Do you leave the house after the children has fallen to sleep? Article with Madeleine Picture in it

This is a Norwegian article in the news to day, with that headline and a picture of Madeleine. The article in it self says nothing about Madeleine or her story, but the fact that her picture is in the article and no more information tells us how known this case really is !!

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

Translated article

Do you go out of the house after the kids are asleep?
The refrigerator was empty. My husband was away. The children were asleep, and I was hungry. While I went and cleaned up the current batch lego and toy cars lay strewn sofa and coffee table called my husband.

- If you are hungry you need to get you something to eat. Can not put across the road and buy a pizza?

We live directly across the street from the all-time Italian pizza parlor. I already knew the smell of the number 41 - with Spanish chorizo, French goat cheese, cherry tomatoes and red onion.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

(Worth a quick trip out?)

- Are you crazy?? I can not go out when I'm home alone with the kids?!?

- Look, it's right across the road. It is the same as sticking into cellar while the kids are sleeping. Or take out the garbage.

- I do not go in the cellar while the kids are sleeping. I do not go out with the garbage while the children are sleeping.

Laughter.

- Come on, what's the worst that can happen?

I felt my stomach grumble, but munched me some raisins I found under the sofa cushions while I rattled off every horror picture reptilebrain could managed to dig up.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
(Reason enough to never leave the sleeping children alone at home, or ...?) ( text underneath the picture)

- They can wake up from a nightmare and be afraid because they can not find me. They begin to play with knives. It could start to burn, but I'm not there to hear the fire alarm. They may vomit in his sleep and choked by his own vomit. I can get hit by tram while I go across the street and it takes 12 hours before someone comes to check my house. Some may break into to steal them.

I could almost hear through the handset how his eyebrow raised, followed by more laughter.

- Eat pizza with a good conscience you, Sus. Should I call and book for you?

That night, while I slurped my nuddelpakka from Mr Lee, I could not help thinking that I made life harder for myself than it needed to be. Had I made a rule when she was a newborn, and forgot to check the reality of the five years that have passed since the sust? I remembered how Gro Nylander in his book talks about how her grandparents pulled up at the house next door as they ran and refurbished after the kids had gone to bed.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
(Who needs fresh baked pizza when I can indulge me with this?)

In a portrait interview I read many years ago (long before I had children myself) I bet the mark a single mom who said she called herself and let the handset beside the sleeping child, while she sprinted up and down the streets of sportswear to slightly trim.

So I would hear what you think. Will you walk out the garbage while the children sleep alone? Walk the dog? Going to the store? Where is the boundary today between fine and irresponsible?

I've had the same situation many a time, I literally live across the road (very small village, small road, I can see the whites of the eyes of the Post office lady from my front room). I have never taken that risk. no you cannot account for everything that can happen in life, but when it comes to your children you minimise those risks as much as possible, you don't `take a chance` over something as daft as needing a loaf or a pint of milk , pizza etc.

The simple answer is no you don't leave your children alone in the house to nip out for something. We even had a fire drill in our house. I don't know why more people don't do that. We had ropes that could be tied to the upstairs window frames/furniture/hooks to escape from fire. We all knew what to do in the event of a house fire.

Even when my Son was asleep upstairs I'd go check him often. When he was a baby I must admit to giving him a little poke to make sure he was still breathing. I didn't leave him in another room when he was a toddler, he had to be in my sight. When he got to the age of wanting to go to play football in the park with his friends (he only knows about this now) I used to park and sit in the car to watch through the railings without him knowing. My Mum and I used to take a flask of tea and have a good natter. My garden was the local football/badminton/rugby pitch. All the kids played in my garden where they were safe. Other people had nice gardens, mine wasn't! It was a happy garden though.

You should never leave young children alone I do think it is okey to throw out the garbage bin and so, but its a big difference in doing house cleaning and acually leave your children alone while you go out for a wine and a dine !

