Madeleine McCann: Michaela Walczuch At The Door, JonBenet Ramsey And Metodo 3 ‘A Pup’
MADDY WATCH - Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann
SUNDAY MIRROR: “Did they want my girl?”
Karen Sixsmith is in conversation with the Mirror. It is an “EXCLUSIVE”. She is in an apartment at the Ocean Club, Praia da Luz. It is a month before Madeleine McCann went missing
A woman knocks at her door. She claims to be a Jehovah’s Witness. “German-born” Michaela Walczuch is a Jehovah’s Witness, or has been. The “mysterious woman” at the door is with a man.
Says Sixsmith: “It was a blonde woman, 35 to 40 years old, English-speaking. She had a pamphlet and I knew straight away that she was a Jehovah’s Witness. She asked if she could come into the apartment to talk about her faith. I took the pamphlet from her and closed the door. I now think it may have been Murat and his girlfriend”
Michaela Walczuch is 34
Karen has a daughter called Kate – “Kate is strikingly similar to Madeleine…Kate would have stood out a mile with her blonde hair and blue eyes - just like Madeleine”
Says the Mirror: “Her testimony - given to the Sunday Mirror so we could pass it on to the McCanns’ private investigators Metodo 3 in Barcelona”
NEWS OF THE WORLD: “Snatch bid last year at Maddie flat”
“A man tried to kidnap a child at the same apartment Madeleine McCann vanished from SIX MONTHS before she went missing,” says a British nanny who “caught the pervert trying to climb in through the ground floor window while a baby slept inside”
DAILY EXPRESS: “BABYSITTER SAW WINDOW MAN”
A source says “A babysitter has given detectives a statement in which she claims she caught a man trying to climb in through a window of apartment 5A – the apartment later occupied by the McCanns”
THE PEOPLE: “SICKENING SMEAR CAMPAIGN - FAMILY’S EMOTIONAL PLEA FOR MISSING DAUGHTER’S RETURN”
“Cops spent days investigating a theory the couple did it because they were desperate for cash”
It is a “sickening smear” making headlines in Portuguese paper 24 Horas
“NO QUIZ FOR MURAT LOVE” - Tuck Price, “a pal of German born Walczuch”, reveala: “I know for sure she’s been going to her Jehovah’s meetings and I know for sure the police haven’t contacted her. If this was true I’m sure the police would have been on to her”
“Find Maddie and give us a miracle for Christmas..” - “Maddie’s grandfather Brian Healy revealed how the family are convinced that she is alive and how they are now hoping for the ultimate Christmas miracle.” Says he: “We will all buy her a Christmas present and they will be under the tree waiting for her when she comes home”
GLASGOW SUNDAY MAIL: “Fury Over ‘Maddie Sold’ Slur”
An “outrageous slur”
A source says: “For several days the judicial police team investigated the possibility that the child had been sold by her own parents because of financial difficulties”
DAILY STAR: “MADDIE: 10 NEW SUSPECTS”
“Spanish investigators hunting for Madeleine McCann have narrowed their search to a hit list of ten paedophiles, we can reveal. Detectives working for the Metodo 3 agency are blitzing locations in Europe and Africa to find the known sex offenders”
Why this ten? Why ten?
Says Clarence Mitchell: “We have every confidence in Metodo 3. They can get to places faster and work quicker than anyone else and have the capacity to work worldwide”
BURNLEY EXPRESS: “Girls’ symbolic silence for Madeleine McCann”
Chelsea Gallagher and Gemma Lee, both 13, raised £450 for the Madeleine McCann Fund with a sponsored cuff-and-silence.
“For an entire school day, Chelsea and Gemma, 13, were handcuffed together and remained silent.” Says Chelsea: “The handcuffs symbolised the people who will be caught, and the silence because we haven’t heard anything about Madeleine”
DAILY TELEGRAPH: “Madeleine McCann: is there no hope left?”
“Bristling with bravado before the television cameras last week, Francisco Marco, the portly boss of the Spanish-based detective agency Metodo 3, sneeringly dismissed the Portuguese police investigation into the disappearance of the couple’s daughter, Madeleine, as ”bumbling”, and boasted: ‘’We know who the kidnappers are and we are very, very close to catching them.’ Off camera, he admitted: ‘No, I can’t disclose any more yet. But I will be proved right.’”
