Greg Jones: Patterns on the wall in Apartment 5a

February 02, 2020    

Patterns on the Wall


Of all the pictures I have seen related to the Maddie case, this one taken from excellent Just Five Hours in May blog is I think the most shocking.

Until reading this blog I, like I suspect many of you had thought that the most likely scenario for Maddie's death was that she had been given something to make her drowsy but had one evening thrown this off and with her parents missing had climbed on the back of the sofa , perhaps hearing voices outside, then fallen awkwardly and perhaps cracked her skull or died on her own vomit or something like  that.

The author of the above blog argues, to my mind highly convincingly that this type of scenario is  very difficult to reconcile with the widespread spatter pattern formed by the tiny traces of DNA found behind the sofa once Eddie and Keela had alerted forensics to search in that area.

Team McCann, assisted most prominently I think by Prime Minister Gordon Brown managed to put up an astounding barrage of misinformation and propaganda to convince a sufficient part of the population to allow their political protectors to get them off the hook from what must have seemed to Amaral and his team slam dunk guilt.

The above blog goes into the matter in meticulous detail and is well worth reading but I think the photo/diagram alone shows the key point.  If you just have an awkward fall from the back of the sofa, there seems to be no way for such an extensive spatter pattern to be generated.  What the author argues is that the pattern was most likely generated by a forlorn attempt at a CPR, most probably performed by cardiologist Gerry McCann.  He again to my mind plausibly argues that the most plausible trigger for this would be for one of them (most probably Kate) to administer a drug to which Maddie had a rare but unfortunate anaphylactic shock reaction.  In the UK around 10 people per annum are thought to die from anaphylactic shock reactions to a medical intervention so this is a rare thing but not unheard of.  Such a reaction can kill people within 5 minutes with blood being sent to tissues such as the lungs.  If it happens at a hospital or doctors surgery there would normally be a life saving injection on hand, but this is unlikely to be available at home and especially on holiday.  A typical reaction would be coronary/respiratory problems and possible collapse, but if the problem was too far advanced all this might do is  force the blood and fluids that had accumulated in the lungs to be forced out of the child's mouth and nose AT PRESSURE, potentially leaving a wide spatter pattern as seen.

Unlike a typical fall this type of problem is likely to potentially result in irretrievable death that would be easy for trained doctors to identify, implying that calling emergency services would be futile.

Besides what was found in Appartment 5a, it is also interesting to realise WHAT WAS NOT FOUND.  Amongst the items that one might have expected but was absent was any first aid kit or medical supplies.  For regular parents of 3 young kids, this might be considered unusual and somewhat irresponsible.  For parents who are both doctors taking three  young kids on holiday, it is in my view VERY SURPRISING and DEEPLY SUSPICIOUS, given that as discussed above it seems highly plausible that Maddie may have had a shock reaction caused by some inappropriate medical intervention administered by one of the parents.

https://patternsinthesand.blogspot.com/2020/02/patterns-on-wall.html?fbclid=IwAR1wzOxCP-Pic5Se9JQAvK7IMXwPwna5921HpJLysL6QAqc7LwKP04yNtt4

The red lines are arbitrary.

And I don't believe all the "splashes" were found to be Madeline's or potential Madeleine.

We have to keep this real.

The dogs found blood and cadaverine there... no need to exaggerate it.

Correct.

We shouldn't forget about the blood splatters of the kamikaze mosquitoes that Phil McCann reported.

There was a report (shall have to find the link) that the splatters were cerebral fluids and indicative of a broken neck.

The Greg Jones version is the same as my own conclusion immediately after MMC's "abduction". Anaesthetics was the clue IMO. 

I even shared my unsolicited opinion three months or so later with Colin Sutton whom I did not know from Adam in a drinks session on the executive floor of a hotel in Addis Ababa. He then informed me who he was (I did not even understand the difference between SY and the Met until he explained that to me), stated that there was no evidence to support my theory, and referred me to the Milly Dowler case). 

I was interested to then read that MD's murder was first and incorrectly as it turned out, pinned on the parents for two whole weeks. I wonder if Sutton had that awful mistake on his mind when they looked outside the family rather than inside, the reverse of the Dowler case. 





