A Tale of Age Progression Imagery

A Tale of Age Progression Imagery

What do you do when your precious darling little three year old daughter disappears in the middle of the night - snatched from her bed in a small room she shared with two younger children, her little brother and sister? You believe your beloved daughter has been abducted, possibly by a paedophile or child trafficker - what do you do, what is your first thought that overrides all else?  The panic, the confusion, the unbelievable happening, the worse possible outcome?  What do you do?

Why, of course, you immediately call the police - it is they and only they who can help you at times like this.

Your precious daughter has been stolen.    Even in a state of panic the first and only sensible way forward is to cooperate with the police, provide every possible assistance, every bit of information that might help them locate your child within those first very crucial hours.  At this point, the police cannot effectively move forward without a full description of the missing child, a photograph, the most recent photograph of the child for the purpose of identification.  Without that vital piece of assistance the chances of finding the missing child becomes less likely.  How can you possibly locate a missing person if you don't know what you're looking for?

This is the photograph issued to the Portuguese police by the parents McCann for identification of their missing daughter..

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So to the mysterious disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

There is scant evidence of Madeleine McCann's presence as a living child at the Praia da Luz Ocean Club but for four photographs which, beyond reasonable doubt, show Madeleine did arrive with her mother, her father and her two siblings on 28th April 2007 for that fateful spring one week holiday.  The three photographs, now indelibly printed on the minds of so many good hearted people, just three photographs from a weeks holiday of family fun and frolics.  Seems strange doesn't it - but that is all we have to work on.  The Portuguese police however didn't even have that!  The photographs..

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So here we have the four most recent photographs of a living Madeleine McCann, three showing good full face images - perfect for identification and perfect for the official police investigation, all taken at the Ocean Club Praia da Luz prior to Madeleine McCann's disappearance.

Why didn't the parents of the missing child, in their desperation to find their missing child, immediately pass the photographs to the police?  They must have been recorded on their camera/s or mobile phones, why withhold such vital information from the police.  Why did they instead issue an outdated photograph of their daughter to the Portuguese police for identification purposes?  The image that was later used by the police on their official missing person bulletin.

That was in the early day, the days following the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.  The crucial time scale for locating a missing child, fresh in people's memory, undeniably the most important aspect of an early investigation.

Since then, as time has evolved over the years, anniversary on anniversary, suddenly the appearance of the missing child becomes more important.  In short,what Madeleine McCann might look like now, for identification purposes, rather than what she looked like at the most crucial time.  

Progression imagery has and still is,  being used and promoted to encourage the public to look for missing Madeleine McCann.  Even the Find Madeleine official campaign uses image progression to continue their 'search'.

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Now the latest imagery published for the 17th anniversary..

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So .... why did the McCanns purposely mislead the official Portuguese investigation by providing an out dated image of their daughter when they had at their disposal images taken within hours/days of her disappearance - yet now promote progression imagery to encourage the public to look for a computerized image?" />

So .... why did the McCanns purposely mislead the official Portuguese investigation by providing an out dated image of their daughter when they had at their disposal images taken within hours/days of her disappearance - yet now promote progressive imagery to encourage the public to look for a computerized image?

You hit the nail on the head there Verdi, to deceive. This is Madeleine but younger with shorter hair.

These are the pyjamas Madeleine was wearing, but with no button and longer length legs.

There are the pyjamas Madeleine was wearing.  And these are the ones the Totman child was wearing

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The Totman child must have had incredibly long legs for a 2 year old.!!
Or Madeleine had incredibly short ones for a nearly 4 year old.

The official Find Madeleine website as we speak..

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Its quite obvious they know she wont be found, they cant even be arsed  updating the age-progression photo.

It's an insult not only to Madeleine' but to the thousands of people "looking" for her or trying to find out the truth about what happened to her.

Just suppose for a second that she was found, what would she say to her parents.

How was anyone supposed to find me when you were showing age progression photos of me at 9 years old. Did you get fed up or lose faith I would ever be found?

Why didn't you look for me every year in Portugal?

The artistry to my mind is about as convincing as statement analysis, reverse speech and psychic visions. In short, you can really interpret a nothingness however you like, there are no boundaries - even if it's only down to adding the word 'forensic' to give the art credence.

Drawing Madeleine McCann: Forensic artist's 'huge responsibility'

By Chris Ellis BBC News

3 November 2014

From staring at photographs of dead bodies to imagining how Madeleine McCann may have aged. Who are the artists used by police to help with their investigations?

Police do not just turn to forensic artists to create images of dead people. They are also employed in missing persons inquiries, most famously perhaps in the case of Madeleine McCann.

The photographs of her as a three-year-old - her age when she vanished from a Portuguese holiday apartment in May 2007 - are instantly recognisable to many.

However, they were of limited use in trying to trace a girl whose appearance would certainly have changed in the intervening years.

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"It's always a huge responsibility for any case to not only create the best image but to also do so to the satisfaction of the parents and family who ultimately know that missing person so well," said Ms Blythe, whose skills were called upon by the Metropolitan Police in 2012.

"The high profile nature of Madeleine's case obviously added to the pressure.

"But once I and the family were confident with the aged image, we knew it would get substantial publicity and hopefully therefore lead to more information about her disappearance."

The image was part of an appeal which, along with others since, has resulted in a "high number of calls" to the investigation team, the Met Police said.

Ms Blythe said she used numerous reference photographs of family members at all ages.

She also used other photographs of children who were a similar age to Madeleine to help her decide the hair style and colour and clothing for the image.

She said the McCann family also provided information on which family members she resembled most and how certain facial features were likely to develop.

Ms Blythe said most of her work was through photo manipulation on a computer, but she has also produced sketches and 3D clay models for reconstructions.

While the end result is inevitably partly guesswork, every effort is made to ensure the guesswork is as educated as possible

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So, you conjure up a computer image of a missing person looking like a thousand others of the same age group and gender.

Who knows, had the McCanns given the Portuguese police one of the three photographs of Madeleine that emerged at a later date - in the media if memory serves me well, we wouldn't be here today discussing the Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann. Or maybe that's the very reason why those particular photographs weren't handed over to the police!