Madeleine McCann: Missing Hours, Found Again And A PR Disaster
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
THE SUN front page: “MADDIE DAD AGONY. Fiend hid from Gerry. He was already in room he tells cops.”
A source close to the family says: “When Gerry went to check on Madeleine at 9.05pm he realised the bedroom door was open. Gerry is firmly of the view the abductor was already in the apartment.”
It’s another theory.
“When he went in he saw Madeleine was asleep but the bedroom door was slightly open. He thought, ‘That’s odd’ because he had left it firmly closed. But all the children were asleep. So he just went in and closed the door again and came out about 9.10pm.”
Good to hear Gerry McCann joining in the mood of speculation?
“Gerry is convinced the man must have been hiding, and once Gerry went through the patio doors the only way out was through the window. The front door was locked so the kidnapper took Madeleine and climbed out the window.”
DAILY MIRROR front page: “HOW SHE WAS TAKEN. The McCanns’ story.”
“Stolen to order after being spied on for days
Abductor hid in flat as Gerry looked in on kids
He got in through patio doors and out by window”
Gerry is a “heart specialist”.
Says a source: “When Gerry leaves, the man realises he has only a few minutes. He thinks the only way to get out without being seen is through the window.”
And: “Initially he thought Madeleine might have got up and gone to the toilet, or to get a drink or something.”
So what has changed? Why a new theory now, with a new spokesman on hand and the McCanns named as suspects?
DAILY STAR front page: “SEVEN HOURS TO KLILL MADDIE. Police probe her ‘lost’ final afternoon”
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE: THE MISSING SEVEN HOURS.”
Police sources reveal that “despite exhaustive inquiries they cannot confirm the whereabouts of part-time GP Kate, 39, and her daughter after 1.29pm on May 3”. A source said Kate’s movements were “unaccounted for until she sat down to have dinner with friends at a tapas restaurant within their holiday complex at around 8.40pm”.
The last photograph of Madeleine was said to have been taken by Kate at 2.29pm on May 3.
DAILY MAIL: “McCanns: What we really did in the missing six hours.”
“Madeleine had high tea at 5.30pm with staff at the Kids Club. She was picked up shortly before 6pm by Kate and Gerry.”
The friend insisted: “Kate was never alone with Madeleine that afternoon. There were always other witnesses present. These details were all given to detectives during police interviews, so they know what Kate and Gerry said happened that day.”
So no missing hours, then?
THE TIMES front page: “MADELEINE McCANN: Matthew Parris laments a PR disaster.
“The fatal flaw of David Cameron and Kate and Gerry McCann” - Our correspondent looks at the baleful influence of the marketing men.
“Look what they’ve done to Kate and Gerry McCann. Here were two people deserving of the most intense public sympathy. On a superficial level they got it – by the media bucketload. Yet did you not sense from an early stage an undertone of irritation at the couple? I’ve sensed it everywhere I go: not a sign of doubt about their innocence, which most of us take for granted, but a feeling, nevertheless, that they in some way invited trouble – though we banish the thought as brutal and wrong.
“Which it is. So why the ungenerosity? I believe it is because Kate and Gerry McCann have allowed an impression to arise that they and their advisers are marketing their own tragedy. Where we would have expected to see parents distracted and disorganised by grief, we have seen a professionally run campaign to find out what the media want, and give it to them.
“This has been done for a most defensible reason: to enlist the entire European public as amateur detectives in the search for Madeleine. But now her parents have ended up looking like film stars in a Hollywood weepy.”
“Put up or shut up, Madeleine McCann police told” - Friend of McCanns counters claims of ‘lost’ six hours before girl vanished
DAILY TELEGRPAH: “Madeleine McCann: Gerry certain he was in bedroom with kidnapper”
THE GUARDIAN: “From prime suspects to hounded victims - how parents turned the media tide”
Posted: 22nd, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,536) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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September 22nd, 2007 at 8:36 pm
603 Simon
Sorry but that’s me
I just find it very interesting the way that Katiepoops uses it - almost like a trophy. Like returning to the scene of the crime. I think Columbo would be attracted to Cuddles. I wish I was good-looking like him 
Plus she needs somewhere to store whatever she’s on these days.
Trevor Eve would have got it off her and into the lab by now…
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Yes, well.
If you are asking me on a personal level about this, then yes, I will state that I was extremely unhappy about the alledged event from very early on. I don’t mean that I suspected the McCanns outright. Jesus, even now, like many people, it beggars belief that two people could do what they are now suspected of doing, whilst at the same time having effected the campaign that they have thus far undertaken!! As a dodgy old Fleet Street hack is wont to say…” you couldn’t make it up!!”.
