Government officials well in excess of the norm were immediately despatched to Praia Da Luz on hearing of Madeleines’ disappearance

Hemoglobin wrote:There are several things that seem to contradict each other about this case, so I think we have to accept that whatever the truth is is likely to be fairly improbable, once we've eliminated the impossible or absurdly improbable.

If we take the view that a stranger kidnap is absurdly improbable, for all the reasons about the window, the shutters, the dogs, etc etc, I think we also have to accept that at least nine people voluntarily going along with a cover-up because they were guilty of a shared criminal or taboo activity that would come out (child sex abuse, sedation, anything) is also absurdly improbable. Somebody would crack - it's just how people are.

So what are we left with, which would also would explain the unprecedented 'national security' interest and British interference in the investigation without ever finding a body or even a credible lead? Only really that Madeleine died either at the hands of someone who should have been protecting her or that they found her dead, and the tapas 9 and others were given NO CHOICE but to go along with the abduction hoax for all this time. What is the only thing that could really ensure such a large group of people decide to take a secret to the grave? Really only a credible threat coming from high up that they or their families would come to a bad end if they didn't do and say exactly what was asked of them. They don't have to all be a paedophiles, all sedators, etc. Only one person has to know information so sensitive (about whatever subject) that this person could persuade high level British officials to assist with the fake abduction and to threaten the others. This person (most likely to be one of the parents) doesn't even have to have been doing something extremely sinister to Madeleine. It is enough that when she died at their hand/hand of their spouse/when they 'found her', whatever happened or the presence of the body would be enough for them to lose their career, for them or their spouse to be sent to prison, or for them to lose their other children to care. Weighing this up, all they would have to do would be to speak to their 'handler' who told/worked with them on whatever secret sensitive information they know, and threaten to release the information unless their handler used their connections to make sure British services covered everything up, including threatening the tapas 9 with dire consequences if any of them ever spoke about what they knew.

Gerry challenged people to find Madeleine's body, implying that they never will. Why was he so sure of this, as stranger abductions often end with a body being found? Because he knows that Madeleine's body was probably cremated even before Kate raised the alarm. It might well have even been something mundane and sad that caused Madeleine's death, but whatever it was, the risks to the person who killed her/found her of her body being found were too great, so they decided to use their insurance policy and bring in the big guns to clean up and then create the largest abduction hoax the world has ever seen. I can't make sense of it any other way.