Well there you go then. Granted, they could have just been looking around the complex, but a full hour?

And the presenter said the man spotted with a child was headed towards the beach, which kind of brings to mind some terrible ideas.

The investigation was bungled so much though from the start that anything could have happened really. The family being monitored over their 4 nightly trips to the restaurant and then abductors seizing their opportunity on night 5 sounds a strong possibility too.

And I keep having that point come back which is if they were responsible one way or another why would they continue to waste police time and get themselves in the media 6 years on? It's a baffling incident to say the least.

I wouldn't say anyone thinks they're murderers. But more that Maddie had an accident whilst left alone in the apartment and they covered it up.

How is that the simplest explanation for anything? So their daughter had an accident?

Was this whilst they were having dinner?

So at some point, they realise she's dead, and instead of collapsing into grief, they think about how they can cover their arses? I don't buy that they are that kind of people, because it would take a very particular kind of person to do that.

Sometimes bad things happen that can't be explained.

I never said it was odd that they didnt phone to police immediately or anything. It makes sense to check around first IMO. I just answered a question about how long it took for the police to arrive...

I never said it was the simplest explanation, nor one I think with any certainty is what happened.

BIB - That's just the same as people who questioned their body language during their original TV appeals. You're presuming certain people behave in certain ways. Truth is, there's no way of knowing.

I'm not sure on that part to be honest. Thats what our police said. The Portuguese investigation seems quite sound. They had the info on what the Smiths saw years ago(they took statements not long after she disappeared)..yet for some reason our police have only decided its worthy now? Seems to me the investigation was botched once it was turned to our police :/

I do think certain people behave in certain ways. A grieving parent would have to be a very specific kind of person to think about proving a cover story first, and grieving second.

It's not that I don't think anyone is capable of it, I just think the number that are capable of dealing with the death of their child like that is minuscule, and would put them at the socio/psycho path end of the spectrum.

Innocent until proven guilty, and no one has anything remotely resembling proof or evidence.

It's hard to know really, there's so many conflicting bits of info. The fact the man seen by the Tanner woman was only identified this year is a joke IMO.

Is this aimed at me? I'm not claiming they're guilty. We're just discussing what we saw/heard from the reconstruction of the night's events.

No, I know you weren't claiming them to be guilty at all. I was merely stating what the position of everyone should be, but I wasn't having a go at you.

In that case, yes I agree.

I do think it's odd the way they reacted immediately after she 'went missing' tbh.

Her parents never once went out to search anywhere for her they chose instead to sit and write out timelines? as far as we have been told anyway.

I also think it's weird that Kate left the twins sleeping in the apartment alone and ran back to the tapas bar to shout "They have taken her", why not shout from the window? and who are they? it shocked me that those other 2 kids were left alone in the apartment their sister had been taken from, any abductors could still have been in there for all she knew.

Theres so many questions but it's one of these things where we are never going to know the truth of what happened imo.

Something that bugged me during the reconstruction though, we saw both Kate and Gerry putting the kids into bed and closing the door but leaving it open slightly before they left the apartment, when Gerry went back to check the first time the door was wide open a lot more than they had left it but Maddie was still in her bed at this point, could there have been someone actually in the apartment at this time???

I agree with you, but I think people believe them to be capable of such a thing because they were so negligent in the first place, like having three children was a burden on their relaxing getaway - hence putting the kids to bed so the grown ups could go have fun. Seeing as all of the other couples were doing it too, I suppose they thought it was okay and safe to do so. Safety in numbers.

I think there's a lot of credibility in the idea that they were being watched by a small team of people who struck on the 5th night once they'd established the pattern. If the couples were getting up every half an hour to check on the kids and they've been watching them for 4 nights and have established this pattern, they'd know they have maybe a 20 minute window between each check because the adults would walk there, check there was no noise and walk back again.

It's like something out of a James Bond film, simple reconnaissance. They force open the window, take the 3 year old because she fits the description of what they're looking for and make off into the night with her. It was probably quite amateur in its execution - these are probably guys who are quite poor and this is how they earn money by scouting young girls, stealing them and selling them on, hence not having a getaway car or it being a massive team of people, probably just two guys who are making ends meet because aside from "paradise resorts" like the one the McCanns were staying in, Portugal is riddled with poverty and I'd imagine these guys were in that position too. It's more common than people would like to think, but when it's the daughter of affluent British doctors who have the money to keep her name out there in the media, plus her being a cute, white little girl, of course it's a major media news story...