No, for me, it wasn’t the strangeness of launching a high drive ‘Media and PR campaign’ within 48 hours, assembling a team of experts and legal bods, commissioning a website, or even the obvious, detached strangeness of the couple in question. For me, it was simply this. They were being FORCED down our necks as the St.Gerry and Kate of Luz, who would leave NO STONE UNTURNED in the search for their daughter, (especially given that they had now amassed 1.2 MILLION Sterling, thankyou very much, for just this purpose), EXCEPT………………………………..
………when the alledged sightings of Maddy started to appear in Morocco, Kate and Gerry went elsewhere to Europe, “spreading the word”……… when she was sighted in MALTA, (resulting in a HUGE police operation), they went to………GERMANY, and when most auspiciously of all, Maddy was “110% CERTAIN” spotted by no less a “child Therapist” in Belgium, Kate and Gerry hotfooted it straight away to…………. Huelva in SPAIN!!
Of course, I’m sure the police would have said to them not to get their hopes up about these sightings. However, given that they never followed up a single ONE…especially the occasion in Belgium where the Police were confident and suspicious enough to dispatch a Forensics team to procure the drinking glass for DNA analysis. Analysis that the WHOLE WORLD awaited with baited breath…….except the two people in the whole world to whom Maddy should have meant the most to. The McCanns, who spent so much time, enthusiasm, energy and sought such wide assistance in setting up a campaign, projects and website to FIND MADDY, having accumulated a HUGE fund to FIND MADDY, even NOW, recently have spoken of their intentions of launching a NEW campaign to FIND MADDY…….. followed not ONE SINGLE ALLEDGED SIGHTING to find Maddy…………. And the reason for that, dear friends, is that they KNEW it COULDN’T possibly have been Maddy.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:33 pm
588 - That’s what I thought. Which is why I questioned post 563.
I wonder why it’s never yet been confirmed or denied by the parents or PR team?
Surely, it must have been one of the questions that the PJ asked of both parents during their interrogations. If anything, regardless of the colomba eye, I think she was most a beautiful child (although, I think all children are great!).
One thing I’ve noticed, everyone has flaws. Some are on the surface and others are covered up under clothing. Or inside the brain. But in my lifetime, I have yet to meet “the perfect specimen”. And I’ve met quite a few people from all walks of life over the years having been brought up as the child of a diplomat. There is no perfect DNA that I am aware of.
589 - Agree with you there!
591 - Spot on!! It would make no sense for them to have planned this. Think about it, Doctors would not be dumb enough to go to the trouble of creating a life through IVF, only to rid themselves of the child a few years after it’s born. Maybe Kate had a wicked temper, maybe Gerry did too, but this is yet another reason why I believe it was “accidental” not pre-meditated. Even in rage induced murders, they are not pre-meditated. They are typically situational or circumstantial. Typically I say. Never always.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:31 pm
(603) Simon:
Don’t you like cuddle cat?
I don’t think we really know if anything was found by the police regarding sedatives at this time.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:31 pm
601. I too find it odd to bring the kids with you on a holiday if just put them away all the time. Especially such young children who tend to want to stay around their mummy.
Most cases of coloboma are not connected with other health problems. If Madeleine was 90cm tall as I think I read somewhere, she was as short as an ordinary 2-year-old. Sometimes coloboma is connected with growth and other developmental issues.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Cuddle cat seems to be in focus today.
Can anyone tell me what evidence the Police have of sedatives being used on any of the three children. Or any of the other children in that group, on May the 3rd or earlier.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:24 pm
596 - Lilih, I agree with some of what you say. Can you tell me your source for the needles being found in the apartment?
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:23 pm
1) So the parents’ alibi for the afternoon is that the girl was at another play scheme. Why did they take the kids on holiday in the first place if they were to spend all their days in a creche or similar?
2) I haven’t read anything about the child being handicapped. That line in the eye is nothing and I have seen a few kids with it.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:22 pm
596 598
I think I read that no syringes were found. Could have been in the bags with all that rotting meat - or just use pills. Pills are easy to crunch up into lemonade and Cuddle Cat han hold lots of pills without tell-tale poky bits. Anyway, young kids don’t like needles do they?
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:21 pm
The ‘needles’ in question were probably simply syringes used to administer calpol by mouth to small children and babies - made of plastic and totally harmless. They are more like eye droppers. I rarely go away without calpol & had to buy some recently when I forgot it on a camping trip (mild sunburn).
