Leave No Stone Unturned

Yes, we covered all this Pamela Fenn fixation on another thread a few weeks back. At that time you were desperately trying to implicate the lady by suggesting she was lying - or she didn't know what was being said and done on her behalf, behind her back. In addition hinting that a few words spoken by the lady caught on camera referred to her statement rather than an angry response to press/media reports.

You are shifting .the goal posts.

Let's not go back there again.

I've just been looking at the remnants of one of those old Madeleine McCann dedicated forums, looking for something in particular not a random any old thing to post, again going back over old ground it's astonishing how Chinese whispers so easily spread.

One or two people make a comment which was swiftly picked-up by the baying mob looking for salacious gossip to chew on and caught public attention like wild fire. As the snippets were passed from one to another along the line, they gained more debris thus resulting in a completely fantastical fairy tale of epic proportions - never to be undone!

The story of the fridge/freezer is one such example. Have you ever seen the size of fridge with icebox provided in holiday self catering accommodation? Couldn't even fit in a gottle of geer.

a typical mainland so called table model fridge is 120 or 140 liter inside, more than enough for a small body, and when you put something against the back, it will freeze even, and break down in some time when a bit older. so far fetched it is not. 

do you know how big a chimp is, i once found one in it.

Something niggles at the back of my head, from memory the fridge/freezer body storage notion began with the case of Joana Cipriano, also overseen by Gonçalo Amaral.

It was once reported statements taken from the mother and the other suspect said the body had been cut up and put in a fridge which was later disposed of.

I believe the idea to have been a working theory that piqued Mr Amaral's interest, in addition to many other possibilities.

It does get a bit grizzly at times doesn't it - how can you help shuddering at the thought!

Cool and calculated Gerry McCann might be but to cram the dead body of a child in a fridge or freezer or someone's coffin takes some believing.

Hiding something to escape justice I can quite believe but the McCanns are not psychopaths, even they would show respect no matter what - surely?

I believe the same; whatever the manner of Madeleine's death, they needed space to plot what to do, carry out their plan, and announce much later that she had disappeared. That is more of a mystery to me than how the poor child died; despite their awful behaviour, it has been impossible thus far to break them, and get  to the point of  charging them with anything. Child endangerment, if it's a criminal offence in Portugal, would be a start. I wonder if the help they had from serving and ex politicians began much earlier than we know.

i can see it also as a temporary solution, there are not so much places in that southern portugal to hide a body without it being noticed.

and most ways to dispose of a body are far less easy than it looks like. most that tried it and did not manage it, are of course also the ones we have have that knowledge from, because the body was found. 
but i do know of some dutch cases it could work for quite some time, that bodies are found even the places you find it are hardly to understand as well that was a great way to hide a body.

i cannot fit the mccanns into disposing of a body in the ocean, the garbage route, or by digging in the dark on a cemetery. i can see them agreeing temporary with a solution that buys time, like a fridge.  all ways have their own flaws by the way. the summer heat and just more and more people everywhere out and about would not make anything easy. and it is still a big question mark if they had any help at all with that part of the case.

on the other side we see more and more cases of people who mostly died in their own home by natural causes, but take years to be found. and in all kind of housing. so it is not always a given a body will be noticed. and most people have not even a clue, the lucky ones, how a body can smell after it died. 

but in my country we also have body found in places, you can not understand how they could be there for such a long time, not even buried at all. at least one in a city center, in a bit of council green within meters of the entrance of a flat, another one for at least multiple weeks, but it could be months, in some bushes on a very much used and busy parking space near a motorway. 

and without facts, that part is still only speculation. everything is possible, but much is just unlikely. 

and it is not nice or needed to discuss a lot about what happens to dead bodies in all kind of ways it can be disposed of. 

and if you are starting from a point of view, the child died by accident, it can be easier to understand that out of fear for consequences, and that can be very personal, we do not have to understand that need at all, that distance between 5a and the body was seen as helpful in the coverstory. because leaving it in 5a, it would been very hard to sell a stranger got in story as explanation. 

but if it was only that distance that they felt needed, the body could have made multiple stops until the final destination. 

the only fascination stuff in that last video used by that deception detective guy, has a mitchell saying, a body transported 2 weeks after it happened. curious at least, because they did not had that car to their name 2 weeks in this case. listen at the 1.35 minute mark.

