Madeleine McCann

Sure, it is strange. I can't explain that.

Personally, I dont believe the McCanns had any part in the disappearance, aside from their poor personal security choices.

There are lots of things in this case that are hard or impossible to explain. Which in some ways is why it makes it so fascinating.

The dogs arrived in Portugal on the 31st of July and began their work, but the McCanns did not leave for the UK until September 8/9th. They went back to the UK shortly after arguido status was declared upon them. It is quite understandable in this circumstance that they're going to seek lawyers to help them deal with a potential criminal case against them through an unfamiliar legal system. Hiring lawyers is not an indication of guilt, no matter how expensive they are. Pretty much everyone who is a possible suspect of a crime would be advised to do it where and when they can.

Regarding the cadaver dog thing again, is it the case that Portuguese or UK courts are bound by a precedent of legal opinion in the United States? I was of the understanding that they're sovereign legal jurisdictions. And if the precedent doesn't carry over from that country, but is still enough to prick a hole in that piece of apparent evidence, then how solid was the evidence to begin with? Obviously not strong enough for the police to build into a cogent case.

The McCanns have long since gone on trial in the court of public opinion and not helped there by the metric tonne of spin, rumour and half-truth which was merrily spread by every tabloid news outlet in the English-speaking world. I think they're past looking good or bad. People will suspect, but that's about all they can do, it seems.

More nonsense. There is a video of the late Mrs Pamela Fenn, stating on camera that the journalists reports about her hearing and reporting crying were fictional. An absolute categorical denial:

I can’t believe that there are people about who actually think the McCanns did anything to their daughter. Most of their “evidence” is a dog barked. Well duh.

Ffs did you even watch the video? It confirms (11 minutes in) that she heard a child crying two nights before the disappearance.

This is from her actual statement....

"She also refers to the day of the 1st of May 2007, when she was home alone at approximately 22-30, she heard a child cry, and that due to the tone of the crying seemed to be a young child and not a baby of two years or younger. Apart from the crying that continued for approximately one hour and fifteen minutes and which got louder and more expressive, the child shouted Daddy? Daddy? The witness had no doubt that the noise came from the floor below."

The dogs begun their work at the start of August, the McCann's weren't their to witness their searches. By the time the McCann's found out and were going to be questioned on it, they went into panic mode as has been pointed out. Why did their minds go to this evidence could get us in trouble rather than this evidence could unlock the case? The McCann's themselves even put in research to try to discredit the findings. Very strange, I don't think the tabloids forced them to do any of this.

The investigation was incompetent from different police forces, that's why the dog evidence is all we have. There appears to be a wild goose chase going on involving a German peado for the last few years, there have been other suspects previously but nothing on any suspects except the dogs. I think it's clear that a confession will be needed to find out the truth of what happened to Madeleine. Like with the case the expensive lawyers wanted to use to defend the McCann's. The dogs alerted but there was no body, it was thrown out of court. The killer eventually confessed that he did actually kill his wife. Maybe it's true, the dogs don't lie.

13 false alerts. They are not 'findings' actual forensic 'evidence' recovered from the site of an alert would be a 'finding.'

Nothing was found so the alerts were false positives. There is so much overt cueing going on in the videos of those dog searches, they are actually painful to watch.

They didn't go into 'panic mode' as you keep saying. They were given legal advice not to answer questions in the police interview and were similarly advised to return to the UK immediately when arguido status had been declared. It's strange to talk about panic mode when you consider the duress they had been under since May 3rd. I can imagine that whole four month stretch had been a panic. Again, if Kate's claim is true, the Portuguese police were so sure that the McCanns had committed the act that they were already trying to bargain with her to confess. If it is my position that I'm innocent, I know I'm going to look into the evidence against me and/or have professionals who know their business doing it on my behalf. Apparently, they successfully argued that the sniffer dog alerts were not adequate evidence in and of themselves, so we don't even really have that. We can only construct the most likely set of events.

They did go into panic mode. They took themselves to the airport to try to get out of Portugal as fast as possible. They rescheduled a flight, they hired very expensive lawyers immediately to look into finding a way to refute the dog findings. The lawyers came back with the American case a few days later. This was all in the space of 5 days and the evidence found mightn't even had anything to do with the McCann's. In their panic they never once thought of that. How did they know Madeleine wasn't killed by an intruder in the apartment?

It is possible, Martin Grimes was asked questions that was linked to a few pages back:

How long does a cadaver have to be in contact with a surface or an object for the odour to be detected?

Cross-contamination is immediate.

