It may have been noted by some people that I've not posted about the Madeline McCann story. This is because I really couldn't think of what to say about it. The Internet and media has been full of so much rumour, speculation, some negative, some positive, some potential verging on libel. Whatever has happened it remains a tragedy, and as a parent I find it hard to even think about, and to be honest, I don't like to think about it, which is another reason I've avoided the topic.
However, some of these "new developments" have caught my ear because they just sound a bit weird. If you read the Evening Standard last night, or generally watch the news, there has apparently been forensic evidence of Madeline found in the hire car that the McCann's rented three weeks after her disappearance. This news carries obvious implications if you're an armchair detective that wants to join the dots to reach a particular conclusion .
But what I find odd about that conclusion is what it would actually mean. Essentially it's implication is that tourists, in a hot Portuguese town, somehow managed to hide a body for three weeks without anyone finding it. Three week exposure where the average temperature is quite high would not a pretty sight or smell make, yet no one noticed the latter? Not only that, but it implies a body was hidden for three weeks in a place which during the same time had the media spotlight shined upon it, and was crawling with old Bill looking for her - or maybe just saying they were looking for her?
Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm not making a judgment on this one way or the other. I'm just a little baffled by - if the theories the Police have are correct - how a person could hide a body successfully for three weeks in a hot foreign country whilst the area was teaming with Police and journalists without anyone noticing?
There will be no other posts on this topic, this is just a question that is baffling me this morning after reading some of the newspapers.
30 comments:
surely there would be no blood after 3 weeks?
Couldn't agree more Dizzy. I'm not sure what I think about the case. While leaning towards believing them innocent, I wouldn't be surprised if they did do it (just on the basis that most of these things are done by people the child knew). However, the stories that are coming out of Portugal seem just bizarre for the reasons you outline.
They clearly had her in the freezer compartment of the fridge - and nobody thought to look there. Then carried her out to the car. Then drove around a bit and buried the body somewhere.TOOOO bizarre.
The other alternative is that the person who had been using the hire car at the time of the abduction was actually the murderer.....
True story, as they say in NY.
As you know, I live about 20 miles from where all of this has been taking place.
Unless there was refrigeration involved there is no way that a body could have been kept for 3 weeks in this summer's temperatures.
Gross as this sounds decomposition would have been well advanced. A stink to high heaven and I'd be amazed if there was actually identifiable DNA at that point.
Many countries have paedophile rings which operate with impunity. Child abduction is a common occurrence. Few kids are ever seen again.
Belgium is a case in point. You see pathetic notices at most tram stops in Brussels, asking if you've seen kids like we have notices for missing cats or dogs.
The Police and the judiciary are either involved up to their necks, or are in fear of organised crime and do nothing to rock the boat - or it's a combination of involvement and fear.
Maybe Portugal is another peadophile ring haven like Belgium. It seems the logical explanation.
I think we need a referndum on our relationships with these countries...or before long paedophile rings could be operating with police protection in Britain too.
This is, of course, assuming that she was killed at the time she disappeared. What the implications of any of this might be, I can't imagine.
Paedophile rings? So much easier for one's conscience to deal with, than the more likely possibility. No wonder people in the UK are obsessed with children - it certainly isn't the paedophiles who are but the eejits who believe there to be a sexual predator lurking in every shadow.
anonymous 3.22: The Guardian recently had an article arguing that paedophobia is a worse threat than paedophilia. I don't think I would go that far, but it is certainly clouding people's senses. And, in the McCann case, what better than to blame a paedophile ring than the McCanns?
According to some newspapers, the opinon of the police is that what had in the car was clothes with blood, not the body of Madelaine.
jailhouselawyer 3:33 - it really does make me want to have a tantrum ;)
Everything is back to front. Instead of people reacting to something which happens, people now react to what might happen - and paedophiles are such a perfect target for this. After all, who in their right minds would dare to "support" paedophiles?
It is not paedophiles who are a threat so much as the perceived and embellished notion of the fear of paedohpiles. A glorified form of not talking to the bogey-man, except completely disproportionate and feeding people's fears, instead of instructing their senses.
"..there has apparently been forensic evidence of Madeline found in the hire car that the McCann's rented three weeks after her disappearance."
The traces found in the car needn't have come direct from the body. They could have come from other items that were in contact with the body.
"I'd be amazed if there was actually identifiable DNA at that point."
Oh, it takes a lot more than just decomposition to degrade DNA that far...
jailhouselawyer, do you really think that Madeline was murdered by her own mother? La la la la la la..........
I hope I never get you defending me.
As for the Guardian and paedophobia, they clearly don't know what is going on in Belgium.
As it is never reported in the UK, I suppose it is not all that surprising.
Does anyone in the UK know that Belgium has had no government now for 85 days? The right wing Flemish party came out top in the GE, but cannot get any other parties to form a coalition.
It wishes to divide the country and dump the French speaking section - as it is so hoplessly corrupt - and might I add - ineffective at preventing paedophile rings and other organised crime.
This is the very heart of the EU, which is probably why it is not ever mentioned in the UK, which seems incapable of reporting anything negative from other EU countries.
We have two of our own fellow countrymen suffering the abduction of their child, now being framed for it. There is little semblance of justice across many EU countries, where the unspeakable behaviour of paedophiles and organised criminals are protected by complicit authorities.
This is so clearly shocking to Guardian/BBC-types that it all goes unreported. It would so destroy their world view to take on board that the bureaucracies of Europe are not merely corrupt but actively criminal that they just blank the whole thing.