I don't know if she's still alive or not. I would hope that if she is still alive, she is still young enough that these memories can be repressed and she can lead a normal life if she is found in the near future, and these recent cases of people being found years after they go missing does give some hope... but I just don't know, I think with her high profile she becomes too risky to keep alive, sadly... unlike if she was a little girl from rural Lithuania whose parents don't have the money to even get a newspaper to run a story about her.

Also, for her first thought to be that someone had "taken her" is a bit odd Like I think my first thought if I'd left a toddler alone in an apartment with the door unlocked was that they'd woken up and wandered off to try and find me

I think my first thought would be that she'd been kidnapped, if the window was open, though...

"could there have been someone actually in the apartment at this time??? "

Yes Josy anything is possible.


But loads of kids are missing
they do not get on every TV News



I would prefer real news
on this not
it staying 6 years and all with no
solid updates

I don't think I would, especially if the other two children were still in the room

Nah I agree with Niamh, my first thought would be that she had woken up again like the night before and wandered.

But the later sighting of someone carrying a child would put Gerry having dinner with his friends wouldn't it :conf:

Yeah but if you're a worst-case-scenario person like I am (and I believe Kate McCann is too) then your mind jumps to the worst possible conclusion... and unfortunately in this case, she was right to think so. If you have unscrupulous men looking to kidnap toddlers to sell into the sex trade, they're not going to take babies, they're going to take toddlers. I'm of the opinion that the people who took her are not the people who have her right now, I believe they were just middle men who go out and do the dirty work and then sell the victims onto someone. It's quite possible they kidnapped her, took her to the beach and someone in a boat sped off to an unknown location. If the kids were sedated, as has been suggested in this thread (there was no mention of that in the Crimewatch report that I noticed but I'm assuming that it's been reported somewhere else?) then Madeleine wouldn't have even put up a struggle, she could well have been asleep the entire time if she'd been drugged by her parents.

Just a combination of sloppy negligent parenting and awful, tragic coincidence.

if it was your child, you would want it on the news everyday until you had news.

Another thing to consider is that the people who took her may well have been murdered or committed suicide once the case became a global news story, I'm sure it can't be great for your conscience if you're kidnapping little kids from their families to make your money; if they were working for an employer, they may well have been taken out because they posed a risk to the crime ring if they were caught by the police. I've studied human trafficking fairly extensively, this is all quite possible.

No I am not that Greedy

a strange choice of words!
your allowed to be selfish when its your child.

WRONG


The Police contact you with All Updates
NOT the FECKING TV NEWS

Zee I honestly think if she was a worst case scenario type of person then there is no way at all she would have left her children in that apartment by themselves, she would know of the dangers of leaving them alone like that.

Running to the restaurant and shouting they have taken her is a really odd thing to do imo even if she was in shock.

I don't know if I have misunderstood the facts here, but isn't it the case that for the parents to be involved in their daughter's disappearance then all seven of the people they were with at the restaurant that night have to be lying and covering for them?

That's not very credible.

I dunno, I can completely understand (though I don't support) why they felt safe leaving their kids in an apartment by themselves if everyone else was doing it and they felt safe with their system of going back to check on them every half an hour. Then of course when the worst case scenario happened, she immediately felt guilty for leaving them in the first place. They were swept up in the innocence of being in a crowd; if everyone else is doing it, it seems innocent and totally fine because nobody else had had a problem with it.

When I was beaten up on my birthday I first said to my friend "do you think I should call an ambulance?" and then tried to joke with the paramedic that it wouldn't have happened if I'd had a smaller forehead. People say and do bizarre things that don't make sense when they're in shock.

Yes, and I believe if they were lying someone would have slipped up by now.

It's all very strange that on that one particular night an international Paedophile gang just happened to be targeting praia del Luz that particular night and they snatched one toddler ?

No Portuguese police investigations showed up any criminal or unusual Paedophile activity in that area of the Algarve around that time ?? So was the abductor a chancer, a Paedophile on holiday ? It does sound unlikely and the window of opportunity to snatch her was desparately short, it would have taken nerves of steel or perhaps one than one person but again we are back into International Paedophile gang territory.

