Munchausens Syndrome by Proxy

Here are three sources which suggest that Maddie as well as the parents may have had mental health issues which could have been covered up.

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Criminal profiler, Pat Brown, refers to Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy as one of the many POSSIBILITIES IN THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MADELEINE MCCANN here:


"• Kate killed Maddie, purposefully, or in a rage, and Gerry came back from tennis and found Maddie dead. He helped cover up the crime. If this is so, Kate would likely suffer from Munchausen's syndrome by Proxy (if she killed Maddie on purpose – MSP is the label for a female psychopath who harms or kills her children; husbands of MSP women tend to be detached and very oblivious or accepting of their wive's behaviors) or another serious psychiatric disorder (if she killed Maddie accidentally). They could have removed or hidden Maddie's body before going to dinner or the body could have been dealt with by Gerry during his checks on the children. If this is true, Maddie is dead."

Then we also have the forensic psychologist, Dr. Christian Lüdke, who leads a company in Essen which supports the victims of robberies, kidnappings, accidents or disasters. He spoke with WELT ONLINE about the possible motives of the McCann couple in the tragic case of the abduction of Madeleine.

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Lüdke: "There are parents who have little or no emotional bond with a child. Often such a child is considered a burden that must be dealt with in a brutal or perverted way. The best known is Münchhausen Syndrome by Proxy: The mother tortures the child until it is almost dead and then calls for the police because she herself has a great desire to receive attention.

WELT ONLINE: Do you think it is possible that Madeleine's parents have killed Madeleine and together hidden her?

Lüdke: I believe both parents know what happened.

WELT ONLINE: It means, the McCanns planned the death of their daughter?

Lüdke: Yes, it is possible that they planned this a long time ago, they must at least have played it through in their minds many times and they must have spoken about it together. Otherwise they would now be contradicting each other.

WELT ONLINE: When parents are guilty of killing their child, do they block this fact out of their minds?

Lüdke: Unlikely. Both have clear consciousness, give interviews, travel. It is easier for them to lie than to speak the truth. One can probably exclude a psychosis. Many things point toward a mental disorder. The children of the McCanns were conceived artificially; that can lead to problems in parenthood. Maybe there were self esteem issues that were not openly addressed. Maybe the child had to die due to a problem that had lasted many years.

WELT ONLINE: But the McCanns seem perfect and loving parents.

Lüdke: That public image can be due to a guilt mechanism, like doing a media campaign, to distract attention away from the real problem."



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Then we had the Strongwood investigation:
August 7, 2007

A special missing person team of Investigations Company Strongwood has been investigating the Madeleine McCann case as of the end of June. The team was hired by a group of more than 105.000 Dutch citizens to do this investigation at only the costs of research.

The team has conducted an intensive preliminary analysis based on all the facts, scenarios, information, leads, broadcastings of interviews and images received by tested clairvoyance from the Netherlands and USA.

On the 31 of July the Team wend to Praia da Luz to investigate and conclude if al findings where possible. The team was formed of three detectives, a child expert in special children with a disorder, and a tested person with special abilities.

It became clear that the scenario of what might have happened became closer and closer to the leads this team was heading to. Because the media was watching the investigation team of the Portuguese police with two British investigators and well trained dogs, the Strongwood team could do their research without intervention.

While profiling involved people and researching our facts the team concluded that Madeleine could have been died before 19:00. We also found that Madeleine is a kid with a disability (autistic) which could explain her behavior and explain some witness declarations. The dogs of the British police marked the dead of the child in the apartment with traces of found blood. If death is marked than the child must have been death in that apartment for a couple of hours. Our team thinks she is moved from there with a white combi/transit vehicle to a beach location, while dumping the body into the sea. The person who has been seen walking with a child is a contradiction, but because one of the friends stated this witness declaration she would have recognize the child as Madeleine.

Back home we started to gather all information and findings of our investigation in Portugal and we are now investigating all this information and concentrating on the questions it gives. We are also watching the given statements on video by the McCann’s for psychological profiling. There are some indications that signals are not in the right context."

SOURCE: Strongwood

Granted we cannot rule out such possibility unless M's medical record is made public, but I believe it is highly unlikely that KM was suffering from MBP. The available evidence simply does not support it.

MBP sufferer (mostly women) would systematically fabricate and induce symptoms of illness in her child in order to seek medical attention. This is very different from Kate slapping or shaking Madeleine, for example, in a fit of anger. These would not be premeditated actions.

