored walks). What would Mr. Predator do if he crawled out of the window with a child to find a car pulling in to park right there in the lot? He would be trapped. He still has to walk down that little path, turn right out the opening into the parking lot, come back down along the wall, then cross the parking lot, go out of the parking lot, turn right and walk down to the corner and cross the street - where Jane Tanner supposedly saw him.
It is also worth noting that there is a lack of proper photos and videos from that night or even the next, so we don't know the exact conditions. Furthermore, we cannot trust what photos and videos show us because they can be brightened or darkened according to what the presented of these evidences want the audience to think. Supporters of the abduction theory may want Jane Tanner´s sighting area to be brightened and the window darkened. Nonsupporters of the abduction theory may want Jane Tanner's sighting area to be pitch black and the window sitting in a spotlight. So, we likely will have difficulty in knowning the reality. However, and again, the predator does what is wisest and I still have to say that the front of 5A is not the choice a predator should make when the back door, the supposedly open sliding back door, exists and cuts down on ones visibility leaving the residence and escaping from the area.
This picture shows the corner where Jane Tanner sees a man cross the street coming from the apartment, child in his outstretched hands. If you were an abductor, would you be comfortable choosing to walk out in the open, across the well-light street with three people on it? Would you at least think walking the other direction hugging the wall might be a bit smarter, maybe cut down your chances of being seen? (The abuctor MAY have seen just seen the backs of Gerry and Jez as he peeped around the corner and stepped out just as Jane came out of the Tapas door and up the street getting caught in her sight line.) But walking the other direction is much safer and smarter unless one has no choice).
Robert Murat, the only other Arguido (suspect) in the case, lived on a couple blocks down the way in the direction Jane Tanner claimed the man carrying a child was walking. But, Robert Murat was a known individual in town and many people in Praia da Luz own places here or rent for a long period of time and return year after year. Would someone who knows people might recognize him walk down well-lit streets - his face totally exposed – straight to his own house? He would have to have an IQ far below 70 to think this would be clever.
Praia da Luz is a very cozy, brightly lit, off-the-main road very small and charming resort town. No sex ring is going to choose this location to target children. A child sex predator might lurk about here but he would be wiser abducting a child from the outskirts of the town or in pretty much any other nearby village. There are some darker side streets further to the edge of the town that a predator or someone carrying a child would be a bit less visible . Apartment 5A would rank pretty much at the bottom of any abductor’s list of places to grab a kid. The only reason someone would remove a child from 5A would be of necessity. Then he would never take the route Jane Tanner claimed she saw the man carrying a child. More on the most likely route one would take to carry Madeleine from Apartment 5A in my next blog.
After I posted my first blog of this series, we had quite a rousing discussion over the issues of lighting in Praia da Luz in 2007 and if an abductor would feel unnerved going in and out of a window at that location (I am speaking of using this window for purposes of child abduction, not a lesser crime). #1 Because the lighting was not horrifically deficient and the window was not positioned in a location where it would be extremely unlikely for someone to observe an abductor moving in and out of a window (and, for that matter, quite high odds that someone could observe the crime even though Praia da Luz was not flooded with visitors at the time the McCanns were there), I do not believe an abductor would have targeted the apartment by way of the front window.
But suppose this abductor did decide he really wanted the child inside and he couldn't access the doors. Perhaps he was willing to take a chance going in the window at a time he observed the parents had left the children without any adult supervision. Could he pull up the shutters, open the window, and climb into the apartment without causing any damage, being heard, or leaving evidence? The McCanns say they believe the window was locked (but not absolutely positive) and the shutters were down. If you are inside the house and you want to open the shutters, you must pull on a cord which raises them (pictured above). If you want to break in, you must push them up; they make a horrible noise and they don't stay up...they go up 4/5 of the way and then fall back down. In the video you can see retired British police officer, PM, giving it a go (this video is distorted due to an unfortunate sideways filming and when compressed for uploading, stretched the horizontal dimension; PM is tall and very fit as you will see in future photos ...sorry, PM!)
So, the window is not a likely choice for an abductor to access the apartment. With this knowledge and the fact (which Kate McCann does not dispute in the book) that there is no physical evidence of anyone crawling in or out of the window (and the fact that doing so is extremely awkward with a child), such a scenario is unlikely to have occurred. The only other possibility is someone accessed the house through a door, opened the shutters and windows from the inside and passed the child through to an accomplice. This is all very dramatic but walking out the door is easier. My next post will focus on who could have come in and out the doors.
How Jane Tanner got Lost in a Crowd on an Empty Street – 20.02.2012
One can accept that on a night out with friends, drinking wine and chatting - maybe some folks are not perfectly correct with the exact time someone came and went. However, some things should be pretty clear and easy to remember about the night of and the day after a horrific event. Of all the Tapas 9 claims as to how things went down on the evening of May 3, 2007, Jane Tanner´s 9:15 (approximate) sighting of a man hurrying along Dr Augusthino da Silva with a child draped in his outstretch arms is the most unbelievable and unsupportable.
Let's ignore for now the issues of the lighting and whether Jane would be able see the details of the man and child's clothing so well. In order to prove whether she could or she could we would have to test her ability with a number of crime reenactments with the present lighting and, if one was able to see what she saw under those conditions, then one would have to use quite a bit of scientific and technical skill to build a set with the calculated lighting of that night and time and see if one could still see those details. I cannot obviously due that at this time, so I cannot make any absolute determinations on her ability to see what she said she saw. However, I can comment on what Gerry and Jeremy (Jeremy Wilkins, also called Jez) said they didn't see - namely Jane.
Retired British police officer, PM, and I reenacted the scenario and I learned something very interesting. If Gerry's claim that he crossed the street, the Rua Dr Gentil Martins to speak to Jeremy is true (in his later statement, not his first which only said on his way back to the Tapas, he "crossed ways" which should mean "ran into," not ran across the street to talk to), then it is indeed possible for the two men to have neither seen Jane nor any man carrying a child across the street at the corner whilst they were conversing. PM took thirteen steps to cross from one side to the other and I saw him out of the corner of my eye from the spot Gerry says he was standing with Jeremy. If, as Peter reminded me as we discussed the way men chat and the way women chat, that men tend to talk less face to face than women do, but more at angles, looking about themselves and not at each other, it would be totally possible for the men to have their backs to the street behind and never see a man quickly walk by, even if it took him thirteen strides. Interestingly, if they are looking down at a baby in a pram or off to the left side of the street, they might actually have not seen Jane go by either.
But, Jane denies that is how it went down and Jeremy agrees with her. Both state Gerry and Jeremy were on the same side of the street Jane walked up and Jane claims she was right on top of them when she walked by. Now, I would say, if this was true, it doesn't matter where these men were looking while talking; at least one would see Jane, and, more likely, both of them would see her. And, if they were positioned in such a way that both of their backs were to Jane as she came up behind them, they would have seen the man with the child crossing directly in front of them. If they had their backs to the man behind them, they couldn't have missed Jane walking straight at them. No matter exactly how they were standing, it is hardly believable that neither man would notice the only other person on the street trotting right up to them, past them, and on to the end of the street. Anyone on the street at that time of night at a time when Praia da Luz is very empty would very likely catch one's attention, so Jane didn't get lost in the crowd.
Let’s double check their position with Jane’s Rogatory Statement which she had months to get the “facts” straight. No, I, phew, again, I would probably guess Gerry’s back was more towards me, because I would have thought if I’d have seen him I would have definitely probably stopped and said ‘Oh you’re in trouble, you’ve been long, we think you’ve been watching the footy’, you know, but. Because I think that’s almost when I went to acknowledge them, that’s almost what went through my head, you know, is to sort of give a bit of abuse about the fact he’d been so long, but. So I would imagine his, maybe his back was to me, but. And, again, in that way, that would make more sense, because I don’t know Jez, so it’s not like I would have gone ‘Oh hi Jez’, you know, that way, so. Yeah, I, I honestly, I can’t remember now which way they were. But I do, I stand by the fact I’m sure they were nearer than right over here.
Let’s see: she is “probably guessing” that Gerry’s back was towards her or she would have made a comment. Hmm...if his back was towards Jane, he would have seen a man right in front of him running off with his own child. Jane THINKS that’s ALMOST when she went to acknowledge them, that’s ALMOST what went through her head….so she would IMAGINE, maybe his back was towards her…yeah, that “WOULD MAKE MORE SENSE,” …yeah, “HONESTLY,” she can’t remember now, BUT, she does, “STAND BY THE FACT, I’m sure they were nearer than right over here.” All of this lack of clarity in Jane's statement shows major signs of deception, of someone attempting to create a story. If it were simply true, she would not need to imagine any of it or develop the scenario as she is talking. Add to this, an odd comment in her original May 4, 2007 interview: She (Jane Tanner) passed them KNOWING that Gerald McCann had already been in his apartment to check on his children. This is a clearly impossible for her to state, yet Jane Tanner KNOWS that this is so. Since Jane claims to have left the Tapas quite soon after Gerry, there is no way she could know he had been in to see his children already or whether he had run into Jeremy Wilkins and simply got caught up in conversation and hadn’t yet gone in. We are talking about a matter of a couple of minutes; therefore, it would be highly unlikely Jane could know if Gerry had popped into the apartment already or not. For Jane to KNOW this, Gerry would have to have told her prior to her interview. But, you might point out, as Jane did: ... if I was trying to make this up, don’t you think I would have made damn sure they saw me?
Yes, I guess you would... if you could have, Jane. The problem is Jeremy Wilkins didn’t see you and, if Gerry was standing with his back to you, then Jeremy was most likely facing you and would have seen you clearly coming up the way. Or, if you want to go back to men both standing sort of at angles and not looking directly at each other, both men would have seen you AND the man carrying the child as you walked past them into their view and the man crossed the road directly in front of them. Tricky bit of a problem, eh? Jeremy Wilkins says he and Gerry were standing right by the gate on the apartment side of the road. I met him near the stairs of a ground floor. There was a gate leading up to some stairs. Jane says she walked right up to them and passed them. Jeremy Wilkins says he never saw her or the man. Gerry says he never saw her or the man which he must say or he has to call Wilkins a liar. I think he solves this problem by moving their location to the opposite side of the road where it is possible for them to both have not seen Jane or any man with a child. Then he doesn’t have to go up against Wilkins, but merely state he remembers where they were standing a bit differently. It is Kate who sums the whole situation up quite interestingly in her book, Madeleine.
Either way, exactly where they were standing is not crucial. What may be important is that all three of them were there. Indeed! What is important is all three of them were there. What does it really matter if all three of them are there? What does it matter if Jane Tanner saw the man five minutes later when she returned and neither man was on the street? It matters because Jeremy Wilkins gives Gerry an alibi. No, not Jane. Jane Tanner is not that useful in giving Gerry an alibi because she is one of the Tapas 9. Jeremy Wilkins is the LAST UNBIASED WITNESS who saw Gerry before Madeleine was found missing and before the Smiths’ 9:50-9:55 sighting of a man carrying a little child toward the beach. No one outside the Tapas 9 can verify that Gerry returned to the table after his 9:15 check on his children or that he remained at the table until Kate gave the alarm. Jeremy Wilkins, being with Gerry at the time Jane sees “the abductor carrying off a child,” gives Gerry an airtight alibi for the only time that he can get one for that evening during that time frame. Considering Kate and Gerry downplayed any importance to the Smith sighting until far later when they agreed it could be the abductor but ONLY if it was the same man Jane saw and Kate insists that it is mighty important the three of them were there when Jane saw a child being carried off, I repeat, the only reason this should be a big deal is that Jeremy is Gerry’s alibi.
American Criminal Profiler probes McCann mystery – 23.02.2012
But suppose this abductor did decide he really wanted the child inside and he couldn't access the doors. Perhaps he was willing to take a chance going in the window at a time he observed the parents had left the children without any adult supervision. Could he pull up the shutters, open the window, and climb into the apartment without causing any damage, being heard, or leaving evidence? The McCanns say they believe the window was locked (but not absolutely positive) and the shutters were down. If you are inside the house and you want to open the shutters, you must pull on a cord which raises them (pictured above). If you want to break in, you must push them up; they make a horrible noise and they don't stay up...they go up 4/5 of the way and then fall back down. In the video you can see retired British police officer, PM, giving it a go (this video is distorted due to an unfortunate sideways filming and when compressed for uploading, stretched the horizontal dimension; PM is tall and very fit as you will see in future photos ...sorry, PM!)
So, the window is not a likely choice for an abductor to access the apartment. With this knowledge and the fact (which Kate McCann does not dispute in the book) that there is no physical evidence of anyone crawling in or out of the window (and the fact that doing so is extremely awkward with a child), such a scenario is unlikely to have occurred. The only other possibility is someone accessed the house through a door, opened the shutters and windows from the inside and passed the child through to an accomplice. This is all very dramatic but walking out the door is easier. My next post will focus on who could have come in and out the doors.
One can accept that on a night out with friends, drinking wine and chatting - maybe some folks are not perfectly correct with the exact time someone came and went. However, some things should be pretty clear and easy to remember about the night of and the day after a horrific event. Of all the Tapas 9 claims as to how things went down on the evening of May 3, 2007, Jane Tanner´s 9:15 (approximate) sighting of a man hurrying along Dr Augusthino da Silva with a child draped in his outstretch arms is the most unbelievable and unsupportable.
Let's ignore for now the issues of the lighting and whether Jane would be able see the details of the man and child's clothing so well. In order to prove whether she could or she could we would have to test her ability with a number of crime reenactments with the present lighting and, if one was able to see what she saw under those conditions, then one would have to use quite a bit of scientific and technical skill to build a set with the calculated lighting of that night and time and see if one could still see those details. I cannot obviously due that at this time, so I cannot make any absolute determinations on her ability to see what she said she saw. However, I can comment on what Gerry and Jeremy (Jeremy Wilkins, also called Jez) said they didn't see - namely Jane.
Retired British police officer, PM, and I reenacted the scenario and I learned something very interesting. If Gerry's claim that he crossed the street, the Rua Dr Gentil Martins to speak to Jeremy is true (in his later statement, not his first which only said on his way back to the Tapas, he "crossed ways" which should mean "ran into," not ran across the street to talk to), then it is indeed possible for the two men to have neither seen Jane nor any man carrying a child across the street at the corner whilst they were conversing. PM took thirteen steps to cross from one side to the other and I saw him out of the corner of my eye from the spot Gerry says he was standing with Jeremy. If, as Peter reminded me as we discussed the way men chat and the way women chat, that men tend to talk less face to face than women do, but more at angles, looking about themselves and not at each other, it would be totally possible for the men to have their backs to the street behind and never see a man quickly walk by, even if it took him thirteen strides. Interestingly, if they are looking down at a baby in a pram or off to the left side of the street, they might actually have not seen Jane go by either.
But, Jane denies that is how it went down and Jeremy agrees with her. Both state Gerry and Jeremy were on the same side of the street Jane walked up and Jane claims she was right on top of them when she walked by. Now, I would say, if this was true, it doesn't matter where these men were looking while talking; at least one would see Jane, and, more likely, both of them would see her. And, if they were positioned in such a way that both of their backs were to Jane as she came up behind them, they would have seen the man with the child crossing directly in front of them. If they had their backs to the man behind them, they couldn't have missed Jane walking straight at them. No matter exactly how they were standing, it is hardly believable that neither man would notice the only other person on the street trotting right up to them, past them, and on to the end of the street. Anyone on the street at that time of night at a time when Praia da Luz is very empty would very likely catch one's attention, so Jane didn't get lost in the crowd.