With respect to the cadaver odour on Kate's clothes, could it be undoubtedly affirmed that those clothes had been in contact with a cadaver?

OR

Could the alert have been given because the clothes had been in contact with other items of clothing, surfaces or objects that could previously have touched a cadaver, thereby allowing the odour to be transferred?

There is always a possibility of contamination of odours by transferral. EVRD does not make a distinction; he responds with a certain behaviour for which he was trained when he recognizes an odour. He does not identify the reasons for the presence of the odour nor does he identify suspects. Forensic confirmation and specialized investigation methods will determine the reasons and the suspicions. In order to undoubtedly affirm there must be a confirmation of the alert signals made by the dog.

This would explain how there were alerts in the rental car etc. What are your qualifications in this area? I think it's more likely that you are talking nonsense. Especially when you start talking about search dogs instead of specially trained cadaver dogs.

You wouldn't trust a man with decades experience as a police officer and dog trainer, a man hired by the FBI but you want us to trust you with no qualifications or history in this field who does a bit of googling?

You were already shown up earlier on this page for not reading a link you provided fully. You're probably better off dropping out at this stage.

"Being a GP doesn't mean your responsible."

Ha, ha.

I don't trust someone who earns his living from having his two dogs give positve indications. He's almost literally paid by the bark. In three different cases those dogs have given false positive responses. In one the supposedly dead person was found alive and in the other two, there was nothing to link the responses to a proven death; so no, I am not going to stop shredding your nosense.

Police in a rush to convict and close a case have been known to coerce suspects, ask leading questions and offer bargains in return for confessions. It's surprising the lead investigator on the Portuguese end of things, Gonçalo Amaral, isn't more talked about here because he appears to be what you'd call 'a piece of work', and eventually resigned from his post in some disgrace. I don't know if the McCanns knew how bad he was at the time of the investigation, but their bringing in legal counsel was an even more correct decision in hindsight, although I believe it's always the correct decision when you're a suspect or arguido, which appears to be somewhere between the common law definition of suspect and person of interest.

Amaral was so convinced that the McCanns did it that he would later go on to write a book alleging this, called 'The Truth of the Lie'. It was the subject of a libel battle between himself and the McCanns for a good number of years, trading victories and launching appeals , where I think Amaral eventually won out because the Portuguese Supreme Court upheld his right to say what he likes and later that the McCanns had not been ruled innocent in Portugal due to the archiving of the case but that there had not been enough evidence found against them to carry any prosecution forward.

Incidentally, later in the year we saw a very good example of someone being fitted up for a crime that police were rushing to convict on: Amanda Knox. Yes, always lawyer the fúck up.

Well it looks like the search of the reservoir has thrown up " a relevant clue";

Also;

Nothing of any releveance was found, guaranteed.

'So Hans, You believe you have a new lead and want to take a team to the Algarve to conduct searches?'

'Yes Sir'

'And I suppose these searches can only be done at the height of summer?

'Well, yes sir, that would be the optimum time.'

'Would there happen to be any beaches near this place you wish to search, Hans?'

'I beleive that is possible Sir.'

'I'd imagine you would be prepared to widen the search area to establish if this is the case?'

'Yes Sir!... I mean only if it seems necessary Sir.

And if you think I'm joking...

The last time the UK polce went to Portugal to investigate in 2014, it was in May.

Pure coincidence of course.

For context, can you give the dates of all the other times they visited too?

God forbid!

🙄

If anything is found, say a knife, some towels, some clothing belonging to the victim or indeed belonging to a suspect… you pretty much know that the forensic value at least will be zero….it will be circumstantial …No traces of blood, hair, skin, fingerprints, fingernails, other bodily fluids would be present after this amount of time…..Water and sediment will wash and have washed anything away….unless it was placed in a receptacle… the criminal perpetrator has been savvy enough to evade detection and arrest to do with this crime for over 16 years, it would be surprising if they were that thick to lock evidence in an airtight container and submerged it. So even if they find a hair band, a tshirt, a jacket…. A knife…. What can they do with it ? They won’t know who put it there and they won’t know who handled it….

I doubt any cctv exists from all that way back of people going to that area…. best case, they might get closer to knowing who did it, but as for pinning it on anyone ? I’m no criminologist but I’d say there will be another couple of weeks of headlines, of guess work, of speculation…. All played out in the media, but if it brings about an arrest I’d be amazed.

If it was Christian B, it was certainly a more sophisticated crime than he had form for committing. Then again, God knows what he's done that he was never caught on.