Madeleine McCann: Notable Commentary

Verdi wrote:I don't vouch for the detail, I can see for myself there are inaccuracies generated by slack attention to detail.

It does however give an indication that the case of Madeleine McCann will never be forgotten as it travels from one generation to another.

Students, new generations, new interest in the case across the broad spectrum from education to historic criminal case study, will invariably lead to individual research, ultimately encouraging further debate where people can deduce their own opinions based on factual information and careful case study, rather than taking everything presented at face value.

Like as not new researchers will come across CMOMM, hence I again stress the need to present ourselves as a serious fact/evidence based discussion group on matters relative to the case of Madeleine McCann's disappearance.

l'm all in favour of "serious/evidence based discussion" but the item you've posted today hardly matches up! 

Here are some statements in just the first paragraph (highlighted in red) which we KNOW to be untrue:

"Madeline Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) is a missing person in the United Kingdom who, at the age of three, got out of bed at her villa in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Portugal on the night of 3 May 2007. disappeared. The Daily Telegraph called her disappearance "the most reported disappearance in modern history". Madeline's whereabouts remain unknown, but German prosecutors believe she is dead. Madeline was on vacation from the UK with her parents, Kate and Jerry McCann, two-year-old twin brothers, family friends and their children. The McCann children were left asleep on the ground floor of their apartment at 20:30 while their parents dined with friends at a restaurant 55 meters (180 feet) away. The parents checked on their children throughout the night, but at 10pm Kate realized that Madeleine was missing"

It might be worth posting the Wikipedia entry on here, though it's very long. It would be interesting to see how much they've got wrong and, more to the point, what they've left out. I did write a piece once on the obvious problems with Wikipedia's Madeleine McCann entry, not sure if I ever posted it here though    

the piece has no quality still, we all know what can happen when things like this are gonna be used to let is go viral, i like it if googling on the title can give fresh minds to this place and not into a look even ai does not agree with the parents did it. 

wikipedia is a great idea, it is even likely your corrections once made, tony, are already rewritten, not in an orderly manner or by truth, but just the next fixed asset. i do remember they got to much people changing things, and restricted who could post, it is always be an example of we want to have some info online, but nothing that can burn anything, and because of that resulted in a useless page. 

and what people often not realize is that wikipedia can and usually has very different information for each language. 

the easiest way to look at them all is , by just use the auto translate button for english and shop through all available languages. it will of course land you with google translate, but it will do for a first impression. 

the dutch page is much more neutral than the english one, a fair bit shorter too. 

so even if people use the same source it is not have to be, they all got the same information. and i know the dutch page changed many times, at least by using view history you can see how, when, and all older version are mostly still available too. 

there are also quite a lot of cited works, most i have looked into of the published stuff in journals is very coloured. scroll down under the english version on wikipedia. enough fodder for a topic like this. even most are published under the very soft science matter, the have a habit to keep showing up in search result, and lots of people would take such a piece much more face value.

Tony Bennett wrote:

Verdi wrote:I don't vouch for the detail, I can see for myself there are inaccuracies generated by slack attention to detail.

It does however give an indication that the case of Madeleine McCann will never be forgotten as it travels from one generation to another.

Students, new generations, new interest in the case across the broad spectrum from education to historic criminal case study, will invariably lead to individual research, ultimately encouraging further debate where people can deduce their own opinions based on factual information and careful case study, rather than taking everything presented at face value.

Like as not new researchers will come across CMOMM, hence I again stress the need to present ourselves as a serious fact/evidence based discussion group on matters relative to the case of Madeleine McCann's disappearance.

l'm all in favour of "serious/evidence based discussion" but the item you've posted today hardly matches up! 