I think he might have told me he in Addis to set up CCTV or show people how to do that (but my memory might be wrong and that could have been the man from the US who was in the group also). 

I have not wavered from my original diagnosis (no pun intended) although I have never been able to work out, or agree with others, on the why and how of the involvement of the UK government. Nor can I explain why none of Madeleine's DNA or m-DNA was found in the apartment. Possibly there is a story here related to the Lab in Manchester.

I am convinced that cerebral fluids were expelled from the lungs aided by CPR pressure. If only they had called out for adrenalin. 

This scenario also explains the bruises on Kate's arms as if she were being restrained from behind by Person A as Person B was working on Madeleine.

The Tapas 6 (not 7), David Payne first, then got involved in moving the body and cleaning up the apartment in that order. My next hypothesis is that Madeleine's body first went to Payne's apartment.

My interpretation of events extends to the photo referred to as the Lolita photo which I do not believe was supposed to have any sexual overtones at all (but does appear to). Verdi has encouraged me to share my thoughts on that photo and I will do so at some later stage as I don't think I can cope with the derision that might succeed it or my own perceived insensitivity if I am wrong.

PS to previous posting. 

The Person A and Person B scenario was my view when I first observed the extensive bruising on KM in photos just after "abduction day". 

Although my hypothesis is as described in previous posting, I have had to change one element of my suggested scenario in the light of the bruising. Revised scenario has Kate as the one doing the CPR and Gerry pulling her away after it became clear that M was dead and Kate was either clutching her body in grief or not stopping the CPR even though all was lost. You don't have to be a cardiologist to do the resuscitation. Explains cadaverine on Kate's clothes and Snuggle Cat (clutched by M from when falling over as she got up from the dining room chair) but not on Gerry's clothes. 

Also supports my position (and that of a few others) stated earlier on this forum that Madeleine was not wearing PJs at the time of her demise but was wearing day clothes - that T-shirt with evidence of cadaverine also referred to elsewhere.

The charade of holding up PJs and telling stories about them was a ploy to implant in our minds the image of a little girl asleep being taken from her bed, not to mention the dramatic telling of the tea stain story.

How Gerry, Kate and David could go to dinner looking and sounding normal is beyond me. Same for the other Tapas (those who knew - probably the guys who were either bathing kids or being sick themselves) when they came back to the table after dealing with whatever they were doing in the apartments. But did not some waiter say that nobody left the table.

According to this scenario, the story of the PJs that led to so much speculation (Tanner, K & G's tour etc etc) was another example of the McCanns' success with red herrings. 

Btw, Greg should teach Physics. The way he explains the velocity/impact of a falling body from various heights in terms of bicycle accidents is great. It is a great response to those who have not read much about the case and agree with the version that has M climbing up on the sofa to hear Daddy's voice outside. Especially the bit about falling backwards and hitting her head and why that would not cause blood spatters all over the place because wound is under the head. 

Of course my hypothesis (as opposed theory) is likely to be shot down by some on this forum who are cleverer than I, but all I am doing is trying to work out the why and how before I die. Of course I care about a little girl called Madeleine but I want to understand better how parents and children in such situations go to be so. 

I don't think this case is like the Jon Benet Ramsey case or the Azaria Chamberlain case or the Milly Dowler case et al. I think it is more like the William Tyrell case in Australia where the journalists and some police and a certain detective go way beyond their powers to inform us of who is/are not in the guilty picture.

PPS: Sorry gang but I am making typing errors in my rush to get back to a report I am supposed to have completed by now...
In my first posting when I referred to the Milly Dowler case I should have written "that MD's murder was.." should have been followed by the police concentrating on the father (i.e. inside the family) rather than looking outside (which turned out to be the true version).
Which could explain why Sutton did the reverse in the MMC case. 
Not that his position now is as it was then.

I am wondering if he was in Addis Ababa not long after "the abduction" because he was investigating the theory that MMC had been kidnapped and taken to/sold in northern Africa (?)

