Crimewatch and Scotland Yard Team Up to pull One Big One over on the Public – 14.10.2013
I just finished watching
BBC's Crimewatch on the new findings in the Madeleine McCann case.
With the cooperation of New Scotland Yard (Metropolitan Police), a
new "reconstruction" was shown (that was little more than a
condensed version of the previous pro McCann documentary "Madeleine
was Here" and new theories were laid out (because Detective Andy
Redwood seems to not have found enough evidence of abduction to
really point to any particular motive). There is new "evidence"
(and I put quotes around that because Scotland Yard wishes us to take
them at their word) to eliminate one suspect, and there is "new"
evidence (and I put quotes around "new" because there isn't
anything new) putting another suspect in the top slot. My immediate
reaction to the show was this post to Twitter:
Distortion, Revisionist
history. Ridiculous "reconstruction." Conveniently missing
details.
Let me try to break down
what was off with this show without having to completely explain the
entire case. I do suggest for those that become confused to read
Goncalo Amaral's book, The Truth of the Lie or see the documentary on
it, or read my book, The Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine
McCann available at B&N and Smashwords (not at Amazon where the
McCanns had it banned), and read my blogs that I wrote following my
trip to Praia da Luz on The Daily Profiler.
I will start with the
conveniently missing details: any and all evidence or information in
the police files that points to the McCanns' involvement, the death
of the child in the flat, the cadaver dogs hits in the flat and the
rental car, the inconsistencies in the statements of many of the
Tapas 9, within their own statements and in relation to each others'
statements, and the fact that the Mr. Smith of the Smith family said
that the man they saw carrying the little girl toward the beach
looked like Gerry. Also left out; that there was no evidence of an
abductor or anyone breaking into the flat through the window, that
Gerry thought an abductor was behind the door, and that Matthew
Oldfield never really saw Madeleine when he did his supposed check.
Oh, and while they show that Jane walked past the McCanns apartment
and saw a man with a child, nothing was mentioned about her passing
Gerry and Jeremy talking on the street (the narrow street that would
caused her to have to cha-cha around the men but they never saw her).
The new reconstruction is a bare bones version, which does not
explain how an abductor might have gotten in and taken Madeleine, nor
which way he might have gone with her, nor any other particulars. All
we learn is that Gerry went to make his check at 9:15, saw Madeleine
and that the door was not in the position he thought he left it and
he set it back, that at 9:30 Matthew Oldfield made the next check,
and then Kate made her check, saw the door was a bit off, the window
open and Madeleine gone. That is it. So, we don't learn how an
abductor got in, how he got Madeleine out, and when he did this.
Without presenting a shred of evidence, Scotland Yard gives us two
conclusions that push the abduction toward 10 pm. Now, for some who
think the McCanns found Madeleine dead behind the sofa where the
cadaver dog hit and then Gerry carried her off to the beach passing
the Smith family who told the police of their sighting, they might
think this might be a clever plan of Scotland Yard to finally close
in on the McCanns, but I don't think this is what they are attempting
to do.
Let's look at the big
news on the show tonight; Jane Tanner's sighting is NOT the
"kidnapper" of Madeleine McCann. He is some tourist who
happened to be carrying his own child home from the creche where she
was being babysat (mind you he was walking in the wrong direction,
toward the creche, but....never mind). Also, he was wearing the exact
clothes described by Jane Tanner because the man remembers precisely
what he was wearing six years ago. Interestingly, with all the hoopla
about this man at the beginning of the Portuguese investigation, he
never came forward, but now Mr-whoever-he-is (and Scotland Yard is
not going to tell us), suddenly pops up and admits it was him. What
does this very questionable "discovery" do? It validates
Jane seeing someone and invalidates the crime occurring at around
9:15. On the face of it, this should be a bad thing for the McCanns
because this man was really Gerry's alibi. But, the way this is being
spun, it will not matter. Why? Because Jane was not believed to be
telling the truth by the Portuguese police (the PJ) and they believed
the Smith sighting was Gerry (although Redwood claims the PJ
overfocused on Jane's sighting as the suspect and ignored the Smith
sighting - serious revisionist history). So, if Jane is a liar, then
she is lying for a reason and the PJ believed it was to prove an
abduction had occurred and Gerry put her up to the lie.
Now, if Jane is telling
the truth, then the McCanns didn't push her to cover for them. This
puts them one step closer to innocence. But, of course, now that the
only real "proof" of abduction while Gerry is alibied -
Jane seeing someone carrying the child away while Gerry is on the
street chatting with Jeremy- is gone, there is a problem. The way to
solve it is to make sure there is another abductor and that is going
to be the Smith sighting. Hence, the fact Matthew Oldfield didn't see
Madeleine in her bed at 9:30 is left out of the reconstruction, so it
appears that the abductor struck later than that, closer to 10 PM.
So, now we have the right time for the abduction to coincide with the
Smith sighting. The simple fact there could have been an abductor
that late, now allows for that sighting not to be Gerry. Redwood also
clearly states the man had graying hair which, as far as I know,
Gerry did not have at the time. Does anyone remember the Smiths
stating they saw any graying hair on the man with child heading to
the beach? I don't.
Many think the e-fits
looks just like Gerry; I don't think so. I think they had to make
e-fits look similar enough because Mr. Smith said the guy looked like
Gerry. But, the e-fits are just enough off for another man to be
"found" that looks enough like Gerry to say it is
understandable why Mr. Smith was confused. Of course, that Mr. Smith
said the man looked like Gerry wasn't mentioned in the show so most
people won't know, but later on, this can be addressed when it is
necessary. I think that man will surface just like the Jane Tanner
suspect surfaced. At some point, we will hear that an innocent fellow
who looks like Gerry came forward and said it was him with his
daughter. Then, Gerry is completely exonerated and Scotland Yard will
just have to find another suspect who was never seen. OR we will hear
that Scotland Yard has identified some person from a sex ring who
sort of looks like Gerry but they cannot divulge more. OR we will
hear that it was likely some dead predator who looked enough like
Gerry to be mistaken for him. No proof will every be provided that
any of these people really exist but it doesn't matter to the general
public. If Scotland Yard says it is so and the media backs it, it
must be so. It may sound convoluted but, the combination of vagueness
and connecting dots that don't exist can be a successful method to
use to convince people of something that they are not going to
thoroughly research themselves. A magician calls this "misdirection."
Then, mission accomplished. The McCanns are "proven"
innocent, the PJ incompetent, Amaral a libeler, and Scotland Yard a
fine police agency that did a great investigation to find Madeleine
and at least answer the question of what happened to her.
I feel there is no evidence of abduction and the McCanns' behaviors
indicate their involvement in Madeleine's disappearance. I find Gerry to
have a controlling, narcissistic personality and Kate, although I think
her to be quite beautiful, willing to go along with his program in
order to save what is left of her life. I find their fund to be
extremely unethical and, therefore, both of the McCanns are responsible
for any wrongdoing with that moneymaking scheme. I am horrified by the
incredible amount of money spent searching for a live child when the
investigators (Scotland Yard and the private detectives) ignore the
evidence in front of them that indicates a long dead child and no
stranger involvement. Other missing children's cases go unfunded and
ignored while millions are spent in this bizarre case of likely parental
neglect and a likely massive cover-up.
It has been an incredibly
busy last couple weeks in the alternate universe of Madeleine McCann
and I say alternate universe because the shenanigans that have ensued
in recent days - the Met's "startling revelations" on
CrimeWatch, the discovery of a blonde girl "abducted" by a
near enough Gypsy family, and, now, the reopening of the McCann
investigation in Portugal based on "new evidence" found a
of couple years back, you know, far before New Scotland Yard came up
with its new discoveries - all of this hokum which makes little sense
unless you understand the politics behind it which most of us do not.
Let's see what these new
developments mean:
1) Jane Tanner really did
see a man carrying a child away from the McCann's vacation flat -
although an innocent tourist with his own child - which proves that
the McCanns aren't lying about their prime suspect's existence.
2) The discovery of a
little blond girl living with a Roma family proves that little blonde
girls are targeted for Gypsy abductions - only now it turns out that
that little blonde girl IS Roma; hence, gypsy do not need to steal
little blonde girls, they can make them themselves.
3) Portugal has reopened
the case based on "new" evidence they unearthed a while
back. In other words, the UK isn't going to make us look like total
putzes; we actually were already ahead of them when they did
CrimeWatch.
4) Goncalo Amaral is
going to be the scapegoat. This is actually a fairly old ploy used by
police departments aiming to redeem their public reputation; blaming
the previous administration. In other words, when a case goes cold
and there is a public uproar, nothing usually happens until the old
guard leaves. Then, whoever takes over can simply point fingers back
at who used to be in charge and say, "It didn't happen on my
watch." And, "Now that you have better people in the job,
we will show you how great we are." There will be a flurry of
activity and then, after a reasonable stretch of time has passed, the
case will have a "conclusion," one that points toward an
abduction, proves Amaral was wrong, and, sadly, Madeleine will never
be recovered because the suspect from some pedophile ring uncovered
by the new administrator is dead and we will only have a vague
statement of what happened to Maddie (something like an accident
during the abduction or travel or she became ill later and
died,something that will give the parents some peace of mind). But,
mind you, nothing will be proven. The Portuguese police will not make
that information public rather like that mystery man of Tanner's that
the Met says exists but won't tell us who he is and why he was quiet
for six years. "We have intelligence...." is what we will
be told and expected to accept.