The case of Madeline McCann might wake up a few to realise that many EU countroes are serious hotbeds of criminal activity, which we should be most cautious about - and not signing away our freedom in the latest EU Constitution - unless we are happy for our children to be abducted and then be accused of doing it ourselves.
"The case of Madeline McCann might wake up a few to realise that many EU countroes are serious hotbeds of criminal activity..."
Or not.
Let's wait & see, eh..?
"Belgium has had no government now for 85 days"
Sounds like heaven
I personally think that we should all live our lives according to our fears of lone-wolf paedophiles that kidnap children. Or, even better, paedophile rings.
No, wait. This is not some bizarre paranoid fantasy, this is real life.
In real life, your kids are far, far more likely to get molested by someone you know.
Funnily enough Dizzy, I came to a similar conclusion on my blog.
Great minds think alike...
Fools seldom differ :)
Errrr no Juliam. It is well known by people who live in such places what goes on. Only in the British media do any illusions as to European justice still remain.
The BBC lives in a parallel universe where evidence is not allowed to interfere with preconceptions. The problem is that the dear old Brits are so trusting. They just cannot believe that nice old Auntie is hopelessly sold out and unable to form a realistic view.
The truth cannot be told to Brits, as they just cannot handle it. The idea of Europe and civilization being synonymous is so well established in their minds.
When you meet someone who actually lives in Euroland, ask them what they know about things like inflation, child abduction, effectiveness of police, effectiveness of courts.
You will be shocked, I can assure you.
Its my belief that the Portugese police are deliberatly framing the Maccans.
And I don't blame them one bit. They want to get back to the job of catching criminals instead of banging their head against the wall trying to find a rotting corpse.
"Its my belief that the Portugese police are deliberatly framing the Maccans."
With evidence provided to them by the UK police forensics team...?
I guess they must be in on it too then.
In fairness it wasn't evidence provided by UK police forensics. It was evidence sent by Portugese police to UK police forensics. There is a certain level, and potential for cross contamination etc etc. I'm not endorsing the "fit up" view, merely saying that all the UK forensic team did was deal was analyse what they were given.
The two body detector dogs were UK-based. It was the evidence they pointed to that was then collected and sent to the lab in the UK.
"I'm not endorsing the "fit up" view..."
Good. Because to do so, you'd have to explain where the police obtained the 'evidence' they are supposedly fitting up the McCanns with. That's before you even get on to the 'Why'.
The Portuguese Police went out of their way to destroy all the evidence in the flat right at the beginning. They have since fabricated evidence to try to fit up the McCanns. They are trying to offer Mrs McC a 2 year sentence for pleading guilty to killing her daughter with sedatives, which she has never given her children. It's a farce.
The explanation is that in many EU countries paedophile rings operate with impunity. Police and politicians do nothing as they either paid off or threatened by the powerful forces of organised crime. many could be compromised by involvement.
Why none of this ever gets a mention in the British media is hard to fathom. Just go over the Channel to Brussels and see the extraordinary number of notices looking for missing children.
If only people knew the truth of what goes on inside the EU.....and how the Polcie and the legal systems are compromised by corruption.
They are the victims of politics - the Portugese just want them to leave.
But then, according to Dale, this always had political involvement.
Live by the sword, die by the sword...
"The Portuguese Police went out of their way to destroy all the evidence in the flat right at the beginning."
You mean, when they first reported the child missing? When they were still acting on the assumption an abduction had taken place, or the child had wandered off while unattended?
It seems clear that suspicion came later - in the initial stages, they acted on what they believed. Now, they are doing the same. The belief has changed though.
"They have since fabricated evidence to try to fit up the McCanns."
Again - how could they fabricate evidence by planting something they could not possibly have had in their possession?
Did the Lizard People give it to them...? Or are you an Illuminati fan?
So Juliam believes that the McCanns killed their own daughter just like the Police say, and managed to make the body disappear into thin air.
Far more likely she is still alive, living in a dungeon being served up to paedophiles. The Portuguese want the story to go away, rather than tackle the ghastly reality...organised crime.
But Juliam, the evidence analysed was apparently so slender that the British forensic lab attached cautions to all their tentative conclusions. As in, the DNA in the car was so slight they couldn't say whether it had belonged to a boy or a girl.
And there is the oft-repeated caveat that obviously, the McCanns weren't the only people who had ever driven that car. Who had hired it previously?
"So Juliam believes that the McCanns killed their own daughter..."
Actually, I'm not sure what I believe, other than the suggestion that they did is not outside the bounds of possibility & fits with some of the evidence found so far, while the suggestions that the evidence is faked to frame them does not pass the smell test. Because where would they get the material used to frame them?
Hence my 'wait & see' comment further up.
"Far more likely she is still alive, living in a dungeon being served up to paedophiles."
Only to someone who sees paedophiles under every bed...
"...Juliam, the evidence analysed was apparently so slender that the British forensic lab attached cautions to all their tentative conclusions."
Yes, indeed, and this would be a much better tack for the family to take than 'The police are framing me!', particularly if the LCN (Low Copy Number) technique was used to enhance the DNA. It has been criticised before, especially in the Bradley Murdoch case, I recall.
"...the McCanns weren't the only people who had ever driven that car. Who had hired it previously?"
That information doesn't seem to have made it into the papers, at least not any I've read or viewed online. Not sure what to make of that.
Tapestry, you seriously believe that the most likely outcome is that she is in a dungeon being served up to paedophiles, rather than being dead?
Are you serious? Jesus wept. Have you ever followed any of this sort of stuff in the news? They're normally dead if they don't get found quickly. Some do end up being held and abused and that could be happening to her right now, certainly, but you think that's, and I quote you, 'far more likely' than her being dead?
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