Let’s double check their position with Jane’s Rogatory Statement which she had months to get the “facts” straight. No, I, phew, again, I would probably guess Gerry’s back was more towards me, because I would have thought if I’d have seen him I would have definitely probably stopped and said ‘Oh you’re in trouble, you’ve been long, we think you’ve been watching the footy’, you know, but. Because I think that’s almost when I went to acknowledge them, that’s almost what went through my head, you know, is to sort of give a bit of abuse about the fact he’d been so long, but. So I would imagine his, maybe his back was to me, but. And, again, in that way, that would make more sense, because I don’t know Jez, so it’s not like I would have gone ‘Oh hi Jez’, you know, that way, so. Yeah, I, I honestly, I can’t remember now which way they were. But I do, I stand by the fact I’m sure they were nearer than right over here.
Let’s see: she is “probably guessing” that Gerry’s back was towards her or she would have made a comment. Hmm...if his back was towards Jane, he would have seen a man right in front of him running off with his own child. Jane THINKS that’s ALMOST when she went to acknowledge them, that’s ALMOST what went through her head….so she would IMAGINE, maybe his back was towards her…yeah, that “WOULD MAKE MORE SENSE,” …yeah, “HONESTLY,” she can’t remember now, BUT, she does, “STAND BY THE FACT, I’m sure they were nearer than right over here.” All of this lack of clarity in Jane's statement shows major signs of deception, of someone attempting to create a story. If it were simply true, she would not need to imagine any of it or develop the scenario as she is talking. Add to this, an odd comment in her original May 4, 2007 interview: She (Jane Tanner) passed them KNOWING that Gerald McCann had already been in his apartment to check on his children. This is a clearly impossible for her to state, yet Jane Tanner KNOWS that this is so. Since Jane claims to have left the Tapas quite soon after Gerry, there is no way she could know he had been in to see his children already or whether he had run into Jeremy Wilkins and simply got caught up in conversation and hadn’t yet gone in. We are talking about a matter of a couple of minutes; therefore, it would be highly unlikely Jane could know if Gerry had popped into the apartment already or not. For Jane to KNOW this, Gerry would have to have told her prior to her interview. But, you might point out, as Jane did: ... if I was trying to make this up, don’t you think I would have made damn sure they saw me?
Yes, I guess you would... if you could have, Jane. The problem is Jeremy Wilkins didn’t see you and, if Gerry was standing with his back to you, then Jeremy was most likely facing you and would have seen you clearly coming up the way. Or, if you want to go back to men both standing sort of at angles and not looking directly at each other, both men would have seen you AND the man carrying the child as you walked past them into their view and the man crossed the road directly in front of them. Tricky bit of a problem, eh? Jeremy Wilkins says he and Gerry were standing right by the gate on the apartment side of the road. I met him near the stairs of a ground floor. There was a gate leading up to some stairs. Jane says she walked right up to them and passed them. Jeremy Wilkins says he never saw her or the man. Gerry says he never saw her or the man which he must say or he has to call Wilkins a liar. I think he solves this problem by moving their location to the opposite side of the road where it is possible for them to both have not seen Jane or any man with a child. Then he doesn’t have to go up against Wilkins, but merely state he remembers where they were standing a bit differently. It is Kate who sums the whole situation up quite interestingly in her book, Madeleine.
Either way, exactly where they were standing is not crucial. What may be important is that all three of them were there. Indeed! What is important is all three of them were there. What does it really matter if all three of them are there? What does it matter if Jane Tanner saw the man five minutes later when she returned and neither man was on the street? It matters because Jeremy Wilkins gives Gerry an alibi. No, not Jane. Jane Tanner is not that useful in giving Gerry an alibi because she is one of the Tapas 9. Jeremy Wilkins is the LAST UNBIASED WITNESS who saw Gerry before Madeleine was found missing and before the Smiths’ 9:50-9:55 sighting of a man carrying a little child toward the beach. No one outside the Tapas 9 can verify that Gerry returned to the table after his 9:15 check on his children or that he remained at the table until Kate gave the alarm. Jeremy Wilkins, being with Gerry at the time Jane sees “the abductor carrying off a child,” gives Gerry an airtight alibi for the only time that he can get one for that evening during that time frame. Considering Kate and Gerry downplayed any importance to the Smith sighting until far later when they agreed it could be the abductor but ONLY if it was the same man Jane saw and Kate insists that it is mighty important the three of them were there when Jane saw a child being carried off, I repeat, the only reason this should be a big deal is that Jeremy is Gerry’s alibi.
American Criminal Profiler probes McCann mystery – 23.02.2012
Natasha Donn
She arrived in Lisbon from Washington, D.C wheeling a travel-worn suitcase and carrying a metal detector. Inside her suitcase, she'd packed a soil probe and a spade. Pat Brown - Criminal Profiler, TV commentator and author - was on a mission. As social networking sites buzzed with the news – split between those that wished her well, and those that vociferously didn't – Brown was undeterred. "This has nothing to do with self-publicity. I am simply trying to get to the truth". We caught up with her when Brown arrived in the Algarve after meetings in the capital with Gonçalo Amaral and others who have put their reputations on the line in an attempt to solve the millennium's greatest mystery. One of the first questions we asked was why an American criminal profiler and TV personality felt the need cross the Atlantic to Portugal to investigate a missing person's case that was almost five years old?
She arrived in Lisbon from Washington, D.C wheeling a travel-worn suitcase and carrying a metal detector. Inside her suitcase, she'd packed a soil probe and a spade. Pat Brown - Criminal Profiler, TV commentator and author - was on a mission. As social networking sites buzzed with the news – split between those that wished her well, and those that vociferously didn't – Brown was undeterred. "This has nothing to do with self-publicity. I am simply trying to get to the truth". We caught up with her when Brown arrived in the Algarve after meetings in the capital with Gonçalo Amaral and others who have put their reputations on the line in an attempt to solve the millennium's greatest mystery. One of the first questions we asked was why an American criminal profiler and TV personality felt the need cross the Atlantic to Portugal to investigate a missing person's case that was almost five years old?
"Two reasons,"
she told us. "One is that I have always been passionately
involved in a search for the truth. It's not something that makes me
popular, but it's something I care about above my own reputation as
this case threatens to prejudice the way missing person's cases are
handled.
"We have a situation
here where there are two parents who have refused to cooperate fully
with a police investigation – who have refused to answer questions,
who have changed their stories and fled from jurisdiction – but who
have then taken their story - in the way they want us to believe it -
to the media, asking people to donate money to fund a search for a
child who, statistically-speaking, is almost certainly dead!
"I can understand
bereaved parents doing some crazy things, but never have I seen
parents like this before! Their actions have opened the door to
speculation.
"My other reason is
to show support for Gonçalo Amaral and freedom of speech".
Amaral faces trial for
defamation of the McCanns over the publication of his book, "The
Truth of the Lie" in which he maintains that three-year-old
Madeleine McCann died in apartment 5a on the night of May 3rd 2007.
His trial was originally set for February 9th -10th, but postponed.
Brown decided to take advantage of her booked flight to see if she
could learn anything new by visiting the crime scene. And did she?
"Yes, absolutely. I
discovered more about the situation on the street; I learnt about the
locks on the doors and how they work; how the shutter and window
would be impossible to open from the outside; about the kind of
terrain here – but my line of thought has remained the same: there
are two simple answers to this crime.
"The simplest answer
is that Madeleine was abducted by a local predator (in which case she
would almost certainly have been killed within two to three hours) –
and the second simplest answer is that she died in a tragic accident
and her body was disposed of.
"To eliminate the
second simplest answer, we have to establish without doubt that there
was an abduction – and that hasn't happened".
Does she believe, like
Gonçalo Amaral, that what's needed is a reconstruction of the night
Madeleine went missing?
"Hell yes! And
that's what they have consistently refused to go along with – all
of them: the McCanns and the rest of the Tapas group! The McCanns
particularly have been their own worst enemies. They could provide
answers in a number of ways: by taking part in a reconstruction, by
submitting to polygraph testing. You see, they have to be eliminated
in order for the first simplest answer to be the highest probability!
"Another aspect that
truly bothers me is the promotion of mythology. Sex rings have become
the new bogeyman. Every parent has been made to fear that their child
could be grabbed by a sex ring – but sex rings do not operate in
hotel complexes!
"If a sex ring wants
a child, it grabs one off the streets in some poor neighbourhood. It
doesn't snatch a middle-class child from its bed while on holiday,
particularly when - if the stories we're led to believe are true -
all the parents were jumping up and down from their dinner table
every 15 minutes to check on their children! Any abductor would be
lying in wait thinking "when the heck am I going to get a chance
to break into an apartment!" Brown's experience of profiling
began when she was already in her 40s and had been working as a sign
language interpreter on hospital trauma wards for over a decade.
During those years she "saw everything": gunshot wounds,
stab and rape casualties, victims and villains. The experience taught
her a lot about life, crime and circumstance – and then she found
herself having rented a room for four weeks to a man she believed
should have been "a person-of-interest" in a brutal sexual
homicide. This unsettling experience was the start of her interest in
profiling and how homicide cases are handled. It took six years for
the police to bring the man in for questioning and declare him a
suspect in the murder – and it led to Brown specialising in a
profession that invariably finds itself called in way too late.
"One of my ambitions
is to make profilers a prerequisite on all police forces," she
told us. "We need to be called in right at the beginning. Crime
scenes need better handling".
"If parents were
separated when police first arrived on the scene, along with everyone
else involved, it would be much easier to verify everyone's stories -
and a true timeline could be established.
"In this case, the
McCanns and their friends were given days to confer with each other.
The result is that in order to look better maybe, or to explain
things that are embarrassing, they may have screwed up the timeline
to the extent that they look guilty. Or, if the McCanns were involved
in the death of their daughter, they had a chance to get their
stories straight".
So what's the bottom
line? Will this case ever be solved? "If it could be proved that
Gerry McCann was at the dinner table in the Tapas restaurant between
9.15 and 9.55" (when a man looking apparently very much like
Gerry McCann was seen by an Irish family carrying a child in pink
pyjamas over his shoulder as he walked in the direction of the beach)
"then that would be proof that there was an abduction".
"If the cadaver dogs
were right" (brought in three months after Madeleine went
missing, and which reacted positively to the possibility that a dead
body had lain in the apartment) "then there was no abduction".
And for those two details
to be established, we're back to the reasoning of former police
officer in charge of the case, Gonçalo Amaral: there has to be a
reconstruction of that fateful night of 3rd May 2007 – using all
parties involved.
"But so far as we
know, that doesn't look like happening any day soon!" Brown
shakes her head. "I honestly don't know what the Metropolitan
Police are doing with their current review of the case - which is
costing millions of pounds. As far as I can see, they haven't started
where they should have started – with crime scene reconstruction.
"That's where
there's the best crack at getting to the truth!"
Did a Kidnapper Muck with Anything ? - 25.02.2012
Evidence does not have to be in the form of forensic evidence - DNA,
fingerprints, hair, physical damage, etc. - for a case to be built
and for guilt to be proven in a court of law. Although it is very
popular today for juries to rely more and more on forensics to come
up with a guilty verdict, direct testimony and circumstantial
evidence without any forensics at all can still be enough to prove
someone's guilt. If thirty people give direct testimony that Joe
Smith came into the room with a rifle and gunned down a bunch of
people, this would be pretty good evidence even if Joe ran off with
the gun and ditched it down a mineshaft.
Likewise, Jane Tanner's eyewitness testimony could be credible if
there was not the question of her actually being on the street when
and where she said she was (since two other eyewitness accounts state
she was not there at all). Add to this, issues over whether the
lighting was good enough and the witness close enough for her to have
really have seen a man carrying a child, a child in specific
clothing, and likely, this testimony would be torn to shreds in
court. So let's move to the circumstantial evidence in this case. The
McCanns made an effort to build the case for an abductor from
circumstantial evidence that did not include forensics of any sort.
The theory is that an abductor was hiding in the room while Gerry was
checking on the children. And he might have been there on the night
before, hence the crying. This theory is based on the timing of the
raised shutters and open window and the ever-changing position of the
bedroom door. And, of course, Jane Tanner's sighting. But let's stay
with the physical evidence for now.
If all these things can validate a stranger in the room at the very
time Gerry is in the apartment, then Jane Tanner's story gets a boost
because as soon as Gerry walked out the sliding doors, the abductor
would grab Maddie from the bed and run out of the front door,
crossing the street just in time for Jane to see him. There is
nothing wrong with developing a theory based on such things, if, in
the end, these things are supportable in some way and make logical
sense when the day is done. It still doesn't mean it is true, but at
least it could be a good theory. And, if the direct evidence and
circumstantial evidence really holds water, that theory may be good
enough to accept as a factual rendition of what indeed did happen and
eventually will stand up in a court of law as part of a criminal
case. Okay, so can we find evidence to support Jane's 9:15 sighting
and the hypothesis that a kidnapper was in the McCann apartment and
in the children's room at the same time Gerry was?
Attention : first statements are the most important statements. There is more truth in them and more attempts to quickly stage (using simple lies) than in later interviews.
May 4, 2007 - GMC Statement
(...) Thus, at 9.05 pm, the deponent entered the club, using his key, the door being locked, and went to the children's bedroom and noted that the twins and Madeleine were in perfect condition. He then went to the toilet, where he remained for a few instants, left the apartment, and then crossed ways with someone with whom he had played tennis, who had a baby buggy, also a British citizen, with whom he had a brief conversation. He then returned to the restaurant.
At around 9.30 pm, his friend Matt (a member of the group) went to his apartment where his own children were, and on his way he went into the deponent's apartment, going in through a sliding glass door at the side of the building, which was always unlocked (so why is Gerry going through the front door?). He went into the room, saw the twins and didn’t even notice if Madeleine was there, as everything was quiet, the shutters closed and the bedroom door half-open as usual. Then Matt went back to the restaurant.
At 10pm, his wife Kate went to check on the children. She went into the apartment through the door using her key (Why is Kate not going through the sliding door?) and saw right away that the children’s bedroom door was completely open, the window was also open, the shutters raised and the curtains drawn open. The side door that opens into the living room, which as said earlier, was never locked, was closed.
It is stressed that when one of the members of the group, Jane, went to her apartment to see her children, at around 9.10/9.15 pm, from behind and at a distance of about 50 metres, on the road next to the club, she saw a person carrying a child in pyjamas. Jane will be better able to clarify this situation.
Okay, let's stop here. What we have learned is that Gerry says both
he and Kate used a key to enter the apartment through the locked
front door. This would be consistent with a locked apartment which
would not allow a stranger easy access and increase safety of the
children staying alone in an exposed corner apartment.
Then Gerry immediately states that the sliding door was always left
open which invalidates the behaviour of going to the front door and
using a key. Why? To me, in conjunction with other information, this
appears to be an addition to his story which allows Matthew Oldfield
to do a check at around 9:30 (even though members of the Tapas group
did not do visual checks on each others' children previously).
Il se pourrait que ce soit un ajout pour "faire entrer Matthew et donner l'impression que les rondes étaient plus rapprochées qu'elles n'étaient", mais Kate a demandé leur avis à ses compagnes de voyage, au début du dîner du 3 mai, sur le fait d'avoir laissé la porte coulissante ouverte (pour que Madeleine, si elle se réveillait, puisse sortir et aller à leur recherche), manifestant une certaine inquiétude (c'est Fiona qui rapporte). Il est vraisemblable que GMC ait tout simplement oublié, car d'habitude ils fermaient tout à clef. S'est-il aperçu de sa bévue au moment de mentionner la ronde de Matthew ou est-ce Kate, entre les deux auditions, qui la lui a fait remarquer ?