No ... The unpalatable and shocking truth of this whole sad story is that the parents know what really happened that night and are actively involved in perpetuating this abduction story for evermore...

I for one hope new real evidence comes to light and this case is blown wide open inasmuch as the McCanns themselves are finally forced to admit the truth about what happened to their little girl on that fateful night....!!!!!

This case is to me a massive mystery and I really have all sorts of thoughts as to it running round my head everytime I hear more of it.

I haven't any children yet, I have though been a child and I know my Parents and all those in my family who have children would not and no way even at home, let alone in a foreign country, would any of those parents leave a 3/4 year old with younger twins on their own for any length of time let alone for possibly hours.

I just don't get this case at all and really think it best I keep my own counsel as to what I think in the main but somehow,although I applaud any investigations into it being made further,I am not expecting any conclusive positive results in the end from this new investigation.

Yeah, "They've taken her" is very odd. "She's gone" or "I can't find Maddie" or something. The phrasing is weird.

True. If the window was closed with a shutter down, I wouldn't presume my 3 year old had forced her way out of it.

What do you mean? :conf:

I think the guy seen walking towards the beach with a kid was spotted after 10pm IIRC? So between the time Kate found Maddie gone and the police arriving.

But of course at this point, as James points out, their 5 other friends would have been with them at the apartments checking their own kids, helping look around for Maddie. If Gerry disappeared on foot with her they'd have noticed and therefore would have to be lying to cover for him, which takes the theory even further into absurdity.

If they were in fact covering up her accidental death then I find it hard to believe given the shock and grief stricken state they both would have been in , that they could plan and put into operation the perfect abduction scenario , that they could move and safely dispose of their little girls body and still give interviews to the police that were credible and plausible.

You would think they would have missed some vital piece of evidence or left some clues as to what actually happened .

Makes me wonder if perhaps a third party was involved ??

I don't know... Like most people this case is so confusing and unusual from so many angles...

Why would there have to be other activity? They're hardly going to remain in one area kidnapping children with search parties/police investigations that occur after just one child goes missing.

They don't have to be a chancer. They repeated their evening routine 4 nights in a row. Someone watching and following the pattern and then seizing the opportunity or any other possibilities are not implausible.

A pedophile on holiday? There are people who live/work/operate abroad, they don't have to be "on holiday".

If they had done something, then why wouldn't they lie low after the case was closed and they were officially dropped as suspects? Making worldwide appeals would not be in their interests.

But it being nigh on impossible for them to have covered up an accident means a third party was involved? From where?

Third party or not there would be more evidence.

Take a look at the illicit drugs trade in Ibiza for example, with the case of those two girls being jailed in Peru - the gangs that operate the drug cartels are British men on the Spanish island! People are equating these hypothetical kiddy snatchers with respectable people with predictable patterns. The world of human trafficking is far more normal than people would ever want to imagine.

This clip is from a documentary about a man trying to get his wife back after she was trafficked by a friend of the couple. The man at the start of the clip was the one who trafficked her. He told her he could get a job for her. Instead he trafficked her, she had no idea what was coming next, she trusted this man. Sex traffickers aren't obvious.

I honestly do not believe for a minute that the McCanns had anything to do with madeleines disappearance.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/madeleine-m...2.html#tikTGfJ

That could be interesting :whistle:

Especially with the libel case going on. Can't see the McCanns being too impressed with this at all...

The main problem with this case is that there are an infinite number of variables and possibilities to explain what happened that night, and a lot of them are down to the McCanns and their negligence, which clouds everyone's view of what happened whether you believe they are guilty of covering up her death or had nothing to do with her disappearance. Constantly raking it up in the news is the only way the McCanns can keep the case alive, but it's not impacting on public perception of them in a unifying way because all the factors are still totally unpredictable.

It's so difficult to watch the McCann's sit and talk about Madeleine, especially not knowing the truth.

I genuinely want to believe that they didn't have anything to do with it, but I can't help but think otherwise. Watching the reenactment last night and knowing that Madeleine told her mother that she was crying along with her brother was upsetting to watch. And if I find it distressing I know that her parents would have done something about it, which would result to her not being able to cry on that specific night. Giving her sleeping pills would have sorted that problem.

If I'm wrong then I hope that the outcome is revealed sooner rather than later. I don't think anybody deserves six years of heartache.