Now, here is the most
important point: NO ONE has any new evidence and I will tell you why.
I have worked on enough
cold cases to know why they remain cold. Here is what happens: the
police department follow a particular theory believing it to be
correct. If it isn't, they reach a dead end with no evidence to back
that theory and prove their suspect or motive to be the right one.
Then, when the cold case analyst comes in (or Scotland Yard or the
new Portuguese investigators) whatever evidence existed years ago is
surely long gone. Blood, clothing, memories...gone. The only way one
can say they have new evidence is if the body of that long missing
child is found or photos showing her demise are found (like sexual
sadistic serial killers sometimes have locked up in there homes).
But, has Maddie's body been found or has their been a raid on
someone's home netting souvenirs from the captivity of the little
girl? No. New evidence is not a bunch of tips from citizens or
psychics. Sorting through tips is usually a huge waste of manpower
because in a case like this where an abduction would likely only
involved one lone creep, no one has a clue who he is or what he has
done including his mother or his wife. Therefore, all of those tips
are pure garbage, taking hours and hours for investigators to sift
through, and hope that some needle in that haystack happens to be
someone who really saw something or knows something. Very few colds
cases are ever solved by tips brought in by appeals to the public;
mostly this is done to make it look like the police are doing
something and that they care. It also makes the family and the public
feel good, but it rarely has results.
So, where is this new
evidence coming from? If the McCanns aren't involved in the
disappearance of their daughter, there are only three possibilities
for abduction: sex predator, child sex ring, and abduction for
adoption. Now, I think our little blonde Maria found with the Roma
family pretty much gets rid of that theory. If you want a little
blond child, you can adopt one from a desperate woman who has too
many children to care for. I have been trying to tell people for
years, blonde children and blonde teens do not need to be abducted
for adoption or to prostitute out; they can be gotten without
kidnapping. So, that gets rid of the stupid abduction for adoption
theory. Let's go to the sex ring theory. Did you just read what I
said about not needing to kidnap little blonde girls for adoption?
Same goes for sex rings. There are enough drug using, poor, and
criminal parents who will let you use their blonde child for
prostitution or porn, so, again, abduction is not necessary. That
leaves only one plausible reason for anyone to abduct Maddie, the
only reason I have been stating for years could be the only
alternative to the McCanns' involvement; a child sex predator. And
that is the EXACT theory the early Portuguese police focused on and
why Murat became an arguido; they thought he was a creepy dude who
lived near the McCann flat and could have been watching the area,
slipped in and kidnapped the child, rape and murdered her, and then
buried her on his own property or elsewhere. The police followed that
very good theory and came up with zilch. Why? Because, probably, as
Goncalo Amaral would say, this was a red herring and steered the
investigation in the wrong direction. By the time they swung around
to another possible theory, that of the McCann's involvement, much
evidence went missing. Not all, though - they still had the dog
evidence of cadaver and blood in the apartment and the rental car and
they had all the conflicting stories and bizarre behaviors of the
McCanns and their friends. Then, the McCanns fled and the case was
shelved.
Now, open that case again
and go back and try to find any evidence that some child sex predator
abducted Madeleine McCann six years ago and you will come up empty
barring stumbling across her body or those photos. Certainly, you are
not going to find "new evidence" in the files, maybe a
possible lead or two, but certainly not evidence. And, two years
after Portugal now says they found some "new evidence" they
are opening the case? Does this make sense? Why not two years ago? I
can tell you why; they were hoping that New Scotland Yard would waste
a bunch of time and money and then go away. But, instead, they came
up with this big CrimeWatch media extravaganza and their "new
evidence" eliminating one suspect and e-fits they claim aren't
Gerry for the public to opine about. Portugal was looking badly, so
time to one up them by reopening the case and claiming it is because
of evidence already found prior to Scotland Yard's involvement.
This is politics. This is
saving face. This is an attempt by Portugal to come out of this whole
mess with some dignity. Maybe I will be wrong; maybe there will be
some amazing turnabout and the McCanns and their friends will be
brought back to Portugal for a reconstruction and they will become
arguidos again. I would like to be wrong. I would like to see this
happen. But, in my experience, once politics rears its ugly head,
justice and truth become victims along with the missing child, the
dogged detectives, and the public.
BREAKING NEWS! THIS JUST
CAME OUT! It gives me hope that maybe politics ISN'T ruling the day;
that for once justice may actually be coming. I hope so!
Madeleine clues hidden
for 5 years
The new prime suspect was
first singled out by detectives in 2008. Their findings were
suppressed. Insight reports - The Sunday Times Insight team
Published: 27 October 2013
Madeleine disappeared
from the Praia da Luz resort in May 2007Madeleine disappeared from
the Praia da Luz resort in May 2007 (Adrian Sheratt)
THE critical new evidence
at the centre of Scotland Yard’s search for Madeleine McCann was
kept secret for five years after it was presented to her parents by
ex-MI5 investigators.
The evidence was in fact
taken from an intelligence report produced for Gerry and Kate McCann
by a firm of former spies in 2008.
It contained crucial
E-Fits of a man seen carrying a child on the night of Madeleine’s
disappearance, which have only this month become public after he was
identified as the prime suspect by Scotland Yard.
A team of hand-picked
former MI5 agents had been hired by the McCanns to chase a
much-needed breakthrough in the search for their missing daughter
Madeleine.
10 months after the
three-year-old had disappeared from the Portuguese resort of Praia da
Luz, and the McCanns were beginning to despair over the handling of
the local police investigation. They were relying on the new team to
bring fresh hope.
But within months the
relationship had soured. A report produced by the investigators was
deemed “hypercritical” of the McCanns and their friends, and the
authors were threatened with legal action if it was made public. Its
contents remained secret until Scotland Yard detectives conducting a
fresh review of the case contacted the authors and asked for a copy.
They found that it
contained new evidence about a key suspect seen carrying a child away
from the McCanns’ holiday apartment on the night Madeleine
disappeared.
This sighting is now
considered the main lead in the investigation and E-Fits of the
suspect, taken from the report, were the centrepiece of a Crimewatch
appeal that attracted more than 2,400 calls from the public this
month.
One of the investigators
whose work was sidelined said last week he was “utterly stunned”
when he watched the programme and saw the evidence his team had
passed to the McCanns five years ago presented as a breakthrough.
The team of investigators
from the security firm Oakley International were hired by the
McCanns’ Find Madeleine fund, which bankrolled private
investigations into the girl’s disappearance. They were led by
Henri Exton, MI5’s former undercover operations chief.
Their report, seen by The
Sunday Times, focused on a sighting by an Irish family of a man
carrying a child at about 10pm on May 3, 2007, when Madeleine went
missing.
An earlier sighting by
one of the McCanns’ friends was dismissed as less credible after
“serious inconsistencies” were found in her evidence. The report
also raised questions about “anomalies” in the statements given
by the McCanns and their friends.
Exton confirmed last week
that the fund had silenced his investigators for years after they
handed over their controversial findings. He said: “A letter came
from their lawyers binding us to the confidentiality of the report.”
He claimed the legal
threat had prevented him from handing over the report to Scotland
Yard’s fresh investigation, until detectives had obtained written
permission from the fund.
A source close to the
fund said the report was considered “hypercritical of the people
involved” and “would have been completely distracting” if it
became public.
Kate and Gerry McCann:
now officially not suspects, say the Portuguese authoritiesKate and
Gerry McCann: now officially not suspects, say the Portuguese
authorities (Adrian Sheratt) Oakley’s six-month investigation
included placing undercover agents inside the Ocean Club where the
family stayed, lie detector tests, covert surveillance and a forensic
re-examination of all existing evidence.
It was immediately clear
that two sightings of vital importance had been reported to the
police. Two men were seen carrying children near the apartments
between 9pm, when Madeleine was last seen by Gerry, and 10pm, when
Kate discovered her missing.
The first man was seen at
9.15pm by Jane Tanner, a friend of the McCanns, who had been dining
with them at the tapas bar in the resort. She saw a man carrying a
girl just yards from the apartment as she went to check on her
children.
The second sighting was
by Martin Smith and his family from Ireland, who saw a man carrying a
child near the apartment just before 10pm.
The earlier Tanner
sighting had always been treated as the most significant, but the
Oakley team controversially poured cold water on her account.
Instead, they focused on
the Smith sighting, travelling to Ireland to interview the family and
produce E-Fits of the man they saw. Their report said the Smiths were
“helpful and sincere” and concluded: “The Smith sighting is
credible evidence of a sighting of Maddie and more credible than Jane
Tanner’s sighting”. The evidence had been “neglected for too
long” and an “overemphasis placed on Tanner”.
The new focus shifted the
believed timeline of the abduction back by 45 minutes.
The pictures of a man who
may have taken Madeleine were drawn up in 2008The pictures of a man
who may have taken Madeleine were drawn up in 2008 (Adrian Sheratt)
The report, delivered to the McCanns in November 2008, recommended
that the revised timeline should be the basis for future
investigations and that the Smith E-Fits should be released without
delay.