Here are some statements in just the first paragraph (highlighted in red) which we KNOW to be untrue:

"Madeline Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) is a missing person in the United Kingdom who, at the age of three, got out of bed at her villa in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Portugal on the night of 3 May 2007. disappeared. The Daily Telegraph called her disappearance "the most reported disappearance in modern history". Madeline's whereabouts remain unknown, but German prosecutors believe she is dead. Madeline was on vacation from the UK with her parents, Kate and Jerry McCann, two-year-old twin brothers, family friends and their children. The McCann children were left asleep on the ground floor of their apartment at 20:30 while their parents dined with friends at a restaurant 55 meters (180 feet) away. The parents checked on their children throughout the night, but at 10pm Kate realized that Madeleine was missing"

It might be worth posting the Wikipedia entry on here, though it's very long. It would be interesting to see how much they've got wrong and, more to the point, what they've left out. I did write a piece once on the obvious problems with Wikipedia's Madeleine McCann entry, not sure if I ever posted it here though    

I've already explained my rationale but having said that, we know nothing to be untrue any more than we know anything to be true.  A paucity of factual information makes it impossible to be 100% sure, apart from the fact that Madeleine McCann was on holiday with her family between Saturday 28th April and Thursday 3rd May 2007 when she was reported missing.  The rest is very much open to conjecture to this day.

Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information, although frequently quoted as such.  It can be amended by anyone at any time but like the controversial article I posted above at least it keeps the case of Madeleine McCann's disappearance in focus - it is up to the critical observer to think for themselves what might be right and what might be wrong.

The very recent declaration here on the forum was the need to keep Madeleine McCann up front, the focal point of the forum's ultimate purpose, which is exactly what I'm trying to do - again! So where are you all that think my work designed to keep the forum active is a waste of space because it deviates from the primary objective of the forum being Madeleine McCann - where are you?

I present something worthy of commentary even if factually incorrect, there is much presented here on CMOMM that is factually incorrect but I still promote it because it keeps the case alive, keeps debate going but If you or anyone else has something more constructive to offer .... bring it on!  Nothing is to be gained by stagnation, stuck in presumed theory based on only supposition, which is precisely where we are today.

You Tony have already said repeatedly that you don't wish to continue case discussion if it deviates from your per-conceived theory but that view doesn't speak for the forum as a whole, many wish to continue debate, continue to try unraveling the many discrepancies presented at the beginning and over ensuing years. We are not an official investigative force but a community of people with differing views on just about every aspect with the ultimate united goal of justice in the name of Madeleine McCann. Yes, I too am bored with repeating the same thing over and over again but what choice do I have?

As it stands it is again the much maligned me who is battling the odds trying to keep the forum afloat against all odds  - cut me some slack please without being judgemental.

.

If Mr Bennett doesn't want to discuss anything other than his own opinion as to what happened to Madeleine, he has that right.
To come on the forum only to criticize other posters is not right.

I created this forum for Tony, he has every right to his opinion.

Who was he criticizing?

He does have the right to his opinion as I stated above.
He was critical of parts of the above post which he highlighted in red, which he stated to be untrue, that is just a matter of opinion.

Exactly, so why say:
To come on the forum only to criticize other posters is not right.

He was criticizing part of the post that he highlighted in red...i.e what someone else had written.


I also don't understand this bit by Verdi:
As it stands it is again the much maligned me who is battling the odds trying to keep the forum afloat against all odds  - cut me some slack please without being judgemental.


I would say it's Tony who is always shouted down whenever he comes here. 
Which is why he doesn't bother to come here very much anymore.

Our loss.

Tony himself said he won't discuss anything that differs from his own opinion.
If he feels shouted down when he posts, that's because posters have a different opinion to him.
I'm sorry he feels that way, I've had many a run in with him myself and I think it's a shame he's had enough.
If we all had the same opinion as Tony, there would be nothing to discuss.

I don't like to talk of people behind their back but I think Tony has taken a back seat of late because he feels he's done everything he can in connection with the case and he now has priorities away from the forum, the church in particular I think he has said in the past.

He has said on more than one occasion that he doesn't wish to continue debate if it doesn't accord with his own lengthy commentary but that shouldn't mean forum member's be prevented from offering alternative theorizing on specific points of interest.