Without seeing any evidence to the contrary, I am inclined to support the theory that Kate who was unhappy with life, and with Gerry in particular, lost her temper on the early evening of the 3rd when she was left alone to look after the three children and inflicted a fatal injury to Madeleine.

Agree Ribisi, though the attention theory to the mother rings bells. Its always been poor poor Kate, never poor Madeleine or poor Gerry.
But that probably has another cause than this munschausers syndrome.

But - for the sake of argument - Kate could have exaggerated any illness or condition Maddie had, in order to be seen as a suffering icon of motherhood.
Friends and family are lavish in their praise of her wonderful mothering skills. Should something befall Maddie - it could be blamed on her condition.
The bewk and the many interviews do show a woman who regards nearly everything to do with bringing up children as a terrible chore, who seems to think that wiping the nose of a toddler is over and above the normal duties of care required of a parent.

I know at least two people like that - friends and colleagues will tell me how they admire these women, sacrificing their lives on behalf of their offspring. There's no point in telling them that having the children was more or less it, everything else wasn't motherhood so much as suffering and sacrifice - they love telling other people about their very 'hard' lives. The children make out as well as they can.
I told one such admirer once that I'm sure all that was true, since she got it from the horse's mouth - it only increased the status of the Suffering One to have such a bitchy and ungrateful cousin.

Now isn't the reaction of people who are convinced of St. Kate's great sufferings exactly the same? All the information about her sacrifices come from herself or her mouthpieces - yet we are the ones blamed when we submit evidence to the contrary.

tigger wrote:But - for the sake of argument - Kate could have exaggerated any illness or condition Maddie had, in order to be seen as a suffering icon of motherhood.
Friends and family are lavish in their praise of her wonderful mothering skills. Should something befall Maddie - it could be blamed on her condition.
The bewk and the many interviews do show a woman who regards nearly everything to do with bringing up children as a terrible chore, who seems to think that wiping the nose of a toddler is over and above the normal duties of care required of a parent.

Yes, she probably does exaggerates how difficult bringing up a lively/sickly/wilful child was. But to me that is a sign of a narcissistic and immature mother with low self-esteem who possibly failed to bond with her first born. She hardly mentions about her pregnancy which is also very odd, especially as Madeleine was a long-desired baby.

Ribisl wrote:

tigger wrote:But - for the sake of argument - Kate could have exaggerated any illness or condition Maddie had, in order to be seen as a suffering icon of motherhood.
Friends and family are lavish in their praise of her wonderful mothering skills. Should something befall Maddie - it could be blamed on her condition.
The bewk and the many interviews do show a woman who regards nearly everything to do with bringing up children as a terrible chore, who seems to think that wiping the nose of a toddler is over and above the normal duties of care required of a parent.

Yes, she probably does exaggerates how difficult bringing up a lively/sickly/wilful child was. But to me that is a sign of a narcissistic and immature mother with low self-esteem who possibly failed to bond with her first born. She hardly mentions about her pregnancy which is also very odd, especially as Madeleine was a long-desired baby.

When they married they were both 30 - less than four years later the IVF treatment began. Hardly a long time to wait. Barely mentions these so desired pregnancies - no photos of just after the birth of the wildly happy family either, which is what one would expect.

tigger wrote:

Ribisl wrote:

tigger wrote:But - for the sake of argument - Kate could have exaggerated any illness or condition Maddie had, in order to be seen as a suffering icon of motherhood.
Friends and family are lavish in their praise of her wonderful mothering skills. Should something befall Maddie - it could be blamed on her condition.
The bewk and the many interviews do show a woman who regards nearly everything to do with bringing up children as a terrible chore, who seems to think that wiping the nose of a toddler is over and above the normal duties of care required of a parent.

Yes, she probably does exaggerates how difficult bringing up a lively/sickly/wilful child was. But to me that is a sign of a narcissistic and immature mother with low self-esteem who possibly failed to bond with her first born. She hardly mentions about her pregnancy which is also very odd, especially as Madeleine was a long-desired baby.

When they married they were both 30 - less than four years later the IVF treatment began. Hardly a long time to wait. Barely mentions these so desired pregnancies - no photos of just after the birth of the wildly happy family either, which is what one would expect.

Good morning Tigger. I have seen a photograph of Kate and Gerry with a new born Madeleine in which Kate looks nothing like she has just gone through the physical and emotional time of childbirth. Does anyone else remember seeing it and where it could be found?