but also there is no obligation for the body itself to be transported in that car.  still there could have been something like tarp or a plastic covering or a used fridge to get rid of, and that could easily still kept enough residu of storing a body to give the outlook in what the pj found in that car. there is no reason why only a body itself could have left such results at all. 

hiding a body is pretty easy for up to 3 days without much special needs to keep it hidden. 

we also do not know if they wanted only distance between 5a and the body, and most reasons why a forever out of a known resting place are still fully build on speculations too. a lot of things in criminal cases, is just a respons in what the people who do the crime see as their needs. they are most times not the most logical things, or things the ordinary mind would think about, or would even start doing. 

there is a likewise problem with help and assistance, i am often still surprised how little bystanders, but also people living in the same household really know about what the others do or don't do. even more how easy people often are used to help without knowing they are helping or with what they help. 

the tavares almeida report from the first monts of investigation, had 3 possible criminal offences noted.

disposing of a body, what is in this case a minor offence, it always would be up to the parents to decide what would be the way to do that and where, only within the guidelines we use for that and is usually to find in the books of law. for me in itself it is not a major crime at all. it would be very different if there had been signs of a murder or manslaughter case. 

child endangerment or neglect, needs a body to get to the second element of that portuguese law, you must prove coming to harm from it to the child. this bit can make the part above a bit more dark and criminal, if it truly was a reason to escape the law by hiding that body. 
but at is unknown what resulted in the child ending up dead, and even dead is not a given fact in this case, you can not form much opinion about it. a lot of accidents would have exactly the same outcome if you was standing next to the same child in the same situation. as long as a situation that the child is missing is not part of that law, you can not use it in this case. the neglect must be proven by the harm to the child, and missing is in the law a quite useless and non existing reason to explain it into harm. 

the law has a major problem with status of the missing. 

the investigation saw accidental death as the most likely result of what happened that formed the start of this case. 
this investigation never said publicly they have been killing their child. of course it would be part of that investigation in looking for signs that could show that, but it was not reached as the most likely event.

it is also the most falsely used matter by the media and the mccanns themselves, by telling all how stupid they are, because they think the mccanns did kill their own child. only that are never been words from the investigation at all. so half the world still think the pj was after the mccanns for killing their child, and that is not in agreement with their reports at all. 

but in many countries you do not have to actively have a direct hand, or even the meaning to kill a child, it could by law be just a element because it can be part of the parental responsibility. 
it means you do not have to do anything in a active meaning, like hitting or hurting the child, but if what happened was the result of not putting a acceptable level of parental responsibility up around that child, you still will be handled the same as when you used your own hands, a gun, or a knife to kill it. only you still need the remains of enough signs to prove that.

the most important crime in this case is the stage setting and offending unknown strangers of being responsible for your own mistakes. because that is what have cost a fortune in money, that could have been spend on other needed work, but also the incriminating of other people, who had no part in it all. 

and looking back over the years, the mccanns just get mad when they hear the words killing your own daughter.  and if it was indeed a accident that would had the same outcome when they would have been standing next to their child. i even can understand that getting mad. 

well they could easily tell the truth, and they still have not done that.

the same with disposing of the body, not so much hiding the body, only when it is not told or said in a way that fits their standing. freezers and fridge are still offending them. the strangers coffin or the garbage dump, or the watery graves never made much noise in the british media. 

well again they could tell the truth, and they still have not done that.

about the neglect part, they just keep up the mantra, and it is still on their website too, that there is no evidence madeleine was harmed, and she must still be alive. 

the same with all the 'we behaved' as responsible parents. 

they could tell the truth, but again, still not did that.

and that stranger, that unknown entity must have done it , and it is easy as long as a stranger has no name,and no known face. and they most likely have not much of a problem to hark in a guy who is already known from a nasty criminal career. the german would not make a chance to offer the truth.

but they could tell the truth, and they did no such thing, not even after 3,5 years of giving a name and face of a stranger, but they also not took it up to change their lines on their website. they even offered little words about it in the media.

and i say no, i do not expect any confession to the public from them at all, they could confess each week in their church. they still have more to loose than could ever win from it. things that are important for them. 
and it would not make any different outcome for madeleine at all. so they can still only loose out, not win anything.