Certainly not driven away by opposing opinions - we all differ in opinions on every subject under the sun, it's human nature but need not be the cause of conflict or animosity.

i think every one with some red ink could have a field day on that ai piece. i admire it that tony actually already made a start with it. 

it still needs attention, because it is not okay to feed ai with rubbish to play games. and i think it is quite a good illustration that the coming years there is hardly true ai, it is just a bit of software that is fed with what you fed it, and that means by choosing the feed influences the results. 

and i think this is making very bad use of ai as a concept. it is not much different than feeding a child with concepts of hate to specific other people, and let it shout for you. 

there is a honest story about this case, but it has still far too many gaps to make it a conclusion that suits all lines of thinking. and you can personally have put enough effort in it, and even reach a point you found an acceptable theory for your own lines of thinking. but there is still a world outside that has no answer. 
and that is not being critical to tony or other named people, but i met lots of people who have very different views and most have reached a point of no return, they simply has nothing to take a stand on left for them.
you need new and fresh input from the case itself, new facts. because only then you can test your own lines of thinking. 

and if you look how many is already shredded to pieces, looked at in small details, that work is still there, so i think tony often has not even a need to get in, his thinking lines, are already out there, within reach.

but different views are not opponent existing views. it is not a game and talk others into losers. 
looking from different point, minds that are filled with other life experiences can look very differently to exactly the same matter. it does not mean it harm other work done, it could be just the angle even to prove it. 

if you simply rest the case, you miss out on that. and this is what happened in real life with cases too, they become cold, because there is no new fact on the table and you can not see beyond the meaning of what you have. there is no shame in that. you can only deliver what you have. i was bombarded with old files and a lot of pictures, only i was just the latest pair of fresh eyes on the floor. what do you think, what do you see. 

it means stepping on each others shoulders to get a better chance to see something. and if you start early and to be honest, there is so much more to use than when people like tony started, i think he had quite a handicap at the start in that. 

the selection in material he did with many others already, so that means for a lot we have not always go back to a start at zero. or take the often very detailed work peter mac did.
all this work are still be building blocks, but a pair of new hand ca be build it in a bit different pattern, the rocks stays a rock, but the meaning can become different. 

and if you not do it, you do not know where you get. you can not know you end up opponent to an existing theory. it good be between very different and exactly the same result. 

and it never is been a problem that there are very different lines of thinking, there are great differences between the known theory of amaral and that of tony, and still they deserve it to look into both. for me they have both points i can see too, some are even the same points, but with in their lines of thinking getting into a different meaning.

i never got that far, i still have points that could have one, or even more explanations, and no theory can prove all points, because we lack the material and tools to get that. 

i think besides tony, there are a lot of people who did a lot, not always big, but important, and their dedication was infectious. and they all put bits to the foundation in this case. still many had in their own very different thinking lines on many parts of the case. it did not harm tony's part of the building. 

really my mind does not like to give an opinion if i have no roots the information that comes with matter. 
so yes, because not tony, but someone brought up garbage disposing, i know more about that in the algarve than what happened with my own. funerals, exactly the same. still can i ever say, they are wrong, no i can only go as far as, i do think something is likely or less likely based om what i put in my own mind.

i learned the best lesson ever early in my training, you never put away of anything, until a case is truly solved and had even the time to no longer being able to get changed by any silly court result. 
it is much easier to keep the on your list and just look over and over them again, and order them in meaning of the moment. so many information that looks rubbish or just noise at the start can be the clue much later on, that does bring clarity. 

looking from new angles, in a new time, is not picking a fight to what there already is. if that was our meaning, we just could act as trolls, or worse a woodworm, and all there was needed was just whip the posts and whip the accounts. 

and verdi is very right, even if we found a fitted version that suits our own line of thinking, officially no one is still able to put it to the test of reality.