Well one disorder doesn´t exclude another, I found a description of a narcissistic parent which very well fitted in with both parents. The immaturity (responding like a child) in every situation, even when it comes to sex. Came to think of the pictures of Madeleine, wearing make up when I read this. I haven´t read Kate´s book, but read somewhere here that Kate writes about the looks, the importance of beauty in a child. (Treated like a doll, see text below) Parents acting like children because they haven´t matured emotionally. Then of course the non-bonding and lack of empathy.

If you had a narcissist for a parent, you lived in a world governed by whim enforced without mercy.

Narcissists have normal, even superior, intellectual development while remaining emotionally and morally immature. Dealing with them can give you the sense of trying to have a reasonable discussion with a very clever six-year-old -- this is an age when normal children are grandiose and exhibitionistic, when they are very resistant to taking the blame for their own misbehavior, when they understand what the rules are (e.g., that lying, cheating, and stealing are prohibited) but are still trying to wriggle out of accepting those rules for themselves. This is the year, by the way, when children were traditionally thought to reach the age of reason and when first communions (and first confessions) were made.
Having a narcissist for a mother is a lot like living under the supervision of a six-year-old. Narcissists are always pretending, and with a narcissistic mother it's a lot like, "Let's play house. I'll pretend to be the mother and you pretend to be the baby," though, as the baby, you'll be expected to act like a doll (keep smiling, no matter what) and you'll be treated like a doll -- as an inanimate object, as a toy to be manipulated, dressed and undressed, walked around and have words put in your mouth; something that can be broken but not hurt, something that will be dropped and forgotten when when something more interesting comes along. With narcissists, there's also usually a fair element of "playing doctor," as well -- of childish sexual curiosity that may find expression in "seductive" behavior towards the child, such as inappropriate touching of the genitals, or it can also come out as "hypochondriacal" worries about the child's health and/or being most interested and attentive when the child is ill (thus teaching the child that the way to get Mother's kind attention is to get sick). Having a sick child can also be a way for the narcissistic mother to get the sympathetic attention of authority figures, such as doctors and teachers.

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Mariita - this is a good topic to read : [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

YES!!! Thanks Tigger, there is indeed an obsession with beauty... The homevideos are also all about "performing", dressed as a princess/fairy - always in a special way. Hard to find something with ordinary casual clothing. It´s so obvious the children have to be perfect like little dolls, and so very sad that they´ll be forgotten when something more important comes up.[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Mariita wrote:YES!!! Thanks Tigger, there is indeed an obsession with beauty... The homevideos are also all about "performing", dressed as a princess/fairy - always in a special way. Hard to find something with ordinary casual clothing. It´s so obvious the children have to be perfect like little dolls, and so very sad that they´ll be forgotten when something more important comes up.[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

There is a nice picture of Madeleine on a bike looking as though she is enjoying herself.
The dressing up was outfits, not the box under the stairs type thing where imagination makes Dad's old underpants and a tea towel into a Batman outfit. No they were all,' and now you are a fairy, turn around, oh I can see your wings' type of thing. Just money talking not imagination and the making of the Virgin Mary nativity costume from the old blue sheet.

Nina wrote:

Mariita wrote:YES!!! Thanks Tigger, there is indeed an obsession with beauty... The homevideos are also all about "performing", dressed as a princess/fairy - always in a special way. Hard to find something with ordinary casual clothing. It´s so obvious the children have to be perfect like little dolls, and so very sad that they´ll be forgotten when something more important comes up.[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

There is a nice picture of Madeleine on a bike looking as though she is enjoying herself.
The dressing up was outfits, not the box under the stairs type thing where imagination makes Dad's old underpants and a tea towel into a Batman outfit. No they were all,' and now you are a fairy, turn around, oh I can see your wings' type of thing. Just money talking not imagination and the making of the Virgin Mary nativity costume from the old blue sheet.

And I think the one when Madeleine sits on the stairs with the twins, when they´re clapping hands singing one-two-three... is also a "normal" one, though to me it looks maybe more like a performance on dad´s request than a spontaneous thing. On the bike she looks happy, I agree, happy for herself - not to please someone else.

Putting this article here as it has a lot about the subject being discussed. It is absolutely sick what some of these people do online........

1 June 2012 Last updated at 10:53

The cruellest of internet hoaxes

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Attention seeking on the internet takes many forms, but the people who hoax online forums with tales of sick children are among the most painful, writes Jolyon Jenkins.