I guess if leaving them alone for a dinner, only 100 meters away, the last think I would worried about would be a childabduction, I believe Kate there, that it never entered their mind.
BUT lord are there thousand other reasons I would have thought of before that, to not leave them alone while I dine nearby ! Even checking them every 15 minutes would not have been good enough. Probably not because i truly believed something acually would have happened to them, but because of that nagging feeling of "what if something happens while im here" eating "what if they wake up right now, they usually dont do that but we are on holliday so what if ?" "and im not there, how horrifying for them"
I have a very hard time understanding how they could leave them night after night like that? Why did they not have this nagging feeling of guilt while eating? How can they defend them self saying it is okey to leave them after what happened? How on earth did they dear to leave them for so long? Where they never consearned about the other thousand things that could have happened or atleast consearned that they would wake up?
More strange is that even after the fact that M told them they where crying and asked why the parents never came, even after this , they STILL left them alone the same night ! ?

Just F****** unbelieveble !!

If it smells like a rat and looks like a rat it is a rat....

[quote="Moa"]This is a Norwegian article in the news to day, with that headline and a picture of Madeleine. The article in it self says nothing about Madeleine or her story, but the fact that her picture is in the article and no more information tells us how known this case really is !!

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

Moa, what an interesting article. It strikes me that this Norwegian piece is sending out a subliminal message which points directly at the McCanns, IMO. I think that the picture of Madeleine will be removed at the request of Carter Ruck.

I still shudder when I remember several instances of 'left alone' children that I knew about at the time such as meeting another mum picking up older child from school and me dragging my toddler... and hers was left at home. Another case was when I came across two kids in a car. The baby was strapped in a rear seat and a toddler was messing about with the controls of the car in the driving seat even reaching for the cigarette lighter. The mother was some 30 yds away deep in conversation. This time I intervened and told her what I thought of the situation..."ah but they have/had chicken pox......." was her excuse. The child wrecking the car controls was not a concern of hers either

This begs the question of what we are supposed to do when we find others with lower standards than our own? It is an instinct for me, I would not need to be told what is right etc but others seem to have whole different mindset of what constitutes proper care and education/social class do not seem to factors.

[quote="winjoy"]

Moa wrote:This is a Norwegian article in the news to day, with that headline and a picture of Madeleine. The article in it self says nothing about Madeleine or her story, but the fact that her picture is in the article and no more information tells us how known this case really is !!

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

Moa, what an interesting article. It strikes me that this Norwegian piece is sending out a subliminal message which points directly at the McCanns, IMO. I think that the picture of Madeleine will be removed at the request of Carter Ruck.

Didn't Gerry say something once on the lines of: 'thanks to us there aren't so many abduction now?'

We'd check they were breathing properly, not too warm, not too cold, covered properly, no risk of smothering, falling out of bed and that nothing had been disturbed. Then there's the risk that noise/light had disturbed them, we'd linger outside the door for a while to be sure and sometimes listen again a few moments later.

No, we didn't leave ours for a second. Ever. Even if a child sleeps routinely every night there's no guarantee that the sound of the front door locking or the car starting up wouldn't wake them. A journey might take a few seconds but what if there's an accident or unexpected delay?

And how many people would dine in their back garden leaving 3 children under 4 asleep upstairs? That analogy baffles me. Even when we used a monitor we physically checked the kids for dangers you can't hear but can see.

This is a couple who used child gates in their home and no doubt locks on their cupboards and put the medicine out of the children's reach. It's not consistent with the behaviour of leaving children alone and the front and back doors unlocked. It makes no sense.

Finn wrote:[...] It makes no sense.

***
Well, there you have it, Finn: It Makes No Sense. Period.

I was reminded of the reasons why you should never leave young children alone, unsupervised, at any time earlier in the summer. My eldest decided to take a hula hoop (the type you twist on your waist, not the edible kind) onto the slide in the garden, which has raised handlebars at the top for the child to hold on to. The hoop got stuck around the handlebars whilst he had started his decent down the slide. His chin got trapped under the hoop whilst his body weight was pulling the rest of his body down the slide. He started to panic, probably because he couldn't breathe, or free himself. I was watching from the kitchen window, I dread to think what may have happened if I hadn't been there watching.

