Red Flags

Hobs wrote:From Kate's diary

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THURSDAY, JULY 12: I hate the person who took my Madeleine—the same one who has caused all this trouble, who made us feel worthless and mistrustful and mainly who has frightened my beautiful Madeleine. I will never forgive that person/those people for this. 

Oh dear, she just can't help herself leak marbles can she?

Order is important

I hate the person who took my Madeleine—the same one who has caused all this trouble, who made us feel worthless and mistrustful

Here she tells us she hates the person (no gender specified despite the claims she was abducted by a man)
This is followed by the why she hates said person and here the order is important.

She hates the person because they made her and gerry feel worthless and mistrustful.


This is then followed by mainly:

Who has frightened Madeleine.

Surely the main reason you would hate someone in this situation is the frightened Madeleine, yet, here the main reason is the last reason.
Kate's personal main reasons, ie, those which she has placed first are worthless and mistrustful.


Yet again we see kate's priority is herself and how she is perceived by others rather than her missing daughter.


This is unexpected and concerning.


She blames the person for causing all this trouble.
This is close, that is distancing, she is close to all the trouble.
She doesn't tell us what this trouble is so we can't assume.


The trouble however is linked to them feeling worthless and mistrustful.


This would imply that their concern is not for Maddie's wellbeing or feelings but rather how the public perceives them which is as neglectful parents who put having a good time before their children.


Since the children were never left home alone in the first place (the absent adult each night) they had to claim neglect in order for there to be a window of opportunity for an abduction.


if there was no window of opportunity (the children were being babysat in one apartment) then there could not have been an abduction and if there was no abduction then the finger points right back at the parents in regard to harm befalling Maddie.


This was the lesser of two evils, neglect could be plea dealt down to a couple years or even probation, murder  is a whole different matter.


How can she claim mistrust when she and gerry happily dumped their remaining children in the creches every day or with sundry relatives as they gallivanted round the world.


If they were truly mistrustful, those twins would never have left their sight and no one even family would be trusted to look after them such would be the fear and worry of losing another one.


They would have become hypervigilant yet they weren't.

They remained as casual as before regarding the care of the twins, and, with all the relatives showing up, unlimited babysitters.



They had to be told to remove the twins from the creche due to the disruption being caused.


Sounds like they were anything but mistrustful.

But we have to remember that Kate's words are reflecting her situation at the time. She knew that M had not been abducted. She knew exactly what had happened. She knew that M had died and she knew exactly why .  You can almost hear the bitterness and hatred in  these words. But who is it really to? Bearing in mind, she knew the truth - who is she saying she hates? DP? She sounds like she is ventiong anger at someone in particular. But who?

I want to know who she is talking about when she says she will never forgive them -because that is the person responsible for the death.

HelenMeg wrote:I want to know who she is talking about when she says she will never forgive them -because that is the person responsible for the death.

Yes agree HelenMeg - and it is plural like alleged 'The f*ing b*stards' and the alleged 'they've taken her' statements.  And the alleged statement that 'a couple' had taken Madeleine.

And in my opinion it sounds like she knows who 'they' are.

when the word peodophile is used people associate it with men abusing children... the horrible truth is in this day and age woman are just has bad ...imo gerry mccann loved his daughter but kate didn't imo.. so why does he stay with her..

petunia wrote:when the word peodophile is used people associate it with men abusing children... the horrible truth is in this day and age woman are just has bad ...imo gerry mccann loved his daughter but kate didn't imo.. so why does he stay with her..

Gerry seemed very able to laugh his head off only days after his daughter disappeared (died, if you believe the cadaver dogs).

I have thought the same woofer,giving kates reactions heard by several others 'they've taken her" it has always struck me that someone in the group removed Madeleine before a time that Kate expected it to happen,missing out on her getting the chance to say her goodbyes.
Although I believe the smith sighting to be true(though using a decoy possibly), Russell missing at a crucial time raises a red flag for me. This paired with a witness sighting of a Portuguese looking woman dressed in.purple(not sure of the time though) that couldn't have been Jane as she was wearing a fleece hmm.