still it is up to them, to speak out the truth. maybe that is even far to simple, their ship has gathered so much rats lifting on and below deck, that would even hard to escape that. telling the truth would only solve the basic mystery, but it will play havoc on so many fronts, it would not solve much for the mccanns. 

i still see no need for much time to think out a plan, the mistakes are to big to go for a well thought over planning over many days. and there is no need to plan, things can easily taken up in the spur of a moment. 

and i still do think if there really have been so much people who are in the known, and many are just pretty common people, there would some who started to talk, with so many there always some who are in needy circumstances that a nice earner would be more welcome, than protecting some people from the uk. 
lives do change in time, so keeping a secret can get a very different load. there is little law left they still can have fear of.

crusader wrote:To my thinking, the Smith sighting is the most relevant.

And the most plausible!

I have pondered and pondered and pondered the Smith sighting, I have read and duly considered all the alternative theory presented over the years.

Conclusion .... there is no good reason to think the Smith family were/are part of any conspiracy theory, they like so many others are nothing but victims of circumstances - being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

No reason to think the Portuguese judiciary were in any way faulty in their official investigation.

The doubting of the Smith family is yet another cast on the police judiciary's competence, another excuse to doubt their ability as a bona fide police force of the civilised world.



The Portuguese judiciary were/are the presiding force in the investigation of Madeleine McCann's disappearance, it is to them we must look for guidance, to them we must trust without reservation.

They did the groundwork, they have the knowledge that we as member's of the public do not have. I think I can say with trust and confidence, the Portuguese judiciary undertook a thorough and professional investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann without any cause for doubt. They considered and covered every possible angle without reservations, it was the outside interference that scuppered their work.

By doubting their competence it can only feed the McCanns campaign of innocence.

Thinking more on the time scale, much of the theory supporting the possibility of an earlier 'death' scenario relies on the time needed to 'arrange' matters before publicly announcing the alleged disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Firstly the much vaunted suggestion that a forensic cleanse was paramount - but why?  From there we were taken on a shopping spree to the local supermarket to buy effective cleansing products for the operation .... rubbish!  This was all born out of internet gossip and from there grew legs, the idea implies blood and gore but that doesn't have to be.  Death can occur in so many ways that doesn't involve gory detail, even if it did how long does it take to mop up floor space - I should know, I do it all the time   .

So what preliminary work was required before the disappearance was announced?  Talk of tea stains crying incidents and any other strand woven into the web of intrigue to bolster conspiracy mean nothing without supporting evidence - something sadly sparse in this never ending saga.

Children left alone whilst parents dine across the way in the Tapas restaurant, Kate McCann genuinely checks on children in apartment on the night of 3rd May 2007 and discovers something very wrong - she understandably panics .  Group rush back to apartment block - chaos ensues.

Evidence must be disposed of immediately - body >>> exit apartment.

Group members have contact with press and media back in UK.  Phone calls are swiftly made and with the help of family and friends the buzz hits the headlines early morning 4th May 2007 and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office alerted.

Group have to think fast, they draw up a timeline to recollect their movements that night, still in modus panic and possibly a little hazy with the effects of alcohol.  They did after all leave their children alone whilst they went out to dine, that much was verified by the PJ's investigation.

How long does that take - half an hour, certainly no longer than an hour?

If anything seemed out of place the PJ would have picked-up on it - and they did, they knew from the outset that Madeleine McCann had not been abducted!

Gonçalo Amaral is said to have given consideration to the possibility of a time frame earlier in the week, some long time down the line, the theory hasn't however been taken on board by the Portuguese authorities, from that I think we can safely assume it didn't provoke any serious consideration.

Hope this makes some sense, I've got one eye in the kettle and the other in the pot - and my laptop's got frostbite.

I've said many many times in the past - what is the history of the local church? I believe it to have played a key (pardon the inference) role, it certainly features prominently.

Having looked into this in the past, the original structure of the church dates back centuries, churches through the ages notoriously have subterranean passages and crypts of ambient temperature to place the deceased.

To my way of thinking the church would be the first place to run if looking for sanctuary, especially if strong faith is alleged.

I can't remember the details,  but would they have used their mobile phones while getting the story synchronised? They were all involved somehow, and they all had to be told a few things by the McCann's. They would have met face to face rather than have a lot of phone activity, in a specific period, to arouse suspicion from the police.