I know you can't be there 100% of the time and that accidents do happen. But if there's any possible way I can minimise the risk to them from harm then it's my primary job as a parent to do so.

Lady-Heather wrote: But if there's any possible way I can minimise the risk to them from harm then it's my primary job as a parent to do so.

So simple really... As you say, we cant be there 100 % of the time, we cant overprotect them, but we can minimise the risk ! leaving 3 toddlers alone so the grown ups can go out and drink and eat IS NOT minimising the risk and is not what most parents do !

They should defently been charged for leaving them alone night after night !
If I had done that to my children I would been thrown to jail faster than I could have spelt my own name thats for sure !

Moa wrote:[...] leaving 3 toddlers alone so the grown ups can go out and drink and eat IS NOT minimising the risk and is not what most parents do !

They should defently been charged for leaving them alone night after night !
[...]

***
That raises the question again: did they really leave them alone and with doors open? Saying that they were left alone is the only way to give the abduction theory a chance ... No neglect = no abduction. As the PJ most probably smelled a rat early on IMO they didn't want to charge them on a [non-existing? ] lesser offense.

Châtelaine wrote:

Moa wrote:[...] leaving 3 toddlers alone so the grown ups can go out and drink and eat IS NOT minimising the risk and is not what most parents do !

They should defently been charged for leaving them alone night after night !
[...]

***
That raises the question again: did they really leave them alone and with doors open? Saying that they were left alone is the only way to give the abduction theory a chance ... No neglect = no abduction. As the PJ most probably smelled a rat early on IMO they didn't want to charge them on a [non-existing? ] lesser offense.

Well thats been discussed on this forum many times, and many people believe they where not left alone...Or maybe they did leave them alone, something happened and admitting to the crime of leaving them alone is better than admitting something happened when they where not around and as a result a little girl maybe died?

I dont know, all I know is that I do not believe the abduction ever took place...

Moa wrote:

Châtelaine wrote:

Moa wrote:[...] leaving 3 toddlers alone so the grown ups can go out and drink and eat IS NOT minimising the risk and is not what most parents do !

They should defently been charged for leaving them alone night after night !
[...]

***
That raises the question again: did they really leave them alone and with doors open? Saying that they were left alone is the only way to give the abduction theory a chance ... No neglect = no abduction. As the PJ most probably smelled a rat early on IMO they didn't want to charge them on a [non-existing? ] lesser offense.

Well thats been discussed on this forum many times, and many people believe they where not left alone...Or maybe they did leave them alone, something happened and admitting to the crime of leaving them alone is better than admitting something happened when they where not around and as a result a little girl maybe died?

I dont know, all I know is that I do not believe the abduction ever took place...

***
I do agree Moa. And the only thing I feel to know for sure is that little Madeleine is dead and her parents know what happened. IMO, of course, IMO.

Interesting discussion. Have puzzled over this one many times - the McCs in all other respects seem perfectly responsible. As someone pointed out, they had stair gates in their home and probably all the other child safety paraphenalia, so why did they act out of character in PDL and commit what appear to be acts of negligence night after night by leaving their children alone when asleep? This, in my opinion is where the investigation went badly wrong and where the chance to investigate the crucial issue of whether the children of the whole group were being sedated was somehow missed. This is the only thing which could explain why otherwise responsible parents would risk leaving the children unattended on a nightly basis. Of course one would hardly envisage an abudction occurring but one would surely assess the likelihood of children waking, being ill or frightened, getting into the knife drawer, drinking cleaning fluid, etc etc etc. Only if one were pretty certain none of these things could possibly happen would one take such risk over and over.

