Madeleine McCann: A House Of Love, Find the Body & What Kate McCann Screamed
MADDYWATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann.
DAILY EXPRESS front page: “MADELEINE. ‘FIND BODY OR McCANNS WILL ESCAPE’ – Prosecutors ultimatum to Portuguese police.”
The case against Kate and Gerry McCanns is “hanging by a thread”.
A police sources says: “There is a determination within the force to bring this investigation to a satisfactory conclusion but there is a growing fear that without a body, that goal will be impossible.”
Pages 4 and 5: “Our reputation is tarnished forever” – Each day the McCanns prepare themselves for the “worst case scenario”. No, not that they will be wrongly convicted, rather they will learn of Madeleine’s death.
Clarence Mitchell says: “In the middle of this people forget this is still a family who are potentially facing bereavement but are still in that awful limbo position of not knowing what has happened to their daughter.” Thankfully Mr Mitchell is on hand to remind people of this every day.
“Doubts on the McCanns by a lie detector expert” – THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEWSPAPER asks John Ryan, of International Truth Verification Technologies Institute, to listen to Kate McCann’s voice. Says she: “However I think there is some sort of deception when I hear the lady speaking, either over the event or in avoiding showing her true feelings”.
DAILY MIRROR front page: “MADELEINE – find a body or there is no case.”
Page 5: “Gerry and Kate have often talked about the possibility of Madeleine being found dead. That would be the worst news but it would at least give them some..CLOSURE”. So says a “source close to the legal team”.
Antonio Cluny, President of the Public Prosecution Service, says: “Without the little girl’s body, everything is complicated… In the Maddy case, there is no confession and, according to what has been made public, the evidence gathered up until now keeps all leads open – from abduction to homicide or at least to a simple accident”.
DAILY MAIL front page: “EXCLUSIVE: Eyewitness reveals Maddie’s mother DID shout: ‘They’ve taken her’ after four-year-old vanished. WHAT KATE DID SCREAM.”
Nanny Charlotte Pennington is in Praia da Luz. She hears Kate McCann scream: “They’ve taken her, they’ve taken her!” The McCanns say Kate screamed “Madeleine’s gone”.
Sensation. Front-page news.
Page 4: “Nanny Pennington, who worked at the Ocean Club, is pictured. She’s wearing a brown beret and a pink coat. Her tights are black. Her legs are crossed.
“I was in the apartment less than five minutes after they found that Madeleine had gone. When we were coming out we saw Kate and she was screaming: ‘They’ve taken her, they’ve taken her’… It might not have been the first thing she said. But she definitely said it.”
So…
“She also repeated Madeleine’s name and said: ‘She’s gone, she’s gone.’”
Anyone hear anything else?
THE SUN page 24: “MADDIE LAW CHIEF: NO BODY, NO CASE.” Antonio Clunes says: “There have been cases in which it was possible to obtain a conviction without a victim – but there were confessions.”
But the McCanns are innocent, says a source. And they are not confessing. They are talking through their spokesperson.
DAILY STAR front page: “COPS CLOSE IN ON MADDIE. Final pieces of tragic jigsaw falling into place.”
Pages 4 and 5: “FIND THE BODY OR THEY WALK. Law bosses tell Portuguese cops to step up hunt.”
“TWINS’ HOUSE OF LOVE” – Clarence Mitchell says the McCanns have built a “house of love” for their family. Mr Mitchell says the McCanns are living “every parent’s worst nightmare times ten”. Mr Mitchell used to work for the tabloid press.
DAILY TELEGRAPH page 13: “Case against McCanns ‘rests on finding body’.”
Clarence Mitchell says: “They did not harm, let alone kill her.”
THE TIMES page 11: “No body, no conviction says McCann police.”
THE GUARDIAN & THE INDEPENDENT: No Madeleine news.