Marco will get his man. A PI always does. Sign the contract. Pay the fee…
A source “close to” the McCanns says: ”The harsh fact is that they were pinning their remaining hopes on Marco’s outfit when they hired them on a six-month contract in September. But, in the past few weeks, they have conceded that they might have been sold a pup. There’s no doubt they’ve worked round the clock, but they don’t have a lot of experience with this type of investigation”
But there are for months left on the contract…
THE GUARDIAN: “Panorama walk-out over McCann film”
“Why did TV journalist David Mills, the producer of a Panorama film on the McCann affair, quit the project before it was transmitted last week? The Observer’s David Rose reveals the inside story of the latest row to hit the BBC’s flagship show”
Sensationalism? Tabloid journalism? Crime as entertainment?
Mills wrote a script. It was not used. “His original film would have compared Madeleine to the JonBenet Ramsey case in Colorado, about which Mills has made three previous documentaries. After the body of JonBenet, a child beauty pageant winner aged six, was found in her parents’ Boulder home, they were vilified by the police and media, despite their continued insistence that they had nothing to do with her death. They claimed she had been killed by an intruder…Years later DNA evidence proved beyond doubt that JonBenet had been killed by an intruder. John Ramsey told Panorama: ‘It’s a life-time damage. No question about it.’”
Posted: 25th, November 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann Comments (680) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
November 25th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Has anyone looked into how the members of COMARE were/are appointed? It looks as if some people were not happy with it. I imagine it would suit the government to have on-message people on such committees. And I also imagine that such on-message people might stand to gain from being on-message.
This is an Early Day Motion dating from 2006 - I don’t think it got anywhere
NEW COMMITTEE ON RADIATION EFFECTS
24.01.2006
Meacher, Michael
That this House notes that the National Public Health Service Wales and the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) have accepted a report from the Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit (WCISU) denying the reality of a serious excess of childhood cancer and leukaemia around the Menai Strait in North Wales; further notes that a countervailing report has been published on the web site of the Low Level Radiation Campaign and by the journal European Biology and Bioelectromagnetics; further notes that WCISU stands accused of recklessly using false data for populations in the study area with the effect of minimising the risks apparent in the cancer cases observed despite having been warned of an exactly similar error in 2001; is concerned that COMARE’s endorsement of WCISU calls its epidemiological expertise into question; and calls on the Government to replace COMARE with a Committee on the Health Effects of Ionising Radiation with a neutral chair, a full-time civil service secretariat, a budget sufficient to permit independent research, and a membership paid for their work on the Committee and which represents all shades of relevant scientific opinion.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Ian
In answer to your query yesterday about who fetched Tanner back to their apartment, I’ve read it was Matthew Oldfield.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
381 Ian
Totje
Quote “Alleged and assumed neglect”
This is no assumption or allegation - it is an arguable degree of risk strategy (in my opinion it was an ‘unnacceptably high’ risk strategy) they admit they took.
Unquote
REPLY: RIGHT, but they underestimated the risks! No matter how “we” feel about their behaviour, and how we consider it “neglect” they’re (not yet) convicted by a court. So their behaviour isn’t (yet) legally considered “neglect”.
Quote
Clearly this needs clarification and the law needs to be strengthened to improve understanding.
Unquote
REPLY: This has been discussed before and I don’t think more rules/laws/lawyers are necessary. The UK law (different to ours) is quite strict as I’ve understood. Why not “go” for a European or even intercontinental law?
Quote
Perhaps a campaign of awareness of the risks needs to build on the failure of the McCanns. This would be a real legacy and better use of the money raised to ‘find Madeleine’. Perhaps its time the McCanns stood up and said ‘We were wrong - dont do as we did’ instead of ‘We regret not being there’ and other ‘mealy mouthed’ attempts to look as if they are taking responsibility whilst making very sure that they are not made ot account for their failure to protect Madeleine.
Unquote
REPLY: here we agree 100% (unless they find Madeleine). Maybe a sort of “deadline” is preferable? IF she’s not found by …… THEN we (the McC’s) donate the money to raise a campaign of ….
November 25th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Love all 0f this reliance on DNA. I have posted parcels for Cristmas to relatives in various parts of the world, so I expect mine is in places I haven’t been for ages.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Judith C -
lol- laugh out loud
November 25th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
397
Judith C Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
(389) Garth.
You either must have your tongue stuck so firmly in your cheek all the time that you can’t even blow a raspberry,
…………..
have to laugh
November 25th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
406
Can’t say No Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
405
Judith
lol
**************
I’ve never known what lol means - is it “lots of love”?
November 25th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
405
Judith
lol
November 25th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
403
Garth Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
397
Like you say Judith c……….the truth hurts!
********************
I hurt you then?
November 25th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
270
Sad Git
“Aha! I wondered how long it would take before a McCann supporter played the “patriotism” card. Who was it who said that patriotism is the last refuge of the desperate?”