But, what does Gerry say about the bedroom door? Nothing. He does not
point out anything alarming about this door in his interview. And he
even states that when Matthew went into the room that the shutters
were closed and the door half-open as usual.
Il a cependant parlé dans la nuit précédente, à la PJ, de la porte mouvante. Le fait qu'il ait oublié de le signaler pourrait expliquer qu'il ait oublié l'ouverture de la porte coulissante.
Gerry did not see the shutters raised nor the window open nor the
door anything but half-open. In fact, everything was normal when he
went into the apartment using his key. He saw his children
(allegedly) and left because nothing was out of place (allegedly). He
chats with Jes, doesn't see Jane, but wants Jane to tell her story of
a man with a child she saw from behind and from a hell of a long way
off.
Matthew Oldfield's May 4th Witness Statement.
(...) Gerry allegedly went into his apartment and that he checked to make sure that Madeleine and the twins were sleeping in their bedroom, where it was quite dark. The bedroom door was half-open (ajar). That five minutes later, Gerry came back to the group in the restaurant. (...)
At around 9.25pm, the interviewee went into his apartment and Madeleine's apartment to check again on the children. He states that the door of the bedroom that was occupied by Madeleine and the twins, was open and that there was enough light in the bedroom for him to see the twins in their cots. That from where he stood he couldn't see the bed occupied by Madeleine, but as it was all quiet, he deduced that she was sleeping. That the light wasn't from an artificial source inside the appartment, but perhaps coming from outside through the bedroom window. That it seemed to him that the shutters of the parents' bedroom window were open without knowing if the window was also open.
Clearly, if the McCanns were fabricating a story, the one thing they
can't have happen is for the abductor to have taken Maddie before
Gerry checks since Gerry is supposed to have seen the child at around
9:10 pm. So, the room should have to be dark at that time.
Interestingly though, at this point, Gerry is not saying the door was
anything but in the usual position which is corroborated by Matthew.
The usual position seems to be half-open, at least at this point in
the renditions.
Note that Matthew says he can see the children quite well
Alors qu'il dit qu'il faisait très sombre un quart d'heure plus tôt lorsque GMC a fait sa ronde. Matt se tient à quelques mètres de la porte, alors que Kate, introduisant la tête dans la chambre, ne distingue pas si Madeleine est dans son lit ou non.
(Gerry could also in the dark as he looked at Madeleine and thought
what a lucky man he was although, perhaps, we don't know, if another
light from inside the apartment had been turned on and filtered
through the door. Il y avait une lampe allumée dans de coin du salon, près de la porte coulissante).
Remember this until the end of the post. (It is
odd though that he can also see an empty bed against the wall and,
since he has never been in the apartment before to know where Maddie
sleeps, the empty bed does not worry him enough to step in the room
and see if Maddie is in the other one).
Il ne parle pas de l'autre lit, celui sous la fenêtre, du tout, il est amusant qu'il décrive où se trouve l'autre lit, celui qu'il ne pouvait pas voir ! Le lit dont il ne parle pas (il parle de deux fenêtres alors qu'il n'y en a qu'une) est non seulement vide, mais défait (ayant été occupé par KMC la nuit précédente )!
Kate McCann's May 4th Statement
At around 10pm, the witness came to check on the children. She went into the apartment by the side door, which was closed, but unlocked as already said, and immediately noticed that the door to her children's bedroom was completely open, the window was also open, the shutters raised and the curtains open, while she was certain of having closed them all as she always did. (...)
Later, the witness would learn that a member of the group, Russell's partner Jane, at around 9.15pm, when she went to her own apartment to check on her children, saw from behind and at a distance of about 50 metres, on the road along the club, a long-haired person, she thinks wearing jeans, with a child in his arms, walking very quickly. But she is better able to tell about that herself.
Kate mentions nothing in her statement about Matthew observing
more light or a half-open door. Her statement appears to be the only
one with a changed door position which would indicate that there was
no proof "the abductor" was in the bedroom with Gerry.
Furthermore, since Matthew said the door was open, then "the
abductor" must have flung it the rest of the way open after
Matthew left the apartment (if he was ever even there).
You might stop and note that Kate, who gave her interview later in
the day, is now entering the sliding door like Matthew, in spite of
the fact Gerry says she used her key (they had only one key) on the
front door like him. One could think Gerry simply forgot how both
of them came into the apartment but it is highly unlikely he would
not remember something so important the morning after. It is far more
likely, as the hours went on, the story was altered to support the
abductor theory. It is not uncommon to see fabrications develop as
people attempt to convince someone of a particular story. I am not
saying the McCanns and their friends did this, but the radical
changes and inconsistencies in their stories are a red flag.
Interestingly, Jane Tanner rendition of her sighting of the man with
the child is vastly different from the McCanns on May 4th.
Surtout la localisation et de Jane et de Tannerman a changé entre la nuit et le matin.
It is my
belief both of them thought she was going to state that she saw a man
going down the road behind her after she turned the corner, not
before it, whenever it was she went for her check, if she even did.
Dans la première version (racontée in situ, dans la nuit) Jane revient de sa ronde et, du parking, voit Tannerman descendre Agostinho da Silva.
If you have read any of Jane's interviews, they are far, far longer
than anyone else's; Jane has motormouth and simply can not keep it
simple. I believe she may have overdone her scenario and, in doing
so, added in Jerry and Jes and ended up with a problem of not being
seen by Gerry and Jes. Later, as often happens when someone is trying
to convince the police and public something happened, the McCanns may
have worked to make her story fit because it gives Gerry an alibi at
the time "the abductor" is seen.
Of course, then if Jane saw the abductor while Gerry was talking to
Jes, then the abductor had to be in the room with Gerry; hence; the
shifting door story evolves.
Some very fascinating things comes from the McCann own documentary,
Madeleine was Here (Part One: 00:10-1:30)
I did my check about ten o'clock. I went in through the sliding patio doors and I just stood actually... and thought, oh, all quiet....and to be honest, I might have been tempted to turn around... I just noticed the door, the bedroom door where the three children were sleeping, was open much further than we left it. I went to close it to about here and then as it got to here, it suddenly (Kate slams the door shut) slammed and then as I opened it..... it was then that I thought I would look at the children...at Sean and Amelie in the cots....
all of which
negates her May 4th statement that she immediately noticed that the
door to her children's bedroom was completely open, the window was
also open, the shutters raised and the curtains open.
And I was looking at Madeleine's bed which was here....and it was dark and I was looking...is that Madeleine or is that the bedding....I couldn't quite make it out.
So it seems to be much, much darker than when Matthew was there or
Matthew has far better eyes than Kate or he
made up that it was lighter if he was ever even in the room
Il devait dire qu'il pouvait voir les jumeaux de loin, sinon à quoi bon être entré dans l'appartement ?
(and it
may be impossible at this late stage to re-enact the exact lighting
circumstances of the night, but it seems the shutters being raised
doesn't change the lighting in the room substantially from Kate's
view; however, if one argues this point, then it being lighter for
Matthew is meaningless as well). Her story is radically different
from her original statement and it would seem in an effort to
dramatize the event, the facts don't quite jibe.
So, what do the facts prove? That no abductor could have been in the
room until after Matthew was there and Kate's statement about what
happened when she came to the apartment has questionable elements.
a) l'hypothétique ravisseur est entré avant GMC et parti juste après GMC.
L'état des lieux vu par Matt ne diffère de l'état des lieux vu par GMC que par la porte ouverte. L'hypothétique l'aurait laissé (à nouveau) ouverte (cette fois il porte un enfant, mais il referme la porte d'entrée...)
Pourquoi le ravisseur présent, s'il a pris soin de se cacher en entendant GMC entrer, a-t-il laissé ouverte une porte qu'il avait trouvée entrabâillée ?
Qui de la fenêtre et du volet ouverts ? L'hypothétique n'est pas entré ainsi, GMC s'en serait aperçu. Il n'a pu entrer que par la porte-fenêtre. Il n'avait pas besoin de clef pour sortir par la porte principale. Pourquoi aurait-il perdu du temps à ouvrir le volet ET la fenêtre, risquant d'attirer l'attention ?
Si le ravisseur est parti juste après GMC, l'état des lieux vu par Matt doit être exactement le même que l'état des lieux vu par Kate. Or il n'en est rien.
b) l'hypothétique ravisseur est entré après Matt.
Cela expliquerait que l'état des lieux vu par Matt diffère de l'état des lieux vu par KMC version 4 mai. KMC voit tout ouvert, alors que Matt n'a vu d'ouvert que la porte de la chambre.
Mais qui a ouvert la porte mouvante, remise en position d'entrebâillement par GMC?
So
does Gerry's and so does Matthew's and so does Jane's. It is no wonder
why the PJ questioned their involvement and that there was ever an
abduction. Even if you chalk up all these inconsistencies to bad
memories and distraught witnesses, what they have stated hardly
offers any support for Jane Tanner's 9:15 sighting or an abductor
hiding in the children's bedroom during Gerry's check. The statements
and McCann re-enactments, in fact, caused the police and others to
question their involvement and rightly so.
Going out the front door must have been very difficult for the
abductor if he was holding Madeleine the way Jane Tanner saw him
carrying her.
And just to make life more difficult for himself, it seems he closed the door behind him. Mais pas la mouvante ! Now why did he bother to do that when he didn't bother to close the shutters? Ah mais, selon KMC, il pourrait avoir ouvert le volet et la fenêtre non pour se ménager une voie de sortie, mais dans l'intention d'envoyer sur une fausse piste !!!
The Smith Sighting vs Jane Tanner's – 27.02.2012
The
Smith family sighting or the Jane Tanner sighting; which is more
likely to be someone carrying off Maddie than the other? Or, could
they be, as the McCanns now encourage us to believe, the same man? Let's
start with a question we commonly hear about possible suspect
sightings: when someone is spotted near a crime scene who has nothing
to do with the crime but never comes forward and says, "That was
me," doesn't that prove that the person spotted is indeed the
suspect? Not
necessarily. First of all, the sighting may not even be a fact. Jane
Tanner's sighting lacks credibility, so is no surprise that some
innocent man carrying a child in his outstretched arms hasn't come
forward (although Stephen Carpenter, another British vacationer,
admitted to crossing the road fifteen minutes later with his wife and
children). On the other hand, the Smith family sighting around 10 is very credible since nine witnesses saw the
man and they have no connection to the McCanns.
So, that no one came
forth to admit being that man may be because he is really the one
carrying off Maddie.
Secondly,
some people just don't want to admit it was them and then have the
unpleasant repercussions of having to deal with the police and the
media. Look what happened to Murat.
Next,
we have the issue of how the child was carried. Dead or alive, the
Smith sighting suspect carried the child up against his body in a
more normal carry position. The child's arms were hanging down which
would be absolutely the case with a dead child (although it is also
possible with a live one). Mr. Smith later saw a video of Gerry
carrying one of his remaining children and thought the man his family
had seen could well be him. The Jane Tanner sighting has the abductor
holding a limp child in his outstretched arms. This is an odd way to
carry a child any distance as it is awkward and tiring. Also, if the
man abducted the child, he would be far smarter to carry the child up
against his shoulder where he could duck his head down alongside the
child's head and keep his own face somewhat hidden. Carrying the
child at waist level leaves one's face exposed and draws attention to
the person due to the odd positioning of the child.
And
how does it make sense that the abductor would carry the abducted
child that way? If he scooped Maddie up from her bed, her head would
naturally end up over his right arm and Jane Tanner wouldn't have
seen two little feet. And how does the man get out the door and close
it behind him with both hands cradling the child? (Not to mention,
closing the door when you are in a hurry - since "the abductor"
already have left evidence of a break-in with the open window - it is
hardly is worth the effort.)
Mr.
Smith believes Gerry McCann may be the man he saw on the Rua da
Escola. Some say this is an impossibility because Gerry was dining
in the Tapas Restaurant at the time of the sighting. Well, he is if
you believe some of the statements of the Tapas 9 but there is no
independent corroboration by any of the waiters that he was there
exactly when Kate sounded the alarm after 10 pm nor can any
independent witness put Gerry in the Tapas restaurant for the period
of time prior to Kate raising the alarm. So there is nothing to say
that this wasn't Gerry that the Smith's saw who then dumped the child
he was carrying and returned to take his seat in the Tapas just
before Kate showed up.
1) La famille Smith croise Smithman quelques minutes après 10h (selon Aoife, qui est la plus précise des témoins). Cela signifie que Smithman est parti du 5A deux ou trois minutes plus tôt, à 10h. Selon un serveur, Matthew et l'état du beefteack de Russell, l'alerte a été lancée par Kate vers 21h55. Smithman ne peut être GMC.
2) Oublions les indications horaires et imaginons que GMC quitte la table pendant une quinzaine de minutes avant l'alerte lancée par KMC. S'il prétendait ne pas avoir quitté la table, le groupe entier saurait qu'il ment. Et pourquoi mentirait-il ?
3) Il est très probable que GMC est à table quand KMC lance l'alerte. La seule question importante est de déterminer à quelle heure l'alerte est lancée et pourquoi GMC a pris soin, à chaque déposition, de la situer un peu plus tard, si bien qu'il y a un écart de 20 minutes entre un des témoignages de Matt et un des témoignages de GMC.
But,
could he have made it to the location of the Smith sighting and back
in time? Before I went to Praia da Luz I was told by some the idea
was laughable, that the Smith sighting was quite a distance from the
Tapas - half a mile is what the McCanns claim in their documentary,
Madeleine was Here. Environ 400m.
Voice over: It is possible that JT is not the only person who saw Madeleine being carried away by the abductor. 40 minutes after J(T)’s sighting and half (1/2) mile away from the MC’s apartment a family also saw a man carrying a young girl away from the town.
"Loin de la ville" est une pure spéculation. On ne sait quelle direction a prise Smithman après avoir croisé les Smith, mais, à moins qu'il ne soit revenu en arrière, il n'a précisément pas pris la direction qui l'aurait éloigné du centre de PDL.
When
I looked at a map before I went to Portugal on Google and put in the
locations, I did come up with 800 meters (half-mile) but that was by
car and followed a rather circuitous route. the walking route didn't
seem that far and, indeed, Google said it would take six minutes. trois minutes en fait en prenant l'allée, le passage entre G5 et G4, en traversant en diagonale le parking du G4 et en sortant au carrefour Primeiro de Maio et Agostinho da Silva. En face commence la rua da Escola Primaria qui descend en zigzguant deux fois.
This
is the advantage of going to the location of the crime scene. I
walked the route myself from the McCann's apartment and the Smith
sighting and it took me exactly five minutes at a moderately fast
pace. It took me another minute and a half to reach the beach. So,
the time Gerry would need from the time the Smiths would have seen
him and get back to the Tapas bar and include a body drop off is
about eight minutes. He could be in his seat before Kate raised the
alarm. And that is eight minutes if he didn't run back, in which
case, he could arrive sooner.