I also sometimes think that perhaps rather than Jane providing gerry with an alibi,could it be possible that she needed him to be her alibi,which he was reluctant to do.

Bellisa wrote:I have thought the same woofer,giving kates reactions heard by several others 'they've taken her" it has always struck me that someone in the group removed Madeleine before a time that Kate expected it to happen,missing out on her getting the chance to say her goodbyes.
Although I believe the smith sighting to be true(though using a decoy possibly), Russell missing at a crucial time raises a red flag for me. This paired with a witness sighting of a Portuguese looking woman dressed in.purple(not sure of the time though) that couldn't have been Jane as she was wearing a fleece hmm.

I also sometimes think that perhaps rather than Jane providing gerry with an alibi,could it be possible that she needed him to be her alibi,which he was reluctant to do.

In my opinion (regardless of this making no legal difference) Tanner picked Madeleine up from behind the couch and carried her through to the parents' bedroom out of immediate sight. In the Panorama documentary, JT slipped up and said 'I carried her' when describing how the 'abductor' was carrying Madeleine, coincidentally as if carrying a dead body rather than a live girl. Tanner slips immediately into the moment that she probably remembers most vividly, and says 'I', not 'he'.

I don't believe the Smith sighting was a decoy, I strongly believe that it was Gerry McCann disposing of his dead daughter. I don't believe that anyone but Gerry would carry out the disposal of the body.

Which one of these could Kate say without incriminating someone? If she was angry at Gerry for disposing of the body - and not knowing where the body had gone - would she say:

'Gerry's taken her!'

This would be swiftly followed by the immediate arrest of the entire group. So how about if we remove the name, and allow her to say:

'He's taken her!'

Raises immediate questions doesn't it? Who exactly is 'he' Mrs McCann, care to elaborate?

So instead we get:

'They've taken her!'

Kate can shout out her frustrations without pointing the finger at her husband.

Another point - the time when Kate was saying this is important. According to statements to the police, Kate was shouting this while in her room, and hitting the bed. Not when she allegedly raised the alarm. It was later on.

wlbts I forgot about that tanner interview,so yeah I agree its a plausible theory.
Given what tanner said about gerry being missing watching football and his reaction though im inclined to think that a removal occurred earlier than 9.30.
I thought there were other witnesses apart from the police statement saying that they heard 'they've taken her' also,can't remember who off the top of my head though.

Bellisa wrote:
Given what tanner said about gerry being missing watching football and his reaction though im inclined to think that a removal occurred earlier than 9.30.

I take his annoyance to be because of his obsession with the 'window of opportunity'.  They had gone to some lengths to imply that the abductor was in 5A during Gerry's 9:15 check.  If Gerry had actually been sat on the couch watching TV for some time, this window of opportunity becomes nonsense.  Their window of opportunity was incredibly small and precise - the abductor must have got out immediately after Gerry leaving 5A.  Aside from that, if Gerry had been gone for a 'long time', then both Tanner's and Gerry's accounts are false.

I do think that Gerry sat on the couch watching TV for some time, and didn't check the childrens' bedroom.  One of the handwritten timelines (the first to be written, in my opinion) states this:

'Jerry 9.10 - 9.15 in tv room + all well
                                    ? did he check'

So we have some bits of evidence to consider:

- Jane Tanner mentions Gerry being away from some time watching TV
- The first timeline says that Gerry was in the 'tv room'.
- The second timeline does not call it a 'tv room'

This, for me, conjures an image of Gerry saying that he was in the room watching TV for a bit and didn't hear anything.  At this point, the writer of the timeline does not know whether Gerry checked the bedroom.  The wording ('did he check') also indicates that Gerry was probably not present at the time the timeline was being concocted.

