Why Parents who Kill the Their Children may not be Prosecuted and Why the McCanns Won't Be

Posted by Pat Brown on her blog:

There are two kinds of parents of responsible for their missing and murdered children when it comes to prosecution: careless and careful, unsympathetic and sympathetic.

Careless and unsympathetic parents get charged with the crime because a) the evidence is clear, and b) a jury will hate them. For example, a meth-using five time felon beats the living crap out of his little baby girl while the mother is at work. The girlfriend comes home and finds her mashed up child barely breathing and rushes her to the hospital where she dies. The father claims at the hospital, that the one-year-old got out the door of the apartment and fell down the steps. However, all the damage is consistent with being beaten and x-rays show previous damage to the child's body. Police arrest the creep and he is found guilty in a court of law.

Parents of a missing a murdered child who are more careful to cover-up after the crime and a bit more sympathetic don't get charged with a crime because a) the evidence is not totally clear, and b) a jury won't necessarily hate them. In other words, unless there is overwhelming evidence of guilt - overwhelming - no prosecutor will take the case to court and have a jury not be totally convinced of the guilt of the parent or parents; after all, imagining condemning the innocent mother and father of a missing a murdered child to prison, further torturing the victims of a crime, and taking them away from their remaining children so that they effectively not only lose one child to the crime but all of them. And think about the remaining children; they not only would lose a sibling, but then their parents as well.

,
Sabrina Eisenburg, Lisa Irwin, Gabriel Johnson are still missing and many do not think they were abducted by strangers. These children have never been seen again and their bodies have never been found. The Eisenburgs claim their daughter was taken from her crib although there is no proof of an abduction. The Eisenburgs were never charged. Baby Lisa went missing from her crib. Her parents were never charged in spite of the fact cadaver dogs hit in their house. Gabriel Johnson's mother actually told the father of her little boy that she killed the baby and threw him in a dumpster. Later, she told the police that she actually gave the baby away to a couple in the park. In spite of the confession to the father of the child and the fact there is no evidence of an abduction, Elizabeth Johnson (a pretty woman who came across as a stressed and emotionally disturbed mother) has not been charged with the murder of her child; she got five years for custodial interference and unlawful imprisonment and she was released from prison in 2014.

And this is why the McCanns won't be charged with any crime, even neglect. Rarely is a parent of a missing child charged with neglect because, even if it is true, the police and many in the public feel they have already received enough punishment for their carelessness; their child has been kidnapped or murdered. As for the McCanns being prosecuted for the death of their child, barring an incredible miracle in the evidence department, the McCanns fall into the second category, a) the evidence is not totally clear, and b) a jury won't necessarily hate them.

First, let's look at the evidence for prosecution: the dog evidence is not admissible in court without something else to support it. So, there is no proof Madeleine died in the apartment. And, since there has been no body found, there is no proof the child is dead at all. There is no witness sighting of either of the McCanns removing the child from the apartment or disposing of her body. The Smith sighting is of a man who COULD be Gerry McCann, not proof that it was Gerry McCann. Neither of the parents have confessed and none of the others in the Tapas group have implicated them in harming their daughter or disposing of her body. So just as their is no solid proof of an abduction, there is no solid proof of the McCanns involvement in their daughter going missing. This does not mean there aren't many pieces of evidence that make them good suspects; my profile of the case includes many facts which support their involvement in what happened to Maddie. But, a profile (which is an analysis of facts) is not equivalent to the level of proof needed to prosecute someone for a crime.

Secondly, putting one's feelings about the McCanns aside, let's look at the couple in the eyes of the jury. The McCanns are not the scum of society; they are not welfare abusing, unemployed druggies who live in the slums, and have seven other children they neglect and abuse. What the jury will see are a respectable couple who are both doctors, who give their time to worthwhile projects, and one of them is even an ambassador for missing children. They have worked night and day to find their missing daughter (a defense attorney will make this seem true), went through the the process of setting up a fund to finance private investigators, and begged the government to sent in Scotland Yard to investigate the case. They have taken excellent care of the other two children (barring the one horrible night where their one poor parenting choice led to their daughter going missing). They have the support of their family, friends, and many in the governement, so they are upstanding citizens, people the jury can relate to.