Posted: 25th, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (1,296) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
September 25th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
900 jolie
I can see blog day 144:
Gerry’s Blog/Diary
Day 144 - 24/09/2007
It is just over 2 weeks since we returned home from Portugal. The major news in that time is that we have not been charged with any offences regarding Madeleine’s disappearance. It is encouraging that the prosecutor has stated that all lines of enquiry remain open and we have not given up hope of finding Madeleine alive. It is good to see at least some attention re-focussing on finding Madeleine.
Sean and Amelie have settled back in at home very well but they do miss their older sister and we talk about her every day. For Kate and I it has been incredibly difficult to come home without Madeleine but particularly in such circumstances. Our family and friends have rallied round again as they have throughout this entire nightmare and they have also helped keep on top of the huge amount of mail from well wishers. At times our kitchen has looked like a sorting office! We would like to thank everyone for their support. It helps us keep sight of the fact that the great majority of people in this world are good.
Kate and I have been very busy with our legal advisers as we want to be eliminated from the inquiry as soon as possible and start concentrating wholeheartedly again on the search for our daughter. We are very confident this will happen when all the facts are presented together. We are very grateful and thankful to have several businessmen who have pledged financial support to cover legal costs and we were delighted Clarence Mitchell agreed to help us as an official spokesman. It is scary and daunting to imagine how we could have managed to deal with these latter ‘developments’ without such offers of support and commitment. Clarence will try and minimise the impact of the huge media interest in Madeleine’s disappearance on us, as we try and return slowly towards as normal a life as is possible. Although we will NEVER give up on Madeleine, we have to find the right balance for Sean and Amelie so they too do not suffer unnecessarily.
In the meantime we will continue to cooperate fully with the Portuguese authorities. I will update the blog periodically especially if there is any major development.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
894, thx the Real Stig,
I had read those articles before. Lets hope Madeleine is safe and gets home.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
901 - Pam
The Police CAN use DNA evidence to charge them. But they won’t if they know the charge won’t stick. That’s where the police are at right now. They have lots of circumstantial evidence and you can be charged on very little evidence. It’s making a case that is the important issue.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
I am sorry, but the idea that the Police are involved in the disappearance and that they are possibly covering for Murat by planting evidence is as far-fetched as claims that the McCanns are using links to the Free-Masons to pervert justice.
Conspiracy theories are always appealing and fun, but they are just cooked up nonsense. Faked moon landings, flat earth, phoney holocaust etc.
For the PJ to be involved, how many people would have to be involved in the wall of silence? Surely less than if all the Tapas 9 were involved, and that appears far-fetched to most people.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
…….the date that is!
September 25th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
======================
A CALCULATING MAN
======================
815 Garth says (September 25th, 2007 at 8:48 pm, re 802
“If you think the McCanns were so calculating (and let’s be honest ‘pretty clever’ to murder their daughter and have the so-called ‘tapas 9′ be party to it all), do you honestly think they’d be daft enough to go jogging within the two weeks after Maddies disappearance? They must obviously be calculating and dumb!
REPLY: Garth, have you watched all the developments in ths case, most of the interviews with Gerry amd Kate McCann, seen their setting up of a secretive, private limited company to ‘Find Madeleine’, and the involvement of the highest profile media from Day 1 if not Hour 1 after Madeleine’s ‘disappearance’, plus on top of all that the involvement of Sir Philip Green (private jet to the Pope), Sir Richard Branson (’here’s 100 grand to help you along), the full-time secondment of the Head of the Foreign Office’s Media Monitoring Unit, the British Prime Minister, a 3-day visit to the White House and kissing the Pope - and much more besides - and you do not find the McCanns, especially Gerry, ‘calculating’?
If this was a hoax abduction, as I am fully persuaded it was - to hide the death of poor Madeleine - then this is one of the most calculating men the world has ever seen.