Which leaves me to wonder whether Madeleine could already have been dead or dying on the floor behind the couch while Gerry watched TV.  If that's the case, I hope Gerry still wonders about this to this day.

Furthermore, we don't know whether Gerry had just left 5A when he encountered Jeremy Wilkins, or whether he was just going in, which is what I believe.  Wilkins was insistent that his meeting with Gerry could have been earlier than Gerry had stated.  So Amaral's theory - that Maddie climbed up on the couch because she could hear Gerry talking outside, and then fell down - fits in nicely with my theory.  She could have fallen, hit her head, and lay dying when Gerry entered the apartment.

Bellisa wrote:
I thought there were other witnesses apart from the police statement saying that they heard 'they've taken her' also,can't remember who off the top of my head though.

None that I know of.  There are also no independent - i.e. non Tapas group - statements describing Kate's return to the Tapas to give the alert. Given that this would have been the key moment, I find it strange that nobody at the Tapas Bar can verify it. Therefore, I've come to the assumption that it didn't happen at all.

Something else I find suspicious is Matt Oldfield's insistence on checking 5A when it was Kate's turn to go.

I consider this classic substitution. I believe that Kate did go and check at 9:30, shortly after Gerry returned to the table, and that Matt Oldfield did not attempt to stop her and go in her place. I also believe that this story was concocted later on at the point when the group realised that they had no choice but to move the alert from 9:30 to 10:00, past the time of the Smith sighting.

whatliesbehindthesofa wrote:Something else I find suspicious is Matt Oldfield's insistence on checking 5A when it was Kate's turn to go.

I consider this classic substitution.  I believe that Kate did go and check at 9:30, shortly after Gerry returned to the table, and that Matt Oldfield did not attempt to stop her and go in her place.  I also believe that this story was concocted later on at the point when the group realised that they had no choice but to move the alert from 9:30 to 10:00, past the time of the Smith sighting.

Mmm...could be.  Your analysis has the ring of truth about it - especially since MO seems very uncomfortable in recounting his check visit.

I will add that there can only be one motivation to move the alert past the time of the Smith sighting - that the sighting was of someone known to the Tapas group.  Because if the sighting was of the 'abductor', there is no need to move the alert time, even though the abductor must have been wandering about mysteriously for a while for the timings to fit.  Still, whatever the abductor was up to, there would be no need to move the alert time, unless it was to give somebody an alibi.  Moving the alert time would have been very risky indeed, because independent witnesses could have contradicted the claimed time - and it was indeed contradicted, by several witnesses. So if it was that risky, there must have been a very good reason to do it indeed.

As I've previously mentioned, the first handwritten timeline states regarding Gerry's visit to 5A '? did he check', indicating that he was not present when the timeline was being concocted.  Also, I find the positioning of the question mark odd - why put it first?  I interpret that to mean that 'did he check' was a question to be asked on Gerry's return.

whatliesbehindthesofa wrote:I will add that there can only be one motivation to move the alert past the time of the Smith sighting - that the sighting was of someone known to the Tapas group.  Because if the sighting was of the 'abductor', there is no need to move the alert time, even though the abductor must have been wandering about mysteriously for a while for the timings to fit.  Still, whatever the abductor was up to, there would be no need to move the alert time, unless it was to give somebody an alibi.  Moving the alert time would have been very risky indeed, because independent witnesses could have contradicted the claimed time - and it was indeed contradicted, by several witnesses.  So if it was that risky, there must have been a very good reason to do it indeed.

As I've previously mentioned, the first handwritten timeline states regarding Gerry's visit to 5A '? did he check', indicating that he was not present when the timeline was being concocted.  Also, I find the positioning of the question mark odd - why put it first?  I interpret that to mean that 'did he check' was a question to be asked on Gerry's return.