Little Charly Johns was a trouper.

She was only six years old and had cancer - but she fought it with determination. She was in and out of hospital as the disease advanced and retreated.

It was tough too for her mother Anna. She joined the Macmillan online cancer forum.

There she found support and help from people who knew exactly what she was going through.

For two years, Anna kept them updated on Charly's progress.

• Jolyon Jenkins presents Desperately Seeking Sympathy on Radio 4 on Monday 4 June at 11:00 BST
  

• Listen via the Radio 4 website
  

"On the whole she is doing great," she wrote. "She is happy, lively, giggly and very easily excitable. She is always the first to laugh at anything and the last to stop. Nobody could look at Charly now and have any idea of the things she has endured these past 14 months."

But in November last year, Charly lost her fight for life. On the Macmillan forum there was an outpouring of grief. People wrote poems in Charly's memory. They painted their fingernails pink in accordance with her last wishes - even men.

But it was all a lie. Charly did not exist. Neither did Anna.

The whole thing was a hoax, discovered when the church in Paris where Charly's funeral was to be held turned out to have no record of her.

The perpetrator, it transpired, was a teenage girl. The pictures of "Charly" were the girl herself when younger.

Many on the Macmillan forum refused to believe it. They had formed close online relationships with Anna. It seemed impossible that a teenager could have had such emotional maturity. Others left the forum in despair.

Continue reading the main story
Faking it


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• Munchausen syndrome sufferers pretend to be ill or induce symptoms of illness or injury to themselves
  
• The term Munchausen syndrome by proxy (now known as fabricated and induced illness or FII) refers to people who invent or cause the symptoms of illness in someone else. The term is controversial, but the NHS maintains that a great deal of evidence suggests the condition exists
  
• Term "Munchausen by internet" (MBI) coined by Dr Marc Feldman in 2000, after identifying a pattern in 1998, allied with rise of internet and chat forums
  
• MBI sufferers construct false identities and feign illness or trauma in order to get sympathy or attention from online support groups
  
• Sufferers often invent multiple online personalities to validate main character
  

"These are some very desperate people," says Jackie Marshall, a member of the Macmillan forum. "People who may not have long to live, who are sharing burdens with complete strangers, because they are not comfortable sharing with families. The forum provides a lifeline."

It wasn't the first time Macmillan has been hoaxed, and Macmillan isn't the only forum to have been affected by impostors.

An American psychiatrist, Marc Feldman, has described it as "Munchausen by internet", similar to the well-known Munchausen syndrome, in which people fabricate illnesses to gain attention and sympathy.

It's no exaggeration to say there's an epidemic of MBI, and one which destroys the trust that underpins the forums.

Sometimes the hoaxes are astonishingly elaborate. "Cara", on the west coast of America, kept a blog in which she detailed her fight against cancer, as well as HIV, anorexia and heart problems.

She posted pictures of herself in a hospital bed wearing an oxygen mask and feeding tube, and a video in which she struggled to speak in the face of neurological difficulties.

She became close friends with two women, one of whom, Lauren, had Cara's name tattooed on her arm. All a lie. Cara was rumbled, and vanished.

Another of those taken in was Kaylin Andres, a fashion designer who kept a blog about her own cancer. They had Skyped, and Kaylin had sent Cara small gifts.

Continue reading the main story
The Allitt case


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Munchausen syndrome by proxy (now better known as fabricated and induced illness) came to public attention following the jailing in 1993 of nurse Beverley Allitt.

Dubbed the "Angel of Death" by newspapers, Allitt murdered four children and injured nine others at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital.

Allitt's actions were said to have been linked to the condition.

Then at the end of last year she logged on and read Lauren's account of her discovery of Cara's deception. "It was just such a bombshell. I remember reading it at work and I couldn't help but burst into tears," says Andres.

In recent weeks there are reports that Cara has re-emerged as "Mollie", a British teenager going through a problematic pregnancy. The hoaxers have a habit of popping up again in new guises.

Pregnancy and childbirth provide a fertile territory for them. There are cases of women purloining each other's ultrasound pictures to post online, and of insinuating themselves into forums dealing with stillbirth in order to gather anecdotal details which they can then pass off as their own.

Strangest, perhaps, is the case of Rebeccah Beushausen in Chicago, who not only faked a pregnancy, but faked pictures of the newborn baby, using an ultra-realistic doll.

