Remarkable New Theory On What Happened to Madeleine McCann

The 10th anniversary of the disappearance of three year old Madeleine McCann has arrived and her whereabouts still remain unknown. When news broke back in 2007 of the McCann family tragedy, the world stood eerily still, hoping for a positive outcome although it never came. However despite the fact that a decade has passed, new theories surrounding Madeleine’s disappearance continue to emerge and the world continues to cling to hope. Read on about the details of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance and the new pieces of evidence which may illuminate to answers the family long deserves.

Who Was Madeleine McCann?

Blonde haired, blue and green eyed, Madeleine McCann was only three years old when she disappeared from her own bed at a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, back in 2007. Madeleine was the eldest, born in Leicester, England and has twin siblings.

Gerald and Kate McCann

Both of Madeleine’s parents are physicians. Kate worked briefly in the obstetrics and gynecology department, then anesthesiology, and general practice. Gerald has spent his career as a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester. They met back in 1993 in Glasgow and were married in 1998.

5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, Praia da Luz

The McCanns and seven friends arrived in Praia da Luz on Saturday, 28 April 2007, for a much needed family vacation. They were placed in 5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, an apartment that is owned by a retired teacher from Liverpool. It is noted that the apartment block is not a gated complex.

Tapas Seven

As we said, the McCanns were with seven friends and eight children, including the McCanns’ three. These nine adults all dined together most evenings at the resort’s tapas restaurant, as a result of this, the media then dubbed the friends “the Tapas Seven”.

Thursday, 3 May 2007

On the morning of the disappearance, as the family ate breakfast, Maddie asked her parents, “Why didn’t you come when [her brother] and I cried last night?” To this day, Gerald and Kate McCann wonder if Maddie’s question had a double meaning, perhaps someone had been in their room? Around 7PM that evening, the McCanns put their children to bed and had dinner with the rest of the seven guests, checking on the kids roughly every half hour.

Upon Checking

Later that evening, Madeleine’s mother was to check on the kids at 9:30, but Matthew Oldfield, one of the Tapas Seven, offered to do it instead as he was heading to check on his own children in the apartment next door to their own. He noted that the McCanns’ children’s bedroom door was wide open, but didn’t hear any noise, and he didn’t look far into the room to see if Maddie was there.

The Abduction

Half an hour later, Kate made her own check. She noticed that the children’s bedroom door was wide open, when she attempted to close the door, it slammed shut due to a draft. This is when Kate saw the bedroom window and shutter were open and Madeleine wasn’t in her bed. After a brief search, Kate ran back to the restaurant, screaming, “Madeleine’s gone! Someone’s taken her!”

The Search

At 10:10, Madeleine’s father sent friend Matthew Oldfield to tell the resort’s reception desk to phone the police, and 20 minutes later, the resort activated its missing-child search protocol. 60 staff and guests searched, assuming that Madeleine had just wandered off. Two patrol dogs and four search-and-rescue dogs together with police officers searched everywhere.

Suspected Sighting

Jane Tanner, one of the Tapas Seven, reported seeing a man carrying a child the night Madeleine disappeared. Around 9:00PM, she left the restaurant to check on her own daughter, passing Madeleine’s father on his way back to the restaurant. Tanner told police she saw a man carrying a young child across the junction of Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins and Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva. He wasn’t far from Madeleine’s room, heading east. The police were skeptical of her sighting as no one remembered seeing her around, therefore they didn’t release her description to the public until May 25.

Golden Hours

Unfortunately, it was widely acknowledged that many mistakes were made during the “golden hours” after Maddie’s disappearance. Border and marine police were not given descriptions of Madeleine for many hours, also officers did not make any house-to-house searches. Kate claims that roadblocks were first put in place only at 10 the following morning. Police also did not request for any motorway surveillance pictures of vehicles leaving Praia da Luz that night. Euroscut, the company monitoring the road, said they weren’t approached for any information. Interpol took five days to even issue a global missing-person alert.

Eye Witness Accounts

The Tanner sighting rejection allowed for investigators to focus on ~another~ sighting of a man carrying a child that night. This sighting was reported by Martin and Mary Smith, who were on holiday from Ireland. The Smiths reported seeing the man around 10:00, 500 yards from the McCanns’ apartment. He was walking toward the beach and in his arms, he carried a girl aged 3 to 4 with blonde hair, light skin, and wearing pajamas. The man was in his mid-30s, didn’t look like a tourist, and seemed uncomfortable carrying the child.

Scotland Yard

A couple of days after the abduction, Scotland Yard officers arrived at the resort to further question suspects and those involved in Madeleine’s abduction. They later concluded that Maddie was in fact abducted at around 9:20 in the evening after Gerald returned to the restaurant after checking on the kids.