So, without that absolute proof that the McCanns did something to Maddie, the jury is not going to take the risk of wrongly imprisoning an innocent mother and father, further punishing a suffering set of parents and leaving Maddie's brother and sister effectively orphaned. Even I, after having studied all the facts of the case and having traveled to Praia da Luz to analyze the area of the crime scene, and even after having written a profile which identifies Gerry and Kate McCann as the top suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, would have to find the McCanns "not guilty" in a court of law.

There is a big difference in believing someone has committed a crime and proving it. Scotland Yard can't prove Maddie was really abducted and we can't prove that she wasn't. Scotland Yard can give their profile of the crime, you can give yours, I can give mine....but, in the end, no one will be able to prove anything because there simply isn't enough evidence to do so, and, this case, like many other cases of missing and murdered children will remain unprosecuted.

The truth may come to light sometime in the far future and I hope it does. But barring a miraculous appearance of new evidence that will allow someone to be taken to prosecution, we will have to settle for documenting the case for posterity and hope that all of our efforts - Goncalo Amaral's, mine, and everyone who put so much time into studying and publicizing the case - will have done some good.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
May 2, 2016

http://patbrownprofiling.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/why-parents-who-kill-their-children-may.html?m=1

@Pat Brown---"the dog evidence is not admissible in court without something else to support it."

You mean like blood drops, DNA, blood, and bodily fluids all in the same spots where the dogs hit?

Just three words...

Poor,poor Madeleine.

The Eisenburg case is another weird 'abduction'. Has any one else viewed their inteviews, and noticed how alike they are to the McCanns, even words used, it really is odd?

whodunit wrote:@Pat Brown---"the dog evidence is not admissible in court without something else to support it."

You mean like blood drops, DNA, blood, and bodily fluids all in the same spots where the dogs hit?

@whodunit. I have never ever completely understood why the forensic results were dismissed, other than it being a complete cover up due to the change in the report & then the closing of FSS! Weren't samples even destroyed? 

Interesting that OG used cadaver dogs to search the 'bunglars' car... If they were that 'unreliable' & anything found is not admissible,  then why bother!?

MayMuse wrote:

whodunit wrote:@Pat Brown---"the dog evidence is not admissible in court without something else to support it."

You mean like blood drops, DNA, blood, and bodily fluids all in the same spots where the dogs hit?

@whodunit. I have never ever completely understood why the forensic results were dismissed, other than it being a complete cover up due to the change in the report & then the closing of FSS! Weren't samples even destroyed? 

Interesting that OG used cadaver dogs to search the 'bunglars' car... If they were that 'unreliable' & anything found is not admissible,  then why bother!?

They can't deny that forensic evidence was obtained from the spots where the dogs hit--blood under the tiles and bodily fluids in the hire car, for instance---the hold up comes from the fact that FSS 'couldn't be sure' the DNA belonged to MBM. First it was 'definitely' hers, then it wasn't.

Yes, samples were destroyed. We don't know but we can hope that the PJ retained some of the samples. If not, that is carrying deference and naivety to new levels.

MayMuse wrote:The Eisenburg case is another weird 'abduction'. Has any one else viewed their inteviews, and noticed how alike they are to the McCanns, even words used, it really is odd?

Privilege. Pat Brown is right about one thing: some parents never have to face up to what they do to their children.

http://www.sptimes.com/News/091001/Sabrina/Bugged.shtml

A lot of negativity from Pat Brown but I don't think we give up that easily.

I believe Portugal has some stand-alone evidence which we don't know what that might be.

I also think they have samples that they kept which can be analysed.

I wonder if the cadaver odour detected by the dog could be scientifically backed up?
Gerry saying dogs are incredibly unreliable, or words to that effect, was the most stupid thing I have heard.

The UK could have helped by supplying Madeleine's medical records and also Gerry's card details.

The McCanns immediately set up a Fund which was to search for Madeleine and a figure of 13% has been quoted as the share of the Fund used to search. The rest has been used to hire lawyers and private investigators who weren't specialists in searching for people. With no trace of Madeleine, this Fund could go on indefinitely. The direction the money was supposed to go was changed and their mortgage was paid a couple of times and family expenses was included. People thought they were donating their money to help search for Madeleine when , in fact , the vast majority of their donations has gone in legal fees.