but there is another thing, if the voices from the side of madeleine just dry up, we already know how this case will end up in history. that ai piece is in my opinion a sound example of it. we all just keep our title of trolls, who in the end just walked out. and even tony his efforts will be translated as a temporary nuisance for the poor parents. unwelcome links that show up on a google search could be simply taken out, if a person name is used in it. if all is only a kind of archive, they do not even ask it, or let you know. 
how many have still search results to other forums that are no longer open to comments, even when there is a group active out of sight. a lot of blogs are still out there, usually on site that never made it to the https era, but only direct links still work, even when you use them they no longer end up in google suggestions or a full google search. 

the idea all that is on the internet is there forever is a dream, not a reality. spaces are never owned, they are mostly under leases or rented, when that base is lost it is simply gone for making use of. 

so why not put in a set of fresh house rules, that every one who wreck work of others, or tries to misuse it will loose the account. not sure put them in the freezer and let them plead their case and just make them show their true colours. i think closing old treads is a good thing. certainly when you than have to make a new topic with links to what you want to say about it, and let moderators do their job, what would be a lot easier with that too. citation can be done in a correct way. not okay, just whip it off. 

and tony and all others contributors to the forum, deserve to be a foundation, but not a law of restrictions. 
the building is not ready, and we do not even know if any of us lives enough of the days that are needed to put our words to the test. i am not very optimistic, but we can at least keep trying.

Indeed - and thank you for those words of wisdom.

We were truckin' along quite nicely, keeping a watchful eye on potential infiltrators whilst maintaining a truly professional forum stacked with information - our united legacy in the name of Madeleine McCann.

It would be very very nice if we could continue that mutually beneficial harmony without further ado.



Onwards and upwards!

Tony Bennett wrote:REPLY: This is so negative, and tantamount to saying that the forum has been a complete waste of time from beginning to end

Not at all Tony, I totally respect all your hard work and of course that of other prominent personalities but it doesn't follow that I should agree with every point.

We are all individuals with a different take on life formed by personal experiences and differing outlooks on everything that surrounds us, it makes us all who and what we are, interesting in our own right.

I can't agree with your presentation of communal research to be accepted as FACT nor we now KNOW, it is however a perfect base for further study - possibly through fresh eyes, to work along side the documented official investigation.

We can all work together on this, I'm certainly not trying to discredit you or any other genuine CMOMM member. To the contrary, I want this forum to continue indefinitely, we harbour some jolly decent members all here with the same goals and determination. To me taking down the forum would be like wiping out an entire community.

Deleted - I'm talking rubbish.

I have found the post.

In the above post 37 Tony said
A few weeks ago, 'crusader' said that she would accept that Ms Fenn's statement was untrue if I proved to her that details of Mrs Fenn's statement had been printed in several British newspapers BEFORE she handed in/made her statement. I provided that evidence almost immediately. Then 'crusader' said, "I still believe Mrs Fenn's statement".  Now, that that really IS a classic example of someone with 'preconceived' views. 

What I actually said was , I am resolute in my opinion Mrs fenn is innocent of any wrong doing.
See this post What's the evidence that Madeleine died on Sunday 29th April. Page 8 post 197.

In the above post, this page, post 37, Tony said he almost immediately provided evidence it was in the press 2 day's before Mrs Fenn gave her official statement to the press.

I believe what was printed in the newspapers is statements from friends of Mrs Fenn repeating what she had told them.
Mrs Fenn's official statement could not have been in the press two day's before she made it because no official statement existed before the 20th August.

I would never intentionally try to rubbish or upset anyone on the forum, we are all working toward the same result, if it came accross that I rubbished your post then I'm sorry, it was not personal.

Hi crusader,

We have a major disagreement about a very significant piece of evidence in this case - in a case where the number of deliberate false statements is huge. 

Thank you for your post above. We both have clear views on Mrs Fenn's evidence; we disagree. 

I have advanced my evidence; you have advanced yours. 

That is how it should be; it is just one of hundreds of disagreements on this magnificent forum. 

Peace.

All the best Tony.