Remember also that all it would take for Madeleine to die in her apartment is a momentary complete loss of temper by either parent, or an overdose of a sedative or anaesthetic, or even a horrible accident for which the McCanns are not responsible (the last of these alternatives being I admit very unlikely). All it would require to cover it up would be a calculating and desperate couple.
Who knows why the Tapas 9 are keeping so quiet with their rather sinister ‘pact of silence’? - except it seems to keep on pointing the finger of suspicion at Robert Murat - an accusation without foundation according to a string of leaks from the Portuguese police.
What is ‘daft’ about going jogging within a few days of Madeleine’s
‘disappearance’?
Gerry and Kate McCan were focussed on one of the highest-profile ever media campaigns, even latching desperately on to Jane Tanner’s dubious ’sighting’, to make a press statement to the world attempting to identify a suspect abductor, despite the fact that by that time the Portuguese police knew perfectly well that Tanner’s ‘information’ was bogus and were not prepared to use it under any circumstances.
As fas as I can see Gerry McCann is one of the most calculating people I have come across ever - until, perhaps, the last three weeks or so, which has made him seem desperately reacting to the torrent of official and unofficial statements put out by the PJ, who quite clearly have got the gravest doubts about the stories put out by the McCanns and the rest of the Tapas 9 about the events of 3rd May. Even then, the constant diet of ’spin’ from ’sources close to the family’ shows to my mind the calculating mind of Gerry McCann at work - assisted perhaps by the calculating mind of Clarence Mitchell. And the mind of Michael Caplan. Oops, sorry once again, Michael Caplan *Q.C.*.
Let me finally focus your attention on just one aspect of Gerry McCann’s conduct (if only I had more time!), - namely his ever-varying and more and more colourful descriptions of what he *claims* was a visit to check on his children’s welfare at around 9.05pm to 9.10pm (for the record, I do not think this happened; he was talking to Jeremy Wilkins from about 9.10pm to 9.25pm and he is more likely IMO at that time to have been acting as a look-out while his dead daughter was being bundled away by another of the ‘Tapas 9′ - rather then just popping up to see that his children were O.K. (remember again that a neutral witness timed Gerry McCann’s arrival at the Tapas bar at 8.58pm, not ‘8.45′ or ‘8.40′ or even ‘8.30′)).
First, he says he checked and all the children were O.K.
Next version, he says he saw the twins but is ‘not sure’ if he saw Madeleine.
Then he tries to have us believe: ‘the door to the children’s room was open’, which ‘I thought strange’ (but he didn’t do anything about it - he just realises 3 or 4 months after his daughter’s ‘disappearance’ that this might have had some significance (!)).
His fourth ruse - when he is cornered by evidence that his initial claim that the shutters were ‘forced’ from outside’ is totally unsupported and that the PJ found that the window and the shutters must have been opened from the inside - is to come up with ‘I think that the abductor might have been lurking behind the door to the children’s bedroom’. And in another convoluted story which tries to explain why there might have been Madeleine’s blood on the window sill and curtains of the room, he makes out that the abductor must have ‘entered through the open patio door and left with Madeleine by climbing through the window’(!).
Fifth and finally, that version seems to be being quietly discarded now, after someone, I think from Mark Warners, pointed out the simple fact - highly inconvenient for Gerry McCann - that the children’s bedroom door in that apartment opens outwards.
How can you possibly say that a man like that is not ‘calculating’?
September 25th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
892
Its incorrect!
September 25th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
896 - Because they tell us everything else they are doing!!! I am sure they won’t have forgotten to mention ‘we are following up a very promising lead in Morocco right now - which has been made possible by all the donations we have received’.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
891 - Ade
At Christmas 2005 I boarded a flight at Philadelphia to get to Manchester. I had my left arm in a sling and couldn’t carry my case. They weren’t going to let me board. I told them I’d already flown there from another airport in the US and so they allowed me on. I doubt if you had a toddler bleeding to any extent that they’d just ask the parents to kiss it better!
September 25th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
882 Stevo
Its good to see that you believe theres many conflicting stories on this subject.