The dogs alerted to Human cadaverine and Human blood.
This indicates a body lay behind the sofa for a time.
If the person in question died there, then this time must be in excess of 90 minutes, and probably longer.
The parents would not have attempted resuscitation on a body which had been dead for 2 hours.   The changes in the first 2 hours are rapid, as anyone with experience knows. 
A parent, in this case a mother, would probably have held the body tightly against her, in her grief. This is normal behaviour.  Cadaverine and blood (from a small head wound ?) would be transferred during this process.

It is not necessary to invent hypotheses around blood spots. They may be explicable once the full story is known, but do not of themselves take us much further.  IMHO

Apply Occams' Razor
Go for the simplest and most believable explanation.
Climbed on the sofa, fell down the back, unable to break the fall because the narrowness of the gap restricts the use of arms, strikes head, suffers small laceration to scalp, and severe sub-arachnoid haemorrhage, begins to die.
Parents return late, after a good first full night with their friends and celebrating having had a wonderful day of activity with all the children, enter quietly, sneak into their bedroom and go to bed.
They wake and find Madeline dead behind the sofa, stiff, cold and 'leaking'.
Mother overcome with grief, father goes into full professional mode and makes ONE bad decision – to conceal the body in the blue tennis bag on the shelf in the bedroom wardrobe
and so it starts.

I do not know if this is what happened.
I believe it is simple, credible, and fits the available evidence

The bad decision may have been made purely on the basis that they remember they had not actually checked the children on their return from the restaurant, perhaps only opened the door a bit, and listened.
And that they would be exposed as having left them alone from 8pm to 1am, and that in addition to the wine on the bill in the Tapas bar and on the till roll at the bar after the meal there was at least another empty wine bottle in the apartment.

Doctors have an almost unlimited capacity for alcohol.  Within the profession it is said that the only universally recognised definition of an alcoholic is one who drinks more than his GP.
But the Tabloid press and the GMC might not be so forgiving to two doctors when alcohol, abandonment of a child and a death coincide

That is such a good post Peter, although extremely sad...but entirely credible.

And, of course, if the mother held Maddie in the morning which caused transference of the cadaverine that would account for the odour on the red tshirt which Sean was seen wearing if she dressed him before changing her clothes.

The curtains were floor reaching..



I'm presuming here that the curtains were lifted by the forensic team, as it's not normal in my experience for curtains to be tucked on a window ledge..



Understanding police due diligence, the question remains - if the marks on the wall emanated from the body of Madeleine McCann, how did they get through the curtain. Or is it assumed the McCanns left the curtains open when they were out dining, even then the curtains would have afforded a degree of wall coverage.

I am in complete agreement with PeterMac, up to a point. I'm sure it happened by Madeleine falling from the sofa and banging her head.

It's the when it happened that puzzles me. The point Verdi made about the curtains got me thinking it must have been sometime during daylight hours.

Then again, Madeleine must have laid there for the required amount of time, for the cadaverine to be detected by the dog.

Why do we assume the curtains were closed ?  
even if we worry about the marks on the walls, then
if they had been open then we might expect them to protect only two areas of the wall.
And when we look at the photo that is EXACTLY what we see,

The net curtain also reached the floor, give or take a few inches. Is it a myth that Kate washed the curtains, if she did wash the curtains, was it the net ones she washed.

Blood on the curtains

Later at the Ocean Club, the use of the dogs ended up triggering a turnaround in the investigation.

As Sol could discover, the dogs detected cadaver odour behind a couch in the apartment’s living room, close to a window that leads to the resort’s back area.

This window had curtains that were removed and analysed by police, and a small blood sample was detected. Both the curtains and the wall where it was located at, had been washed.

If the information that the Irish citizen gave to Sol three months ago is confirmed, the child was wearing pink pyjamas, and Smith noticed no blood stains. Whatever happened to Maddie, didn’t provoke a large bloodshed.

https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2008/01/madeleine-mccann-facts-in-beginning.html
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Saturday, October 25, 2014

Let's Talk about Curtains
Anyone who works in a lab that tests hotel bedspreads from a crime scene can tell you that they may find dozens and dozens of DNA samples on just one item, perhaps even semen from more than two dozen men. Why is this? Because hotels don't wash bedspreads very often.