The potential abductor
seen by the Smiths is now the prime suspect in Scotland Yard’s
investigation, after detectives established that the man seen earlier
by Tanner was almost certainly a father carrying his child home from
a nearby night creche. The Smith E-Fits were the centrepiece of the
Crimewatch appeal.
One of the Oakley
investigators said last week: “I was absolutely stunned when I
watched the programme . . . It most certainly wasn’t a new timeline
and it certainly isn’t a new revelation. It is absolute nonsense to
suggest either of those things . . . And those E-Fits you saw on
Crimewatch are ours,” he said.
The detailed images of
the face of the man seen by the Smith family were never released by
the McCanns. But an artist’s impression of the man seen earlier by
Tanner was widely promoted, even though the face had to be left blank
because she had only seen him fleetingly and from a distance.
Various others images of
lone men spotted hanging around the resort at other times were also
released.
Nor were the Smith E-Fits
included in Kate McCann’s 2011 book, Madeleine, which contained a
whole section on eight “key sightings” and identified those of
the Smiths and Tanner as most “crucial”. Descriptions of all
seven other sightings were accompanied by an E-Fit or artist’s
impression. The Smiths’ were the only exception. So why was such a
“crucial” piece of evidence kept under lock and key?
The relationship between
the fund and Oakley was already souring by the time the report was
submitted — and its findings could only have made matters worse.
As well as questioning
parts of the McCanns’ evidence, it contained sensitive information
about Madeleine’s sleeping patterns and raised the highly sensitive
possibility that she could have died in an accident after leaving the
apartment herself from one of two unsecured doors.
There was also an
uncomfortable complication with Smith’s account. He had originally
told the police that he had “recognised something” about the way
Gerry McCann carried one of his children which reminded him of the
man he had seen in Praia da Luz.
Smith has since stressed
that he does not believe the man he saw was Gerry, and Scotland Yard
do not consider this a possibility. Last week the McCanns were told
officially by the Portuguese authorities that they are not suspects.
The McCanns were also
understandably wary of Oakley after allegations that the chairman,
Kevin Halligen, failed to pass on money paid by the fund to Exton’s
team. Halligen denies this. He was later convicted of fraud in an
unrelated case in the US.
The McCann fund source
said the Oakley report was passed on to new private investigators
after the contract ended, but that the firm’s work was considered
“contaminated” by the financial dispute.
He said the fund wanted
to continue to pursue information about the man seen by Tanner, and
it would have been too expensive to investigate both sightings in
full — so the Smith E-Fits were not publicised. It was also
considered necessary to threaten legal action against the authors.
“[The report] was
hypercritical of the people involved . . . It just wouldn’t be
conducive to the investigation to have that report publicly declared
because . . . the newspapers would have been all over it. And it
would have been completely distracting,” said the source.
A statement released by
the Find Madeleine fund said that “all information privately
gathered during the search for Madeleine has been fully acted upon
where necessary” and had been passed to Scotland Yard.
It continued: “Throughout
the investigation, the Find Madeleine fund’s sole priority has
been, and remains, to find Madeleine and bring her home as swiftly as
possible.”
Insight: Heidi Blake and
Jonathan Calvert
"Madeleine" - The Gift that Keeps on Giving...at least to a Profiler – 30.10.2013
I must have tossed a tear
gas grenade under a bridge because all the trolls came running out on
Twitter. Of all the twisted lies they started throwing out about me-
like I got kicked off of Nancy Grace while on air (please post the
video someone because I think I would have remembered that; I was
just on last week) - the one got the most play was that I a horrid
ghoul because I stated on Twitter that I was making a pile of money
off of the disappearance of this poor little girl, that Madeleine was
a gift that keeps on giving to this profiler. Of course, they
completely ignored (likely on purpose) the quotes around the word
"Madeleine" which indicated I was speaking of the book by
that title which Kate McCann wrote two years ago and they perverted
the meaning of the following phrase, that the gift that keeps on
giving was the money I was making off of poor Madeleine, not the
clues that the book had to offer a profiler.
No matter, the whole
thing is troll silliness, but the reason I originally posted that
tweet shortly after I read the book, Madeleine, was because I was
absolutely stunned at the information to be gleaned from this story
of a parent of a missing child. What Kate made public in the book was
what propelled me to write my own book, Profile of the Disappearance
of Madeleine McCann - which was subsequently removed from sale at
Amazon after they were threatened by the McCanns' attorneys with a
libel lawsuit. The book also prompted me to make a trip to Portugal
to do my own study of the area and reconstruction of the crime and to
search the area for a possibly body dumping ground which I eventually
came to believe might be the area called Monte do Jose Mestre just
west of Praia da Luz. The trip was mostly financed by what I had made
from my book before it was removed from sale.
The most striking bit I
got from Kate's book was her pooh-poohing of the Smith sighting at 10
pm, only giving it the slightest credence IF and only IF it could be
linked to the earlier Tanner claimed sighting at 9:15 pm. And, now,
just days ago, a bombshell dropped into the media. After Scotland
Yard dismissed the Tanner sighting as another tourist and his child
and put up two e-fits of the man the Smiths saw on the Crimewatch
show, the first bit of negative publicity about the McCanns showed up
in the British media in years. It was stated that those e-fits were
made by the McCanns' own PIs five years ago and that the PIs said
they were threatened with a lawsuit if they turned them over to law
enforcement. But, what struck me the most was this: the McCanns not
only did not put this suspect's pictures up on their website, Kate
did not include them in her book in which she put a number of other
e-fits of possible suspects (the Tanner sighting and some fellows
lurking about town in the days previous to the "abduction").
If my child had been abducted and was possibly being raped on a daily
basis, just the thought of my child being terrified and tortured
would have forced me to clear myself with the police, take a
polygraph, do a reconstruction, AND, absolutely, AND release those
e-fits to the public even if that suspect looked a lot like Maddie's
dad. Hey, somebody who looks like Maddie's father might be raping my
daughter right now!
But, no, the McCanns did
not clear themselves - they ran the country which resulted in the
police no longer looking for someone who was raping the crap out of
their daughter, they refused polygraphs, they refused a
reconstruction, and they HID the e-fits from the public eye. It is
exactly this kind of behavior that is a gift that keeps on giving to
a profiler - evidence, true behavioral evidence - that makes this
profiler find that the parents should be the top suspects in the
disappearance of their daughter, Madeleine and not some long dead
ex-hotel employee that happened to make a cell phone in Praia da Luz
on the day Maddie went missing.
"It's a Disaster!" - Gerry McCann – 01.11.2013
One of the big questions
people have who are trying to understand how Kate and Gerry McCann
could possibly be involved in covering up their daughter's death is
why they would do that to begin with, In other words, would a normal
set of parents go through such an elaborate staging of a crime in
order to cover up an accident? The answer to that question tends to
send people into one of three camps:
1) The parents are
innocent because they would simply have called for help if they found
their child deceased and then dealt with the consequences.
2) Maddie must have died
in some more tragic way (like during a sexual assault by one of the
Tapas 9 or as a result of some very violent rage by one of her
parents) or it must have been some premeditated getting rid of the
child for them not to have called the police and lived with a
possible neglect charge.
3) They covered up
because they thought they had too much to lose.
I stand firmly in the
third camp when I profile what may have happened to Madeleine. I have
never believed that the disappearance of Madeleine was premeditated
by the McCanns. Why? Because that evening was too much of a mess;
they could have found a better way to stage an abduction. I do not
believe Maddie died a day earlier and they ended up with this
discombobulated scenario of Maddie going missing between checks. I do
not believe the McCanns went to dinner with the knowledge that their
child was dead and then planned to "discover" her missing
later that evening. Again, with more time to think, I believe the
staging would have been better.
Instead, I see this basic
scenario going down.
Maddie is found dead, of
an accident, but an accident induced by medication and neglect. Panic
ensues and and Gerry calls home that evening telling them, "It's
a disaster." "Disaster" is a key to what happened and
why they would have responded as they did, if they are guilty of what
happened to Madeleine.
If there had been a
simple accident under proper parent care-taking, it would have been,
well, "an accident," not a disaster. An accident is
something you couldn't have helped. It may be devastating, tragic,
horrifying, crushing.....but an accident is an accident, not a
disaster. A disaster is some monumental out-of-control event that one
has to clean up after and manage the damage it has done. Someone
drowning in the ocean is an accident; a tsunami drowning everyone in
town is a disaster. One requires mourning and the other requires
immediate action to deal with the mess. If Maddie had simply fallen
while the McCann's were in the other room, some weird event where she
just fell and broke her neck - even if they were having some wine in
the other room and didn't know she was dead for an hour - they would
have simply called for the police. I think we immediately know that
IF the accident is just one of those horrible things that can happen
in life - something that could happen to any parent because of daily
life - a toddler drowns in a bucket of water a parent forgot to
empty, a child accidentally hangs himself with a curtain cord, a
child chokes on some little toy his brother dropped - we are not
going to blamed for the tragedy; people will feel sorry for us
because it could indeed happen to any of us in the blink of an eye.