That no testing was done was a missed opportunity to resolve the issue one way or the other. If, as the McCs claim the children were not being sedated, then such testing would have definitively shown they and their friends were telling the truth, allowing the investigation to move on in an appropriate direction as well as clearing themselves of such suspicion. Unfortunatley the PJ seem not to have thought of testing until KMcC mentioned it 3 months or so too late to be of any benefit to them or the investigation.

Monty Heck wrote:Interesting discussion. Have puzzled over this one many times - the McCs in all other respects seem perfectly responsible. As someone pointed out, they had stair gates in their home and probably all the other child safety paraphenalia, so why did they act out of character in PDL and commit what appear to be acts of negligence night after night by leaving their children alone when asleep? This, in my opinion is where the investigation went badly wrong and where the chance to investigate the crucial issue of whether the children of the whole group were being sedated was somehow missed. This is the only thing which could explain why otherwise responsible parents would risk leaving the children unattended on a nightly basis. Of course one would hardly envisage an abudction occurring but one would surely assess the likelihood of children waking, being ill or frightened, getting into the knife drawer, drinking cleaning fluid, etc etc etc. Only if one were pretty certain none of these things could possibly happen would one take such risk over and over.

That no testing was done was a missed opportunity to resolve the issue one way or the other. If, as the McCs claim the children were not being sedated, then such testing would have definitively shown they and their friends were telling the truth, allowing the investigation to move on in an appropriate direction as well as clearing themselves of such suspicion. Unfortunatley the PJ seem not to have thought of testing until KMcC mentioned it 3 months or so too late to be of any benefit to them or the investigation.

I think you can take hair samples still, the hair root will show drug/ medical use years back , even if you cut the hair. Wich mean they basicly can take samples to this day and find out whats been into their systems. Seems like TM dont want the twins to be testet, if they did they could have done so a long time ago and can still do it today. They have money from the fund so no excuses..They just dont want hairsamples to be taken I think.

Thanks Moa - interesting to know that particular avenue may still be open. However, I understood the PJ's response when KMcC approached them re the twins being drug tested 3 months into the investigation was that, as a medic she would be well aware that such tests at that point would be pointless?

Moa wrote:

Monty Heck wrote:Interesting discussion. Have puzzled over this one many times - the McCs in all other respects seem perfectly responsible. As someone pointed out, they had stair gates in their home and probably all the other child safety paraphenalia, so why did they act out of character in PDL and commit what appear to be acts of negligence night after night by leaving their children alone when asleep? This, in my opinion is where the investigation went badly wrong and where the chance to investigate the crucial issue of whether the children of the whole group were being sedated was somehow missed. This is the only thing which could explain why otherwise responsible parents would risk leaving the children unattended on a nightly basis. Of course one would hardly envisage an abudction occurring but one would surely assess the likelihood of children waking, being ill or frightened, getting into the knife drawer, drinking cleaning fluid, etc etc etc. Only if one were pretty certain none of these things could possibly happen would one take such risk over and over.

That no testing was done was a missed opportunity to resolve the issue one way or the other. If, as the McCs claim the children were not being sedated, then such testing would have definitively shown they and their friends were telling the truth, allowing the investigation to move on in an appropriate direction as well as clearing themselves of such suspicion. Unfortunatley the PJ seem not to have thought of testing until KMcC mentioned it 3 months or so too late to be of any benefit to them or the investigation.

I think you can take hair samples still, the hair root will show drug/ medical use years back , even if you cut the hair. Wich mean they basicly can take samples to this day and find out whats been into their systems. Seems like TM dont want the twins to be testet, if they did they could have done so a long time ago and can still do it today. They have money from the fund so no excuses..They just dont want hairsamples to be taken I think.

Not quite.

Ploughing through perusing the book Madeleine at last, I saw that at some undisclosed time after May 3rd 2007, while they themselves were still languishing in PdL, the McCs ordered some of their family/acquaintance go to the house in Rothley, collect five hairs from a hood (ostensibly a garment belonging to Maddie, but who knows?) and some eyelashes of hers from a/her pillow. These hairs were sent post haste to South Africa to enable that well reputed charlatan investigator Danie Krugel to use them in his magical machine and determine the whereabouts of the body of Maddie somewhere in the wider region of Rocha Negra in PdL.