Back to Basics - a bare bone refresher course

For those still interested in the core of the Madeleine McCann case, this published back in 2008 is very informative and well written - before the case had too much time to collect debris.

I think it basic thus puts a lot into perspective.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Please read on above link, I won't copy over because of copyright.

Acknowledgement: pamalam at gerrymccannsblog.

thanks, i am re-reading it.

verdi could you look at the title of this part of the forum, there is a spelling mistake in madeleine.

That's because I've got me dander up.

It was just Notable Commentary so I added the Maseleine McCann for clarity.



I'm on the case!

i am only on page 18, and i think i already found the most strange part of operation task, the name for the uk boots in this case.

i never could think of a sound reason why the uk police officers and other entities just traveled back to the uk. 
you work a case of a missing minor, of a tender age, that must have been their remit. what use could they put on their own paperwork by leaving out of portugal together with the mccanns. the case was not solved then.
i mean if they would say the work we still had to do, could have done in the uk, why stay out there. 

i could see a reason why some of the liaison officers between parents and pj would leave, but why the others too. there never came a real answer to that. so i only can make out my own interpretation of course, and that means they never have been in for that missing minor, but to assist parents. 

and that is very strange, because the parents had little active roles in the investigation, at least for the part the uk police and all others could have a duty to under uk law. in the first part before they had been made arguido, they are nothing under the police task. it was never the parents that needed help, but the minor that needed help. and arguido is only part of the portuguese investigation and nothing under uk law.

even the manual made from this operation task does little to explain that at all. 

and it would not been the first case you had to fiddle a bit with a remit, i know how that works, but i never could find a sound explanation for a remit to be there, together with leaving portugal. a remit could be the easy part to make up with some fantasy. but that leaving the country does not.

also very little attention is always given to the relation the mccanns had with their liaison officers, that always have been very bad. the first very early had to take leave again. but even the ones that became the replacements never stayed until they left. and of course how mad kate was about the role of officer paiva, so friendly, but always still a officer of the law. 

so it was never only the portuguese law enforcement that was not seen as nice enough. 

if even the liaison officer start ask a question where your daughter is, that builds nicely in what amaral always said, that both police organisations had the same idea's.

a bit earlier the author took up that the first months of this investigation was mostly looked into the so called stranger abduction. i think that is an incorrect statement, that is usually not true, all cases, independent of any remit that was chosen, and you need a remit to be able to look in a lot of things, and the highest you can through the prosecution office is the one you would use. 

it does not mean that a remit in a fresh investigation only will look into the remit, that is not even the true function. it is simply the criminal offence that dictates how much investigation tools you can make use off. the highest remit is in most countries simply a murder case. most investigation tools are very much breaching into personal rights and privacy. 5a did not make the highest remit possible, there was no body to find there, nor enough blood or remains to only make it most likely the victim must be dead. 

an abduction was second best, and it solved also a large problem with the media and team mccann, who both liked the abduction theory very much. 

missing is not a crime at all in itself, that would have made very little possible. you could not ask the phone operators for material as an example. 

and you simply do not start an investigation with only one line to follow. police officers have often enough imagination to think multiple lines to look into, and for many you need the same information. one look through the pj files and reading amaral his first book tells of that story as it happened. 

also even they of course did know the child could no longer be alive, they still would, like always invest first with priority for the child still being alive. living people even with a small chance to still being alive have simply always priority over a dead one. 

they spend a lot of costs in organizing searches on a way beyond average area of land and sea, not something you would do for a dead person, bodies just left out in the open usually are pretty quickly found. a still living very young child, that could been wounded, or simply was dehydrated or weakend by lack of food and other care is what you start searches for. it does not sound nice, but a dead person has no real urgency anymore, you can no longer make it into a different outcome. they are beyond help. 

by doing these enormous searches they gave the child when alive simply still the chance to found in time. 
and with missing children you always will give them that chance. 