As for the DNA, it doesnt matter what crazy reasons the Mccanns have for it getting there, the facts are the police can not use evidence from DNA to charge them, so that is your question answered.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Stevo (882)
I fully agree. People always give different accounts of any event. Often it depends on what you happen to concentrate your attention on at the time. For example, if two people who go to the same wedding make a list of all the people there, they probably will not coincide.
I too find it very strange that the McCanns spend their time explaining away things that they probably do not even know for sure exist, just like we don’t. Someone ought to invent an intentional rumour to see whether they explain it away. Maybe someone already has!! We wouldn’t really know, would we? Maybe all these stories about body fluids the car boot are false and there they are, talking about soiled nappies, sweaty flip flops, etc. The other very evident thing I see about them is that they seldom deny anything outright - they just say things are ludicrous and carry on. Why don’t they just say “we didn’t kill Madeleine, she was never in the car boot”.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
888 - comment is in reference to a discussion two posters were having about Gerry’s blog and one said it was two weeks before parent when jogging
869 - Stevo - I agree that it fits right in with their manipulative behavior (allegedly)
873 - Puzzled - I have no idea why, but when I pull up the home page for the Find Madeleine website, the September 24 blog entry is not there on the page. The latest one that shows on my screen is September 19 (day 136).
IS ANYONE ELSE able to read the September 24 blog entry on the site: http://www.findmadeleine.com/
September 25th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
893 - please read what I was responding to. It was a two part question, so I gave a two part answer.
(a) the portugese police can’t do their job properly and find her,
(b) they have not even followed up sightings of her?
Clearer now?
And what about an answer to why they are not following up the Morocco lead? Why court all this publicity - make sure Madeleine’s face is know the world over and then not follow up leads?
September 25th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
888 - Jolie
That article talks about people in England showing grief in a reserved way.
That’s rubbish as well. Two days after the Diana Funeral I stood in line in Kensington Palace to sign the book of condolence. There was 20,000+ people in the park that Monday and I saw thousands outwardly crying and showing emotion like you’ve never seen before.
People cry at sad things that spark your emotions into action. I think losing a 3 yr old is about as bad as it gets don’t you?
September 25th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
886,
Just saw this photo, sorry I don’t have the time to read all the posts that discussed this earlier and Puzzled how do you know that they have not acted on it.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
gerry’s blogs becomes gerry’s meandering becomes gerrymandering
how quaint…
September 25th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
879 nononethere
Food for thought, thanks. Article with more : http://tinyurl.com/2×5jv5
Also check the other link I just posted re forensics - at the bottom of that Gulf Times article is further mention and suggestions ex-SAS/whatever might be on it.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
puzzled 885
Whats the McCanns not ‘cooperating’ got to do with following up sitings of Madeleine, er like the sighting in Morocco? No wonder your puzoodled!
September 25th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
888 - Jolie
Hallelujah! I knew it was May 4th but I even said I’d bow to the superior knowledge of Garth and Moderator. Thanks Jolie for finding it.
I wish more people would put their money where their mouth is instead of going on what they think they remember.
So…tell me how you can go out jogging less than 24 hours after your child is abducted - their theory remember?
September 25th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
883 stevo
anyone know the procedures for an airline to deal with a 4 year old who just got on board with a bleeding leg of the alleged magnitude - i.e. dripping onto a shoe? I would expect flight attendant help in applying first aid, plaster (or bandage) and an entry in the aircraft safety/accident log.
That should be easy to verify, I would have thought…
September 25th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
I’d like to see the archive of all of Gerry’s blogs. That would be an interesting read in the light of 5 months’ worth of knowledge.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
~ The police have evidence that Murat told the truth. So the question should be: Why is the nanny lying?