But, if you neglect your
child in an obvious way - leaving three toddlers unattended in a
holiday flat five nights in a row so you can go drinking AND you give
those children medication to subdue them so you can go out and
entertain yourself without having worry that your children might wake
up and be scared, that they might be crying back at the flat, that
they might get up and come look for you, that they might get up and
have an accident - now you know the public is unlikely to have so
much sympathy for you and they may indeed think you should be charged
with neglect and contributing to your child's death. And, if you have
other children, those children should be removed from your care. And,
if you are doctors, your reputation as as professionals in an
industry which is supposed to save lives will be seriously
compromised. Worst of all, you might end up in prison in a foreign
country and god knows what that means.
THIS is a disaster. A
disaster which could throw a couple of parents into a panic upon
finding their neglected, drugged, dead daughter behind the sofa.
Panic would ensue, then desperation to have the disaster ameliorated
to whatever extent it could be. First the evidence of neglect and
death have to disappear so the body needs to be removed from the
flat, now the blame must be averted to someone else so an open window
will make it look like someone came in and took her, and, if someone
could see some man taking the child away at the time both parents
have an alibi, that would be swell, Jane?
Some might say a
panic-driven scenario like this may well not have worked; Gerry could
have been seen carrying his daughter off, the window story may not be
supported by evidence, people might not believe Jane Tanner, and what
if the body were eventually found? Well, so far, three of these four
problems may have already cropped up for the McCanns, so that goes to
show the scenario may well have not worked if 1) they had not been
British doctors which caused the initial investigators to believe the
abduction story, 2) if there hadn't been so much publicity pushed by
the McCanns that made them tragic figures in the media and the eyes
of many in the public in spite of clear proof they neglected their
children, and 3) luck....sometimes enough luck can get you by. If we look back at the
choices that might have been made for disaster control for such a
scenario of Maddie dying in the apartment, they were actually very
simple choices; hurrying to the beach with the body not even covered
and not on a path that was totally nonpublic, lying about the window,
and lying about a strange man walking away with a child while Gerry
was on the street and Kate was in the restaurant. Nothing fancy, just
quick simple cover-ups. Finally, it is important
to realize that a lot of criminals simply get away with their crimes;
hence, the many unsolved cases out in the world today. While there
may be no such thing as a perfect crime, there are "good enough"
crimes that mean no one will ever be charged.
I have already discussed
the biggest behavioral red flag in the missing Madeleine McCann case,
that of the McCanns playing down the Smith sighting of a man carrying
a little girl toward the beach at 10 pm. I have also discussed the
odd statement of Gerry's to relatives after Maddie went missing,
"It's a disaster!" But, since watching Crimewatch with Kate
relating the events of that evening, I am nagged by the another big
red behavioral flag in this case, the description of the open window
and whooshing curtains in the children's bedroom and her statement,
"I knew straight away she'd been taken." Let's put aside
the evidence which does not support the window actually being open
and imagine that Kate really found it that way. Imagine you are Kate
and you have walked into the bedroom, seen the twins asleep but your
daughter missing. You get confused and you check the house for her.
Then you go back in the bedroom and the curtains whoosh and you see
the window is wide open. You know your child has been unattended for
at least 30 minutes (if we are believing the Oldfield check in which
he actually doesn't say he saw Maddie but Kate thinks he has) and
that the bedroom Maddie is in is on the ground floor right alongside
the street and a parking area. The curtains whoosh and you realize
that the window has been opened, not by you, not by your children (I
stayed in a similar apartment in the complex and it takes a bit of
work to open the window so I am sure Kate knew that Maddie did not do
it), but by SOMEONE. SOMEONE opened the window and likely that
SOMEONE has your missing child!! What would you do next?
The first thing Kate does
is look around the house AGAIN. Okay, maybe in her confusion and last
hope she might do that. Maybe the guy is inside with the child, maybe
your child got scared and hid and the guy ran away, maybe you are
imagining the window was opened by someone else and your child is in
really secreted somewhere in the house. I get that this is a possible
reaction. So you look everywhere, everywhere, except behind the sofa.
It is the next action that strikes me as bizarre. Kate runs off to
the Tapas restaurants to tell everyone that Maddie is gone and
someone had taken her. Again, I ask what would you do next if you
thought someone had grabbed your child from her bed possibly a minute
ago? I think if it were me, I would run out my front door screaming
her name, running into the parking area to see if someone is putting
her into a vehicle, running into the street to see if someone is
carrying her off somewhere, screaming her name, hoping she will
scream back, hoping someone might take notice of me screaming her
name and wonder about some man hurrying by carrying a little girl. I
would be screaming, "Help! Help! Someone has taken my child!
Maddie! Maddie!" I would be hysterical, standing even in a
deserted street screaming and crying, hoping someone will rush out,
someone will look out their windows, that some police officer might
pop up! Then, I might run to the Tapas restaurant, screaming all the
way, "Maddie! Maddie! I would scream to raise the dead on the
way to get more help,
But, that is not what
happened. Kate did her check in the house and then went straight down
to the restaurant. She does not even describe in her book looking for
Maddie as she does so. It is not until after Kate raises the alarm
and supposedly seven of the Tapas 9 return from the restaurant that
Kate finally runs out into the car park screaming, "Maddie!
Maddie!" Some will say I am nitpicking here, that Kate might
well have run straight to her friends because she was seeking help.
That she was in shock which is why it took so long for her to look
for Maddie outside the apartment and why she doesn't even mention
scanning the area for her child on her way to the restaurant. Maybe,
but I don't think that is what the story is telling us. I think we
are finding out about what happened between 9:15 and 10 pm. More and
more I believe Gerry found out that Maddie was not in bed during his
check and when he didn't get back to the table quickly, when Kate
made that remark about Gerry getting distracted watching the footy on
the television, she went with Oldfield to find out what was taking
him so long. When she got there, Gerry may have already been in a
panic trying to find Maddie. Kate and Oldfield join in, and they
finally find her behind the sofa. There is a short period of shock,
horror, and panic, Kate cuddling her daughter, and then the decision
is made to take Maddie from the flat, that Gerry will do this and
Kate will raise the alarm.
There are those who every
time I write a blog making one particular point go crazy and then
spread tales that I am basing my theory of the McCanns' possible
guilt on one behavior alone. This is not so. In my blogs, at this
point in time, I am merely bringing up points of interest, behaviors
and other information that lends to the whole picture. I have already
written a book on the case and written numerous blogs making dozens
and dozens of points which lend to my final analysis. After I wrote
my book, I went to Praia da Luz and saw the area and flat firsthand.
When I came back I wrote blogs about what I found out and what of my
analysis needs to be updated with the new information. There is
always updating to do as time goes by and more information comes in.
I have adjusted some of my thoughts but I have found nothing to
dissuade me from the likelihood of the McCanns' complicity in the
demise, yes, demise of their child. Right now we have the media going
on and on ad nauseum about some Cape-Verdian guy who happened to work
for the same company that runs the vacation rentals were the McCanns
stayed and whose phone pinged somewhere in the vicinity (how close a
vicinity we do not yet know) supposedly on the evening she went
missing. Of course, he actually didn't work at the complex, had never
been seen near the apartment, and lived only fifteen minutes away,
but somehow he is now a major suspect. With those not-very-damning
bits of info , there is not much of anything to build a picture of a
man who should be a top suspect in abducting Maddie. But, there are
many, many reasons to look at the McCanns' involvement in their
daughter's disappearance; there are many peculiar behaviors on the
part of the McCanns to build that picture of possible guilt along
with the physical evidence in their rental flat and their rental
vehicle that points in the same direction.
With the media telling
many a tall tale about this suspect and that, with the media not
questioning the McCanns' bizarre behaviors - like not making public
the e-fits of the Smith sighting five years ago when their PIs handed
them the pictures (and even threatening them with a lawsuit if they
released them to the police or public) - or bringing up the physical
evidence that points to Maddie dying in the apartment and her body
being moved in the rental car, I feel we must all, for a time, keep
alive the other side of the picture - that there are many people -
police officers, detectives, criminologists, profilers, lawyers, and
citizens - all who think the evidence strongly points to the McCanns
as being involved in Maddie's death and disappearance and these folks
would like to see the Metropolitan Police and the PJ make the McCanns
one of their avenues of investigation even if they believe abduction
is still a possibility. I see nothing unreasonable in this, do you?
Why do so many People seem to Hate Kate and Gerry McCann? - 03.11.2013
Someone just asked me
this question in the comments section of the post I did yesterday and
I realized the length of my answer would require a full post, so here
it is. "Why," he asked, "do so many people have such
vitriol toward the McCanns? Couldn't it be the reason for their
behaviors is that they are protecting each other and their family out
of love?" (I condense and paraphrase here to make his point).
This commenter ask an excellent question and there are many in the
world, including the media, who think that those people who openly
despise the McCanns are trolls and haters and cruel people who are
treating parents of a missing child in the most despicable manner
possible. I am included in that group; a lot of pretty nasty attacks
are leveled at me because I am termed a McCann hater. I am considered
even a worse human being than the others because I am a professional
with a fairly public profile which they feel makes me like the leader
of a witch hunt or lynch mob (or more of a threat) out to destroy two
lovely innocent people and the hunt for a missing child. So is there
enough justification for such utter dislike of this couple, innocent
or guilty,whether they be parents of an abducted child or frightened
parents responsible for an accident and a cover-up? As a profiler who
has dealt with many parents of crime victims and studied many cases
of missing children, I can say hands down, yes, in defense of those
who cannot seem to stomach the McCanns.