I can't see any reason for the group to have communicated by mobile phone to get their stories straight, they appear to have been glued together for most part of the holiday.

That's the trouble, all the months and years following the case and looking into the minor detail (as far as possible) I think most of us are a bit rusty - I certainly am, so easy to be swayed by dogmatic influence if you're not very careful.

One thing for sure, looking back over what's known (?) of events during the night of 3rd/4th May 2007, it appears almost certain the McCann couple were very distressed and Kate McCann very frightened - thus indicating a state of genuine trauma rather than play acting. I speak here of friends and family back in the UK and their reactions to the distress communicated over night by mobile phone.

I can easily see a combination of genuine reactions with the fear of possible detection.

The two of them and their group of holiday friends must have been in a state of panic, fear and trauma no matter what. They are the parents of little children, one of which is the victim - no one outside of a psychopath could not be thoroughly distraught under such circumstances.

What happened subsequently I can only guess could be put down to survival. Being in prison for murder or manslaughter or neglect or any other charge relative to the demise of a three year old child is not a happy prospect to contemplate.

The resultant publicity stunt has always been a very questionable aspect of the case, it's easy to see who orchestrated the European/North African tour and the reason why but what remains a mystery is the level of attention the case attracted.

On the surface it would appear to be an escalating goodwill exercise, like a magnetic field drawing attention far and wide, like the proverbial rolling stone.

Connections in press and media, connections with government officials, connection in the sporting world - so on and so forth.

most of that was most likely the result of getting mitchell in it, just pr.

a shame there is nothing left of their amsterdam media tour, all we still know is they did not like the questions of the dutch journalists at all. in germany they had been much nicer.

and it is mostly because of the pr stunts this case got so much attention, also because of the time of year.

it has nothing to do at all with nationality or where it happened. 

it is not a typical white girl is missing syndrome event at all, it is an made event. and if you look around on other social media you mostly see the same names reacting. i even think the common public is much less invested as many of the media like to think. and most is made attention too. 

it lost so early on the victim in the spotlights and got in so many other angles, and it never changed back to the victim. 
so it is not even about the victim. the name is stil used, but even the parents can not get the effort in to promote a more recent impression of how the young woman now could look. forget the artistically impressions on the internet, they are horrible. 

for most people it will become a vague memory of something that caught a lot of attention in a summer once upon a time.

besides ben needham, there is also still the case of katrice lee, who disappeared in germany, also a case that hardly gets attention, not even when there was a new search done. she got in november last some attention in crime watch. but it still is not even 1% of the attention for madeleine. and all missing children need it. and there must of course be also many missing children in the uk too. 

the big difference all other cases are not handled as a pr exercise. remember that video of mitchell does australia on tour, how proud he was on his work, still i can not understand that, being proud on how this case was handled, only usually you will be proud if you get a result. and that makes it always the question what he sees as the result. it was not finding the answer to what happened to a little girl called madeleine. 
so for me that speech was very telling, he is just proud on getting the free out of jail card for some parents. 
he never was there in it for a girl named madeleine at all. 

for the earlier messages, people can do a lot in little time, if they fear the police. and even this was all very personal, most of them are trained doctors, so they are also trained to do things in little time, under pressure and urgency. 

it is not much different than police officers, they hardly know where they are send out to, and have to do a awful lot of quick thinking and handling, without time to plan much, or people working on the ambulances, and the fire brigade, you can not really train for all kinds of actions, and often some have to be just made possible on the spot. 

most of the training is just keeping your mind in it, keep being able to think and think quickly. try not to bring harm to yourself and do not make the event larger. and all in situations you only have minutes. 
2.5 minutes means a risk on permanent brain damage, 5 minutes means dead. 

we only have the words of the tapas 9 that the alarm was at 10, going by the statements, and they had well over 12 hours before they had to produce them officially, it must even be later. 
but there are other statements too, mrs. carpenter who heard when they left the restaurant going back to their appartement called the name that could have been maddy. they left around 21.30 hours.

none of the people working that evening in the tapas restaurant, saw kate running in or heard any commotion or raised voices. they started to notice after the most had left the restaurant , that diane was there on her own.

so they could have much more time to get a coverstory out, a time line put together, and they would not have need multiple versions if they had days to work them out. and i think the only think that counted for all 9 was that they indeed feared a unknown police force in a strange country that would not see their way of parenting as okay. even if it was not each night the same. 