I think the Smiths panicked Gerry big time, so yes, they had to move the alert time. Trouble was that the meeting with JW had to be stretched past 9 pm when it was probably around 8.45.
That's an interesting point about the timeline query, I think that those timelines were never meant to be given to the PJ. Although I read that they were 'given' to them. But why two?  Writing one timeline with corrections is already weird under the circumstances, two is beyond belief when the main issue at the time should be looking for the child, who had seen her last and at what time would be the only information needed. Which - seeing they were all there, should have taken less than a minute.
DW doesn't place Gerry at 5a  just after the alarm I believe.
She went with the others and Fiona snt her back to the Tapas. So that would have been the earlier 'alarm'.

Eta: DP produced several typed A4 sheets the following day, so that they all had a copy of the final and authorised timeline. They were most surprised that the PJ did not allow them to refer to them in the interview. Talk about singing from the same song sheet.   

whatliesbehindthesofa wrote:

frost wrote:The problem with a polygraph now is that they have told so many lies that they probably actually believe certain elements of what they have said as this version will have imprinted in their minds . I do not think so far down the line that a polygraph would be reliable , also there are issues with polygraph results as it is and research both for and against their reliabilty

I think the opposite of this.  Having lied for 7 years will ring bells in any polgraph test.  Heck, Kate doesn't even seem fully in control of the right side of her face now.  There is a tendency here to think of the McCanns as 'evil genuises'.  Neither of those two demonstrate any genius qualities.

I do agree with frost that their lies have become such real stories for them they would pass. Add to that they both know -or should I say "they should know" since they have shown not a lot of brilliancy in the medical field- exactly what drugs to take.Plus polygraphs are still not reliable enough.

jeanmonroe wrote:

canada12 wrote:And here's a link to that report by Chief Inspector Tavares de Almeida...

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Where he concludes, after analyzing all the evidence gathered, that the child is dead and the parents were responsible for cadaver occultation, and the entire GROUP was lying since the first day of the investigation.

Fascinating reading. Thanks PeterMac.

WHY haven't the McCanns, or the entire GROUP, SUED this chap?

Because he didn't make MONEY writing a book about them.


another red flag:

She is always happy when she speaks about who's at fault! on the tv interview (can't remember which one) she's saying the restaurant staff Made the abductor aware because they made notes that they needed a table because they were leaving the kids asleep. This wouldn't be something funny, this would have caused anger when talking about it, not grinning and taking the piss out of them.

I'd be crying my eyes out speaking about this

tigger wrote:
I think the Smiths panicked Gerry big time, so yes, they had to move the alert time. Trouble was that the meeting with JW had to be stretched past 9 pm when it was probably around 8.45.
That's an interesting point about the timeline query, I think that those timelines were never meant to be given to the PJ. Although I read that they were 'given' to them. But why two?  Writing one timeline with corrections is already weird under the circumstances, two is beyond belief when the main issue at the time should be looking for the child, who had seen her last and at what time would be the only information needed. Which - seeing they were all there, should have taken less than a minute.
DW doesn't place Gerry at 5a  just after the alarm I believe.
She went with the others and Fiona snt her back to the Tapas. So that would have been the earlier 'alarm'.

Eta: DP produced several typed A4 sheets the following day, so that they all had a copy of the final and authorised timeline. They were most surprised that the PJ did not allow them to refer to them in the interview. Talk about singing from the same song sheet.   

Yes, that they gave both handwritten timelines to the police is telling. If they had intended to give a timeline at that point they would have given one, not two. The fact that they gave two says to me that the police saw them, and asked for them.

The reason for two timelines seems clear to me from what I've said earlier - that Gerry was not present during the writing of the first one, and the second one is the agreed version of events, agreed with Gerry with present.

whatliesbehindthesofa wrote:

In my opinion (regardless of this making no legal difference) Tanner picked Madeleine up from behind the couch and carried her through to the parents' bedroom out of immediate sight.  In the Panorama documentary, JT slipped up and said 'I carried her' when describing how the 'abductor' was carrying Madeleine, coincidentally as if carrying a dead body rather than a live girl.  Tanner slips immediately into the moment that she probably remembers most vividly, and says 'I', not 'he'.