I'm looking forward to GA taking the McCanns to court.

Doom and gloom forecast.

But I have to say I agree with her in this instance, if only on this in particular -  "As for the McCanns being prosecuted for the death of their child, barring an incredible miracle in the evidence department, the McCanns fall into the second category, a) the evidence is not totally clear, and b) a jury won't necessarily hate them."

I agree they wont be prosecuted if Prosecutor has no airtight irrefutable evidence to carry weight in court.

Some of the technical evidence related points she made there I don't agree with, too simplistic.

I feel a bit uncomfortable with the way Pat Brown links herself together with people like Amaral and says she has read all the evidence. Not all the files were realeased so she knows as much as the rest of us here.

  I also think she contradicts herself by talking about sympathetic and unsympathetic parents and then saying it's all down to the evidence...so if how they behave / are viewed is not relevent then why mention it?

MayMuse wrote:

whodunit wrote:@Pat Brown---"the dog evidence is not admissible in court without something else to support it."

You mean like blood drops, DNA, blood, and bodily fluids all in the same spots where the dogs hit?

@whodunit. I have never ever completely understood why the forensic results were dismissed, other than it being a complete cover up due to the change in the report & then the closing of FSS! Weren't samples even destroyed? 

Interesting that OG used cadaver dogs to search the 'bunglars' car... If they were that 'unreliable' & anything found is not admissible,  then why bother!?

The dna found was dismmised because it was inconclusive, it didn't prove that anyone died or had been significantly harmed. The dna that matched Madeleine in some places was a small amount that could be explained by being transferred on clothing or other objects. Police still use the dogs because of the possibility of it leading to conclusive dna, hairs, blood whatever. It was the McCanns that said the dogs were unreliable, not the police. If the areas indicated by the dogs had much more dna, or hairs from a body it might have been different and not really something that could be explained or defended.

ChippyM wrote:

MayMuse wrote:

whodunit wrote:@Pat Brown---"the dog evidence is not admissible in court without something else to support it."

You mean like blood drops, DNA, blood, and bodily fluids all in the same spots where the dogs hit?

@whodunit. I have never ever completely understood why the forensic results were dismissed, other than it being a complete cover up due to the change in the report & then the closing of FSS! Weren't samples even destroyed? 

Interesting that OG used cadaver dogs to search the 'bunglars' car... If they were that 'unreliable' & anything found is not admissible,  then why bother!?

The dna found was dismmised because it was inconclusive, it didn't prove that anyone died or had been significantly harmed. The dna that matched Madeleine in some places was a small amount that could be explained by being transferred on clothing or other objects. Police still use the dogs because of the possibility of it leading to conclusive dna, hairs, blood whatever. It was the McCanns that said the dogs were unreliable, not the police. If the areas indicated by the dogs had much more dna, or hairs from a body it might have been different and not really something that could be explained or defended.

Cadaver dogs hits + blood, hairs, and DNA is about as good as it gets when it comes to a murder case with no body.

The DNA that 'could be explained by being transferred on clothing or other objects' is strictly a defense argument. Common sense says DNA in the exact spot where a cadaver dog hit means only one thing, especially given the lack of evidence that anyone else had died in the apartment and MBM is the only person missing. [this is without getting into the 'bodily fluids' found in the MCCANNS hire car]

The 'inconclusive' nature of the DNA tests came about AFTER they were  "100 per cent match".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1562710/Madeleine-McCann-DNA-an-accurate-match.html


 People have been convicted of murder on much less evidence.

ChippyM wrote:I feel a bit uncomfortable with the way Pat Brown links herself together with people like Amaral and says she has read all the evidence. Not all the files were realeased so she knows as much as the rest of us here.

  I also think she contradicts herself by talking about sympathetic and unsympathetic parents and then saying it's all down to the evidence...so if how they behave / are viewed is not relevent then why mention it?

I get the impression that she hasn't read all the evidence and I said a short time ago I didn't think she was up to speed. I feel her direction has changed over the last year.Do I detect an American version of Sonia?