And,
yes, it does take a bit of time to hide the body, but, in a pinch and
a panic, I saw three good places to ditch a corpse in a hurry; a
storage shed right by the road only part way to the beach (cutting an
extra minute or so off the trip), a large clump of reeds where the
road accesses the beach and one could quickly stuff the little body
into, and, also at that location, a number of overturned small boats
one could temporarily store a body underneath. At this point in time,
if one would just trying to lose a dead child, any place might do,
including a dumpster of which there were a number of in the area. If
the body is later found in any of those places, it could be suspected
that a sex predator dumped his victim there, and, if the body wasn't
immediately discovered and one had time to find a better spot to
prevent the child being found and an autopsy done, any of these
places could be revisited and the body moved in the dark early
morning hours. If there was no one out searching, these locations are
dead quiet and no one is around; I can testify to since I spent from
3 am to 5 am wandering about Praia da Luz and never ran into anyone.
Which sighting is more likely to be Madeleine McCann? The Smith sighting, clearly, but the McCanns will have none of it unless it is the same man that Jane Tanner saw. I repeat what I stated in my last blog; there is no reason for the McCanns to disqualify the Smith sighting as a stand-alone sighting of the person who took Madeleine unless Gerry does not really have an alibi for 9:50-9:55 pm. for 10:00-10:15. Et, de fait, il n'en a pas.
On Moving and Hiding Bodies – 05.03.2012
Getting stuck with a corpse is not one of those events we anticipate ever having to deal with, unless we are an experienced serial killer. For the uninitiated, panic is the primary emotion at the moment one finds themselves with a dead body and desperation and fear are panic's close companions. Fear of ending up in prison for the rest of one's life, desperation to prevent such a repercussion, and, panic, as one tries to get rid of the damning evidence in a short period of time. The problem with unpremeditated crimes is that one usually has little time to think, to cover up what has occurred, and get rid of evidence sufficiently. Most nonserial killers also have the added problem of the victim being connected to them in some way; a wife, a husband, a girlfriend or boyfriend, a child. The police will be showing up on one's doorstep and one has to actually report the person missing at some point and one needs an alibi. Serial killers target strangers (or mild acquaintances) and no one has a clue they are connected in any way to a crime in their community. They have ample time to dump or hide bodies and toss clothing or weapons. By the time a serial killer becomes a suspect, often he doesn't need to worry about an alibi because years have gone by.
Not the same situation for a domestic homicide. The body of the victim usually is lying in the middle of one's living room floor or dead in the bedroom. The person is going to be missed shortly - at school, at work, by friends and family. And we often quickly suspect a relative if that relative was the last to see the victim alive, especially if he doesn't report the individual missing for days. So what the panicked perpetrator needs to do is get rid of the body immediately, try to stage some sort of abduction, and then report the person missing as soon as possible. This way, he looks as innocent and as concerned as he can and, if lucky, he can try to establish some alibi though this is often difficult (and nearly impossible without involving family or friends). Because of the fear of what the autopsy will discover and the possibility of DNA and trace evidence linking back to the perpetrator of a domestic homicide, it is common for the offender to attempt to hide the body extremely well or destroy it entirely. Serial killers and sex predators often just dump the body like garbage a mile or so from their home, not worrying all that much that any evidence will be connected back to them unless they have their DNA in the CODIS system and a match will identify them. So when a body isn't found after someone goes missing out of a house, police tend to take a strong look at whoever was at the same location as the victim at the time the person disappeared. This does not mean there aren't some serial killers who work harder at hiding bodies; they may bury them on their property, feed them to pigs, or toss them down mine shafts. But, it is far more common, especially with child sex predators, to dump the body quickly, usually within an hour of two of the abduction, rape, and murder of the little victim. Very few children taken for sexual purposes under the age of five aren't found dead and found dead fairly quickly; those that remain missing often are cases in which abduction is not proven and the parents are person-of-interest.
So, on May 3, 2007, if Madeleine McCann did die in Apartment 5A in Praia da Luz and her father or mother or both found themselves in that unexpected nightmare of dealing with a body, what would they do? Kate and Gerry would likely fear arrest and imprisonment for one or both of them for murder - even if for second degree homicide as in an overdose or an overdose leading to an accident, or for manslaughter due to neglect and an accident - if there was something the autopsy would uncover. They would have to get rid of the body, any evidence of Maddie's demise, stage an abduction, and he and Kate would need alibis that would cover the time that Maddie would have been "abducted." If Maddie died in the vacation apartment, it would seem the McCanns were successful at all of the above, barring (excepté) the alerting of the cadaver and blood dogs to locations and items in the apartment and hire car. And the most important aspect of the cover-up issues is the losing of the body permanently; no body, rarely an arrest. The history of missing children with parents who are suspects has proven this over and over. In just the last few years we have in the United States a number of cases that come to mind: Haleigh Cummings, Ayla Reynolds, Sky Metalwalla, Jhessye Shockley, Kyron Horman, and Lisa Irwin. No bodies, no arrests although at least one parent is a top person-of-interest in all of these cases.
So, let's say Gerry really was seen by the Smith family at 9:50 pm 10.05pm, dumped Maddie's body, and then hurried back to the Tapas restaurant. Why would he bother to move her body? Why not let the police find it and think an abductor took Maddie, killed her, and got rid of her? Likely because of what autopsy might determine (drugs in body, head trauma, positional asphyxiation) and what the autopsy might not determine (violent sexual assault and strangulation by a predator) and trace evidence that might link back to the McCanns and no one else. So, if the McCanns covered up the death of Madeleine, they would have to be sure her body was not found, if at all possible. Maddie's body would have to be moved to a fairly secretive location.
Pas trouvé rapidement, en tout cas. La mer était l'idéal, elle ramène les corps, comme aseptisés. Mais Smithman croisa la famille Smith..
Some might say then that it must have been one brilliant location her body was hidden in that the police never thought of looking because it was never found. Others might say because her body wasn't found in the area, the McCanns must have nothing to do with the crime because they only had a few hours in the early morning hours to move Maddie's body to a better spot and how would they have accomplished this so well in so short a time? Well, mostly by luck. Luck plays an interesting role in a lot of crimes. One would think bodies of children that families try to dispose of in a hurry should be very easy to find but they are not, often because they are quite tiny and easy to stuff into a variety of places or they get lost in a large expanse of land. That the cadaver dogs didn't hit months later out in the open of Praia da Luz does not mean an abductor trundled Maddie out of town; it doesn't mean that her body wasn't hidden somewhere in the area for a period of time. Although false positives are extremely rare for cadaver dogs, false negatives are more common and it is hard to prove the dogs missed a spot when, well, they missed it.
Le faux positif élimine un chien cadavre ipso facto. Les faux négatifs sont évidemment spéculatifs, à moins que le chien ne soit mis à l'épreuve lors des tests réguliers auxquels il est soumis en vue d'être certifié. Dans ce cadre-là, Eddie n'est jamais passé à côté d'une odeur.
With changing weather conditions and numerous other factors, where a body may have been hidden temporarily may be overlooked by dogs, the smell having wafted off, well contained, or somehow not being noticeable enough.
Le sel "détruit" l'odorat du chien. Au reste les chiens britanniques n'ont pas été amenés sur la plage.
False positives and negatives work like perfume; suppose a husband is having an affair with his secretary. She spritzes herself with perfume and the two go to a bar, take a walk in the park, and then come back to the bedroom he shares with his wife and has sex with her there. That afternoon after work, the wife hears a rumor that her husband was seen at the bar and the park with this woman. She goes to both locations, and she doesn't smell the woman's perfume; the bar is too contaminated with massive numbers of odors and the park is too large to figure out where the couple may have been and even the bench the couple sat on and hugged and kissed has been rained on and wind has blown through the spot. But, when the woman gets home, the fragrance of the woman's perfume hits her at the front door, is stronger in the bedroom, and when she picks up her husband's shirt off out of the laundry basket, she is nearly knocked out by the odor. There is no way she could be mistaken about the perfume in her house but just because she missed it at the bar and in the park doesn't mean the couple wasn't there as well. This is an oversimplification of cadaver dogs and their abilities, but I just want you to get an understanding of why outdoor searches are so difficult, even for the best of dogs. Of course, if they alert on a spot in the middle of the landscape, this certainly is significant, but, not hitting anywhere does not hold the same importance as making a alert.
Ce que PB ne dit pas, c'est que le chien-cadavre n'est pas capable de détecter, des mois après, une odeur résiduelle (sans substance) à l'extérieur. Des restes humains, oui, mais pour qu'une odeur résiduelle soit détectable, il faut un endroit relativement clos et protégé de la pluie, du vent, du soleil.
So, was Maddie hidden somewhere around Praia da Luz in a public area? Very possibly, in spite of the fact the dogs did not discover that place. She also could have been hidden in a private location but that would be far less likely considering the very few hours the McCanns, if they were involved, had to hide her body. They would have to find a place quickly, nearby, within walking distance, some place they had a clue existed. The most likely possibilities would be where the McCanns had spent time, walked around or jogged past; it is night and one cannot spend hours scouring unknown rugged areas. That might come later, but it would be unlikely to occur on May 4th before the sun rose. Sometime after the locals and police had pretty much called it a night for searching, there would be an opportunity for Gerry or Gerry with Kate or Gerry with David Payne to find a good location to put Maddie's body. If I were in Gerry shoes (if he was involved in Maddie's demise and/or disappearance) and had a wife or friend to help me or if I had to do it alone, here are the places I would have considered and rejected. One is anything to the west of the area of the overturned boats (where the road accesses the beach and has good temporary hiding places; see my previous blog post). I walked further down that direction and it is very difficult to traverse it at night. Lots of craggy, uneven rocks, and no place I could find that would be a good place to stash a body. If one went back up on the road and walked down past the houses, there is a bit of an area that one could bury a body, but that burial site would be hard to disguise.
There are some trash bins which could be a possibility but that would negate the later cadaver dog evidence in the hire car unless some object transferred cadaver odor to that location like a bag or clothing. However, the trash bins were searched and nothing found unless something was missed.
Ils ont été inspectés 4 jours plus tard, après avoir été vidés et remplis trois fois. Et sans chiens.
From the overturned boat area, there is a bit of a beach to the east, full of rocks, which then ends at a stone structure that juts into the water before the church. There were a few places to stuff a body, but I doubt a body could have stayed hidden. There is the drain, but, again, not a good hiding place except for an hour or two. From the location of the church over to the rocks of the Rocha Negra, there is just beach and no real hiding places. Some have mentioned the Roman Ruins which can be accessed from the boardwalk. It is a very small enclosed location and while I did find one spot one could hide a small body, for the long run, one would think a maintenance person who worked there would find the corpse. So, that leaves the Rocha Negra itself, the obsession of Kate McCann as she mentions it again and again in her book and even called the police to say she had a dream Maddie was on a slab up on the rocks. This is an area both the McCanns were familiar with. One can sit on the deck having lunch at the Paraiso Restaurant and the Rocha Negra is right in front of you. The McCanns also jogged near and on the Rocha Negra as well.
Not the same situation for a domestic homicide. The body of the victim usually is lying in the middle of one's living room floor or dead in the bedroom. The person is going to be missed shortly - at school, at work, by friends and family. And we often quickly suspect a relative if that relative was the last to see the victim alive, especially if he doesn't report the individual missing for days. So what the panicked perpetrator needs to do is get rid of the body immediately, try to stage some sort of abduction, and then report the person missing as soon as possible. This way, he looks as innocent and as concerned as he can and, if lucky, he can try to establish some alibi though this is often difficult (and nearly impossible without involving family or friends). Because of the fear of what the autopsy will discover and the possibility of DNA and trace evidence linking back to the perpetrator of a domestic homicide, it is common for the offender to attempt to hide the body extremely well or destroy it entirely. Serial killers and sex predators often just dump the body like garbage a mile or so from their home, not worrying all that much that any evidence will be connected back to them unless they have their DNA in the CODIS system and a match will identify them. So when a body isn't found after someone goes missing out of a house, police tend to take a strong look at whoever was at the same location as the victim at the time the person disappeared. This does not mean there aren't some serial killers who work harder at hiding bodies; they may bury them on their property, feed them to pigs, or toss them down mine shafts. But, it is far more common, especially with child sex predators, to dump the body quickly, usually within an hour of two of the abduction, rape, and murder of the little victim. Very few children taken for sexual purposes under the age of five aren't found dead and found dead fairly quickly; those that remain missing often are cases in which abduction is not proven and the parents are person-of-interest.
So, on May 3, 2007, if Madeleine McCann did die in Apartment 5A in Praia da Luz and her father or mother or both found themselves in that unexpected nightmare of dealing with a body, what would they do? Kate and Gerry would likely fear arrest and imprisonment for one or both of them for murder - even if for second degree homicide as in an overdose or an overdose leading to an accident, or for manslaughter due to neglect and an accident - if there was something the autopsy would uncover. They would have to get rid of the body, any evidence of Maddie's demise, stage an abduction, and he and Kate would need alibis that would cover the time that Maddie would have been "abducted." If Maddie died in the vacation apartment, it would seem the McCanns were successful at all of the above, barring (excepté) the alerting of the cadaver and blood dogs to locations and items in the apartment and hire car. And the most important aspect of the cover-up issues is the losing of the body permanently; no body, rarely an arrest. The history of missing children with parents who are suspects has proven this over and over. In just the last few years we have in the United States a number of cases that come to mind: Haleigh Cummings, Ayla Reynolds, Sky Metalwalla, Jhessye Shockley, Kyron Horman, and Lisa Irwin. No bodies, no arrests although at least one parent is a top person-of-interest in all of these cases.
So, let's say Gerry really was seen by the Smith family at 9:50 pm 10.05pm, dumped Maddie's body, and then hurried back to the Tapas restaurant. Why would he bother to move her body? Why not let the police find it and think an abductor took Maddie, killed her, and got rid of her? Likely because of what autopsy might determine (drugs in body, head trauma, positional asphyxiation) and what the autopsy might not determine (violent sexual assault and strangulation by a predator) and trace evidence that might link back to the McCanns and no one else. So, if the McCanns covered up the death of Madeleine, they would have to be sure her body was not found, if at all possible. Maddie's body would have to be moved to a fairly secretive location.
Pas trouvé rapidement, en tout cas. La mer était l'idéal, elle ramène les corps, comme aseptisés. Mais Smithman croisa la famille Smith..
Some might say then that it must have been one brilliant location her body was hidden in that the police never thought of looking because it was never found. Others might say because her body wasn't found in the area, the McCanns must have nothing to do with the crime because they only had a few hours in the early morning hours to move Maddie's body to a better spot and how would they have accomplished this so well in so short a time? Well, mostly by luck. Luck plays an interesting role in a lot of crimes. One would think bodies of children that families try to dispose of in a hurry should be very easy to find but they are not, often because they are quite tiny and easy to stuff into a variety of places or they get lost in a large expanse of land. That the cadaver dogs didn't hit months later out in the open of Praia da Luz does not mean an abductor trundled Maddie out of town; it doesn't mean that her body wasn't hidden somewhere in the area for a period of time. Although false positives are extremely rare for cadaver dogs, false negatives are more common and it is hard to prove the dogs missed a spot when, well, they missed it.
Le faux positif élimine un chien cadavre ipso facto. Les faux négatifs sont évidemment spéculatifs, à moins que le chien ne soit mis à l'épreuve lors des tests réguliers auxquels il est soumis en vue d'être certifié. Dans ce cadre-là, Eddie n'est jamais passé à côté d'une odeur.
With changing weather conditions and numerous other factors, where a body may have been hidden temporarily may be overlooked by dogs, the smell having wafted off, well contained, or somehow not being noticeable enough.
Le sel "détruit" l'odorat du chien. Au reste les chiens britanniques n'ont pas été amenés sur la plage.