There is just one problem with your ‘aha’. Can you guess what it is?
November 25th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
397
Like you say Judith c……….the truth hurts!
November 25th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
389 Garth.
Im assuming to hae not seen the latest with regards to the Kennedy assigned PI’s?
November 25th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
323
Bishop Brennan Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
“319 Ian. Indeed I did. Good point. For me the fatal flaw in GM’s plan was the unscheduled bumping into Wilkins.”
—
Comment: Always have a Plan B …
—
21
Dot Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
“Chateleine Thanks for that info. The senseless arguments over the McCanns aside I did not realize that .”
—
I don’t see only senseless arguments. And am slightly puzzled at your mix of “censored” programmes and friends laughing at paying t.v. licences …
—
272
Stevo Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
“The Catholics committed the first real documented act of genocide in Europe”
Yep. And regarding secrecy of confession: “I confess”, 1953
November 25th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
239
chenier
“Bear in mind that there are huge question marks over whether this woman even exists.”
True, but do recall you gave me flak when I suggested the sighting in Medjugorje was in my eyes lent credibility by the witness having recorded the license plate number, a detail a hoaxer was unlikely to insert as it could be checked? Careful history doesn’t repeat itself.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
376 Maria
The McCanns should never have used the fund for finding Madeleine to pay their mortgage - is incredible that they should have done this.
The fund should be used to raise awareness of the risks of leaving youngsters unprotected (from themselves more than from abductors!).
The suggested new careers in child protection was the one thing which caused me to sit up and notice this case. It seemed (ans till seems) utterly ludicrous that parents who has lost their child through their own ‘mistake’ should go around preaching to others and becoming celebrities from the consequences.
Then to discover they were actually charging for people to wear wristbands etc which were supposed to help THEM find their own daughter raised things to an even higher level of ‘ludicrosity’ (you could call that a ‘Clarenceism’!!!).
Lets please not forget that this isnt about protecting adults - either those who actively or those through their negligent behaviour, harm children or cause harm to be inflicted upon them. This is about children. Parents have a responsibility to protect their children. If they are to be allowed the freedom to make choices then they also have to accept responsibility for those choices, in much the same way as English law deals currently with smacking. Although there is ‘reasonable chastisement’ - which allows a measured use of smacking to discipline children, exceeding certain parameters results in prosecution. So too is the case with negligence - though it is less well defined and needs updating.
What I am saying to you is this, lets have a little more focus on the fact that Madeleine was failed by her parents. Although I am sure that whatever the cause of her not being with her family, they are suffering - but I say, so be it. They pay the price for their decision. Now lets consider Madeleine and bring whoever caused each level of her fate to justice. From parents to abductor to accomplices in peverting the course of justice - all have a price to pay.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
396
annie123
Even IF the P.J.,went to U.K.,they can’t put questions to the mcc
November 25th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
(389) Garth.
You either must have your tongue stuck so firmly in your cheek all the time that you can’t even blow a raspberry, or you’re the youngest brother of Gerry McCann whose kept behind closed doors with only his computer for company because he’s…’well, not quite right, but at least he’s one of the family’… or, you’re completely thick. Which is it?
November 25th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Does anyone know for sure whether the pj’s are preparing to come to the UK to re-interview T9 and family of McC’s?
Some papers say yes, some say no.
A bit like this case really, what in the press can anyone believe?
This would include the ‘with blanket, without blanket’ situation.
Apart from on panorama, when have any of the T9 made a statement for the TV about the events of that night? Is the inconsistencies only because of what’s been in the press or a mix of press and TV interviews?
You can’t dismiss somethings in the press and believe other things just because it fits into what you percieve or believe what happened.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
I’ve dipped in and out of here over the past few months fascinated not only by the case, but the way in which this forum so often produces knowledgable reasoning, conjecture and opinions - plus lots of cut and thrust and wicked humour.
I’m not one for making lots of comments, but I couldn’t let the following go by without doing so:
Stevo Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
“If the PJ’s hunch that the parents are responsible for the death is correct, it puts the McCanns in the same league as Hindley and Brady in my opinion. If that is the case, no amount of punishment is enough for them.”
Whatever any of us might feel about the McCanns’ culpability in this case, there is no way they can be compared to Brady and Hindley. As a young reporter I was one of those who listened to the tape recording of one their poor child victims - there were five in all, as young as 10 - pleading for an end to the pain and humiliation. Fifteen minutes later little Lesley Ann Downey was, mercifully, dead. I’ll never stop hearing that voice.