Holidaymakers

Turns out that not everyone who was in the resort at the time was interviewed; holidaymakers even went on to later contact the British police to say that no one had spoken to them.

Suspicions on Kate and Gerald

Just a month after Madeleine disappeared, the media turned their suspicions on Kate and Gerald McCann, causing a massive frenzy which even turned the Portuguese police against the parents. Publication after publication came up with wild theories, some even went on to call the Tapas Seven group swingers, accusing the McCann’s of sedating their children. Others believed the McCann’s accidentally killed Madeleine and hid her body.

Crime Scene Not Secure

It also quickly came out that the crime scene was not properly secured. Police took samples from Madeleine’s bedroom, which were then sent to three different forensic labs in Portugal. Reportedly in June 2007, DNA was found from one “stranger” but some 20 people had entered apartment 5A before it was even closed off. Kate also said that an officer placed tape across the doorway of the children’s bedroom, but left at 3AM without having secured the apartment.

Shocking Report

When the Portuguese police released their case file in 2008, it came out that apartment 5A was empty for a month after Maddie’s disappearance, but that it was then let out to new tourists before it was sealed off again in August 2007 for additional forensic tests.

First Portuguese inquiry

12 days after Madeleine disappeared, 34 year old Robert Murat, a British-Portuguese property consultant, became the first suspect. Murat lived in his mother’s house, a mere 150 yards from apartment 5A and in the direction where the Tanner sighting occurred. Police questioned him after a Sunday Mirror journalist told police he was asking many questions about the case. Additionally, three members of the Tapas Seven reported seeing Murat outside apartment 5A on the evening Madeleine disappeared. Murat said he and his mother were home all evening, but police still searched his property and used sniffer dogs. However, nothing directly linked Murat to Maddie’s disappearance, thus he was dropped as a suspect.

Portugal sends a letter rogatory

In June, the McCanns suggested to Portuguese police they request assistance from Danie Krugel, a South African former police officer who developed a “matter orientation system”, a handheld device that could locate missing people using DNA and satellites. Inspector Amaral believed the McCanns were involved in Maddie’s disappearance and they were using Krugel to “disclose the location of her daughter’s body” without compromising themselves. Krugel said he picked up a signal by the beach near the Rocha Negra cliff, the Portuguese police sent a letter rogatory to the British police asking for assistance in the search for Madeleine’s body. They were unsuccessful in their search.

British Sniffer Dogs Arrive

Mark Harrison, the national search adviser brought in Keela and Eddie, two CSI dogs trained to alert of the scent of human blood. The only spots Keela and Eddie alerted to in apartment 5A was behind the sofa and on the veranda in the bedroom that Madeleine’s parents used. After these results came out, the Portuguese police obtained search warrants for the house the McCanns rented, along with the silver Renault Scénic hired 24 days after Madeleine disappeared. The two dogs picked up scents of blood on various items and it didn’t take long for Portuguese media to start running conspiracy stories.

British DNA analysis

Hair and fibers, collected from the rental car and apartment, were sent directly to the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in Birmingham, England for DNA profiling. According to the Sunday Times, the Portuguese police “abandoned the abduction theory” and dubbed the case a murder inquiry. Consequently the McCanns were interrogated and officers alluded that Kate’s memory presented faulty. The FSS used a technique, low copy number testing, when a few cells are only available, however the test is controversial as it’s vulnerable to contamination and misinterpretation. John Lowe of the FSS stated a sample from the trunk did contain 15 out of 19 of Madeleine’s DNA components, but the result was “too complex for meaningful interpretation”.

Almeida report

The McCann’s were the prime suspects but were allowed to leave Portugal, and on legal advice, they did so immediately. However, the following day the Chief Inspector in Portugal signed a nine page report stating that Madeleine had accidentally died in apartment 5A, the meals in the restaurant and apparent regular checks on the children were all a cover-up, the Tapas Seven helped mislead police, and finally the McCanns hid the body, then faked an abduction.

Inquiry closed (July 21, 2008)

On July 21, 2008 the Attorney General in Portugal, Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro, concluded that there was no evidence linking Gerald and Kate McCann or Robert Murat to Madeleline’s disappearance. Both of their “suspect” statuses was lifted and the case was officially closed.

Maddie: The Truth of the Lie

The relationship between the McCanns and the Portuguese police was so damaged that Chief Inspector Gonçalo Amaral, who coordinated the investigation, resigned in June 2008 in order to write a book. His book states that Madeleine died in an accident in apartment 5A and that her parents faked an abduction. Amaral had been removed from the case after he told a Portuguese newspaper he believed the British police were only pursuing leads helpful to the McCanns.