False positives and negatives work like perfume; suppose a husband is having an affair with his secretary. She spritzes herself with perfume and the two go to a bar, take a walk in the park, and then come back to the bedroom he shares with his wife and has sex with her there. That afternoon after work, the wife hears a rumor that her husband was seen at the bar and the park with this woman. She goes to both locations, and she doesn't smell the woman's perfume; the bar is too contaminated with massive numbers of odors and the park is too large to figure out where the couple may have been and even the bench the couple sat on and hugged and kissed has been rained on and wind has blown through the spot. But, when the woman gets home, the fragrance of the woman's perfume hits her at the front door, is stronger in the bedroom, and when she picks up her husband's shirt off out of the laundry basket, she is nearly knocked out by the odor. There is no way she could be mistaken about the perfume in her house but just because she missed it at the bar and in the park doesn't mean the couple wasn't there as well. This is an oversimplification of cadaver dogs and their abilities, but I just want you to get an understanding of why outdoor searches are so difficult, even for the best of dogs. Of course, if they alert on a spot in the middle of the landscape, this certainly is significant, but, not hitting anywhere does not hold the same importance as making a alert.
Ce que PB ne dit pas, c'est que le chien-cadavre n'est pas capable de détecter, des mois après, une odeur résiduelle (sans substance) à l'extérieur. Des restes humains, oui, mais pour qu'une odeur résiduelle soit détectable, il faut un endroit relativement clos et protégé de la pluie, du vent, du soleil.
So, was Maddie hidden somewhere around Praia da Luz in a public area? Very possibly, in spite of the fact the dogs did not discover that place. She also could have been hidden in a private location but that would be far less likely considering the very few hours the McCanns, if they were involved, had to hide her body. They would have to find a place quickly, nearby, within walking distance, some place they had a clue existed. The most likely possibilities would be where the McCanns had spent time, walked around or jogged past; it is night and one cannot spend hours scouring unknown rugged areas. That might come later, but it would be unlikely to occur on May 4th before the sun rose. Sometime after the locals and police had pretty much called it a night for searching, there would be an opportunity for Gerry or Gerry with Kate or Gerry with David Payne to find a good location to put Maddie's body. If I were in Gerry shoes (if he was involved in Maddie's demise and/or disappearance) and had a wife or friend to help me or if I had to do it alone, here are the places I would have considered and rejected. One is anything to the west of the area of the overturned boats (where the road accesses the beach and has good temporary hiding places; see my previous blog post). I walked further down that direction and it is very difficult to traverse it at night. Lots of craggy, uneven rocks, and no place I could find that would be a good place to stash a body. If one went back up on the road and walked down past the houses, there is a bit of an area that one could bury a body, but that burial site would be hard to disguise.
There are some trash bins which could be a possibility but that would negate the later cadaver dog evidence in the hire car unless some object transferred cadaver odor to that location like a bag or clothing. However, the trash bins were searched and nothing found unless something was missed.
Ils ont été inspectés 4 jours plus tard, après avoir été vidés et remplis trois fois. Et sans chiens.
From the overturned boat area, there is a bit of a beach to the east, full of rocks, which then ends at a stone structure that juts into the water before the church. There were a few places to stuff a body, but I doubt a body could have stayed hidden. There is the drain, but, again, not a good hiding place except for an hour or two. From the location of the church over to the rocks of the Rocha Negra, there is just beach and no real hiding places. Some have mentioned the Roman Ruins which can be accessed from the boardwalk. It is a very small enclosed location and while I did find one spot one could hide a small body, for the long run, one would think a maintenance person who worked there would find the corpse. So, that leaves the Rocha Negra itself, the obsession of Kate McCann as she mentions it again and again in her book and even called the police to say she had a dream Maddie was on a slab up on the rocks. This is an area both the McCanns were familiar with. One can sit on the deck having lunch at the Paraiso Restaurant and the Rocha Negra is right in front of you. The McCanns also jogged near and on the Rocha Negra as well.
There are three possible areas one could try to hide a body on the Rocha Negra. Retired British police officer, PM, and I toured the various areas to see if there was a place we felt was more likely than others that one could move a body to in the wee hours of the morning. We located three possibilities: at the foot of the rocks on the beach or in the water, in the gullies on the slopes, and on the land on the top of the cliffs. At the foot, it first appears this is not a bad choice (above right) and, if it were low tide one could hide a body under rocks and gravel right there at the base where the cliffs meet the sand. However, in higher tide, this is not possible and one has to worry about the smell hitting sunbathers, joggers, and hikers on the beach. It is possible, but not probable. Dumping the body in the water only to have it come back in the tide or trying to pin it under a rock is not very wise if one doesn't want the body to resurface unexpectedly. Next, PM drove me up to the area where one can follow trails up the grassy hills to the very top of the cliffs. We found a dog, Rex, buried here, so it is possible to dig a grave, although the ground is very hard at that location and one would need a shovel to be successful. Also, while it is possible to walk or run to this location (and Gerry was in good shape), it is quite far to go carrying a child, then have to dig a grave, and run back. Furthermore, a fresh grave in the hills would be quite obvious. I didn't think it would be a good choice. Then, PM and I explored the gullies ravines that come down the side of the Rocha Negra. This area really sparked my interest. The gullies that were accessible from the beach were only a five minute walk from downtown Praia da Luz.One can climb up and up (I doubt many do this for hiking as they are not very inviting) and these gullies have a massive amount of rocks and gravel in them and around them which are easy to move and cover a body with.
Finding a crevice, secreting a small body, and covering it with a pile of rocks would not take that long. On a night with a full moon, one would not even need a flashlight to accomplish this. The spot would be up and out of the way of beachcombers and a good location unless one thought cadaver dogs were going to be set loose on it. At the time Maddie went missing, no one was looking for a body and as long as an abduction was promulgated and a live child searched for, the PJ weren't bringing in cadaver dogs, which they didn't, until the McCanns became Arguidos (suspects).
Non, ce sont les alertes des chiens qui ont conduit le Ministère public à changer le statut des MC de victimes en témoins assistés.
Right next to the beach a few metres from the gully area is a road and public parking spaces (if one wanted to remove the body later and transport it elsewhere). The cadaver dogs did search the Rocha Negra, ascending as far as they could from the beach. I don't know if a moved body, perhaps a well-wrapped on, might not have left a scent for the dogs to find or whether there was never a body there. But, this very accessible location on the side of the Rocha Negra would be my top choice for where I would hide a body if I only had a short period of time and couldn't go very far.
PB ne compte pas le temps et les recherches pour découvrir ça !
At this point, there is not enough evidence to prove in court that the McCanns are involved with the disappearance of the daughter, Madeleine, or that they moved her body or exactly where they could have moved her body if they were. But, when one puts oneself in the mind of a person desperate to hide a body, it is interesting what one sees as possibilities.
In Mark Harrison's Profile I found this interesting line:
An inhibiting factor is that since the disappearance of the child an old empty house adjacent to the Trig Point on the Rocha Negra has been demolished and all rubble removed, If she was concealed within this property the search would be unlikely to detect her now. Having stayed at the next village, I can endorse that it would be too risky to use the dumpsters, because they are very open for inspection, and were emptied by hand by a man in a pick-up -
What you seek and what you find are often two completely different things. But the human sense of direction whiilse searching is SOUND directing vision and what is before your very eyes, you miss!! If the McCanns had themselves hidden the body then wouldn't it have been risky for them to have hidden it in a respectful place in case it was ever found by chance and be obvious a callous abductor would never have put her there.
Why would an abductor bother with a decent burial when he could dump the body somewhere and make a quick getaway?
For once, the truth about getting book publicity – 26.03.2012
I am going to make your day, self-published and traditionally published struggling authors! You can stop wishing you were me because, in spite of the fact Nancy Grace and Dr. Drew both mentioned my new mystery novel, Only the Truth, when I was on their shows last week, I didn’t see any dramatic jump in book sales. So, stop worrying if you aren’t on television and you can’t afford a publicist to get you on. I do television at least three times a week and I can tell you, while constant visibility does keep one’s name and book out there, getting on a television show doesn’t mean you are going to become an overnight bestseller, well, unless you are on Oprah which you can’t be anymore.
And I am sure you are likely discouraged by all those bestselling authors who seem to come out of nowhere and hit it big; let me clear that up. One, some of those are lying like dogs and are simply giving themselves the “bestselling author” label and claiming they sold way more of their books than they actually did. Proving someone is a liar is pretty difficult when it comes to questions of success in the book market. Others who actually achieve success may not get it the way they would like us to believe, by having a great literary accomplishment.
Now, before I get successful authors throwing heavy objects at my head and calling me “jealous” or “bitter,” - I do already have two traditionally published books, Killing for Sport (Phoenix 2008) and The Profiler; My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths (Hyperion 2010) and two more traditionally published books coming out in the next year, How to Save Your Daughter’s Life (HCI Sept 2012) and The Murder of Cleopatra (Prometheus Feb 2013) - let me state that they are some fabulous writers out there and they have become well-known and lauded for their outstanding books and the merit of their writing. I am inspired, impressed, and proud of each of these authors who have reached such heights through wonderful work and effort. I love reading their works and I recommend their books to my friends and I wish them continued best of luck.
But, a good portion of selling authors are not making money due to the brilliance of their word-craft or even tolerably good storytelling; many are mediocre at best, and some are downright abysmal and you wonder how they hell they are selling books by the thousands each day or week while you are struggling to sell one per month. It is this group I want self-pubbed authors to understand so they can realize they are not failing to sell their books because they aren’t good. I also want struggling authors to stop believing a lot of the rot published in anything titled close to “How to Sell Millions of Your Self-Published Book ” or “100 Top Tricks to Get Your Book on the Bestselling List.” Some of the books are making good money off of desperate authors by selling them an illusion (let that author write a book that doesn’t have to do with selling books and watch him crash and burn) and some of them can’t even sell a book about selling books! So at no cost to you at all, no price of a book or a seminar, I will give you the scoop right here. Actually, if I told you the truth in a book or a seminar, no one would invite me back because no one pays for giving out bad news. Not all bad news, but enough bad news that I can’t sell what I have to tell – I am not out to make bucks by shamelessly motivating you with bullshit. Okay, so how do authors sell books?
Well,let’s take a moment to examine authors who are lucky enough to get an agent (I have been fortunate enough to have four and very happy with my present literary agent, Claire Gerus, who just got me my two last book deals) and that agent gets you a publishing deal with the average advance (read: small). If you want to make really great sales, you have got to get in the front of the bookstore. You need to have your book cover facing out in a nice column on a front rack with a poster next to it. If your book is displayed at the entrance with pomp and circumstance, your publisher is guaranteeing you to make a shitload of cash on your book and they are paying, yes, paying for that prime real estate. But, if your publisher gave you a small advance, he isn’t spending a fortune on a bad gamble, so no front-of-bookstore for you. You can be confident, as crap, if you are not Dan Brown or another hot selling author or an industry insider who saw more than five zeros on their advance check (not counting those with a decimal point in between), your book is not going to be there. It is going to be on the back shelves with the other tens of thousands of books serving as wallpaper for the front runners. Yes, there are a few slightly cheaper paid spots in a bin near the front of the store or on the ends of the racks that might make you a few dollars, but don’t hold your breath that those spots are going to throw you onto The New York Times Bestseller list.
So, most of you, if you have a traditional publisher and aren’t already famous, you will be on the racks of doom for about six weeks at which time your book will be summarily executed if it hasn’t sold its two copies by then. Most disappear rapidly, a few hang around a number of months, and there are those that eke out an existence in certain genres in a moderate way.
Book launch? What’s that? Book tours? No way. Publicity from the publisher? Maybe a tad. Pretty much you are on your own when it comes to book promotion, unless you are Dan Brown or a hot selling author or already famous and then you get fifty top book reviews and a couple hundred good reviews from Amazon Vine before the book goes on sale, NPR, lots of big TV, a massive radio tour, full-page ads, book tours, parties, and global attention. But I repeat myself. What happens to regular published authors is that they are told to get a publicist and to spend about $4000/month for at least six months to make sure their book sells. And the publicist gets the author on some local radio shows, a few small television shows, and gets them book reviews on a few blogs and in a few small regional magazines. They send out a lot of press releases that bring in very little interest because you are not Dan Brown or a hot selling author or already famous (damn…did it again). Then, instead of making $5000 on a published book, an author can lose $19,000 because that kind of limited publicity isn’t going to rock the buying public’s world especially if they can’t even find your stupid book in the bookstore. So, if you are going to hire a book publicist, make sure they have some level of reasonable book visibility to improve, that they aren't charging you to move your book from ten sales to twenty sales per month.
But, wait! You get an opportunity to have a book signing at your local Barnes and Noble. Awesome! You invite all your friends and business associates and you are the star for a couple of hours, selling and signing twenty books. You are on your way! You manage to finagle another book signing in a small bookstore out of town by fifty miles and at that one, you stand there like a dope in front of a bunch of empty chairs. Finally, a few people come up. Two want to rest their feet and eat their sandwiches and the other one wants to ask you how to sell books (like you know). Humiliated, you skulk out of the store with your publicity material and never do another signing. So, why did the first one go so well and the second one feel like an exercise in masochism? Well, the first one was your Tupperware party. The Barnes and Noble manager knew, since you are a local author, you would bring all your friends in to buy books, mostly other people’s books. They get a free event and new customers and you get a moment in the sun. Out of town, reality stinks.
(disclaimer: Not all publishers and publicists follow these general rules, certainly no one I work with).
Feeling goooood now? Okay, that is the raw deal for the majority of authors published by traditional publishing houses. Now, to the worse news. The self-publishing world. Lets’ say you do what those experts say (the ones you just wasted $9.99 per click buying their ebook of tips) and you have an awesome cover (that you paid for), a manuscript that was well-edited (that you paid for), and a great story (that you gave up paid work to spend time writing), and you are ready to go. You get help with formatting it for Kindle (which you pay for) and up it goes to take its joyful place among 4,000,000 other hopefuls, a needle in a haystack unless you GPS someone to your book's exact location. And there the bugger will sit while you spend another $50 buying five more ebooks on how to promote your darling. So you Tweet and you Facebook and you get on message boards, send out postcards, get on some small blogs, and send hundreds of emails…..and you sell one book per month. Desperation and depression set in; you wonder what you are doing wrong. Why are other self-published authors becoming millionaires and you are getting nowhere? You have read some of their books and you think most of them suck eggs; you would never buy a second one of their tripe. Some of these big sellers even have more one-star Amazon reviews than five-star ones. What are they doing right and you doing wrong?
Give yourself a break. Big self-published Kindle authors may just be lucky or they may be master salesmen; they don’t necessarily have far better books than you. Some of them were known published authors with large followings before they went the self-pubbed route and they brought their fans along with them. So they have a big head start. Some of them are able to sell a couple of their books as loss leaders to draw people into their other books, so they have a lot of stuff to sell. Some spend sixteen hours a day/seven days a week promoting in every way possible, studying trends, and spending money on advertising and, still, they need to get lucky as well; many can do all this and still just sell small numbers of books. But you hear about the ones that hit the lottery (and they often make sure that you do because then they can sell more of their books). Some truly just get incredibly lucky that their book came out at the right time, got a review in the right place, hit the reading public with just the right story, and the thing went viral. Sometimes you can’t figure out exactly what caused an author or a particular book to hit the tipping point and get bestseller status, a thousand books a day in sales, and a movie option. It could be you tomorrow, who knows? Likely not, but you might just get the golden ticket, so here’s rooting for you.