I understand the anger we feel about the modern day tragedy of Madeleine, but to liken it to the depraved bestiality and sheer cruelty of the Moors Murderers is to diminish the evil of Brady and Hindley, may they rot in Hell.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
389
Garth
Maybe it was one man from the Portuguese Police that abducted her
November 25th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Photofit of suspect
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1294097,00.html
November 25th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
386
Judith C
You didn’t say anything re autism but did you mention Strongwood? Somebody did but I don’t keep copies of everything said! As I ‘ve said, I know nothing about Strongwood and asked Stevo innocently why so many Dutch citizens had given money. Dare I mention Strongwood again? Oooh er!!! Who are Strongwood? Eeek!
November 25th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Fragile Kate
lol
November 25th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
383 Judith C
I will do as you suggest.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Prize letter of the week - Sunday Express
Fragile Kate right to skip lie test
How could Kate McCann take a lie detector test in her fragile state of mind (”Kate refuses lie test”, Sunday Express, hNovember 18)? She has lost a child for goodness sake.
Anyone who agrees to take a lie detcotr test would reasonably assume that it would be accurate and largely infallible.
How can the chairman of the British and European Polygraph Association be ’shocked’ by her
refusal to take the test after he himself stated he could not guarantee the result would be 100 per cen accurate?
The science is flawed and good for Mrs McCann to question it.
How many children have been abducted in recent times across the globe and why is it , as it appears, that only the McCanns are being pilloried in the media? And, what about the Portuguese police? Their investigation has been a shambles from the outset; it would now appear that their sole aim is to blacken the name of the McCanns rather than find Madeleine.
Thank goodness for the Spanish Metodo 3 detective agency. To the public, it would seem that it is the only organisation actually trying to find Madeleine.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
381
Ian
Perhaps its time the McCanns stood up and said ‘We were wrong - dont do as we did’ instead of ‘We regret not being there’ and other ‘mealy mouthed’ attempts to look as if they are taking responsibility whilst making very sure that they are not made ot account for their failure to protect Madeleine.
After 6 months of lies, and acusing inocent people,i don’t think
November 25th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Dave 366
You’re right about the ‘blanket’
“A family friend of Gerry and Kate McCann has told police she saw a blonde-haired girl being carried away from an Algarve holiday apartment wrapped in a blanket at the time Madeleine is believed to have been snatched from her room.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1847879.ece
This was May 27th. Why then did the blanket later disappear (perhaps it was one of those magical flying carpet type!) Or perhaps it was because Tanner realised, or someone close to her did, that there wasn’t a blanket missing from the apartment.
She changed her story about this just as she did about the time she supposedly saw the ‘abductor’ (9:30pm – until that didn’t fit in with ‘the window of opportunity’) and also the appearance of the ‘abductor’ (which was too close to Gerry first time round and had to be rapidly altered.) A complete pack of lies, imo! No doubt, she never did leave the Tapas Bar until about 9:45 – same time as O’Brien was missing! Some of us can suspect what for!!
November 25th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
373
Patch Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
365 Judith C
I think Stevo is referring to the fact that, after I made a suggestion re the term ‘autistic’, I asked him (innocently, as I know nothing about Strongwood) why 105,000 Dutch people gave money to fund the Strongwood investigation. If I remember rightly, it started some criticism about Strongwood. Perhaps it was you or maybe Thea who made some critical remarks? I honestly don’t know why an innocent constructive criticism and equally innocent enquiry about Strongwood has provoked this! Any ideas!
*********************************************************
Quite honestly I don’t know what he’s talking about either, or why it matters. I can’t remember jumping on any statement of his or yours or whoever’s about Madeleine being ‘autistic’. I think if I had picked up on that word I would probably have been my usual —what am I called ?– ‘cranky’, ‘miserable’ ‘caustic’ ’sensitive super-model clone’ — self, and remarked that autism is a euphemism for out of control.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
I wonder when the other two documentaries are going to be aired?
November 25th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
376
Maria Says:
” . . . at the moment there simply is no evidence to suggest they had motive or opportunity or are the sort of people who would have wanted to murder their child.”
———————–
COMMENT: of course they had opportunity, what a silly thing to say
“If the little girl had an accident, ONLY if it was temper loss (or group abuse) would they have had even the ghost of a motive for wishing to hide it. (It’s nonsense to say they might have hidden it to keep secret the fact that they left the children asleep in the apartment while they ate nearby. That was going to come out anyway and no attempt to deny it was ever made.) ”
COMMENT: are you forgetting the possbility of drugs, that they might prefer to be known as child neglectors than to overdosing?