Here is a list of the
reasons:
1) They left their three
toddler children alone for five evenings so they could go out and
party. The reason this so irks people is how unnecessary and selfish
this behavior was. We are not talking about a poor mother desperate
to go to work to earn money to feed her kids, a woman with no nearby
relatives and no money for a babysitter, a woman who leaves her
seven-year-old in charge of her five- and three-year-old siblings in
an apartment building where that seven-year-old can call her if there
is a problem or run next door to the neighbors she knows. We are
talking about a set of educated parents with enough money to go to
another country for a not-so-cheap holiday at in a beach town; they
could have paid for a babysitter. They could have taking turns
watching the children on alternate nights, one of the group could
have watched all the children one night a week, or they could have
taken the children to the hotel creche for caring. They could have
simply stayed home with the kids. But, they wanted their "alone"
time at the expense of their children's well-being so they left three
toddlers in a strange flat, toddlers who could not run next door and
find someone if they were scared, toddlers who could not make a phone
call in an emergency, toddlers who could not save themselves from
fire, or injury, or an intruder. Along with leaving them alone, the
McCanns also claim they left the door unlocked, leaving them
vulnerable to any stranger who just could walk in off the street and
hurt them. Who DOES this, some ask? Very narcissistic people, I can
answer, and this very self-centered behavior on the part of the
McCanns really puts people off.
2) They left the children
alone AFTER they cried the night before. As if leaving them alone
wasn't bad enough, they then left their frightened and unhappy
children alone even after they had been told by Maddie that all had
not gone well the night before, that they were crying out for their
parents for a very long time and they never came to them. People see
this as awful cold and callous behavior on the part of the parents,
extremely selfish, unconscionable behavior that any parent would
choose to continue leaving the children alone upon hearing of their
distress.
3) Dressing fashionably
with well-groomed hair, make-up, and jewelry, going running and
writing a blog after your child goes missing; oh, and leaving your
twins behind so you can go run off and see the Pope. The McCanns have
a lot of defenders who will say the running and writing were stress
relief and going to see the Pope a religious need any parent of a
missing child might seek. I can tell you from seeing the behaviors of
many missing parents,these are abnormal behaviors, especially so
early after a child goes missing. The inside of the brain of someone
who has a child kidnapped is a horrifying hurricane of hell. There is
a continuous roaring of fear, anger, horror, confusion, panic, hate,
grief, pain, hysteria, all of these feeling and thoughts swirling
about in almost a physical way that pretty much shuts down coherent
behavior. I never forgot one well-depicted scene in a movie made
about Adam Walsh, the son of America's Most Wanted's host, John Walsh
who, after being told the police found his little son's head thrown
next to the highway, John was portrayed as going crazy in grief by
running headlong into the space between the mattresses on his bed
over and over and over. It is a scene that sticks in one's mind and I
still get teary thinking about it while writing of it here.
There are things parents
just simply are unable to do for a long time because they cannot
compose themselves enough to go through the motions while their child
is missing, to do any normal thing while their child may be calling
out for Mommy and Daddy in terror day in and day out, maybe being
raped and tortured in some predator's dungeon somewhere, maybe lying
mangled in a shallow grave. You don't think those images run
constantly through the head of a parent who child is missing? You
bet, and that is why parents of missing and murdered children often
need medication to get up in the morning and more medication to try
to sleep at night, this is why they can't go to work anymore, this is
why they neglect their other children, this is why they fight with
their mates and end up divorced, this is why they look like shit most
of the time, and this is why they can't watch a movie, take a swim,
even bathe, because their child can't do that, can she? That is why
the McCanns looking so put together every day, going running, writing
blogs, taking trips....just doesn't register right with folks; they
don't seem normal for parents of missing children. Maybe parents of a
child dead by accident whose narcissism allows them to focus entirely
on themselves since they can't help their daughter any more, maybe
that, but not the parents of a child abducted by a sex predator which
is who would likely have taken a three-year-old little girl out of
her bed.
3) Kate said she could
sleep through the night within days of Maddie's disappearance. Within
days.This particular statement threw me for a loop. It only took a
few days to be able to get a good night's sleep? Really? Even when
you know your child might still be in a predator's hands being raped
and tortured, chained in some basement, while you are lying in a
comfy bed? How do you do that? People don't sleep well for days
after their dog gets run over by a car, but you are soundly sleeping
while your daughter is being molested by a pervert; I can't wrap my
head around that.
4) THE FUND. I would
venture to say the fund is what really gets people's goat. It is one
thing to accidentally off your child and then, in a panic, hide the
body somewhere and tell the police someone kidnapped her, but to then
set up a way to get a ton of money from people - not a charity to
help all missing children - but a private fund with money you can use
for any of your personal needs including suing people you wish to
shut up, a fund which has shown no kind of investigative progress at
all - a fund, for that matter, that you never tell people how that
money is being used, what is being discovered - a fund that just
seems to be raking in millions for your own personal use, that just
doesn't sit well with people.
5) Carter-Ruck. The
McCanns not only disparage those who feel they might be involved in
the death of their child and subsequent cover-up, but then sue them
to make them shut up. I have seen grieving parents deal with people
not believing them but I have never seen this. It hurts when people
question your innocence but it doesn't hold a candle to what happened
to your child and isn't worth wasting energy over. Many people think
the McCanns have spent more time getting back at their detractors
than searching for their Maddie; that just doesn't seem normal to
them and it's not.
6) Speaking of their
detractors, the McCanns do not seem to have a clue as to why people
have issues with them. They don't seem to get that they don't like
them because they neglected their children, because they never
confessed they were wrong for leaving their children (outside of
saying they regret feeling that the place was safe and making that
decision due to their naivete), that people don't like them for all
the reasons stated here. Instead, they call those people
psychologically disturbed human beings, which I guess includes me. I
am not saying that some haters, on both sides of the McCann issue
aren't psychopathic nutjobs - some indeed are - but I am talking
about those who truly are bothered by the McCanns' behaviors and
honestly believe they have involvement. Most parents of missing
children get why people might suspect them, especially if their
behavior is a bit odd. All the McCanns needed to do to handle this
problem is admit they were selfish in leaving their children alone
and that they understand they come off as guilty of a crime to some
folks and, perhaps, unlikeable as well. They get it and they don't
hold it against people, and while they wish people didn't promote
theories of their guilt, they can understand why they do. And they
are going to look for Maddie and not waste time being upset over
these folks' opinions because their daughter is far more important
than their hurt feelings.
7) The McCanns never took
a polygraph, Kate refused to answer the 48 questions and they ran the
country. Again, this seems to show that the McCanns place their
personal well-being above finding their missing child. It is almost
true across the board that parents of missing parents will subject
themselves to just about anything to convince the police they are
innocent of any wrongdoing so that the police will hurry up and focus
on finding whoever it is that abducted their child. They suffer
immensely during this process but they answer questions over and over
again, day after day, weeping and begging during the process for the
police to find their child. They take polygraphs even if they fear
that they will have a guilty or inconclusive result if something goes
wrong with the process because doing the poly will bring them one
step closer to getting the police off their backs and in the right
direction. Parents of missing children are terrified of pissing off
the police because if they do, they might stop looking for their
child. Such parents usually are afraid to call the police too often,
grovel in any way possible, put up with police silence because they
are afraid to anger them in any way. The McCann's actually had the
whole investigation shelved for years because they didn't like the
way they were being treated
8) Their arrogance. There
are so many times the McCanns just come off terribly badly on
television, appearing to be snide, flippant, rude, self-absorbed...I
have never understood why the person managing their publicity hasn't
gotten this through their heads.
9) Kate's book. I have
read a lot of books by parents' of murder victims and Kate's book
just doesn't come off right to me and many others. It seems more like
a memoir about Kate and her troubles than about finding a missing
child. There are a number of statements in the book that made people
cringe.
I could go on and on, but
I think that is enough to make the point as to why many people can't
stomach the McCanns. I don't agree with a lot of the nastiness out
there making fun of them, I don't think that this is necessary to
push the issue of what really happened to Madeleine McCann. I don't
think we need to comment on people's looks or make mockery of
everything, but I do think people have a right to speak up as to why
they think the McCanns are involved in the disappearance of their
daughter and why they think the police should keep them on as
suspects. Oh, let me not forget to address this part of the original
question; couldn't these be people who just love each other very much
who are scared of the penalties of being truthful, who are covering
up to save each other and their kids? Sure, they could be and if they
had simply just run off and hid Maddie's body in a bush and come back
and pretended that she had been abducted, never pointing fingers at
anyone in particular (like Murat) or setting up a fund to bilk people
out of their money, if they hadn't sued the crap out of everyone,
sure, I could buy that. I don't think I had too much of a problem
with baby Lisa Bradley's parents until they showed up on Dr. Phil and
then I rather lost my sympathy for them; it is one thing to lie to
save your ass, it is another to go on a huge national broadcast and
proclaim your innocence and rile people up to send money and spend
hours searching for the missing child you disposed of. (I add here
that this is only a theory that the Bradleys also are responsible for
the accidental death of their daughter - well, at least Deborah
Bradley - and the disposal of her body). It is one thing to do
something in a panic to save one's butt; it is another to make money
off of it and waste massive money and manpower pushing a lie to such
an extreme.