Now that I have shot down most of your bright hopes, what do I recommend to the aspiring writer and self-pubbed author? Enjoy writing. Love your book. Go ahead and promote your book, be clever if you can, watch trends, encourage folks to put reviews for your book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, try to get thebig book reviews if you can find a way, and try stuff to see if it works (change pricing, go on Kindle Select, blah, blah, blah), but, for heaven’s sake, be realistic enough not to feel like a loser in a race with few winners and don’t drive yourself crazy looking at your book sales every hour of the day (only to see the same number again and again). And don’t waste your money on a lot of guru garble. I am not saying there isn’t some useful advice out there (sometimes one bit of info can make the difference) and I have bought certain motivational and sales books from select guys I consider brilliant in that arena. But beware of salesmen bearing fool’s gold, making big money off of other people’s dreams; yours.
Before I leave you to prepare and plan for your publishing future, let me at least give you some tips on what does make a huge difference in sales, publicity you can aspire to get, that if you do, you may find yourself with a book rising to the top of the rankings.
1) Hard work, and by that, I mean years of hard work, not overnight sensation stuff. I got my first agent because I had already been on television regularly for a number of years. As my appearances on television hit over 2000 for the last decade, I had more options because my name was well-known by then. Other avenues could be working hard in the literary field, in academics, in some specialized field, journalism, in publishing, in any media outlet – places you can build a reputation in either something specific or in the art of writing or make great contacts that will then be willing to back your new novel or nonfiction book.
2) Build up that social networking even if it doesn’t exactly mean a Tweet or a Facebook post to 20,000 people is going to generate hundreds of sales; it won’t. But your presence out there, a verifiable presence, gives you some clout rather than just being Jane Jones from Noplacesville, never heard of you, lady, and when I Googled you, you didn’t exist. Get a blog and website going as well. All of this is work, work, work, but it may pay off in ten years.
3) If you are a schmoozer, make well-known friends who can endorse and back you.
4) Television can be useful. But, usually we are talking about big, big shows like the ex-Oprah, The Tonight Show, The Today Show which reach huge numbers of people with a particular message and the message must be about your book.
5) Radio can move things along but you either need to be doing hundreds and hundreds of little shows to get a little buzz or do NPR and make you book soar. Good luck getting on there.
6) As to book reviews: if you check out the big authors, you will notice they have reviews in big papers, magazines, and blogs like The New York Times and Marie Claire and Forbes. If you check out small authors, you will find them in Tennessee Camping Monthly and Betsy’s Best Books. Bigger is better. Good luck getting in these, too.
7) Forewords and blurbs written by well-known authors and celebrities. They do this because they a) adore your book, or b) it gets them publicity. B is what happens 99% of the time, so if your book won’t get them good publicity, they probably aren’t going to bother giving you a blurb or writing your foreword, unless they happen to be a very close relative (like your mother).
8) Find a rich mate who will fund your writing business and let you work full-time making no money for decades.
9) Don’t croak too young.
I hope my advice and my tips help you navigate through the world of publishing, traditional and self. Good luck to you all, my writing friends. Meet you at the top of the publishing world or at least at the pub.
Interview de PB sur la Scotland Yard Review - 25.04.2012
Interviewer (Sandy) : A computer aged photo of missing girl Madeleine McCann. Now, this is what she might look like today at the age of nine, five years after she disappeared while on vacation with her family in Portugal. British investigators think that it is possible Madeleine is still alive and they have launched a massive review of more than forty thousand pieces of evidence. Joining us now Criminal Profiler Pat Brown and Pat is writing a book on the McCann case...hi Pat !
Finding a crevice, secreting a small body, and covering it with a pile of rocks would not take that long. On a night with a full moon, one would not even need a flashlight to accomplish this. The spot would be up and out of the way of beachcombers and a good location unless one thought cadaver dogs were going to be set loose on it. At the time Maddie went missing, no one was looking for a body and as long as an abduction was promulgated and a live child searched for, the PJ weren't bringing in cadaver dogs, which they didn't, until the McCanns became Arguidos (suspects).
Non, ce sont les alertes des chiens qui ont conduit le Ministère public à changer le statut des MC de victimes en témoins assistés.
Right next to the beach a few metres from the gully area is a road and public parking spaces (if one wanted to remove the body later and transport it elsewhere). The cadaver dogs did search the Rocha Negra, ascending as far as they could from the beach. I don't know if a moved body, perhaps a well-wrapped on, might not have left a scent for the dogs to find or whether there was never a body there. But, this very accessible location on the side of the Rocha Negra would be my top choice for where I would hide a body if I only had a short period of time and couldn't go very far.
PB ne compte pas le temps et les recherches pour découvrir ça !
At this point, there is not enough evidence to prove in court that the McCanns are involved with the disappearance of the daughter, Madeleine, or that they moved her body or exactly where they could have moved her body if they were. But, when one puts oneself in the mind of a person desperate to hide a body, it is interesting what one sees as possibilities.
 |
| A Rocha Negra |
No body, no case. While
this is not always so, it is quite rare to see homicide or
manslaughter charges levied against someone unless there is
exceptionally strong evidence that a person has been killed and there
is also substantial proof of how they were done in and who did it. As
it stands today, we have no such level of proof in the case of
missing Madeleine McCann; what we have is a child who hasn't shown up
in five years, no evidence of abduction, alerts from cadaver dogs,
and very concerning behavior and statements from the McCanns and
their friends and family. Let me reiterate; I find no proof of
abduction nor proof that Maddie is alive. I believe the evidence more
likely supports the theory that Maddie died in the vacation apartment
and her body was removed from there. If the cadaver dogs are accurate
in their alerts that a body was in the apartment on May 3rd, 2007 and
was moved in the hire car that the McCanns rented weeks later, then
the body was hidden locally and moved to another location at a later
date. If we follow this theory, the following scenario is the one I
believe most likely, having now spent time in Portugal and Praia da
Luz. Following physical and behavioral evidence, I would theorize
that Maddie died in the apartment and lay behind the couch until she
was discovered. With panic ensuing, the body would most likely have
been moved by Gerry in a hurry to a location far enough away from the
apartment to not immediately have suspicion fall upon the parents.
This location would not be very secure, but because of the very
limited time frame Gerry would have had to work with, Maddie would
have been simply hidden in the weeds, or under an object or in an
open isolated structure. Then, I believe with an hour or so to work
with in the early hours of the morning, Gerry may have decided it
would behoove him to find a better hiding location and this I believe
is most likely to be in a gully on the side of the Rocha Negra,
accessible from the beach and full of loose dirt, stones, and rocks
that would allow for a quick burial (see previous blog; On Moving and
Hiding Bodies).
Then, when Kate told the
PJ that she had a dream about Maddie's body being on a slab of rock
and the cadaver dogs were heading to Praia da Luz, Gerry might have
decided it would be better to find a location away from the town
where she would never be found. Some think the body was stored in a
freezer at some point but I find this unlikely. If there is some
evidence in the vehicle of a body having been on ice, I would be more
likely to believe it was literally on ice in the boot. In other
words, ice was placed in the boot in a bag or bags as a method of
keeping the body cold during transport. Taking the body to an inside
location, storing it in a large freezer, and then moving it yet again
seems like an awful lot of extra moving of the body and, usually, a
person works in the direction of having the body disappear and
doesn't take the risk of bringing the body closer to him and keeping
it around for discovery. Bodies found in freezers or kept in freezers
usually have that location as the first place of rest, not an
intermediary one. There is also speculation that Gerry and Kate might
have had a contingent of helpers outside of the Tapas 7 which I also
find hard to accept. The more people one brings in on a criminal
undertaking, the more likely it is that someone will open their
mouth, even accidentally. Gerry is smart enough to know this is an
unacceptable danger (any of the Tapas 7 knowing anything is bad
enough but this may have been unavoidable and they may have more at
stake to keep them quiet than people uninvolved in the evening of May
3rd and previous days and nights). He is also controlling enough to
want to take care of things as best he can by himself.
Before coming to
Portugal, I entertained a number of possibilities: the Huelva baths
in Spain where the McCanns went just as the cadaver dogs were
arriving, removal back to the UK, and incineration. Each had its
interesting possibilities but each also seemed a bit too difficult to
accomplish (although by no means am I saying such actions would have
been impossible) and it is a pretty good rule of thumb that people do
what is easier to manage and simpler to pull off. Because of this, I
came to two more probable conclusions, both involving Gerry driving
the body to a location he felt was secluded and unlikely to be
discovered. I was particularly interested in the activities of the
McCann in the days before the Huelva trip when Gerry's phone pinged
repeatedly in an area to the west of Praia da Luz along the road to
Budens, (estre EN125). I also found it interesting that the day he
was to leave for Huelva, he was not feeling well, having a bit of an
upset stomach. This led me to theorize he could have used that day to
move the body or to recover from moving it the day before. I decided
when I got to Praia da Luz, I would take a trip down that road to the
west and see whether there were any suitable places to lose a body
forever. The first place I looked for was the kind of location for a
“proper burial” to occur, a place with some kind of religious
significance like an isolated spot in view of a little chapel so that
Kate and Gerry could feel they had done right by their daughter, a
place they could find again and stop by to spend time with Maddie, to
pray for her. Being that Portugal is a heavily Catholic country, I
imagined there might be dozens of small chapels along the route much
as one can find a plethora of little mandirs (temples) in India as
one travels down just about any rural road.
Interestingly, I found
none to speak of. I found churches but they were all stuck right in
the middle of town. I did find a couple of graveyards on the
outskirts of town which had curious possibilities in that inside the
walls of these small cemeteries, there were quite a few graves with
just a mound of dirt over the body rather than a concrete structure;
some folks obviously lacked the money to pay for these nice amenities
and had to bury their loved ones in a very simple fashion. When they
came into more money, they could then top the grave site with a
proper tombstone. In theory, if one could access such a location, one
could bury a small body in an already dug grave, put back the
displaced dirt and no one would be the wiser that the grave contained
an extra corpse. Not a bad concept, but these graveyards appeared to
be locked and monitored, so one would have to scale the walls to get
in. Possible? Yes, but not probable. So, I found no really good
location within the ping area for Gerry to give Maddie a spiritual
resting place. I did find an interesting spot, however, that I
thought might have stood in nicely as it had a beautiful view which
included the Rocha Negra in the distance. And up at the top of a hill
overlooking the spot, there appeared to be a cross which would lend
some special religious significance, like God looking down upon
Madeleine in her final resting place. This location, the Forte de
Almadena, is open to the public down a short road that one can access
after dark. During the day, there appear to be times when no one is
there. There are the remains of a fort and, nearby, odd mounds of
soft dirt that actually already look like a set of graves. Retired
British police officer, PM, and I brought out the metal detector and
spade and investigated a number of them.
The metal detector found
nothing. Since it was possible Maddie could have been buried in the
oft-discussed missing sports bag, I was wanting to see if the
detector would find any metal, metal that might be on that bag. If
Maddie's body were buried shallowly under the ground in a sports bag,
metal rings attaching a strap or metal zippers (although zippers
these days are almost all vinyl) could set off the metal detector.
Unfortunately, it remained silent. Then PM dug trenches across the
mounds; we found nothing. Then we drove up to look at the cross we
saw on the hill; it turned out to be a windsock. So much for the
religious significance, although, if we thought it was a cross, so
could Gerry. Does that mean Maddie couldn’t be buried at the Fort?
No, it is still possible. There is a bit of land around it that we
did not have the time to totally explore. But, then, I found a better
place. Gerry seemed to be on that road west over a period of three
days which to date has not been explained. Was he looking and looking
for a spot to bury a body? Driving off the main road to see if there
was a good place to move Maddie to? PM and I found an excellent place
within hours of leaving Praia da Luz, so I see no reason why Gerry
couldn’t have found it as well. However, there is no religious
significance to this location; it would simply be a great place to
hide a body and never have it discovered. Would he choose this? Part
of me fought against it, thinking these parents, especially Kate,
would find comfort and some validation as good parents and Christians
if they buried Maddie in a religious place of some kind. However,
Gerry seems to be quite practical and rather cold and calculating and
he simply may have decided, Kate’s feelings be damned, that making
sure the body was never found was of paramount importance and they
would have to live with it.
Monte do Jose Mestre.
This huge, desolate area covers many square metres and is filled with
a considerable network of dirt roads. Looking down on the area from
atop the highest hill is a row of windmills. Small trees and bushes
are scattered throughout and the dirt is not impossible to dig in.
Gerry had just returned from England and I wouldn’t be surprised,
if he is involved in disposing of Maddie’s body, that he brought a
small shovel back with him, one that could be tossed into the bushes
when he finished digging the grave or thrown away in a dumpster on
the way back to Praia da Luz. If the body is buried out there, it
would be unlikely to ever be found unless a large contingent of
searchers and dogs descended upon the area and then it would still be
pretty lucky if they located a grave. I hope, however, this is done
sometime in the future. I would like to know if Maddie is there or
not.
An inhibiting factor is that since the disappearance of the child an old empty house adjacent to the Trig Point on the Rocha Negra has been demolished and all rubble removed, If she was concealed within this property the search would be unlikely to detect her now. Having stayed at the next village, I can endorse that it would be too risky to use the dumpsters, because they are very open for inspection, and were emptied by hand by a man in a pick-up -
What you seek and what you find are often two completely different things. But the human sense of direction whiilse searching is SOUND directing vision and what is before your very eyes, you miss!! If the McCanns had themselves hidden the body then wouldn't it have been risky for them to have hidden it in a respectful place in case it was ever found by chance and be obvious a callous abductor would never have put her there.
Why would an abductor bother with a decent burial when he could dump the body somewhere and make a quick getaway?
I am going to make your day, self-published and traditionally published struggling authors! You can stop wishing you were me because, in spite of the fact Nancy Grace and Dr. Drew both mentioned my new mystery novel, Only the Truth, when I was on their shows last week, I didn’t see any dramatic jump in book sales. So, stop worrying if you aren’t on television and you can’t afford a publicist to get you on. I do television at least three times a week and I can tell you, while constant visibility does keep one’s name and book out there, getting on a television show doesn’t mean you are going to become an overnight bestseller, well, unless you are on Oprah which you can’t be anymore.
And I am sure you are likely discouraged by all those bestselling authors who seem to come out of nowhere and hit it big; let me clear that up. One, some of those are lying like dogs and are simply giving themselves the “bestselling author” label and claiming they sold way more of their books than they actually did. Proving someone is a liar is pretty difficult when it comes to questions of success in the book market. Others who actually achieve success may not get it the way they would like us to believe, by having a great literary accomplishment.
Now, before I get successful authors throwing heavy objects at my head and calling me “jealous” or “bitter,” - I do already have two traditionally published books, Killing for Sport (Phoenix 2008) and The Profiler; My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths (Hyperion 2010) and two more traditionally published books coming out in the next year, How to Save Your Daughter’s Life (HCI Sept 2012) and The Murder of Cleopatra (Prometheus Feb 2013) - let me state that they are some fabulous writers out there and they have become well-known and lauded for their outstanding books and the merit of their writing. I am inspired, impressed, and proud of each of these authors who have reached such heights through wonderful work and effort. I love reading their works and I recommend their books to my friends and I wish them continued best of luck.