Madeleine’s Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned

12 days after Maddie disappeared, Gerald and Kate McCann set up Madeleine’s Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned Ltd. In the three months following Maddie’s disappearance, over 80 million people visited the website.

Oakley International

Oakley International, a Washington D.C. detective agency, was hired in 2008 by Madeleine’s Fund for six months. The agency sent a five-man team to Portugal, led by Henri Exton, a former British police officer who worked for MI5. His team went undercover within the Ocean Club and among pedophile rings. After a few months, Exton submitted his report to Madeleine’s Fund – he concluded that Madeleine may have accidentally died after leaving the apartment by herself through unlocked patio doors.

Private investigators

Madeleine’s Fund went on to hire several private investigators, which caused serious friction with the Portuguese police. Shortly after Maddie’s disappearance, an anonymous benefactor also paid for the services of a British security company, Control Risks.

Operation Grange

May 2011 former Home Secretary Theresa May and Scotland Yard started an investigative review known as Operation Grange, with a team of 29 detectives and eight civilians. By March 2017, the inquiry surrounding Maddie’s disappearance had cost 11.1 million pounds (14 million dollars).

Tracking mobile phone calls

Police were able to trace who used cell phones near the scene of the disappearance at a specific time. The analysis turned up tons of telephone calls and texts between three men near the Ocean Club around the time of Maddie’s disappearance. A 30 year old former Ocean Club bus driver along with his 24 year old and 53 year old associates. Detectives immediately interviewed them, they however denied any connection to the disappearance.

More Cell Tracking

Additionally, police tracked the cell phone of a former Ocean Club restaurant worker who had also been used his mobile near the resort that night. Euclides Monteiro had died in 2009 during a tractor accident after he was fired from the Ocean Club in 2006 for theft. Most asumed that he had been breaking into apartments to finance a drug habit he probably had, although it’s speculation. Monteiro’s widow said he was questioned previously about break-ins which involved the sexual assault of children, but that he had been cleared by DNA evidence.

Holiday-home sexual assaults

In 2014, Scotland Yard issued another appeal for information concerning a man who entered holiday homes which were occupied by British families in 12 different incidents between 2004 and 2010, two of which were in Praia da Luz. On four occasions, he had sexually assaulted five white girls, aged seven to 10, in their beds. The man spoke English but with a a foreign accent, he had short, dark, unkempt hair, and tanned skin. Three victims also said he had a distinctive smell. The Portuguese police believed that the intruder was Euclides Monteiro, the former Ocean Club employee who died in 2009.

Detective Inspector Dave Edgar

After Maddie disappeared, Kate and Gerry McCann hired Dave Edgar, a private investigator. In 2011, he stopped working for the McCanns when the Metropolitan Police opened their own case. April 2017 Mr. Edgar reported to various media outlets that he strongly believes that Madeleine, who now would be 13, is still alive and that he would come back to help as a private investigator. He went on to say that he strongly believes the McCanns were not involved in the disappearance and blames a pedophile gang, he also said, “Until such time that a body is found it is a live investigation and there is always hope [Madeleine is alive].”

Further Help

The Home Office in England recently confirmed that it has granted officers £85,000 ($108,000) to carry on investigating the case for another six months. Currently over £11 million ($14 million) has been spent on the UK investigation.

New Lead Emerges

On April 20, 2017, an Australian current affairs program promised a new lead would be revealed on their show come Sunday. They released a teaser video featuring Kate and Gerry McCann, forensic scientist Dave Barclay, and the journalist Rahni Sadler will speak to the case’s lead investigator and criminal profiler.

The Nanny Speaks

Recently in April 2017, Madeleine’s former nanny spoke up regarding the night of her disappearance. For 10 years, she remained silent but recently, she decided to speak up but wished to keep her name private. She claimed that the resort was considered extremely unsafe to the point that the nannies were warned not to leave the complex, especially at night on their own, and were even supplied with rape alarms. She said, “I just couldn’t get over how different it was to other Mark Warner resorts. We were told: ‘Here’s a rape whistle, don’t go anywhere by yourself, ever.’ There’d been a girl attacked the year or so before in Praia da Luz. It didn’t sound like a family resort to me. I just got the feeling the locals didn’t want us there.”

‘It’s a horrible marker of stolen time’

Madeleine’s mother recently described that the tenth anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance is an incredibly ‘horrible marker of stolen time’. On the Official Find Madeleine Campaign Facebook page, her parents thanked everyone for their support and stated they haven’t given up.