The narcissism displayed
by the McCanns makes me think that it is not love that is fueling
them to continue with what appears to be a massive farce. I think
their behaviors make it clear that Kate and Gerry each have their own
personal agendas supported by their own very selfish personalities -
Gerry wants to be a big man, Kate wants to be a respected woman - and
the twins, well, yeah, this will all help them, too. The incoming
money and fame is a plus as well. I am sure in the comments area
people will add a dozen other reasons why the McCanns have made
themselves the target of dislike. I do ask that people keep the
comments factual and not full of nasty jibes and snarkiness. I once
wrote an open letter to Kate McCann explaining why she had become
such a target of hatred and how she could change that but, in the
long run, I don't think she took much of it to heart, which is sad if
she and Gerry are really innocent in the disappearance of their
daughter. They could have left a lot more stones unturned if they had
toned down the "distractions" with a few simple,
self-effacing statements. Like not releasing those e-fits five years
ago because doing so might also be a "distraction," they
might have had a lot more help finding Maddie, the thing they claim
is most important to them, if they hadn't pushed so many people away.
As I once said to them, I would have worked on their case for free
and gone public with a change of my view toward them if they could
help me see they were innocent, and I am sure a number of other
profilers, PIs and retired police would have done the same, but they
took no one's help that they could not control one hundred percent
with a paycheck and Carter-Ruck. One more reason people probably
don't like or trust the McCanns.
Finally, I have a
personal reason. What bothers me the most about the McCanns is the
damage they will do to missing children investigations in the long
term. With funds so tight in any law enforcement agency, we need
those funds to meet the needs of ALL missing children, not just one,
and we need those funds to be spent properly. We need the police to
be able to understand how children go missing, who to believe, and
how to find those children with the least money and manpower to be
used per case. Any fraud or untruth b perpetrated by the McCanns
will, not may, do long term damage to the search for missing children
and this, for me, is the Number One reason I have negative feelings
toward Kate and Gerry McCann.
It's a Bird, It's a Plane......It's SuperSuspect! - 04.11.2013
The unfolding of the
details put out by the media this week on the newest top suspect in
the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has elicited groans from a good
many following this case, myself included. Bit by bit we are privvy
to questionable information as to why the new suspect is being
purportedly investigated by the Judicia Police (PJ) who have also
purportedly reopened the case based on the abduction theory because
they had new evidence making it worthy of the effort. Based on
not-at-all-purportedly bad media reporting from the UK, Portugal, and
the US, the new top suspect in the case is the reason for the case
being reopened, for the abduction theory to be focused upon again,
and for there to be hope of finally solving the case and putting it
to rest. Having worked many a cold case, I would like to share how I
view the new top suspect, a black immigrant to Portugal from Cape
Verde, Euclides Monteiro, supposed heroin junkie, thief, and burglar
who worked for the Ocean Club and died four years ago in a tractor
accident.
I want to examine three
issues in reference to this suspect:
1) Is there strong enough
evidence with this man to reopen the case and reconstitute the
abduction theory?
2) Is there strong enough
evidence to make this man a top suspect?
3) Is there strong enough
evidence to make this man a great scapegoat?
I would say issues 1 and
2, absolutely not. Issue 3, no question. Let me go share why.
1) Is there strong enough
evidence with this man to reopen the case and reconstitute the
abduction theory?
First off, there should
be enough evidence to build an abduction theory, a theory that has
stronger evidence or at least as strong evidence as we have pointing
to the McCanns, at least something credible enough for an alternate
possibility to be considered. We have a great deal to support the
McCanns' involvement, yet we still have zero proof of an abduction,
not a shred of physical or behavioral evidence pointing to this
scenario. We have no witness seeing a stranger coming out the front
door of the flat with Maddie in hand, we have no witness sighting a
man running from the parking lot with a screaming child, we have no
witness sighting of someone handing a child out the flat window to
another man who shoveled her into a waiting vehicle. We have no
fingerprints or DNA of a stranger in the flat, we have no evidence a
stranger broke in through a window or door, no evidence a stranger
touched a thing in that vacation apartment. We have no body, no photo
of Maddie in a sex ring, nothing. We have had no evidence of a
stranger abduction at the time of the crime and no evidence today
that such an abduction ever occurred. So what would cause the PJ to
reopen the case based on a druggie who happen to be driving in the
area of Praia da Luz purportedly on the evening of the crime? It
makes no sense, because I can guarantee you, every town has some
druggie or two or three or a dozen in the area when any major crime
goes down and none of them necessarily have a thing to do with it.
That Monteiro was in the area is just one of the facts, but certainly
not proof that he is an abductor of a missing child or that any
abduction took place. So, according to what we know so far, if the PJ
have officially reopened the case, it would appear this man could not
be the reason, the reopening of the case would have to be for
political reasons unless the PJ have a much better abduction suspect
or they are going to be refocusing on the McCanns.
2) Is there strong enough
evidence to make this man a top suspect?
Absolutely not. Quite
frankly, he is quite a pitiful suspect. First of all, let's look at
the ludicrous revenge theory. He has been reported as being fired
from the Ocean Club "the previous year." Is this fellow who
since had gotten another job really holding such a massive grudge
that he smolders for twelve months before taking any action? Hardly.
And instead of going postal like a typical angry ex-employee he
decides to abduct a little child? Unlikely. So, let's look at his
drug problem. He is reported to be a heroin addict who robs flats to
get money for drugs. This is possible. But he wasn't working for the
Ocean Club at the time Maddie was "taken" and we don't even
know if he was robbing anything at the time Maddie went missing. Even
if he was robbing flats, why would he have picked the McCanns at that
moment and why did he waste time in an obvious children's bedroom?
Why didn't he toss the McCann's bedroom or the living room for things
to steal and sell? And, how is stealing a child going to get him
quick drug money? It's a lot of hard work, kidnapping and trying to
get ransom. It is a very rare crime especially for heroin users
needing a quick fix. Could Monteiro have grabbed Maddie because he
was interrupted by a screaming child? Sure but isn't it far easier
just to run? How good is a three-year-old at identifying anyone
anyway outside of saying the man was black? And whiile blacks seem to
bit in the minority in the area, I am sure Monteiro wasn't the only
black guy around. If the child did wake up screaming, why do we not
have a guy shoveling a screaming child into his car (no one saw a
black man walking around with a kid and he lived fifteen minutes away
by vehicle). If he subdued the child by suffocating her, I guess he
could have decided to remove her body so as not to leave behind his
DNA, but that is pretty far-fetched and I am thinking back a long
ways to try to remember a druggie who stole nothing from his target
location except a child, dead or alive.
Now, some burglars are
really sex predators because they like breaking into people's houses
more to invade their territory than to steal things of worth. There
are numerous cases of burglars also have a sex offense history as
well, but Monterio is not one of those kinds. He is a situational
burglar in that he would steal not for the thrill of the offense but
to support a drug habit, so his burglaries (if they actually exist at
all) would be of this type. We have no proof Monteiro was abducting
any child in revenge or even breaking into apartments at the Ocean
Club to steal stuff and we especially have no evidence anyone even
broke into the McCanns' holiday flat and we certainly have zero
evidence Monteiro did any such thing. So why was he in Praia da Luz
that evening? Who says he was? All we know from the media is that
phone records were checked and cell phone triangulation put him in
the area. The AREA - not outside the McCanns' apartment. Cell phone
triangulation for a small town like Praia da Luz is not going to be
that accurate. All cell phones mayhave pinged that come within three
miles of the place. Monteiro may simply have been driving home to
Lagos on the highway when he cell phone registered in the area. For
that matter, when Maddie went missing, all vacationers, residents,
and people driving by would have their cell phones triangulating in
the area. Are they all suspects? Or just one black, immigrant, with a
drug problem and a minor criminal background? And when did Monteiro's
cell phone make itself known? Have you noticed we don't actually have
a time yet? Was it at 9:15? Was it at 10 pm? Or was it at 6 pm or was
it near midnight? The media has kindly left that information out,
either because they have no clue or because it doesn't support making
Monteiro look like Maddie's abductor. There is no evidence at all
linking Montiero to any abduction of Maddie. Not a shred. All we know
is that Monteiro was one of the many people in the area at the time
and he had a drug problem and he might be a bit of a thief. If I were
investigating this case, I am not saying I wouldn't be following up
on Monteiro, but he would just be one of the many leads I would be
looking at to do due diligence, not because I expected it would lead
to anything. I would follow-up "just in case" there was
something in it and because I hadn't enough proof to take anyone to
trial at this point.
3) Is there strong enough
evidence to make this man a great scapegoat?
You betcha! Now, here is
where we hit the jackpot! What's not to like? First and best of all,
he is an immigrant. If he is the bad guy, the Portuguese people and
the folks of Praia da Luz can say, "See? It was not one of us!"
