don’t worry about it.

http://newsdeskspecial.co.uk/madeleinemccann/

http://www.anorak.co.uk/madeleine-mccann/177059.html#comments

As we say in the South, tomorrow is another day!

I agree that there are deeper issues motivating the McCanns about which we are puzzling through. This is why we look at their photographs, configure their every comment like tea leaves…. Part of it is our interest in protecting a child, and everything about the continuation of our species and our purpose on this planet that this emotion represents.

But another part of it is much more anthropological…and ancient.

I think that although people aren’t conciously stating it, most are wondering whether the McCanns are killers. Perhaps not murderers, but accidental killers. And even accidental killers are put into a special category–they have taken human life, it makes them rather more overtly dangerous than someone who’s still intimidated from doing that. Even killers who have good reasons to kill (not perfect, or legal reasons, but reasons that make strong good sense to THEM), are quite set apart, once they have killed.

We wonder about their fitness to live among us. We wonder about the safety of their surviving children who live with them, we wonder about the safety of our own children, of ourselves….

The McCanns, through their paid, professional representative, claim that various remarks hurt them, and they threaten lawsuits. But what the McCanns have done, just by LOSING Madeleine, let alone something far worse, is to force us to either defend them, rather irrationally, or else suspect them of homicide. And even the mere suspicion is troubling for us. We don’t leap at it, but after a while, because the suspects are not in jail, that they still live among us, we feel justified to demand an explanation, better than the ones they have already given. We want them to answer the questions posed by the Portuguese police, and it really has little to do with their daughter.

We want proog that they are fit to live among us, that they are not killers.

It’s hard to prove you didn’t do something.

At the same time, it would be easier to trust in the McCanns’ innocense if they answered the Portuguese Police’s questions.

So we’re not McCann haters. But where’s the incentive to trust them? It goes against every instinct we have. And yes, that England’s prime minister elected to involve himself is very curious indeed.

What, only 25 witnesses?

You are quite right to bring up the issue of witness recognition error. It is rather vast. In fact, psychiatrists postulate that it’s so enormous, it’s hard to imagine how courts still use it at all!

Here is some info on scholarship in that area. It’s quite fascinating.

I just pulled these references off the web, but there was a very good book written by a Dutch psychiatrist a while back on the Demjanjuk case, that vividly discussed the problems inherent in eyewitness identification. I wish I could remember more details, but I am all McCanned out!

Guenter Kohnken, University of Kiel, Germany

Alternative Identification Techniques

Rod C. L. Lindsay, Queen’s University, Canada

Eyewitness identifications have traditionally been obtained using lineups or photo arrays in which a suspect was embedded within a group of 3 to 11 others similar in general appearance to the suspect. Research in the 1970s and 80s demonstrated that the lineup was capable of producing unacceptably high rates of false positive choices, particularly when biased lineup procedures were employed. Lindsay and Wells (1985) developed an alternative procedure, the sequential lineup, that dramatically reduced the false positive identification rate. More recently, Levi et al (1995) suggested that even sequential lineups produce unacceptably high rates of false identification; they proposed radical alternatives but provided no evidence of the effectiveness of these alternatives. The study reported in this paper is based on Levi et al’s recommendations. An extremely large (50 person) sequential lineup was tested under instruction conditions that were similar to standard lineup instructions (suggesting that only one person could be selected from the lineup) or using less stringent instructions implying that the witness should choose any lineup member that could not be eliminated as definitely not being the criminal. The data are evaluated in terms of the probability that the target will be identified (selected) and the probability that other lineup members will be identified. Of particular interest is the degree to which the number of nontargets selected is a postdictor of accurate suspect selection. Thus, it may be the case that the fewer faces selected, the more likely it is that the target is among them.

The Effects of Varied Viewing Conditions, Types of Questions, and Response Threshold on the Confidence and Accuracy of Eyewitnesses

Mark Phillips, Ronald P. Fisher, Bennett L. Schwartz, Florida International University, Miami, U.S.A.