This proves one more thing: that third parties were able to enter the Rothley place at their own of the McCs discretion, and tamper with any and all evidence there; in other words: looking for Maddies hair/DNA there, they were in fact possibly tampering with a crime-related scene.

Who were these people?
Why did they enter the house?
When did they first enter it?
What did they do there?
Did they remove more than Maddies hair/DNA from there and if so, where did they send/take it?
Who asked/ordered/authorized them to do so?

Did it at any moment enter the minds of any police force to regard the Rothley house as a crime-related scene?

How come total strangers could find and lay their hands on tiny eyelashes, Kate sspecifically names these. How hard do you have to search for them? How do you know they are Maddies indeed?

One more of those very, very strange facts in the case.

Monty Heck wrote:Thanks Moa - interesting to know that particular avenue may still be open. However, I understood the PJ's response when KMcC approached them re the twins being drug tested 3 months into the investigation was that, as a medic she would be well aware that such tests at that point would be pointless?

I think I have missunderstood it. Seems like they can go 90 days back if the hair is cut short !
Basicly they can go back in history as long as the hair is .So if you have long hair and have not cut it in 5 years, they can go 5 years back to see druges used

If its short, they can go 90 days back. This fact make it more interresting if Kate wanted to drugtest them firstly after 90 days.

I also dont see why picking up hairs from their home would help detect if they where drugged in holliday by the alleged abductor, what was Kate thinking?

What time period does the HairConfirm™ test cover?
A: HairConfirm™ will detect drugs for a period of 90 days. The test requires a hair sample of 1.5 inches in length. Each 0.5 inch represents 30 days. The hair sample must be cut as close to the scalp as possible and only the most recent 1.5 inches are tested.


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

It also makes one wonder [again], why Gerry felt the need of mentioning a long-needed haircut in one of his original blogs ...

ETA Gerry McCann, Day 96: "I spent a couple of hours this afternoon working on forthcoming events but did manage to squeeze in a much-needed haircut! "

Portia, I heard with my own ears Kate's aunt Janet Kennedy, Uncle Brian Kennedy's wife, tell the audience at a talk that she went to the McCanns' apartment the day after Maddie's reported disappearance at Kate's request.

ShuBob wrote:Portia, I heard with my own ears Kate's aunt Janet Kennedy, Uncle Brian Kennedy's wife, tell the audience at a talk that she went to the McCanns' apartment the day after Maddie's reported disappearance at Kate's request.

Here it is ShuBob....



JK: I -- I’m not really sure myself about that, you know -- at the time -- It’s not something I’ve discussed with them. My own feeling of the first few days was, you know, just try to get in touch with the Foreign Office, you know, to try and get some kind of help in terms of it being a foreign country.

I mean I know that the morning after it happened I -- Kate, you know, had phoned me because -- this sounds terribly trivial -- but they were due home the next day and she’d booked an online shop. I won’t give the name of the -- of the company -- of the supermarket -- and, you know, she sort of wanted something to be done about it. So I just went up to the house, you know, and erm -- to sort that out. And, you know, I just wasn’t prepared for the media interest at the house itself.

AG: What -- What happened?

JK: Well, there were just over a hundred people with cameras and reporters -- And they’ve got a sort of gate and then a little driveway and I mean I was -- I suppose I was really daunted, you know, by this sort of complete media intrusion, as I thought, at the time.

AG: What does it feel like?

JK: Well, if I tell you that I sort of knelt on the playroom floor so that I wouldn’t be seen because there was -- I was aware there were long range cameras focussing on the house and there were just flashing lights, flashing cameras, people continually coming up and knocking on the door and I just wouldn’t answer the door. You know, I felt totally imprisoned really and very threatened and, you know, I would think I am quite a mature person who can deal with all kinds of crises. But it was quite overwhelming I have to say -- just this complete takeover of my life, you know, at that time -- and poor Kate and Gerry there, you know, with no Madeleine.


