I hate to say this, but Maddie is 99% sure to be dead. The size of the appeal, and the worldwide interest shown in the case would have made it too dangerous for the kidnapper to keep her alive. She's more than likely buried in some remote Portuguese hills/countryside.

I'm not a parent, but I think I'd prefer to think of my child as passed away, rather than being in the hands of a paedophile ring for the last x number of years. I also think that how they left their young children alone in that apartment that night was verging on a criminal act in itself.

I think as a parent I would just want to know one way or another, the not knowing is worse than anything else. And I agree completely about your last point, beggers belief that they thought it was ok to do that, my son is 9 and if he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't find me or Gav he would freak out, never mind kids as young as Maddie and the twins

..yeah, I think I would have to get closure and in a strange way any closure would probably be less to come to terms with than what my mind would 'invent' through not knowing...and I also cannot imagine leaving children of those ages alone, but that's something that they have had to live with and maybe a sense of guilt about that drives them to keep searching as well and never to believe she could be dead..?...

The crimewatch program on tonight. Wonder if it will answer any of the unanswered questions..doubt it somehow.

Well it was reported in the Mirror as the OP links to, although police are now denying that an arrest was made

..how weird about the timing of the programme and all this new information/arrests being a few days apart after all of these years...

Almost as weird as the new info coming out right when Kates book was due out last time...

..what was that new info, Vicky..the last time..?...

This is the £5million UK grant money being used
and BBC.


But end result - No Change

Guess work

IIRC it was about a reconstruction the police apparently wanted to do that the McCanns said no to. Got the case back in the papers just in time for her book release.

...of someone taking Madeleine then..?..I don't know, it's just the strangest of cases, my family and I were talking about it at the weekend and as much as there are things that make you think that her parents could know more..that also doesn't make any sense either and how they've wanted it to be high profile...

Unfortunately I don't think anyone is ever going to know the truth besides whoever was responsible :(

..as a parent, that not knowing would rule my whole life I think...but they have got two other children so I guess that helps to focus them....

Just a reconstruction of that night I think. To jog memories.

My main question about all of this was the whole 'they've taken her' thing. What a strange thing to say when you discover your child is missing.

A lot of questions raised in that police dudes book too. I know he was arrested over it but I refuse to believe he just randomly made stuff up http://goncaloamaraltruthofthelie.blogspot.co.uk/

If you haven't already reported what you know about that night/time when she was taken, then another documentary however many years later isn't going to do it either.

Feed the grief of the family, make a programme about it.

..hmmm, yeah..I agree the 'they've taken her' thing seemed very odd at the time...but if they accidently hurt her..?...then could spend time with friends and those friends not see them agitated and they behaved perfectly normally..?..I can't get my head around that either...people would have noticed a difference in their behaviour if they had found their daughter dead...yet no one has said they did to my knowledge..?...

I've never really known what I believe about the case... but I like to think that they are innocent and she was sadly taken. I think perhaps they had seen someone shady watching them, someone scouting the family, and thought it was strange at the time but didn't feel overly concerned about it, just some person staring at them. If you don't deem a face important, you don't remember specifically what it looks like if you've only seen it once - perhaps they know what this person looks like or perhaps they can't remember.

Of course, they could have accidentally killed her, hidden the body, prepared what to say and gone to dinner... but I doubt they could have acted totally normally and sat through dinner if they'd just killed their daughter, somebody would have said they were acting suspiciously. I think they just made a tragic, tragic mistake.

People often use the fact that their other children weren't taken as proof that she wasn't taken... but if the person/people who took her was acting on orders to kidnap a 3 year old girl for adoption or for sexual slavery, then they were doing a job, which explains a lot.

I wonder if their other children have any memories of that night or of Madeleine... they must be about 7 years old now?

Well my belief is that they either overdosed her accidentally on sedatives. Or she had a fall/accident while they were out. They panicked on finding her dead, and there comes this abduction story.

There wouldn't have been a difference in their behaviour as at the time they were with friends, they didnt know anything was wrong. If that makes sense.

..yeah it does make sense, that they didn't 'discover' until after dinner when they went back...I'm not sure I'm convinced by the 'overdose/sedative' theory because they're both doctors and would know how much to give her...I also don't believe that they would first decide to give her it in a foreign country just so they could have dinner with friends, unless they had done it before and knew it to be 'safe' and that she wouldn't wake up...also, I don't think the younger ones had any traces of it in them, surely they would have tested for that if that was their theory...because why just give it to Madeleine...and the fall part, well yeah that could happen that she woke up but again, they would know the right dose so she didn't and even then to conceal her body somewhere, where it hasn't been found and do the 'someone's taken her' bit seems just too 'cold/calculated' for two ordinary people whose daughter had just died...

I don't think they killed her, either accidentally or otherwise. In any situation, the simplest explanation is often the correct one. If they were going to concoct an abduction story, why create one that makes them look like terrible parents?

Because it would obviously have came out that they did leave the kids alone so they could get pissed? As people would have seen them all out..

The main thing to remember is that whenever a person goes into shock, the things they say and do often aren't logical and don't often make sense. People say things that don't mean anything but can often have a retrospective meaning added on to it. If they accidentally killed her, they'd be in shock; if she fell, hurt herself and died, they'd be in shock; if they went to dinner, came back and found her missing, they'd be in shock.

Whatever happened to Madeleine McCann, I don't believe her parents are murderers. They didn't kill her in cold blood, nor did they set out to kill her at all. I think she was just kidnapped and they were irresponsible by going out for dinner and leaving the kids unattended... but it could have happened if they were asleep in the same room too - it happened even though they thought the kids were safe; presumably they wouldn't have done anything more to make the room safe if they had been in there too.

I expect they wouldnt have left the patio door open had they been asleep in the room with the kids

Something else that doesn't make much sense to me..why do that when you know kids are in the room. Would it not make more sense to lock it? :S

I dunno, I think they would have - they were confident enough that the room was safe as it was, I'd guess they left it open to let air into the room. It is all very strange, they must beat themselves up every day going over it in their minds about what they should and shouldn't have done to prevent that situation from unfolding.