Now, let's talk about curtains. How often do you think curtains in rental flats are washed? Yeah, about as often as those hotel bedspreads; actually, probably far less often because curtains are not usually a place where spilled drinks and food, vomit, pee, or semen tend to land. Unless those curtains get really disgusting (full of cigarette smoke, for example), they probably hang around without getting a wash for quite a long while.

And while they are hanging around, they are touched quite often.....open, close, open, close, open, close. So, if you want to find a location in a rental unit that might still have a lot of DNA from a number of people, you just might choose the curtains.

After, you test them, you would then have to run down everyone who ever stayed in the unit (and their friends who visited) and all the employees who might have entered the room in order to exclude anyone who have had reason to be there. You could then try to match the DNA to known criminals if you have their DNA or their DNA is in a data bank.

Of course, in the end, if you still have some DNA that can't be matched to anyone, you can always suspect that mysterious DNA be the calling card of some unknown person who committed some terrible crime that happened in that location.

Just saying.


Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

https://patbrownprofiling.blogspot.com/2014/10/lets-talk-about-curtains.html

I agree that  the curtains wouldn't be washed regularly, if at all, during the holiday season. The net curtain could be washed and be dry in a short space of time though. They could even be hung back up straight out of the washer.

Also of interest is the rectangular area on the floor where tiles were lifted by forensic team. Indications of seepage of blood were reported. 

I will have another go at describing what I imagine happened and that takes account of the curtains, tiles, splatter patterns, medication, daylight, blood/DNA, who had cadaverine detected on them, bruised arms etc.

Curtains open when incident occurred. Daytime. Gerry and Kate both in the apartment at the time or maybe just Kate, and Gerry arrived soon after or during the incident. 

Madeleine's legs seen/discovered pointing out from behind sofa diagonally and maybe butting the short wall. Cuddle cat with Madeleine when she went into shock and finished up on the floor. Before that she was sitting at the dining room table having a snack (milk and biscuits??). The greatest height she fell from was a dining/kitchen chair. You can have reaction to the drug just a few seconds or minutes after the injection -- swelling, difficulty breathing etc. Obvious symptoms even for a non-medico. 

I think the fluid was from pulmonary oedema. Lungs were madly swelling with blood pressure built up. There could even have been gastro-intestinal fluid. It doesn't always come from the brain. 

Gerry or Kate or both on the scene OR just one of them, the one who noticed the feet pointing out and started the CPR or other appropriate action on Madeleine, called out to the other. Alternatively, s/he proceeded alone and then the other partner walked in on the drama that was unfolding. The other who IMO was Gerry tried to drag Kate away from Madeleine's body after CPR was deemed to have failed. 

Cadaverine was detected on Kate's clothes including the herringbone pants. Cadaverine also detected on a red T-shirt said to have belonged to Sean but worn by Madeleine. This was before usual bed time so no PJs. No cadaverine detected on Gerry. Maybe he was not there at all but somebody else was, a male Tapas 7 with cadaverine has been mentioned somewhere, I think.

The dreadful bruises on Kate's upper arms and wrists look as if she had been dragged away from behind.  

Blood on tiles from back of head pooling near the rectangle but not matched to Madeleine 100% - but could have belonged to any one of her children given its m-DNA. But father's genetic material is not in m-DNA. 

Fluid splatter on walls but missing in the stripe where the curtains would have been hanging, as per PeterMac's diagram. Either the curtains were pulled up out of the way so that Gerry/Kate/other could manage their CPR without the floating bottom of the curtains and/or G/K/other wanted to make sure that they were not seen through the window.

The trajectory of fluid from lungs/gastro would be different from blood. Very little blood. Lots of other fluid. Messy. 

Given how people have proposed that Kate was guilty of something and had been on the verge of confessing, it seems to me that Kate administered the anaesthetic and Kate dealt with the trauma of Madeleine's response, giving CPR etc. Gerry has the power over Kate now.