Approximately 120 undergraduate volunteers were shown a videotaped simulation of a crime and were later asked to recall the details of the crime. The participants were interviewed using both open-ended as well as closed-ended questions. We also manipulated the conditions under which the crime was viewed using variations in lighting and screen clarity. During the interviews, each witness was asked to use either a very high threshold of responding (i.e. reporting details of the crime only when the witness had complete confidence in their accuracy) or a low response threshold (i.e. reporting every detail remembered, even if unsure of its accuracy). This variable was manipulated using varied witness instructions as well as a payoff matrix. Dependent measures included witness accuracy as defined, in part, by the number of correct responses given divided by the total number of items recalled for each witness. This measure was also correlated with witness confidence. It was hypothesized that witness accuracy and confidence would be highly correlated, and that this correlation would be moderated by viewing conditions, type of questions asked (i.e. open- versus closed-ended), and response threshold.

Assessing the credibility of witness statements

Guenter Koehnken, and Eberhard Hoefer, Universitaet Kiel, Germany

Criteria based content analysis (CBCA) is a tool for evaluating the credibility of witness statements (Steller & Koehnken, 1989). Rather than looking for nonverbal indicators of deception, CBCA analyses the content of a statement regarding the occurrence of certain qualities (the so-called “reality criteria”). The more of these criteria are found in a statement and the more pronounced they are the more likely it is that the statement is an authentic account of own experiences. A number of empirical studies have shown that CBCA has the potential to reliably discriminate truthful and fabricated statements. However, the reliability of CBCA depends to a large degree on the accuracy of the rating of the reality criteria. In order to ensure accurate ratings a three weeks training program for raters was devised including written material and rehearsal ratings with supervision and feedback. Seven studies were conducted to assess the inter-rater and the intra-rater agreement after a time interval of eight weeks. Results show mean agreement scores which are in the range of psychometric personality questionnaires. Furthermore, the intercorrelations of the criteria are low indicating that trained raters were able to assess the criteria independently of each other.

Emotion and the generation of misinformation effect

Yukio Itsukushima, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan

Emotion sometimes plays a crucial role in victims or bystanders when they encode information in real crime situations. In recent years, psychological knowledge of how emotion works in witness memory formation is growing (Christianson, 1992). However, the all-important question whether emotion facilitates or inhibits the process of memorization still remains unsolved. Some researchers have shown that strong emotion, as compared to a neutral mood state, leads to inferior memory performance (Loftus & Burns, 1982), but other researchers have suggested that strong emotional state sometimes leads to better memory for emotional events (Heuer & Reisberg, 1990). To understand the nature of the effect of emotion on memory, we undertook a series of experiments designed to test whether emotional states really produce good memory performance for events or degrade the same. To test these possibilities, the standard misinformation effect test was adopted. Furthermore, we investigated whether an emotional state produces retrograde or anterograde amnesia. Results showed that 1) the emotional state produces anterograde amnesia, 2) the misinformation effect is observed in both the post-emotional and pre-emotional events. In our talk we will discuss these results in terms of a new hypothesis which also facilitates explanation of existing experimental results.

This case seems to involve too many people all linked together in some strange way or other for my liking. It’s like a secret society Masons/Illuminati/etc situation .
How else can we explain all the intervention by all these people? Part of me thinks it’s a convenient distraction for something else also, or even a “problem” to which people “react” to, then are offered the “solution” Such as a DNA database,
(which has actually been suggested in the UK recently)
or electronic tagging of children even. Nothing would surprise me.
The amount of variables are incredible. However, I’m certain that the McCann’s are not telling us the truth, are hiding something, and fear becoming found out. This I am convinced of.

The McCanns seem to be taking steps very similar to the Ramseys in the JonBenet murder case. According to the lead Detective, Steve Thomas, the Ramseys’ “PR man put a media spin on the non-answers, which did not come close to being a true interview. “John and Patsy Ramsey have cooperated extensively with the police and other law enforcement authorities from the very beginning of their investigation, and this cooperation will continue,” the PR man announced. Thomas called this statement “outrageous.”

JonBenet’s grandmother, interviewed by Thomas, made remarks that Dr. Kate’s mother would chillingly ( or knowingly?) echo years later: “[JonBenet] didn’t like you pulling her out of bed. She would scream bloody murder. Unless they chloroflormed her or taped her mouth, she would have screamed like you wouldn’t believe.”

It’s almost like a script, isn’t it?