But, a good portion of selling authors are not making money due to the brilliance of their word-craft or even tolerably good storytelling; many are mediocre at best, and some are downright abysmal and you wonder how they hell they are selling books by the thousands each day or week while you are struggling to sell one per month. It is this group I want self-pubbed authors to understand so they can realize they are not failing to sell their books because they aren’t good. I also want struggling authors to stop believing a lot of the rot published in anything titled close to “How to Sell Millions of Your Self-Published Book ” or “100 Top Tricks to Get Your Book on the Bestselling List.” Some of the books are making good money off of desperate authors by selling them an illusion (let that author write a book that doesn’t have to do with selling books and watch him crash and burn) and some of them can’t even sell a book about selling books! So at no cost to you at all, no price of a book or a seminar, I will give you the scoop right here. Actually, if I told you the truth in a book or a seminar, no one would invite me back because no one pays for giving out bad news. Not all bad news, but enough bad news that I can’t sell what I have to tell – I am not out to make bucks by shamelessly motivating you with bullshit. Okay, so how do authors sell books?
Well,let’s take a moment to examine authors who are lucky enough to get an agent (I have been fortunate enough to have four and very happy with my present literary agent, Claire Gerus, who just got me my two last book deals) and that agent gets you a publishing deal with the average advance (read: small). If you want to make really great sales, you have got to get in the front of the bookstore. You need to have your book cover facing out in a nice column on a front rack with a poster next to it. If your book is displayed at the entrance with pomp and circumstance, your publisher is guaranteeing you to make a shitload of cash on your book and they are paying, yes, paying for that prime real estate. But, if your publisher gave you a small advance, he isn’t spending a fortune on a bad gamble, so no front-of-bookstore for you. You can be confident, as crap, if you are not Dan Brown or another hot selling author or an industry insider who saw more than five zeros on their advance check (not counting those with a decimal point in between), your book is not going to be there. It is going to be on the back shelves with the other tens of thousands of books serving as wallpaper for the front runners. Yes, there are a few slightly cheaper paid spots in a bin near the front of the store or on the ends of the racks that might make you a few dollars, but don’t hold your breath that those spots are going to throw you onto The New York Times Bestseller list.
So, most of you, if you have a traditional publisher and aren’t already famous, you will be on the racks of doom for about six weeks at which time your book will be summarily executed if it hasn’t sold its two copies by then. Most disappear rapidly, a few hang around a number of months, and there are those that eke out an existence in certain genres in a moderate way.
Book launch? What’s that? Book tours? No way. Publicity from the publisher? Maybe a tad. Pretty much you are on your own when it comes to book promotion, unless you are Dan Brown or a hot selling author or already famous and then you get fifty top book reviews and a couple hundred good reviews from Amazon Vine before the book goes on sale, NPR, lots of big TV, a massive radio tour, full-page ads, book tours, parties, and global attention. But I repeat myself. What happens to regular published authors is that they are told to get a publicist and to spend about $4000/month for at least six months to make sure their book sells. And the publicist gets the author on some local radio shows, a few small television shows, and gets them book reviews on a few blogs and in a few small regional magazines. They send out a lot of press releases that bring in very little interest because you are not Dan Brown or a hot selling author or already famous (damn…did it again). Then, instead of making $5000 on a published book, an author can lose $19,000 because that kind of limited publicity isn’t going to rock the buying public’s world especially if they can’t even find your stupid book in the bookstore. So, if you are going to hire a book publicist, make sure they have some level of reasonable book visibility to improve, that they aren't charging you to move your book from ten sales to twenty sales per month.
But, wait! You get an opportunity to have a book signing at your local Barnes and Noble. Awesome! You invite all your friends and business associates and you are the star for a couple of hours, selling and signing twenty books. You are on your way! You manage to finagle another book signing in a small bookstore out of town by fifty miles and at that one, you stand there like a dope in front of a bunch of empty chairs. Finally, a few people come up. Two want to rest their feet and eat their sandwiches and the other one wants to ask you how to sell books (like you know). Humiliated, you skulk out of the store with your publicity material and never do another signing. So, why did the first one go so well and the second one feel like an exercise in masochism? Well, the first one was your Tupperware party. The Barnes and Noble manager knew, since you are a local author, you would bring all your friends in to buy books, mostly other people’s books. They get a free event and new customers and you get a moment in the sun. Out of town, reality stinks.
(disclaimer: Not all publishers and publicists follow these general rules, certainly no one I work with).
Feeling goooood now? Okay, that is the raw deal for the majority of authors published by traditional publishing houses. Now, to the worse news. The self-publishing world. Lets’ say you do what those experts say (the ones you just wasted $9.99 per click buying their ebook of tips) and you have an awesome cover (that you paid for), a manuscript that was well-edited (that you paid for), and a great story (that you gave up paid work to spend time writing), and you are ready to go. You get help with formatting it for Kindle (which you pay for) and up it goes to take its joyful place among 4,000,000 other hopefuls, a needle in a haystack unless you GPS someone to your book's exact location. And there the bugger will sit while you spend another $50 buying five more ebooks on how to promote your darling. So you Tweet and you Facebook and you get on message boards, send out postcards, get on some small blogs, and send hundreds of emails…..and you sell one book per month. Desperation and depression set in; you wonder what you are doing wrong. Why are other self-published authors becoming millionaires and you are getting nowhere? You have read some of their books and you think most of them suck eggs; you would never buy a second one of their tripe. Some of these big sellers even have more one-star Amazon reviews than five-star ones. What are they doing right and you doing wrong?
Give yourself a break. Big self-published Kindle authors may just be lucky or they may be master salesmen; they don’t necessarily have far better books than you. Some of them were known published authors with large followings before they went the self-pubbed route and they brought their fans along with them. So they have a big head start. Some of them are able to sell a couple of their books as loss leaders to draw people into their other books, so they have a lot of stuff to sell. Some spend sixteen hours a day/seven days a week promoting in every way possible, studying trends, and spending money on advertising and, still, they need to get lucky as well; many can do all this and still just sell small numbers of books. But you hear about the ones that hit the lottery (and they often make sure that you do because then they can sell more of their books). Some truly just get incredibly lucky that their book came out at the right time, got a review in the right place, hit the reading public with just the right story, and the thing went viral. Sometimes you can’t figure out exactly what caused an author or a particular book to hit the tipping point and get bestseller status, a thousand books a day in sales, and a movie option. It could be you tomorrow, who knows? Likely not, but you might just get the golden ticket, so here’s rooting for you.
Now that I have shot down most of your bright hopes, what do I recommend to the aspiring writer and self-pubbed author? Enjoy writing. Love your book. Go ahead and promote your book, be clever if you can, watch trends, encourage folks to put reviews for your book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, try to get thebig book reviews if you can find a way, and try stuff to see if it works (change pricing, go on Kindle Select, blah, blah, blah), but, for heaven’s sake, be realistic enough not to feel like a loser in a race with few winners and don’t drive yourself crazy looking at your book sales every hour of the day (only to see the same number again and again). And don’t waste your money on a lot of guru garble. I am not saying there isn’t some useful advice out there (sometimes one bit of info can make the difference) and I have bought certain motivational and sales books from select guys I consider brilliant in that arena. But beware of salesmen bearing fool’s gold, making big money off of other people’s dreams; yours.
Before I leave you to prepare and plan for your publishing future, let me at least give you some tips on what does make a huge difference in sales, publicity you can aspire to get, that if you do, you may find yourself with a book rising to the top of the rankings.
1) Hard work, and by that, I mean years of hard work, not overnight sensation stuff. I got my first agent because I had already been on television regularly for a number of years. As my appearances on television hit over 2000 for the last decade, I had more options because my name was well-known by then. Other avenues could be working hard in the literary field, in academics, in some specialized field, journalism, in publishing, in any media outlet – places you can build a reputation in either something specific or in the art of writing or make great contacts that will then be willing to back your new novel or nonfiction book.
2) Build up that social networking even if it doesn’t exactly mean a Tweet or a Facebook post to 20,000 people is going to generate hundreds of sales; it won’t. But your presence out there, a verifiable presence, gives you some clout rather than just being Jane Jones from Noplacesville, never heard of you, lady, and when I Googled you, you didn’t exist. Get a blog and website going as well. All of this is work, work, work, but it may pay off in ten years.
3) If you are a schmoozer, make well-known friends who can endorse and back you.
4) Television can be useful. But, usually we are talking about big, big shows like the ex-Oprah, The Tonight Show, The Today Show which reach huge numbers of people with a particular message and the message must be about your book.
5) Radio can move things along but you either need to be doing hundreds and hundreds of little shows to get a little buzz or do NPR and make you book soar. Good luck getting on there.
6) As to book reviews: if you check out the big authors, you will notice they have reviews in big papers, magazines, and blogs like The New York Times and Marie Claire and Forbes. If you check out small authors, you will find them in Tennessee Camping Monthly and Betsy’s Best Books. Bigger is better. Good luck getting in these, too.
7) Forewords and blurbs written by well-known authors and celebrities. They do this because they a) adore your book, or b) it gets them publicity. B is what happens 99% of the time, so if your book won’t get them good publicity, they probably aren’t going to bother giving you a blurb or writing your foreword, unless they happen to be a very close relative (like your mother).
8) Find a rich mate who will fund your writing business and let you work full-time making no money for decades.
9) Don’t croak too young.
I hope my advice and my tips help you navigate through the world of publishing, traditional and self. Good luck to you all, my writing friends. Meet you at the top of the publishing world or at least at the pub.
Interview de PB sur la Scotland Yard Review - 25.04.2012
Interviewer (Sandy) : A computer aged photo of missing girl Madeleine McCann. Now, this is what she might look like today at the age of nine, five years after she disappeared while on vacation with her family in Portugal. British investigators think that it is possible Madeleine is still alive and they have launched a massive review of more than forty thousand pieces of evidence. Joining us now Criminal Profiler Pat Brown and Pat is writing a book on the McCann case...hi Pat !
PB : Hi Sandy !
S : So Scotland Yard wants to reopen the investigation and they’re saying the evidence suggests Madeleine may still be alive. Do you believe it?
PB : Well, I'm kind of wondering where they’re coming up with that because first of all if she were kidnapped and were somewhere out there in the world, she’s had her face – this is the most well known child, missing child, in the entire world with tremendous publicity, her photo has been everywhere and she has a particularly unusual eye colour, coloboma, a real standout...so that somebody would never have seen her, or that anybody would keep her around with that particular, you know, identifying mark and run around and put up with her is so unlikely ... it’s hard to believe that she would pop up after all this time.
Also there’s the simple fact that if she were abducted it would be most likely by a local person right around Praia da Luz, er, that’s what all the evidence points to if it were an abduction, so we would be looking at a local child sex predator who would have probably killed her within the hour, that’s what we have for all the statistics, so I’m not quite sure where they’re coming from, I’m not sure what any of the evidence they reviewed tells them that she’s out there some place when they haven’t in fact even proven an abduction
On ne dira jamais assez cela. Les Britanniques ont fait comme si le ministère public portugais n'avait pas dit qu'il n'avait pu (en donnant quelques raisons pour cela) déterminer la nature du crime. En fait de collaboration judiciaire entre les membres de l'Union, on n'a plus d'illusions à se faire. Une chose est, c'est le cas de la France, de refuser d'extrader ses nationaux, condamnés par une cour de justice étrangère. Si la France est convaincue de la raison d'être d'une peine, elle la fera exécuter en France, une autre est de sauter à pieds joints sur les conclusions d'une enquête contrainte de s'arrêter faute de collaboration de la part des victimes.
S : So Scotland Yard wants to reopen the investigation and they’re saying the evidence suggests Madeleine may still be alive. Do you believe it?
PB : Well, I'm kind of wondering where they’re coming up with that because first of all if she were kidnapped and were somewhere out there in the world, she’s had her face – this is the most well known child, missing child, in the entire world with tremendous publicity, her photo has been everywhere and she has a particularly unusual eye colour, coloboma, a real standout...so that somebody would never have seen her, or that anybody would keep her around with that particular, you know, identifying mark and run around and put up with her is so unlikely ... it’s hard to believe that she would pop up after all this time.
Also there’s the simple fact that if she were abducted it would be most likely by a local person right around Praia da Luz, er, that’s what all the evidence points to if it were an abduction, so we would be looking at a local child sex predator who would have probably killed her within the hour, that’s what we have for all the statistics, so I’m not quite sure where they’re coming from, I’m not sure what any of the evidence they reviewed tells them that she’s out there some place when they haven’t in fact even proven an abduction
On ne dira jamais assez cela. Les Britanniques ont fait comme si le ministère public portugais n'avait pas dit qu'il n'avait pu (en donnant quelques raisons pour cela) déterminer la nature du crime. En fait de collaboration judiciaire entre les membres de l'Union, on n'a plus d'illusions à se faire. Une chose est, c'est le cas de la France, de refuser d'extrader ses nationaux, condamnés par une cour de justice étrangère. Si la France est convaincue de la raison d'être d'une peine, elle la fera exécuter en France, une autre est de sauter à pieds joints sur les conclusions d'une enquête contrainte de s'arrêter faute de collaboration de la part des victimes.
and they haven’t brought the parents back in and the friends and done all their proper re-interviews and they haven’t done another crime reconstruction. I’m not quite sure where they’re coming from but er there’s always hope and you know we have that.
S : Yeah, no, true, it’s always good to have that but you know they've built up a huge er portfolio here if you will, thirty-seven investigators on the case now, they said that they've found a hundred and ninety-five investigative opportunities that weren’t looked at, some simple, some complex, and they’re only quarter way through the documents. Now I gather that they ... whatever they’re investigation...is in the United, in the UK, holds no sway in Portugal, all of this would have to go back to Portugal, er, police in Portugal would it not?
PB : That’s correct. The Portuguese would have to reopen the case, which by the way can be reopened if the McCanns just ask it to be reopened. They have not done so. Er, but yes they would have to conduct the investigation. Now of course, if it’s true that the Met finds really great information that convinces the Portuguese police there’s something out there that they've completely overlooked, great information that say Madeleine is out there alive somewhere and they need to go look for her or that she isn't alive and that they can focus in on a suspect, well they would probably do that, but er, I’m just not sure where they’re coming from. As I said, when you, when you review a case you always go back to the beginning and I don’t understand why they, the, this particular investigation, this review shall we say, has skipped the beginning and gone to looking at a massive amount of tips because we all know that there’s so many tips that come in on cases you can drive yourself crazy running down every one of them. So you have to go back to the evidence and review the actual crime, all the crime scene evidence and start there.
Hurray! The Madeleine McCann Case is Near to being Solved! - 01.05.2012"[We are] seeking to bring closure to the case," Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood told the BBC.
I am satisfied that the systems and processes that we are bringing to this set of circumstances will give us the best opportunity to find those investigative opportunities that we can then present to our colleagues in Portugal.
And, clearly, those 195 new leads culled from a years worth of work by the MET's 37-man team should indeed inspire the Portuguese police to reopen the case and get to work following up these valuable clues (provided to me by an unnamed unreliable source) which surely will result in the recovery of a living Madeleine McCann who can then be united with her long-suffering parents whose own five-year-long investigation using private detectives and reportedly spending millions in donated money has been a miserable failure.
But, now it is hoped that 195 new clues unearthed by the stellar British law enforcement agency previously overlooked by the bumbling Portuguese police will now be further investigated by this incompetent bunch of tossers.