I do not subscribe to the view that Madeleine's demise was caused by a fall from the top of the sofa or even from the window-sill. Lots of children have been in that situation..they might have cracked their skull and lived and not spurted fluid from lungs and other organs. 


The scenario I have described could have been earlier than May 3. 

Also, the scenario is no more complicated than the popular one about falling. It is more likely that K and G would want to cover up the anaphylaxis from a child's reaction to an anaesthetic much more so than a child falling off a sofa or window sill. 

You might ask why did Kate not know that M was allergic to that anaesthetic - well maybe it was a first time - like near the beginning of the holiday or on 2 or 3 May because she needed to calm down her overwrought child after/while her husband had been flirting (the night before?) or while her husband was glued to the tennis court. (Others have said that he only pretended he wanted to play tennis 24/7 but that is another story; at least he or his buddies could use the blue bag). )  

His buddies then came into the picture to sterilise the apartment and to move M's body from wardrobe after the police left, having viewed K and G's Arab act on their bed, no doubt to distract the police from something going on or from significant clothes sitting on the bed under them. 

In summary, the things about which this lady is not for turning are (i) anaesthetic, anaphylaxis, pulmonary or gastro fluid; (ii) not  a fall from couch or window-sill; (iii) daytime incident. 

Please excuse the odd typo or repetition.

You must include at least 90 minutes for the body to lie on the floor behind the sofa.
90 minute is the absolute scientific minimum.

It is that alert by the cadaverine dog which puts caused difficulties for so many of the elaborate scenarios.

PeterMac wrote:The dogs alerted to Human cadaverine and Human blood.
This indicates a body lay behind the sofa for a time.
If the person in question died there, then this time must be in excess of 90 minutes, and probably longer.
The parents would not have attempted resuscitation on a body which had been dead for 2 hours.   The changes in the first 2 hours are rapid, as anyone with experience knows. 
A parent, in this case a mother, would probably have held the body tightly against her, in her grief. This is normal behaviour.  Cadaverine and blood (from a small head wound ?) would be transferred during this process.

It is not necessary to invent hypotheses around blood spots. They may be explicable once the full story is known, but do not of themselves take us much further.  IMHO

Apply Occams' Razor
Go for the simplest and most believable explanation.
Climbed on the sofa, fell down the back, unable to break the fall because the narrowness of the gap restricts the use of arms, strikes head, suffers small laceration to scalp, and severe sub-arachnoid haemorrhage, begins to die.
Parents return late, after a good first full night with their friends and celebrating having had a wonderful day of activity with all the children, enter quietly, sneak into their bedroom and go to bed.
They wake and find Madeline dead behind the sofa, stiff, cold and 'leaking'.
Mother overcome with grief, father goes into full professional mode and makes ONE bad decision – to conceal the body in the blue tennis bag on the shelf in the bedroom wardrobe
and so it starts.

I do not know if this is what happened.
I believe it is simple, credible, and fits the available evidence

The bad decision may have been made purely on the basis that they remember they had not actually checked the children on their return from the restaurant, perhaps only opened the door a bit, and listened.
And that they would be exposed as having left them alone from 8pm to 1am, and that in addition to the wine on the bill in the Tapas bar and on the till roll at the bar after the meal there was at least another empty wine bottle in the apartment.

Doctors have an almost unlimited capacity for alcohol.  Within the profession it is said that the only universally recognised definition of an alcoholic is one who drinks more than his GP.
But the Tabloid press and the GMC might not be so forgiving to two doctors when alcohol, abandonment of a child and a death coincide

Good post Peter  

There were claims that Madeleine's bed had not been slept in.  Had it been changed early that week or was she never in it? Was it a case, as Kate once stated, Madeleine didn't like coming in for bed and would start a game of hide and seek?  Was Madeleine still up when they left for dinner?

It is claimed that the McCanns swapped bedrooms with the children.  It is also said that Gerry broke the bedroom shutters.  When did this swap take place? And why?

I could be 100% wrong but a picture is starting to form here.

PeterMac

I wasn't saying that they tried to resuscitate a child who had died 90 minutes earlier. 