for me it does not say all are in the know about all and everything when the gnr and later the pj arrived. most would in the time after have put 2 and 2 together. all of them lied from time to time, it goes way beyond just mistaken about times, or order. 
and do not forget it took until the next day for the official statements are taken, so that are many more hours to make us of to get the story straight. 

and i think the behavior of mostly kate, does fit more natural with just been told het child died and they had to hide it, because they had important matter to care for, important for them. it was way over the top for a missing child that could be found any minute. 

the only thing that pleads for me to an earlier happening is there is nothing in 5a that shows a frantic looking mother for a child that is not there. and there is nothing said by anyone, that tells about such signs. 

and i do know it is for some people not impossible to put emotions on hold.

the problem is always the why they did what they did. but we do not have to understand their reasons at all, because it are only theirs. and people who do stupid things do often have not the kind of reasons most of us would see as sound reasons. 
the strangest i ever heard was in a house that got a robbery, the male inhabitant got his hunting riffle from the closet, loaded it with a shell full of hail, and shot half of the load in his own wife, when i asked why he took that shot in the way he did, was; because there was a painting behind the shooter and he would wanted to miss that. they are still married. 

the why in human behaviour has often no logic at all. and stupid decisions can be made in seconds or even less, and people have often no window in their thinking in what just step back, take a breath and start telling the truth can be as the best solution. most who start out hiding the result of actions, do not see a way out, and the longer it takes on, the less motivation they usually can find to just cough it up. 

and in this case most of what we think to know is only told. there is no way to prove if anything they did tell is true or not. so most of what we think out about it is, because we accept bits and pieces as true. 
the problem with that is that we all have our own thresholds for that. there are so little facts.

anyone here by the way know what the topic was, where there was discussion about a family gathering on a beach about 14 days in the case. i think most was about that they held a kind of remembrance moment for the family, because they most likely could be sure the problem with where the body had to end up was secured. i can not get that simple bit of mitchell in that video out of my head, when he says 14 days after it happened loaded a body in the rented car. i know mitchell likes to say things that are not true easy. but it fits so nice with that time. so i would like to reread that again.

there was at least one car available pretty early on, the one from friends of the cameron's, who could lent if from a friend toi travel to pdl from the airport.

that car was not part of the series that have been searched by the dogs. 

and it also shows how help could be arranged very early on. 

We arrived in Portugal on Saturday morning, where a friend lent us a car to use and we went to Praia da Luz. My first impression was that everything was busy, but there was also a surreal sensation of passivity. Kates mother and father were already there.
We stayed for 3 months, initially returning home for a few days in the middle of June in order to deal with financial affairs and work related subjects. 


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but no word about it in sandy his own statement, but he had a lot to tell about the hired car of course.


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a car that is also missed by the media completely. 

This is not working is it.

In the past I've always liked to take readers on a forum magical mystery tour of the extensive work and member discussion covering every aspect of the case, as CMOMM has done since it's inauguration back in 2009.

Now it's all just random, no continuity, no effective management - frankly I can't work like this.

Of course I can link any subject matter to a sub-forum or thread (if not deleted) whether locked or not but that doesn't take you to the heart of the subject matter, only broad coverage. As I previously said, it's akin to X (formerly twitter) or YouTube comments, only a feed of irrelevant anonymous comments by all and sundry about any old topic that enters the head.

I'm not meaning to criticize you good people who are trying to keep the forum active, on the contrary, my view is about how to get my head around a limited space without the forum going under.

Maybe it doesn't matter anymore but I wish I had been consulted before implementation of the changes, it appears very unreasonable considering all the work I have done for the forum over the years.

C'est la vie!

There was also car in Praia da Luz at the time Madeleine McCann 'disappeared' rented by friends of Russell O'Brien and Jane Tanner, James and Charlotte Gorrod, neighbours I think they were.

Not suggesting for a moment they should/could be implicated in any way - too far fetched for my liking but the press and social media made a field day of it.

The topic was discussed somewhere here on CMOMM back in the day, if I remember rightly it was even suggested the villa where they stayed (?) was - or could be, the location of the 'make-up' photograph. I think because the paintwork was thought to be a similar colour. Couldn't see it myself but there you go!