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

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

candyfloss wrote:

ShuBob wrote:Portia, I heard with my own ears Kate's aunt Janet Kennedy, Uncle Brian Kennedy's wife, tell the audience at a talk that she went to the McCanns' apartment the day after Maddie's reported disappearance at Kate's request.

Here it is ShuBob....



JK: I -- I’m not really sure myself about that, you know -- at the time -- It’s not something I’ve discussed with them. My own feeling of the first few days was, you know, just try to get in touch with the Foreign Office, you know, to try and get some kind of help in terms of it being a foreign country.

I mean I know that the morning after it happened I -- Kate, you know, had phoned me because -- this sounds terribly trivial -- but they were due home the next day and she’d booked an online shop. I won’t give the name of the -- of the company -- of the supermarket -- and, you know, she sort of wanted something to be done about it. So I just went up to the house, you know, and erm -- to sort that out. And, you know, I just wasn’t prepared for the media interest at the house itself.

AG: What -- What happened?

JK: Well, there were just over a hundred people with cameras and reporters -- And they’ve got a sort of gate and then a little driveway and I mean I was -- I suppose I was really daunted, you know, by this sort of complete media intrusion, as I thought, at the time.

AG: What does it feel like?

JK: Well, if I tell you that I sort of knelt on the playroom floor so that I wouldn’t be seen because there was -- I was aware there were long range cameras focussing on the house and there were just flashing lights, flashing cameras, people continually coming up and knocking on the door and I just wouldn’t answer the door. You know, I felt totally imprisoned really and very threatened and, you know, I would think I am quite a mature person who can deal with all kinds of crises. But it was quite overwhelming I have to say -- just this complete takeover of my life, you know, at that time -- and poor Kate and Gerry there, you know, with no Madeleine.


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

Well done CF.

We'll find out whodunnit.


We will, you know!

This a snip from Kate's book

''On the night Madeleine was taken, you may remember, Gerry and I had been very concerned that Sean and Amelie had hardly moved in their cots, let alone woken up, despite the commotion in the apartment. Since Madeleine was snatched apparently without making a sound, we had always suspected that all three children might have been sedated by the abductor. We mentioned this to the police that night and several more times in the following weeks, but no testing of urine, blood or hair, which could have revealed the presence of drugs, had ever been done. Apparently, hair grows at a rate of approximately 1cm per month, so it was possible that hair samples taken even four months later could provide us with additional information. It was worth a shot, at least. I asked for samples of my own hair to be taken as well simply because I was fed up with the constant insinuations that I took tranquillizers, sleeping pills or any medication, for that matter.
The process seemed to take ages and we all lost loads of hair. I couldn't believe they had to take so much. The scientist cut chunks of it from Sean and Amelie's heads while they were sleeping. I cried as I heard the scissors in their baby-blond hair. I felt angry that the children had to go through this further insult. As for me, I looked as if I had alopecia. Though I cursed the abductor and the PJ, I had bigger things to worry about.
All the hair samples produced negative results. While this didn't totally exclude the possibility that the children had been sedated, especially given the time that had elapsed, it meant nobody else (including the PJ and the media) could prove otherwise. It also confirmed that I didn't `abuse' sedative medication. It is sad that we had to go to such lengths to demonstrate this; sadder still that such tests weren't carried out at the time.''

''Since Madeleine was snatched apparently without making a sound, we had always suspected that all three children might have been sedated by the abductor. ''

So they had always suspected it. Yet did nothing. Kate claims they told the police that night. This is contradicted by her own husband, the police and the fact that it is completely absent from their statements

''I felt angry that the children had to go through this further insult.''


But it makes no difference really because IMO the PJ already had hair samples.