and this was of course a difficult case already, there was only a spoken story. and written in many different ways. there never was a bit of correct timeline even to get an firm idea when something could have happen, even much more of importance if you need to look for a stranger abduction. a sound timeline would become a routeplan to paint in all kind of possible leads they could have traced back and fort. 

also in an area without people with much roots and routines for longer time. holiday makers are very different from people who live their lives in an area. most would not even travel much, not even by the same routes in the same time span. so there was also a lack of patterns. 

and there are little cases in the world, where most of the possible witnesses will leave within 48 hours. 
there was between most people also no network in the police forces. so lack of trust, a lot of xenofobie and a language barrier are extra complications. 

having to work in these circumstances are usually only existing in the minds of the police lecturers, and i think most of them had never got into thinking such a case story would ever been a reality.

and that was not the only influence in this case, all over that they got the pr people and the media. 
and in that part it worked even against the case, that the portuguese still keep juridical silence about cases that are still active. 

we have the profit of being able to look at the pj files and a lot of old media stuff, and the original dvd format tells much in what they did at what moment in time too. this book only has a year of publication, so it is possible it was already made before the files have been available. 
and before that happened it was always very hard to get access to true content about this case.

onehand wrote:a bit earlier the author took up that the first months of this investigation was mostly looked into the so called stranger abduction. i think that is an incorrect statement,

A minor discrepancy I know but from my interpretation of the given word I'm not so sure he wasn't talking about the British police in isolation, although not specified.  Given the knowledge we now have at our disposal, that the GNR/PJ were alerted to anomalies in the group's statements within a few hours on the night of 3rd/4th May 2007, I think it a given the author was referring to the British police alone.  Roughly or badly interpreted, from the press/media coverage, it could be said the PJ were following the abduction theory and they certainly were - with reservations.

Routine policing, consider all possibilities no matter how unlikely until you can start to build a picture based on evidence and intelligence - I think we all follow similar principles in everyday life.  An officer team meeting, which the public do not have access to, would be very revealing in terms of the missing pieces of the puzzle - to coin a phrase.

Minor irregularities in the book maybe, no one is perfect, I consider it to be a valuable source of back to basics information with added bits to aid understanding.

A Mystery Story wrote:Despite some misgivings with the evidence amassed during
the first three months of the investigation the police were
reasonably comfortable with the abduction theory advocated
and strongly promoted to this day by the parents and the
friends.

This discovery by the dogs, however, prompted the local
CID and Task Portugal officers to seriously consider, and to
pursue, the possibility of parental involvement in two crimes,
namely the illegal disposal of a body and the
simulation/pretence of an abduction.

the police routine is a bit more specific, it still is to be seen as speculating, but more to get in line what you can look into. and most are used to keep possibles next to letting yourself guiding by the facts and circumstances. 

and the first days it can can change very quickly between lines, most of the less possible, and there could be even quite wild ones, will get sooner to the back of the board. the difference with day to day thinking is nothing is thrown out, it will just get a higher or lower rank in all you have. 

and facts are what is leading the most, as we know now was that pretty early on the abduction was very unlikely, nothing to see or use to give that a meaning. 

all investigation has as the overhead the prosecution officer, normally hardly seen, only at the first presser maybe and much later, but as a figure not that much in the public eye. and that is the one who also have to give you the permissions you need to work a case, and there is a protocol based on law and the ranking of crimes in how serious they are, that guide what you can use. they are also based a lot on available budget, and some have to come from the budget of the prosecution and others from the police or all other law enforcement agencies. 

the remit is what you have as highest marked in your investigation, not because you think that is most likely, but more often because you can sell that to the prosecution officer you have to work with. and the remit is usually not very important, it is easy to get it changed as soon as you get the facts coming in, so it can be scaled up and down, but also become completely different. 

and some prosecution officers are quite a nuisance. it is also the first position that already politics do come in. they are the ones who have to sell the case to the minister of justice department. 
so it was often quite a sport to get as much on the remit in serious criminal offences, even less likely that was what you think had happened, but just to get access to all kind of information. 
i have worked with very good ones. i always liked it when they also really had interest in the cases itself. 
but i had some who always had fear of giving to much liberties, certainly after the debacle in the commission van traa. and we lost cases simply because they did not dare to give the needed warrants. 