In that case, Rebeccah had ideological motives - as a Christian and anti-abortionist, she wanted to show that it was possible to carry a foetus to term even though it had a severe genetic disorder.

Feldman thinks that in general, MBI is essentially the same as "classic" Munchausen's but set on a new stage.

In some cases that's true. I spoke to a woman, "Amy", who hoaxed forums for years. She posted first as someone with cancer. Then later, even more bizarrely, she posed as a young girl who was being sexually abused. She was befriended by - and deceived - an older woman for six years.


“Start Quote

Just as online fraudsters dream of easy money, these people crave easy attention ”

End Quote
But even before the internet existed, Amy had been faking medical problems. She dated it back to childhood.

"When I was nine and a half, my little sister was born and she had cerebral palsy and I felt abandoned by my mother. So I faked an eye exam so I could get glasses like my sister had."

Amy is now seeing a therapist and thinks she has kicked the habit for good.

Another woman spoke of feeling unloved by her parents, of being a misfit, of finding that the forums were the only place where felt accepted.

But compared to classic Munchausen's, hoaxing online is easy. There's no need to fool medical professionals.

It gives the perpetrator a quick hit of attention, a feeling of being valued, but without really having done anything to deserve it.

Just as online fraudsters dream of easy money, these people crave easy attention. And it is, perhaps, just another form of fraud - emotional, rather than financial fraud. And emotional fraudsters are no easier to deal with.

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That is so sad! Is it because of the surreal way we live now - virtual friends in facebook and sms's instead of conversations. How very tempting to get friends who really care in this way - a friend of mine started on facebook some years ago and she was over the moon to get 80 + friends in no time. Except of course, they were nothing of the sort.
All the people who cared about this non existent girl with her non existent cancer - they must feel so betrayed, so all this has nothing but grief as result.
I really think that even the girl who lied about it all is sad.

This kind of thing goes on far more than people realise. I honestly think so many people get hooked, not consciously but unconciously, on the notion that either they get more attention when they're ill. With some people it seems it's the only way they have of standing out from a crowd is to have any number of weird ailments. You always spot them when the symptoms move and elude firm diagnosis.

I'm reminded of this case where a woman convinced everyone that her daughter had leukaemia.

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Jean wrote:I'm reminded of this case where a woman convinced everyone that her daughter had leukaemia.

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Are these tendencies increased thanks to the many hospital soaps on TV all over the world? Handsome doctors battling to save your life or that of your loved one - could be the hypnotic influence of the box?

I cannot see one tiny bit of evidence that MbP is evident here.

As for lack of stress at having given birth. My after birth pics were of me at age 41 and after 23 hours of labour were with perfect hair and make up and half moon manicured nails holding my new born darling girl. My daughter takes great pride in viewing them even now.

I remember now that those pics were after I'd cleaned the showers of faeces from the teenage girls I had the misfortune to be sharing a ward with.

I also don't have one photograph of my pregnant tum. Yes some pics, but not so you would know. I sometimes think you are searching for nothing when there is plenty else to go on.

I would have to agree that I do not IMO think that MSBP is a factor here , of course we have not seen any medical records but if it was a factor I am sure the twins would be at A&E every second day.

Many years ago I read the book "From Cradle to Grave" about Mary Beth Tinning , it has been mentioned in some posts here , I would say this is a must read for someone interested in MSBP , it is a chilling read and a deep insight into MSBP , but be warned it is a chilling account .

Just my two cents worth !

Jean wrote:From what I understand of this condition, a classic example of someone with it is the nurse Beverly Allitt who attacked children in her care in the early 1990s.

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The Tinning case in America may not be that well known in the U K - here we have a woman who revelled in the attention and sympathy that the death of a child brought.

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Personally I don't think that this condition is relevant to the McCanns.

Yes Tuom, I've read that book and can recommend it. There are many clips on YouTube about the case if anyone is interested.

Jean wrote:

Jean wrote:From what I understand of this condition, a classic example of someone with it is the nurse Beverly Allitt who attacked children in her care in the early 1990s.

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The Tinning case in America may not be that well known in the U K - here we have a woman who revelled in the attention and sympathy that the death of a child brought.

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Personally I don't think that this condition is relevant to the McCanns.

Yes Tuom, I've read that book and can recommend it. There are many clips on YouTube about the case if anyone is interested.

Why Thank You Jean I must have a look at them , I have not seen any of them , still have the book though !