Secondly, he is black, a great fall guy like the Roma - he is a
minority in that area and, therefore, again, easier to feel
comfortable with blaming because, for most people there, "He is
not one of us." And, for the world over, nothing like a poor
black man to be the bad guy as history has proven. But, there are
those who could feel sorry for the poor black guy if he were getting
blamed for the crime of abducting a little white girl without
sufficient evidence. Isn't it lucky then that this man can also be a
useless druggie, a user of the evil drug heroin, a thief, and a
burglar, yeah, and he even may have been creepy with children, so now
we can not feel so awful for him? He is a lowlife, so, oh well, he
probably did it, don't ya think? Best of all, the guy is dead. He
can't fight back, he can't complain, and, the sad truth is, we have a
hard time emotionally connecting to dead people which is why
sometimes people feel sorrier for the defendant than the person he
murdered; they can still connect with the killer because he is alive.
Euclides Monteiro is indeed a super fall guy, someone who can makes
this whole annoying case go away. If enough "evidence" can
be found to make people think he really might have taken Maddie,
panicked, smothered her accidentally (remember I wrote previously
that if Maddie could have been smothered while attempting to quiet
her in the abduction that would make the McCanns sleep better at
night because it would have been quick and so Maddie would not have
had to been raped for years and years) and disposed of her somewhere
at sea (so we can't find her body), the case can be closed
administratively. The McCanns will finally have closure in a way that
wasn't to horrible for Maddie, they will be "proven"
innocent, the new PJ will have done the job right and made Scotland
Yard look like asses for touting on Crimewatch the white guy the
Smiths saw proving they are all wet. Monteiro is the perfect patsy.
Is this what is going to
happen? God, I hope not. I still hold out the small hope that this is
all media crapola and the PJ is really not reconstituting the
abduction theory, that this is all a smoke screen and an elimination
of all other possible suspects to leave just the McCanns again in the
cross hairs. History doesn't support my hope very well, but sometimes
the only way to get through the day is to believe that sometimes
people surprise you and truth and justice will triumph..
The so-called newspapers
have been going wild about the new "suspect" in the missing
Madeleine McCann case. The poor man - a dead man - has now had his
name and face broadcast worldwide, branded as the top suspect in what
would clearly be the murder of Maddie McCann. His family is furious,
as they should be, that their relative is having his reputation
destroyed in the media without -and here is the point - without a
shred of evidence linking him to any such crime. The important word
in my last sentence is the word "link." THAT and only THAT
makes a person a suspect. Links can be physical, geographical,
verbal, or behavioral but they should be meaningful in the sense that
the link is logical in the sense of the crime. Also, depending of the
strength of each link, one link might suffice (like the victim's body
buried in someone's basement) or the links added together create a
picture of someone likely to have been involved in the crime.
Euclides Monteiro, the dead black suspect in question - does not have
anything near what I would call a reasonably strong link to the
crime. It is clear the media is trying to paint a picture of someone
with numerous concerning traits (drug user, burglar, angry
-ex-employee) plus one near-link (phone ping in vicinity of Praia da
Luz on that day/evening/night) to vault him to a suspect position.
I will be the first to
say if I were investigating this crime, I would definitely look at
Monteiro because he was someone in the area and he had a criminal
record. These would be the only reasons since there was no evidence
of a break-in, there was no evidence of a burglary, and there was no
attempt at a ransom. I would keep Monteiro's name around but I
certainly wouldn't call him a suspect nor would I make a big deal of
it. (...)
Let's look at two
possible suspects: Monteiro and the McCanns and see who fits the
crime better.
Link One: Had access to
the victim. - McCanns
Link Two: No evidence of
a burglary - McCanns
Link Thee: Blood and
cadaver evidence of death in the holiday flat - McCanns
Link Four: Caucasian male
seen carrying off child toward beach - McCanns
Link Five: Motive for
removing a dead child from the flat - McCanns
Suspect Rating: Mccanns 5
Monteiro 0
I think the numbers speak
for themselves as to who is the better suspect, don't you?
Fantastical Theories and the Disappearance of MMC – 07.11.2013
One of the interesting
occurrences after a mystery goes so long unsolved is the cropping up
of many fantastical theories about what might have happened, in this
case, what might have happened to Madeleine McCann. Complicated
theories usually result from two issues: one, the disbelief that the
mystery could still be unsolved if it weren't some diabolical plan
and two, some pieces of evidence are missing, unexplained, or
confusing which leads people to create scenarios based on
supposition. I want to say that fantastical theories have cropped up
on both sides of the McCann divide and have led to a lot of out-there
discussion and sometimes unnecessary suspects. The theories have been
promoted by the public, the media, professionals of varying sorts,
and the police. Mind you, I am not saying you should not consider
these theories, even if slightly farfetched because doing so could
inspire other avenues of investigation which have not been
considered, but if one is going to conclude that something is likely
to have happened, that conclusion should be based on good evidence,
not on things that "could be" or "seems like it could
be." In the end, one should play Devil's Advocate and knock down
all theories that have a lack of evidence to support them and one
should focus on the theory that does have strong enough evidence to
consider it a strong likelihood of being the scenario which actually
happened.. Let me present firstly what I think should be the
reasonable scenario for the McCanns' involvement and the most
reasonable without the McCanns' involvement.
With) The children were
left alone so that the McCanns could enjoy their evening out. Because
of the problem of the children crying for them the previous night and
Maddie being so agitated over this, the children were given
medication to quiet them. The McCanns put the children to bed,
thought they were out for the evening (as in asleep) and went to have
a drink on the veranda and then they went out for the next couple of
hours. They did not check on the children again until Gerry came back
to the flat at 9:15. Either before or after they left the apartment,
Maddie came out, climbed on the sofa, and fell behind it. Because
there is a question of timing as to how long a body must remain in a
place for cadaver smell to develop that is good enough for the dogs,
I cannot say when this accident would have exactly occurred. (the
timing seems to be narrowing with further scientific experiments in
the matter from one and a half hours to far less than that. At around
9:15, Gerry finds Maddie missing from bed, searches for her, and
finds her behind the sofa. Then Kate returns and all hell breaks
loose. Gerry takes Maddie away, Kate raises the alarm, some amount of
staging is done, but very little as everyone is in a panic.
Without) Some local creep
has noted that the McCanns have three little kids and that they are
leaving them in the flat alone every night. He notes the McCanns
going out again that night and waits until he thinks he has an
opportunity to slip in through an open door or pull up an unlocked
window. He sees Maddie, puts a hand over her mouth and rushes from
the flat. He realizes she isn't reacting at all to being abducted
(because she has been medicated) and he carries the quiet child off
easily. He would have taken Maddie to his home, raped and murdered
her and buried her body on the property or out in the brush
somewhere. I want to point out, there is no evidence at all to
support this scenario, but if Maddie were actually abducted this
would have likely been what happened.
Now, time has gone on and
so the scenarios get crazier Because the pedophile abduction scenario
does indeed seem a bit too lucky, now we have kidnapping masterminds
enter the picture; sex rings or baby selling rings, professionals who
plotted this whole crime out with incredible brilliance; hence, the
reason no evidence was left and they got away with Maddie into the
night without being discovered and why they and what happened to
Maddie has remained undiscovered for six years. Likewise for the
scenarios in which the McCanns are involved. People can't understand
how the cover-up of an accident was accomplished in so short a time
and why the Tapas 9 have never broken and why the body has never been
found. In other words, it is hard to believe they got away with a
cover-up if it was so haphazard to have had to be done in a moment's
notice. Therefore, there are theories that Maddie was never in
Portugal, that she was given away days earlier, or that she died the
previous night or at least that afternoon and that the children were
never neglected and the whole dinner was staged and that Gerry was
running about with his younger child to make it look like an abductor
had taken his child.
I admit two things; it IS
amazing that the McCanns could have gotten away with such a mess of a
cover-up and it would be an incredibly lucky abductor who managed to
get so lucky to have an easy way in, a sedated child, not to have
left a bit of evidence, and never been caught. Yes, both are rather
incredible but one of them happened because Maddie is missing. Which
brings me to which scenario is supported by evidence. The abduction
scenario has zero evidence of having occurred and the
neglect/accident/cover-up has much evidence in its corner. And it is
here I would like to shoot down those fantastical scenarios put out
about how the McCanns gave away or killed Maddie (even if
accidentally) long before the Tapas dinner that evening. There are
four good reasons why the simplest scenario is the likely one. Other
than Occam's Razor being taken into account, these four bits of
evidence support the theory I gave above: the body (assuming you
believe the cadaver evidence which I do) behind the sofa, the window
showing no signs of tampering, a man being seen carrying off Maddie
towards the beach, and the mass confusion that evening. Let's look at
them.
1) The body behind the
sofa. If the dog evidence is accurate, Maddie fell behind the sofa.
No one hides a body behind a sofa, so why is it there? The odd
location indicates to me that Maddie fell there, she died there, and
she lay there until her body was discovered. This adds up to an
accident while no one was around or at least while no one was paying
attention.
PS. If you didn't think
the dog evidence behind the sofa was strong enough, one could gather
that Maddie died in her bed of an overdose or some other accident.
What is most interesting is that Gerry does give a statement that he
used his key to come in the front door to check. Now, I thoroughly
believe this indicates the flat was locked up while they were out
which makes sense if you are leaving your place unattended. This
locking of the door requires then the next statement, that the window
had to have been opened by an abductor).
2) The window not being
tampered with. If you have enough time to plan a complicated
scenario, you have enough time to put a few tool marks on the window.