The police only have the word of his mother that he was home that night…but she could be protecting him or she might have been sleeping for all we know. Besides, he originally gave a different alibi and then changed his story. This is not very credible compared to the statement of an Mark Warner employee. The nanny has no reason to lie for the McCanns. She claims she did not know them personally other than being aware that their children were being tended by another employee.
~ Do we know for sure that the second version the elderly neighbor told is more true than the first? And if the first version is untrue, how do we know that it was the police who made it up? Could be a journalist desperate for a scoop.
The neighbor claims that there never was a “first version”. She has only ever told police that she never heard anything and only went to the press about it when she found out that false statements were being attributed to her. I guess a journalist could have made it up and claimed it was from a police source…or the police could have given wrong information. It’s one or the other or the neighbor is lying.
~ Police may well have beaten Leonor up which is terrible. But we know for a fact they have not beaten KM up. They will never ever get anywhere near framing KM. We also know for a fact that the British police also frequently beat people up…
The British police are not under criminal investigation here, but Goncalo Amaral is. Should he really be leading the McCann case under these circumstances? If these two cases are connected in any way, he is the most prominent link. In both cases: no body, parents blamed, confession urged. In Leonor’s case evidence was covered up, too. These connections seem a little unsettleing to me.
~ The police in Portugal could be involved in many things. Then again, so could the British police.
Well, could is a very open-ended word. The portugese police in Lisbon were definitely involved in covering up the sex abuse scandal that broke in 2002. They were presented with irrefutable photographic evidence and covered it up.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Here’s a September 25 news article that mentions Kate went jogging THE DAY AFTER Madeleine went missing (second paragraph):
http://www.tribune.ie/article.tvt?_scope=Tribune/News/International&id=77512&SUBCAT=Tribune/News/International&SUBCATNAME=
September 25th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
IF the picture turns out to be misleading the PR team is doing a good job in one respect. People will finally get so sick of it all or maybe that is the goal?
September 25th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
879 - Have the McCanns acted on it? Why not? They have the Fund Money for this sort of thing.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
865 - ‘the portugese police can’t do their job properly and find her, they have not even followed up sightings of her?’
(a) The police are trying to do their job. It is being made very difficult when key witnesses refused to answer questions and instead opted for the ‘5th amendment route’ and became arguidos. Difficult to move forward when the parents of the child you are trying to find won’t co-operate. Or am I being too anti-McCann with that statement?
(b) The police have followed up sightings, eg. remember Belgium/DNA/glass etc.
(c) Q. How many sightings have the McCanns followed up with their Fund Money? (Remember it was they who lost her in the first place).
September 25th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
nononethere 879
We’ve been looking at that photo all evening. It seems that it is in the hands of the Interpol. There are quite a few messages and links about it if you look through above.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
859
There’s naff all wrong with that according to stevo. He would of done the same.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
871 - Chloe
The trouble is that there’s so many conflicting stories in this case and you have to put evidence gathering in perspective. Whenever you have a lot of people giving evidence simultaneously who know they personally are not involved, they get things wrong. Someone will see a red bikini…another will argue it was orange and not red. Somone else will say they saw 3 kids from the same family but in reality it was 2 kids and another. The conflicts aren’t necessarily lies.
However…there are many deliberate “weird” things that have come to light with the Tapas 9. I don’t for one minute believe there’s a huge conspiracy with all the owners of restaurants in PDL. I equally don’t believe that you say one person is lying against someone else. I think errors naturally occur and that’s the situation with the nanny and Murat.
I’d like to know answers to more fundamental questions like the DNA found in the car. Why the McCanns come up with crazy reasons for it getting there. Or why Team McCann spouted on about Madeleine bleeding on her shoe while boarding the plane and that being the reason for blood found on the window ledge in the apartment. That stuff isn’t liable to mistaken reasoning. That’s just plain goofy and someone is lying about things like that.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
387 megz
Tell your mother in law that Calpol is paracetemol which in high doses is lethal in terms of chronic liver damage - antihistamine containing cough mixture but not paracetamol!