Steve Thomas, the lead detective on the JonBenet murder case, said he noticed a picture taken of Patsy at a Christmas party the night her daughter was murdered. She was wearing a red turtleneck sweater and black pants in the picture. He then noticed that in an interview with Patsy Ramsey on the morning of December 26, Patsy was wearing the same clothes. Thomas felt it was unlikely that a former beauty queen who’d attended a party, come home late, put her children to bed, had supposedly gone to sleep herself and then awoke early to fly across the country (to their resort home), would put on fresh makeup and fix her hair, but not change her clothing.

When Thomas finally interviewed Patsy and her husband, John, he questioned them about Patsy wearing the same clothes two days in a row. The day of her police interview, Patsy was wearing a dark suit with whitish-silver trim. Smith says the Ramseys seemed surprised he’d noticed Patsy’s clothing.

The very next day, the Ramseys and their lawyers gave interviews with journalists, and Patsy wore the same dark suit with white-silver trim.

Like the McCanns, the Ramseys had the best legal counsel money could buy.

Thanks for writing back. About Gran’s plate, I have a thought.

I wonder, just musing of course, because Philomena has asked me to do so….

I don’t think Gran is acting out of vanity or nuttiness in presenting the heart-shaped plate with what are purportedly Madeleine’s hand prints on it.

No, too much is now at stake, and there are too many Prime Ministers and diplomats and highly-paid media professionals involved in protecting the McCanns for this to be just goofy, “look at me!” weirdness. The plate, and its timely revelation, have a deeper purpose.

But I am just guessing, just imagining, because Philomena’s asked me to.

Think back to Madeleine’s colobama, the McCanns’ early publicity of it, and Anorak’s earlier posts on Charge syndrome. One of the possible signs of Charge syndrome is problems with the hands. This is part of various musculoskeletal anomalies not always, but sometimes, present in Charge syndrome–absent thumbs, extra fingers, short hand bones, fusuion of fingers, a “hockey puck” crease in the palm….

I theorize that Madeleine’s gran produced the plate not to say, “Oh boo hoo hoo, look at my memento!” but rather to show that Madeleine did not have Charge syndrome. The McCann machine is likely anticipating that, at some point, law enforcement authorities may theorize that either Dr. Kate or Dr. Gerry or both may have killed their daughter because she suffered from Charge syndrome. Anorakers have discussed this possibility already, proving the group’s impressive prescience. Those labeled “McCann haters” (a label I think is wrong) reportedly suspect that the McCanns may not have wanted to continue parenting a genetically challenged child, and so had a motive for killing her. Other Anorak commentators call it a “mercy killing” (I think the suggestion was euthanasia).

Of course, Charge syndrome has lots of other manifestations, and one could have it and still have perfectly normal-looking hands. We haven’t seen the plate with the print of Madeleine’s toes yet, but clefting of the foot, fusion of toes, extra toes, missing toes, etc. is also within Charge’s syndrome.

The writing may be the day care’s, it may be anyone’s, but most definitely is not Madeleine’s. So, who knows where the plate really comes from? Perhaps it is a real plate Madeleine made, perhaps it is a second, look-alike plate substituting a healthy pair of hands. We are just musing, but who knows, really?

Whether they are innocent or guilty, I think it’s reasonable to presume that, at this point, nothing escapes the McCann camp without a really good, well-thought-out, strategic reason. They have too many high-high-priced lawyers working for them now.

Yes, Gran and her plate have a definite purpose. Or else, we’d hear nothing about it.

QUOTE

McCanns’ plea over 25 witnesses

THE PARENTS of Madeleine McCann have given Portuguese prosecutors a list of 25 witnesses they believe should be interviewed to try to clear their names and refocus police attention on the search for their daughter, writes John Follain.

The witnesses, some never questioned by police before, include relatives, friends and staff of the Ocean club in Praia da Luz, where Madeleine went missing on May 3.

The request will create controversy in Portugal, where it is almost unheard of for suspects to try to influence an investigation. There was criticism last week after it emerged that prime minister Gordon Brown had discussed the case with his Portuguese counterpart at the European summit in Lisbon.

The McCanns’ legal team hope that a thorough reconstruction of the night Madeleine disappeared will help rule out her parents as suspects.

A source close to the family said: “Kate and Gerry have singled out these witnesses because they were present . . . they can explain exactly what happened that night, and because they can show what a normal, loving relationship the parents had with their daughter.”

UNQUOTE

near bottom of this article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2702285.ece

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/time-to-start-accepting-the-callousness-of-human-nature-1200554.html