It takes but a minute or two to stage the window being used to break
into the flat. The McCanns appear to have been in a frenzy when they
told relatives the flat had been broken into, that the window had
been "jimmied;" this is what people say when they are
panicked and trying to cover themselves in a hurry.
3) If Gerry was seen
carrying a child off towards the beach, I guarantee you that this was
not on purpose. Staging an abduction by pretending to BE the abductor
is foolhardy. First of all, the face of the man was not covered. He
could have been identified. Then, once he got down toward the beach,
he has to come back with the child....to what...to be seen again
bringing her back? No, if that man was Gerry the Smiths saw, then
what we have is a desperate man carrying off his deceased child to
dump her body some place. Now, he could have put the body closer to
the flat, but it makes sense that he wants the body hidden at least
long enough for a predator to have had time to rape and kill his
daughter and dump her body. It wouldn't do to have the body found
five minutes into searching for her, just behind the flat in the
bushes, would it? And, if the death of Madeleine happened a day or so
ago, there is far more time to carefully plan the removal of her body
in such a way as to not have been seen doing it.
4) The mass confusion
that evening. Some folks think that the McCanns staged the neglect so
there would be an opportunity for an abductor to take Madeleine. I do
not buy this line of thinking at all. This is not the way humans make
up lies. They don't make up a lie that makes them look bad unless it
is one of lesser bad behavior that people already know about. This is
then is an attempt to appear contrite and honest. Like the guy who
gets caught drunk driving and admits to having a couple. He KNOWS the
officer can tell he has been drinking so he admits to doing so but
the lesser of the evils..just a couple rather than the twelve drinks
he actually had.
A husband gets caught in
an affair might confess to oral sex but not intercourse because he
thinks his wife might buy that and it is the lesser of the two that
she might be able to forgive him for. BUT, a guy doesn't get caught
kissing a woman and then tell his wife, "Hey, that's not ALL
we've done!" Likewise with the McCanns. If something happened to
Maddie and they had to get rid of her body, they don't then set up a
scenario making themselves neglectful parents because no one has
accused them of committing any kind of criminal behavior at that
point. And there are so much simpler ways to stage the crime and
still look like a decent parent which keeps you from getting
investigated. How about getting rid of her body, doing some damage to
the window, and pulling it open (with gloves on) or. hey, just having
it be open for a nice breeze, and then just say "We decided to
stay in that evening and we were on the veranda having drinks while
the kids slept. We told Maddie we would be right on the other side of
the sliding door and we left the sliding door open an inch so we
could hear if anything had gone wrong inside. We must have just sat
out there for an hour or so and when we came back in and opened the
door to the children's bedroom, we found Maddie gone! We never
considered that someone would open the window and slip in while we
were just outside (or just slip through the window if left open for
that healthful breeze)."
A simple alternative to
this is to have Madeleine disappear while all are sleeping. That
someone came in through the window and took her in the night. It
happened to Elizabeth Smart, so it could happen to Maddie. I think
that is a plausible story and considering the parents are well-off
doctors, I don't know whether I would have questioned the story as
long as nothing else stood out. But, admitting to leaving the
children unattended for five nights in a row? That is a bloody stupid
story to make up if it isn't true. The problem the McCanns were
dealing with was they couldn't make themselves look like better
parents because they weren't. But they could try to play down neglect
which is a whole lot better than admitting to medicating your kid and
having her die behind the sofa while you were off drinking. The
simplest thing is indeed likely to be what happened. Selfish parents
neglected their children thinking nothing would really happen. They
medicated their kids because they saw no harm in giving them a little
something to quiet them. The unthinkable then happened and in a panic
they staged a simple crime: they removed the evidence of their
child's death from the apartment and they claimed the window had been
jimmied so an abduction scenario could be believed. Then they added a
man seen by a friend carrying off the child and they hoped they would
get away with it. And things were going quite well until they became
arguidos. After that occurred, they made another desperate decision;
to bolt Portugal and hope they would never be extradited back should
the case remain open. All in all, I believe Amaral was on the right
track even if there was a question over certain physical evidence.
The lie about the window told by the McCanns and the refusal to
acknowledge the Smith sighting along with the likely locked flat and
the inconsistent and concerning statements and behaviors, all of
these things made the McCanns arguidos and is why they should still
be arguidos six years later.
Sometimes people DO get
away with crime. The proof of this is the many unsolved, cold cases
in every country in the world. Criminals are not often brilliant, so
it is not a complicated scenario that kept them from getting arrested
and convicted. It is simply the nature of crime that it is usually
occurs without witnesses and often the physical evidence isn't strong
enough to convince a jury. I know of a lot of criminals who are
living contented lives today having gotten away with horrible crimes.
If the McCanns are guilty and never convicted in a court of law it
isn't necessarily because they are innocent nor is it because they
planned a brilliant oover-up, it is because they got lucky, they got
rich (off the fund which enable them to Carter-Ruck any troublemakers
and hire PIs to do whatever they really did), and they got help from
people in high places.
How BundleMan Became Real – 30.12.2013
We know by now not to
expect truthful reporting by such rags as The Mirror or straight talk
from Chief Inspector Andy Redwood of Scotland Yard, but the "shocking
revelation" presented on CrimeWatch by Redwood was the
elimination of the "top suspect" - the man Jane Tanner
claimed she saw crossing the street in front of her as she came up
alongside the McCann's vacation flat - by "proving" that
this man was but an innocent vacationer carrying his sleeping
daughter back from the creche after enjoying his evening out. Redwood
went on in the show to tout the 10 pm sighting by the Smith family as
the more credible sighting of an abductor carrying Madeleine off
towards to beach, a suspect Scotland Yard has not identified as
anyone in particular, especially not Gerry McCann, the one man Mr.
Smith told police the individual just might be. Most of us wondered,
quite immediately, how this vacationer could actually have been a
real person, one that Jane Tanner truly did see. It doesn't take
rocket scientists to note that the man was walking the wrong
direction, the he should have been walking toward the McCann flat if
he were coming from the creche, not walking from the McCann apartment
in the direction the creche. (The yellow dot is the entrance to where
the McCanns were dining at the Tapas Restaurant, the red dot is their
vacation flat, and the blue dot is the creche. The supposed father
carrying his daughter to the creche was crossing the road away from
the red dot).
Now, the story gets
weirder. It is being reported (if one can call what The Mirror prints
as reporting), that the man came forward in 2007 to the
Leicestershire police and filled out a detailed questionnaire
detailing his movements and that he was carrying his child back from
the creche at the time of the Tanner sighting. Then, there is some
inference that this information was forwarded to the Portuguese
police who ignored it even though, according to the report, they were
obsessed with the Tanner sighting to the exclusion of the Smith
sighting. Of course, this simply foolishness. If such a report
existed, either it made no sense to the PJ that this man could be
Tanner's bundleman because he was walking in the wrong direction or
they were not interested in Tanner sighting because her story was not
very credible (read more on this here) or because they believed the
Smith sighting was the true one of Madeleine or all three of these
reasons had an effect on whatever decision they made (should this man
even exist). However, what is being reported is a pure rewrite of
history, that the PJ truly believed the Tanner sighting was that of a
man abducting Madeleine and their failure to interview this supposed
person-of-interest threw the investigation off track.
This bit about the
innocent father carrying his child into the pathway of Jane Tanner
gets even more ridiculous. It is also claimed that Scotland Yard just
interviewed him in recent months and he produced not only the
clothing he was wearing that night but also the pink pajamas of his
daughter! Mind you, six years has passed but not only does he
remember what both of them were wearing but he still has the clothing
in his possession! What a miracle! One could think, perhaps, that
this poor man, seeing all the to-do about Bundleman, how the McCanns
were desperately searching for this man who they thought took their
child at 9:15 pm, might have kept the clothing around just in case,
one day, he needed to produce them as his alibi, clothes not only
necessary to prove that he was Bundleman, but that his own daughter
was in those pink pajamas and not Maddie. How kind it was for him to
keep the clothing as proof and wait patiently for the police to one
day call and how incredibly horrific a human being he was to not have
ever contacted the McCanns or their private detectives to let them
know that they should not be focusing on Bundleman as the man who
took Maddie.
So, I can only surmise
from these ludicrous claims of Redwood and The Mirror that either the
man was early ruled out as having nothing to do with the McCann case
because he was walking the wrong direction and, therefore, was not
the man Tanner claims to have seen, or he doesn't exist at all and is
merely a ruse to exonerate Jane Tanner from her claim to have seen
the possible kidnapper (which would mean Scotland Yard is attempting
to make Tanner an honest woman and bring a level of believability
back to the Tapas 9) or it is a ruse to bring the time frame to 10 pm
and the sighting of the Smiths which might have been a sighting of
Gerry (which would mean Scotland Yard is playing a very clever card
game). I wish it was the latter but I am a bit too cynical to harbor
such an incredible hope. What I do know is Sr. Amaral never believed
Tanner's story and he always believed that the Smith sighting was
likely the real one; how Andy Redwood, Scotland Yard, and the UK
media can spin this to the complete opposite is incredible and yet
another rewrite of history and we can only hope one day we will have
a clear understanding as to the entire motive that lurks behind all
of these misrepresentations and manipulations.
 |
| Marco Zoppo, 1433-1498, Italian, Man carrying bundle, 15th century. |