As for the kids club - you always have to sign in and out and usually have to fill in a long form on the first day to specify who will be fetching the child at the end. I would imagine the staff would have been able to supply records to the police if required.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:19 pm
(596) Lilith:
I haven’t heard anything about needles found in the apartment..
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I’m not with you Julie…. as you know I’ve often quoted my friends in Praia. That’s where I stay when I go there and its because I know the area so well that I became interested in this case in the first place. No big revelation……….
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Those parents have been acting strange even BEFORE Madeleine disappeared.
They left their children every night unattended while staying away for hours on end.
This strongly suggests they sedated their children as do the needles found in the appartment.
In those missing hours the twins might have been sedated so they would not notice Madeleine “not waking up” .Kate could have killed Madeleine by then and she and Gerry had plenty of time to cover things up.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:16 pm
(592) Emilie:
Yeah it makes sense, that is how I would have thought of it, but like everything in this case, everyone speculates about alternative meanings and explanations as we don’t have any facts. I was just saying that such a comment could be used for or against them (but terribly against them).
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:11 pm
This exercise reminds me of that PC program several years ago that was solving some kind of problem by using the net and unused RAM processing power on PCs. It involved users all over the world and was a kind of collaborative computer processing effort to solve a problem.
What we are doing is a collaborative processing effort but with the human input as the prime focus to solve a problem (and put some people behind bars). Has our activity got a name? If not we could invest one - say anoraking…
I’ll get me coat 9-:
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:10 pm
I, for one, find nothing strange in KM’s father’s words about Madeleine.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:07 pm
584 - Agreed. Kate said this back in July, I was astounded when she said this.
For the very same reasons you imply. When she gave her first “solo” interview, can’t recall which media outlet it was with, but she said those exact chilling words…that her father “loved Madeleine more than he ever thought he could love a child. Even more than me he said”.
But I polled my own parents, and they were a bit sympathetic to the statement. They said, it’s understandable in that it means as Grandparents, you have more time to give and receive love then you do as a parent. At least a generation ago before Soccer mums and dads were invented.
Today kids are a much bigger part of adult’s lives then they were 30 - 50 years ago, so there’s more time and focus on them then in the past.
It’s not meant to be said in a competitve way as one child is more important than the next. It’s more about time, and the way in which today’s children relate to adults. They are much more central than in the past.
Does this make sense?
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:06 pm
emilie 581
I agree with you on that, and I happen to have mistrusted them from the beginning, (even when it was very unpopular to doubt them), however I can’t for one moment believe that they’d plan the murder of their child considering her “flawed”
Covering up accidental death of your child is hideous, but to actually plan such a deed.. no I don’t think so. One deranged parent maybe, but both?
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:04 pm
563 - That is purely speculation
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:03 pm
(588) Emilie:
Nothing is confirmed about Madeleine’s physical or mental impairments, we simply don’t know. When the McCanns pointed out the eye thing, I think that got a lot of those theories going, but we really don’t know anything.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:00 pm
563 - Madeleine was autistic and mentally retarded? Is that confirmed or true??
572 - Do you know there has been so much speculation about whether or not Maddy was Autistic or had Asperger’s syndrome and now Turner’s Syndrome, but nothing has ever been confirmed in the newspapers.
I wonder, if one of the 40 questions Kate refused to answer was about Maddy’s health as related to these conditions and diseases? We’ve never heard yay or nay on this but we have seen much speculation of it on this forum since the beginning of time.
It seems like such a common and obvious question and the answer is either a yes or a no. So why hasn’t it been publicly announced, confirmed or reported on..Or have I missed out on these posts?
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Emilie - 581. I am right with you on this. I am not suggesting they are child murderers. But to many people unless you buy into the ‘We are 100% innocent’ story then you are suggesting they killled their daughter deliberately.
I think you probably wonder why if they are innocent they are not giving CREDIBLE answers to the questions above.
What is that saying - those are also guilty who stand by and do nothing. I am trying to do something. I - like the majority of posters here - am trying to see if we can get to the truth.
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:55 pm
570 Mike
the phrase appears in The Old Charges of Freemasonry
Funnily enough - and what a coincidence
http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/oldcharg.html
It appears in the paragraph starting with Anderson just before the Conclusion paragraph.