If the body was ever moved between 5J and 5A, where might it stop off at?

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Clay Regazzoni wrote:
If the body was ever moved between 5J and 5A, where might it stop off at?

I don't think it was, the cadaver/blood dogs only detected in 5A. There is evidence that a body was behind the couch of 5A, and near or inside the bottom of the wardrobe in the parents' bedroom. There's no evidence to show that the body was ever in 5J.

Red flag
the fact that the MCs and their children did not join the rest of the Tapas on the beach for the afteroon of 3rd May.
No mention of anyone asking them to come or even looking for them.
The T7 wanted to distance themselves and their children from the MCs and Ocean Club that afternoon.

From Kates diary:
"Since Ella was taken from the KC → beach. I was a little worried that she was sad to have been alone. (Not realised that the group had gone to the beach.)"

dantezebu wrote:Red flag
the fact that the MCs and their children did not join the rest of the Tapas on the beach for the afteroon of 3rd May.
No mention of anyone asking them to come or even looking for them.
The T7 wanted to distance themselves and their children from the MCs and Ocean Club that afternoon.

From Kates diary:
"Since Ella was taken from the KC → beach. I was a little worried that she was sad to have been alone. (Not realised that the group had gone to the beach.)"

No, I just think that they weren't at the Ocean Club in the afternoon, not that they wanted to distance themselves from it. I haven't seen any evidence of deliberate distancing. However, it is clear that none of the McCanns took part in the activities of the rest of the group that afternoon.

Some take this to mean that Maddie was already dead at this point. I don't - it could just as easily have been caused by McCann marital problems.

whatliesbehindthesofa wrote:

dantezebu wrote:Red flag
the fact that the MCs and their children did not join the rest of the Tapas on the beach for the afteroon of 3rd May.
No mention of anyone asking them to come or even looking for them.
The T7 wanted to distance themselves and their children from the MCs and Ocean Club that afternoon.

From Kates diary:
"Since Ella was taken from the KC → beach. I was a little worried that she was sad to have been alone. (Not realised that the group had gone to the beach.)"

No, I just think that they weren't at the Ocean Club in the afternoon, not that they wanted to distance themselves from it.  I haven't seen any evidence of deliberate distancing.  However, it is clear that none of the McCanns took part in the activities of the rest of the group that afternoon.

Some take this to mean that Maddie was already dead at this point.  I don't - it could just as easily have been caused by McCann marital problems.

They were on a group holiday.
They were going to the beach as a group but they didn't tell or ask two members to join them?

dantezebu wrote:
They were on a group holiday.
They were going to the beach as a group but they didn't tell or ask two members to join them?

As I said in my previous post, perhaps they were having marital problems.  If they were fighting, they would be best left alone.

whatliesbehindthesofa wrote:

dantezebu wrote:
They were on a group holiday.
They were going to the beach as a group but they didn't tell or ask two members to join them?

Like I said in my previous post, perhaps they were having marital problems.  If they were fighting, they would be best left alone.

What eveidence do you have they were fighting?

dantezebu wrote:
What eveidence do you have they were fighting?

I'm not trying to prove that they were.  I'm pointing out that the beach group were not necessarily distancing themselves from the Ocean Club, and that there could have been other reasons not to include the McCanns in their activities.

You said that it was a red flag.  I don't consider it a red flag, as there can be perfectly innocent explanations for the afternoon activities.

whatliesbehindthesofa wrote:

dantezebu wrote:
What eveidence do you have they were fighting?

I'm not trying to prove that they were.  I'm pointing out that the beach group were not necessarily distancing themselves from the Ocean Club, and that there could have been other reasons not to include the McCanns in their activities.

You said that it was a red flag.  I don't consider it a red flag, as there can be perfectly innocent explanations for the afternoon activities.

Any change in routine or behaviour is a red flag