A Sampling of the New Clues (provided to me by an unnamed unreliable source)
1. A Spanish woman saw a blonde child
2. An Italian woman saw a blond child
3. A Portuguese man saw a blond child
4. A British couple saw a blond child
5. A French couple saw a blond child
6. A Spanish woman heard a rumor
7. An Italian woman heard a rumor
8. A Portuguese man heard a rumor
9. A British couple heard a rumor
10. A French couple heard a rumor
11. A Spanish woman saw a creepy man
12. An Italian woman saw a creepy man
13. A Portuguese man saw a creepy man
14. A British couple saw a creepy man
15. A French couple saw a creepy man
16. A Spanish woman saw a creepy woman
17. An Italian woman saw a creepy woman
18. A Portuguese man saw a creepy woman
19. A British couple saw a creepy woman
20. A French couple saw a creepy woman
I am hoping the readers of this blog will see that there is much hope now that the case of missing Madeleine McCann will be reopened, quickly solved, and the child returned home to her family.
Cost of finding 185 totally useless clues? 3.2 million dollars of UK taxpayer money
Worth to the McCann media spin? Priceless
Here's a reminder of the News International connections.
Sir Clement Freud, grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, had a holiday home in Praia da Luz, in Portugal.
In July 2007, Clement Freud helped the parents of missing child Madeleine McCann by cooking them dinners in Praia da Luz and offering them drinks.
Initially when he wrote to them offering assistance they thought it was a hoax. (Clement Freud – Wikipedia)
Sir Clement Freud’s son Matthew Freud is married to Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert Murdoch.
Matthew Freud is head of Freud Communications, an international public relations firm in the United Kingdom.
Matthew Freud is a member of the ‘Chipping Norton set’ along with David Cameron, Christopher Shale (recently found dead) and Rebekah Brooks.
David Wilson, the chairman of the public relations agency Bell Pottinger, handles Rebekah Brook’s press inquiries.
David Wilson was on the PR team aiding Madeleine McCann’s parents.
On Saturday 2 July, “Rebekah Brooks was a guest at an all-night party hosted by PR boss Matthew Freud and his wife, Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, at their Cotswolds mansion, Burford Priory.”
In attendance were the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, BBC reporter Robert Peston, Peter Mandelson, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, and the education secretary, Michael Gove. (Rebekah Brooks’s arrest came as a surprise despite fortnight of bad press)
I'm not impressed by 195 but I would be impressed with ONE with more meat on the bone.
why is this most publicised case, so surrounded with secrecy of ACTUAL FACTS.
what happened to the NoTW £1m REWARD money, was that merely transferred into the search FUND limited.
S : Yeah, no, true, it’s always good to have that but you know they've built up a huge er portfolio here if you will, thirty-seven investigators on the case now, they said that they've found a hundred and ninety-five investigative opportunities that weren’t looked at, some simple, some complex, and they’re only quarter way through the documents. Now I gather that they ... whatever they’re investigation...is in the United, in the UK, holds no sway in Portugal, all of this would have to go back to Portugal, er, police in Portugal would it not?
PB : That’s correct. The Portuguese would have to reopen the case, which by the way can be reopened if the McCanns just ask it to be reopened. They have not done so. Er, but yes they would have to conduct the investigation. Now of course, if it’s true that the Met finds really great information that convinces the Portuguese police there’s something out there that they've completely overlooked, great information that say Madeleine is out there alive somewhere and they need to go look for her or that she isn't alive and that they can focus in on a suspect, well they would probably do that, but er, I’m just not sure where they’re coming from. As I said, when you, when you review a case you always go back to the beginning and I don’t understand why they, the, this particular investigation, this review shall we say, has skipped the beginning and gone to looking at a massive amount of tips because we all know that there’s so many tips that come in on cases you can drive yourself crazy running down every one of them. So you have to go back to the evidence and review the actual crime, all the crime scene evidence and start there.
Hurray! The Madeleine McCann Case is Near to being Solved! - 01.05.2012"[We are] seeking to bring closure to the case," Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood told the BBC.
I am satisfied that the systems and processes that we are bringing to this set of circumstances will give us the best opportunity to find those investigative opportunities that we can then present to our colleagues in Portugal.
And, clearly, those 195 new leads culled from a years worth of work by the MET's 37-man team should indeed inspire the Portuguese police to reopen the case and get to work following up these valuable clues (provided to me by an unnamed unreliable source) which surely will result in the recovery of a living Madeleine McCann who can then be united with her long-suffering parents whose own five-year-long investigation using private detectives and reportedly spending millions in donated money has been a miserable failure.
But, now it is hoped that 195 new clues unearthed by the stellar British law enforcement agency previously overlooked by the bumbling Portuguese police will now be further investigated by this incompetent bunch of tossers.
A Sampling of the New Clues (provided to me by an unnamed unreliable source)
1. A Spanish woman saw a blonde child
2. An Italian woman saw a blond child
3. A Portuguese man saw a blond child
4. A British couple saw a blond child
5. A French couple saw a blond child
6. A Spanish woman heard a rumor
7. An Italian woman heard a rumor
8. A Portuguese man heard a rumor
9. A British couple heard a rumor
10. A French couple heard a rumor
11. A Spanish woman saw a creepy man
12. An Italian woman saw a creepy man
13. A Portuguese man saw a creepy man
14. A British couple saw a creepy man
15. A French couple saw a creepy man
16. A Spanish woman saw a creepy woman
17. An Italian woman saw a creepy woman
18. A Portuguese man saw a creepy woman
19. A British couple saw a creepy woman
20. A French couple saw a creepy woman
I am hoping the readers of this blog will see that there is much hope now that the case of missing Madeleine McCann will be reopened, quickly solved, and the child returned home to her family.
Cost of finding 185 totally useless clues? 3.2 million dollars of UK taxpayer money
Worth to the McCann media spin? Priceless
Here's a reminder of the News International connections.
Sir Clement Freud, grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, had a holiday home in Praia da Luz, in Portugal.
In July 2007, Clement Freud helped the parents of missing child Madeleine McCann by cooking them dinners in Praia da Luz and offering them drinks.
Initially when he wrote to them offering assistance they thought it was a hoax. (Clement Freud – Wikipedia)
Sir Clement Freud’s son Matthew Freud is married to Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert Murdoch.
Matthew Freud is head of Freud Communications, an international public relations firm in the United Kingdom.
Matthew Freud is a member of the ‘Chipping Norton set’ along with David Cameron, Christopher Shale (recently found dead) and Rebekah Brooks.
David Wilson, the chairman of the public relations agency Bell Pottinger, handles Rebekah Brook’s press inquiries.
David Wilson was on the PR team aiding Madeleine McCann’s parents.
On Saturday 2 July, “Rebekah Brooks was a guest at an all-night party hosted by PR boss Matthew Freud and his wife, Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, at their Cotswolds mansion, Burford Priory.”
In attendance were the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, BBC reporter Robert Peston, Peter Mandelson, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, and the education secretary, Michael Gove. (Rebekah Brooks’s arrest came as a surprise despite fortnight of bad press)
I'm not impressed by 195 but I would be impressed with ONE with more meat on the bone.
why is this most publicised case, so surrounded with secrecy of ACTUAL FACTS.
what happened to the NoTW £1m REWARD money, was that merely transferred into the search FUND limited.
Kate McCann appointed Ambassador for Missing People Organization – Unfuckingbelievable! - 10.07.2012
Seriously?
I know, I know. I should
be more professional than to use such bad language, but having Kate
McCann be the poster woman for people who have lost children, just
blows my mind. Yes, Kate surely is pretty good at making children go
missing, but it is this fact alone that should disqualify her for any
ambassador position connected to missing anybodies. In fact, it
should make her poison to any organization seeking money and support
for finding missing persons. Not only has Kate managed to lose her
child due to her own poor skills at mothering, but she has squandered
millions of donor dollars on crooked and incompetent private
investigators who haven't unearthed a damned clue, much less the body
of her own very likely very dead daughter. What in god's name was
this Missing People organization thinking? Even if they find Kate
McCann a sympathetic figure, even if they believe her daughter was
really abducted, even if they believe she has truly spent five years
searching for her missing child, the people who run this organization
have to know that a good many people think Kate McCann is guilty of
child neglect, guilty of manslaughter, guilty of covering up a crime,
guilty of obstructing a police investigation, and guilty of
defrauding the public of money. Who chooses such a person to
represent their organization? Wasn't there one person in the
leadership who said, "You know, bringing Kate McCann on board
might not be such a bright idea."
Of course, Kate McCann,
had she any sense of decency and concern for the purpose of such an
organization should have said, "I do appreciate your kind offer
and your generous support of my innocence and forgiveness of my
parenting "mistake" but I wouldn't want to do harm to your
organization, do more damage than good, considering how many people
think I am guilty of a number of crimes. They will undoubtedly attack
your organization if my name were to be linked with it." Oh, I
get why Kate didn't turn down the offer; it fits with her
personality. I am not a bit surprised. If she had turned it down, I
might have actually stopped to rethink my analysis of her. Guess I
don't have to do that. I also can't help but wonder if, perhaps, she
wasn't offered the position...that maybe she offered herself as a
representative, that she paid her way in. Maybe a large donation is
what buys you an ambassadorship. I, for one, would like to see the
financial records. So, go figure. Another bizarre occurrence in the
McCann saga which involves people who shouldn't be involved with
them. I never was much for conspiracy theories, but with all the high
level people sticking up for the McCanns and ignoring their very
concerning behaviors and misdeeds, I just have to wonder why the
McCanns seem to walk on British waters, don't you?
South African businessman
Stephen Birch says he has proof of some sort of cavity beneath a
second pebble driveway (put in after Madeleine McCann's
disappearance) and he believes that Maddie may be buried in that
particular spot, a possible grave he located with a geo-radar machine
he ran over Robert Murat's property (where his mother is living) a
number of times quite illegally. He admits he had no permission to be
on the grounds and, under the cover of night, slipped onto the
property and ran his tests. He recognizes he may be sued for this and
has his lawyers in place to deal with the possibility. I am not going
to speak of legalities and ethics in this particular post.
Personally, I do not approve of trespassing on private property,
possibly terrifying anyone at home (although some will claim I am the
pot calling the kettle black because I touched the shutters on
Apartment 5A when it was vacant which were accessible from the public
walkway in the resort at which I was staying). Anyway, the issue at
hand I am wishing to discuss is not whether Mr. Birch should be dealt
with legally, but whether there is any merit to his claim and if
anyone should dig at the spot on the driveway and who that should be.
First, to the issue of
Mr. Birch's theory that Madeleine was dead on May 3rd and buried on
Murat's property the same night. I will not get into his entire
theory as to who was involved and why. Suffice it to say, his theory
is possible, if not all that probable, at least from this profiler's
experience. IF his theory were to be true, it would be a major
anomaly. If Maddie is buried on Murat's property, I would have to
believe that Robert Murat was himself involved in the crime, that he
was a child sex predator who saw a lucky opportunity, grabbed the
child, and ran back to his house with her. Then, finished with his
enjoyment of the child, he would have done what most child sex
predators do; kill the child straight away. Then, he would have
buried her on his own property believing that he would not become a
suspect and, thereby, her body would not be found with his DNA on it
somewhere on the side of the road. Do I believe that this is what
happened? Do I believe Murat is involved? No, but only because the
evidence, in my opinion, doesn't point in his direction (see all my
blogs on the case and my Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine
McCann). I don't believe Maddie was abducted, I do believe the
McCanns are involved, and my Number One choice of where Maddie would
be found buried is Monte do Jose Mestre, a desolate area west of
Praia da Luz where Gerry McCann's cell phone pinged.
If Murat were not
involved in the disappearance of Maddie McCann and the Gerry and Kate
McCanns did have something to do with their daughter's demise, I
would find it highly improbable that Maddie would be buried by one of
her parents (with or without the help of any of their friends) nearby
on someone's private property. I find it would be extraordinary, that
under great duress right after finding her dead that evening, Gerry
would have the audacity and balls to go onto someone's property, dig
a hole, and bury Maddie there in an attempt to to frame someone in
the community. I could believe someone burying their child on some
stranger's farm in the country in some remote and area easily
accessible to the road, but just down the street on a property behind
an inhabited house in the middle of town, this is too unbelievable to
me. If the McCanns were involved and Gerry was seen trotting toward
the beach with Maddie by the Smith family, that behavior is more in
line with known behaviors of parents involved in the death of their
child; he would have been in a panic and quickly trying to get her
body away from the vacation residence and to a remote place where any
predator could have dumped her. What might have happened after that
would all depend on luck and circumstances and having more time to
think things through. But to place her just down the street on
someone's property, I doubt it. Could be true, but it would be
extremely odd.
Now, on to the issue of
should the property be dug up at that spot just to make sure? I don't
object to it. Who the suspect would be if it turned out Maddie was
buried on the property is secondary to locating the chid and seeing
justice done for her. Also, if the theory she is buried there does
not pan out, perhaps Mr. Birch and others will take that machine and
a search party over to Monte do Jose Mestre and see if they can find
Maddie over there. But who decides if the driveway at Murat's should
be excavated? If the police do not have probably cause and they don't
believe Birch's video of his radar scanning means much, they are not
going to be knocking on Murat's mom's door. Is there really any
evidence pointing to the Murat property or Murat? Is that video
really indicative of a grave? If it is, could it be the grave of a
dog? Could that cavity be the result of some other disturbance to
that ground could cause a scan that looks to Birch like a grave?
Next, should Robert Murat just say, "What the hell! Let me just
shut this guy up!" and allow the driveway to be dug up? I would
say if he wasn't worried about a body being there, he could do that.
But, on the other hand, even if he had nothing to do with Maddie's
disappearance, he might now be paranoid someone has put her body
there and he will indeed be framed, or that someone has planted some
kind of evidence to make it look like a body might have been there.
If I were in his shoes, I don't know what I would do.
Should the McCanns push
the police or Murat to take action? Well, if I were them and I were
innocent, I would damn sure want that ground dug up because it would
drive me crazy not to know if Maddie was really there or not. What do
I think will likely happen? Nothing. I think the police don't have
probable cause, Murat won't want to take the chance, and the McCanns,
in my opinion, already know whether she is under that driveway or
not. So, nothing will happen unless the Murat family no longer owns
the property and the new owners have no problem with the matter being
settled with a little digging on the drive. I don't think we are
going to see that coming down the pike any time soon. What I wouldn't
be surprised to see is Stephen Birch ending up on the end of a
Carter-Ruck lawsuit via the McCanns for claiming Maddie is dead. We
all know how the McCanns deal with differing opinions, don't we?
The concept of Occam’s
Razor, that the simplest explanation is likely to be true, is useful
when analyzing the case of missing Madeleine McCann. With Scotland
Yard having flushed millions of pounds of British taxpayer’s money
down the toilet in an effort to promote the most ludicrous of
theories (in complete opposition to Occam’s Razor), I want to step
back to the night of May 3, 2007 and examine the simplest of answers.
Why did the McCanns leave
Madeleine and her siblings alone in the vacation apartment evening
after evening?
Because they were not
worried that anyone would get into the apartment or that the children
would get out.
Why were they not worried
that anyone would get into the apartment or that the children would
get out?
Because the apartment was
thoroughly locked down so that it would be extremely difficult for
anyone to get in or for the children to get out.
As then it would be
routine for the McCanns to lock down the apartment when they went to
the Tapas bar in the evening, would it be likely that they would
change their routine on the evening of May 3, 2007 and leave the
doors unlocked so that someone could get in or that one of their
children could get out?
No.
Therefore, it is most
likely that the apartment was locked down on May 3, 2007.
Yes.
Oh.