Oddly enough I have tried to copy and paste the paragraph but it won’t let me
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:55 pm
tappas9 regularly sedate kids
3 may around 6 km doses m up and dies
gm becomes saviour convinces km to do exactly what he says
cant risk calling for help as twins already taken some, make twins sick
phones o b and t tells them to make daughter sick
ob goes round and agrees with km and gm
concoct abduction theory/ checking alibi as a time to remove m body
buys ice and wraps body in suitcase
go out to tappas
gm gives tanner nod to get suitcase speaks to bloke in alley for alibi
tanner removes case and takes to apartment
gives km nod and has idea to implicate murat as dodgy looking and convenient
km goes to apartment
screams theyve take her — no lie
goes back to tappas at last relieved to be able to cry and grieve
km then goes into hero mode searching calling etc
police sky informed
keep going on about abduction to delay police corrupt scene make them search further than the complex
make up cuddle cat lie window and unlocked door
maddie in o brien apartment
6 may suitcase leaves apartment goes somewhere hidden in church
25 days later car hired
press quietened down
go to see pope
ob and t drive body weighed down miles away and out to sea and drop body in case
pope visit bless photo
funeral done
penance to spend rest of life campaining for missing kids
forgiveness
my theory
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:54 pm
(581) Emilie:
That may not be the best thing for them to comment on:
“Kate said in an interview, that her father would say he loved Madeleine even more than he thought he could love any child. Including his daughter Kate.”
Opens up the pandora’s box to those seeking its wonders.
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:54 pm
580 …. Now, now play nicely! You seem to KNOW everything as usual yet when asked to confirm it …. you have a buddy somewhere who told you! Not very convincing!
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Just wondering if anyone had had time to spin/answer these questions from earlier on today.
Some questions which are still unresolved – which highlight the number of coincidences and inconsistencies.
Why not use the babysitting service on offer?
Why leave a door unlocked?
Why not actually physically check kids during the ‘regular checks’?
Was the window/door shut/open?
Was Cuddle Cat on the shelf on in M’s bed?
Why refuse neighbours offer to phone police?
What was really called out ‘they’ve taken her’ or ‘M’s gone’?
Why leave twins in apartment alone after M ‘abducted?
Why contact UK media so quickly?
What happened to the missing hours?
Why are all the timelines constantly shifting?
Why do the Tapas timelines not match at all?
Where was GM between 5.00 – 6.00pm?
(At the moment, it seems he was in 3 places at once)
Why does Jane Tanner’s story keep changing?
Why did that Wilkins guy not see this man carrying child?
Why did Wilkins not see Jane Tanner?
Why set up fund as a private company?
Why not use it to find other missing children?
Why not demonstrate how fund has been used to help find M?
Why visit the Pope without bring the twins to be blessed too?
Why go to certain cities and not others?
Why claim reports of sighting were ‘hurtful and unhelpful’?
Why bore the world to death with ‘Gerry’s blog’?
Why not use the website to keep people uptodate with search for M?
Why the ‘lying’ body language in Portugese interview re sedating the kids?
Why not accept responsibility for any of this?
Why refuse to give forensic samples, eg. twins urine?
Why wash Cuddle Cat?
Why leg it back to the UK within 48 hours of being declared suspects?
Why be surprised that people think you have something to hide?
Why cry ‘frame’ BEFORE being interviewed?
Why drop the ‘frame’ claim after the interviews when logically you would be even more convinced of it?
Why insist on expressing the search for your ‘live’ daughter after police interviews which would clearly have cast doubt on such hopes?
Why ’suggest’ you would be willing to take a lie detector test AFTER the portugese police say they dont want to interview you again and not before?
There are literally tens or even hundreds of things that dont make any sense for the McCanns claim of innocence here.
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:52 pm
563 - That’s where I make the break. I believe that the parents are involved, I believe in the sedation theories, and I believe in the cover ups. But not the planned obsolesence - built-in obsolescence theories - getting rid of the object that is not up to par in this case, a child!
I am on the parents are “guilty” side but the accidental death guilty side. Not the planned/pre-meditated theories.
I just don’t see this planned out. If they wanted to “get rid” of a child that beautiful, there would be hundreds and thousands of couples who would have begged to adopt her. There would be no reason for these parents to kill their daughter intentionally. I am quite sure that they know how much she was loved and would be missed and wouldn’t risk their lives intentionally to do that. Kate said in an interview, that her father would say he loved Madeleine even more than he thought he could love any child. Including his daughter Kate.
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:50 pm
find your own links… my souce is my friend who has a house in Praia and is there right now.
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:48 pm
oh my god that is so spooky moderation, i’m knitting a pink scarf for my daughter.
I was looking for any confirmation that the priest had disappeared but the only one i could see was from the daily star and i’m not really inclined to believe anything that comes out of it.