I understand changes to a body after death. Also that the symptoms of anaphylactic shock appear only minutes after the medication (if allergic to it).  

I see the sequence in fast succession (mother present throughout) as child medicated, child falls or rolls off dining room chair a few minutes later as she goes into  anaphylactic shock, mother tries to resuscitate, father arrives home, father pulls mother off child as she won't give up with the resuscitation and/or holding M tight. Dead child left by sofa. Cadaverine released 90 minutes or so later. At some stage child moved to first wardrobe. Dogs later detect cadaverine behind sofa and in two wardrobes. 

The arrangement for children's sleeping not clear but significant. Any clues there? 

Where were the twins while all of this was happening - whether in the sequence I describe or any other.

I have referred to Madeleine as "the child" because it was hard to write her name as I visualised all of what I am describing.

All of this is just my continuing attempt to grapple with the mystery - as we all are - in the absence of much primary evidence.

The forensic evidence is inconclusive.

If Madeleine died as a result of falling behind the living room sofa, say hypothetically looking for her parents having been sedated or not, then it could be considered a tragic accident. Why then the need for such an elaborate plan of subterfuge.

If Madeleine died as the result of a tragic accident on the night of Sunday 29th/Monday 30th May 2007 why the need for a prolonged plan of action lasting around four days. They could so easily have shouted 'abduction' the following day, hypothetically Monday 30th April/Tuesday 1st May 2007.

Tragic accidents happen. The most likely cause of a child's trauma, injury or death is in the domestic environment. If Madeleine was sedated accidentally or deliberately, it could be so easily explained without the need for drastic measures like body concealment.

Neglect, a few too many, abandonment, exposure to danger, don't even enter the equation. The GMC wouldn't bat an eyelid without evidence or of misdemeanor. Professionals, particularly in the public secteur, look after their own - it is the way of things.

If Madeleine met her fate as a result of a tragic accident, say hypothetically falling from the back of the sofa in apartment 5a sedated or not. why would the group of friends go to such lengths as to support and protect Gerry and Kate McCann.

If Madeleine McCann met her fate through some tragic accident by way of falling from the back of apartment 5a sofa, with or without sedation, why then why would the British establishment go to such lengths to support and protect Gerry and Kate McCann.

There is a lot more to this than meets the eye.

LOQK!

The specialist dog alerted to Kate McCann's harlequin pants along with the red T-shirt.

If she cradled her dead child in her arms, seriously, would she dress her younger child in the T-shirt and continue to wear the harlequin pants throughout the summer - even on their return to the UK in September 2007?

I would like to know what made the McCanns and their friends gravitate towards each other, when first they all met. We have heard all of them stuttering and umming their lies, and we know about the pact. We would know, I think, if there had been a divorce, or nervous breakdown, or suicide amongst them, but they all appear to be living stress free, despite their involvement in Madeleine's fate. Perhaps their original friendship is based on something which makes them all blackmail possibilities. Am I being ridiculous?

I don't think you are being ridiculous CaKeLoveR, I too think there is something about this gang. Especially Gerry & D Payne.

Oh good, I'm not on my own. They all found it too easy to oblige with the timelines, etc. I think they are not strangers to situations which would panic most of us.

What I find troubling is that the dialogue doesn't offer any "Geez, I hope she's safe- we can feel her still looking for us."
"We both love Madeline and someday we know we'll see her again."
There's none of that, because they know she is dead!

That splatter on the wall would have been looked at - if it is human tissue, blood or any thing suspicious and that would be a certainty in any investigation. Don't ya think?

CPR won't spread tissue, like that at all, nor would a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage or the more likely head scenario, a sub-dural haematoma.  I'm thinking far away from Jack the Ripper. 
The truth is we don't know for sure and hope something more conclusive comes up soon-like a death bed confession!

Apologies if this has already been discussed. Kate McCann said Madeleine had told her that she (Madeleine) and Sean had woken up, and cried for their mother. This story puts the McCanns in a bad light, for not being in the apartment, and for going out again the following night. Or did she say this to indicate that by waking up, the children were demonstrating that they could not have been medicated by their parents? I may be grasping at a large straw here.