and in a case of a missing person you can not get the permissions at all, because it is not a criminal offence. 
so no phone traffic, no to the it things, hardly any forensic testing. looking for a missing person is just officially part of the second task of the police, that of helping and giving assistance to the public. and that task has very little budget and can not give permission to do a lot. 

so it does not matter that much what is written on a remit at all, a remit itself does not restrict looking into other causes. and no police force will work by remit only, okay except maybe operation grange, but that is not a real investigation of course. 
it would be must easier if case just get a qualification by importance instead of a specific crime. 

a remit does not mean you can only that line, that would be even very unusual, certainly in the first days and week, there is so much information getting in, and you are still under the obligation to follow the facts and circumstances. 

what more different is with thinking in your private mind is, that you learn more in always tracing back, so with each new fact, you have to start over and look if all facts still fits into the line that you see forming.
but also keep a much higher concept of facts, and even the facts have to be looked at. not all facts are indeed part of your case. they still will be facts, but not part of the case itself. 
also you learn pretty quick to not get to much or deep invested into a promising line, always keep a bit of an open mind for the unexpected. 

and all you cannot get out quickly, and in this case the parents could not been taken out with certainty at all. they had within 24 hours, statement of the parents with open en closed doors, you simply would not lay the parents on a shelf because your remit states abduction. also very early the fingerprints of mummy in a specific position on that not so open window. 

only thing that lacks , and always had was just plain check able facts and circumstances, but not only when they wanted to look at the parents, they are not there for an abduction too. only a mountain of not so helpful stirring the pot. 

for me i think the investigation was on the right track until september. they looked in so much different stuff,
but that does not mean they could proven the case in a court, and that happens often in all kinds of investigations. and indeed if you work a case yourself,  it is not that hard to see the most likely outcome of the case. it is very different if you get access to all informal information too. but also the full raw material about everything. so a lot of what we as only the public have not leads often to back filling , you do usually not have to, you have far more details, often did or seen interviews yourself. and you have a lot you can talk more freely about with others on the floor. all kind of specialists who can translate all kind of details on things we only can guess about. 

but i do not agree with the pj was happy to look into only abduction for months, i do not see that happening in the files. and i do not believe the officers of the british police did that too.

a lot is not even in the files, mostly because it never had a need to get there even, because it was already decided when it became knowledge to the investigation that it has no meaning in the case. it could be in a casebook, more populair called the murder book. no such works are in the files. 

same with the full forensic reports, not in the files. and most there is, is a need to know basic information, they are not lost, they are just kept at the forensic services as is usual. 

and most witness statements are taken in report style, that means only the information that has meaning to the case will make it in it. usually there is also a verbatim transcript for the investigation. so a lot of small , but sometimes important details are not there for us to work from. they are in this style used because you need that information in the case, but the difference in working the case yourself is, you can just ask the witness over again. and the full witness statement will be the one that is given in the court. 
we have to work from what we get. 

and before the pj files became available it was very hard to get any idea how all came together. and a lot is even in the files from just spoken words, so still not to be sure all is true at all.  so a whole lot of that comes with our personal threshold for thinking of believing it. 

and a lot is possible, not even always in the way it is presented, too much is possible i think, but it is still proving it, and that with the threshold as if you have to defend it in court, and that is simply not possible. the information you need for it, the specific facts and circumstances and possible evidence thereof is not there. 

the only thing i never was able to do was finding a way to think the parents could be innocent in it all. there are far too much arrows pointing that can not be explained away. but my it exist not in the form of killing their child. i never saw much to get in a line of seeing this as a murder case. 

i will read further tomorrow, from memory it was a good write up, but it is well over 10 years ago i read it. 
so with 10 years of other little tidbits of information who knows what i look out differently now. 
i do like to reread the old stuff.