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.’”
November 25th, 2007 at 10:06 am
From Anorak’s daily summary (above): “Years later DNA evidence proved beyond doubt that JonBenet had been killed by an intruder…”
REPLY: I don’t think so. The best-researched book on the subject, published recently, is very clear that JonBenet Ramsey was done to death by a furious mother in an uncontrollable rage. The parents then hid the body in the basement and only a very thorough police search found it
November 25th, 2007 at 10:09 am
I have just read the Guardian Account, including the David Mills letter to Sandy Smith, and feel that the MCCANNS have been CHEATED by the BBC. Disgaceful!!! `They get the licence money paid by UK residents including the McCann family. I think UK is the only country in the world where owners of TV sets have to buy a license.
Dot
November 25th, 2007 at 10:12 am
2…Dot
I would have felt much, much more “cheated” if Mr Mill’s idea of the type of
Programme “suitable” had been the one which was aired.
November 25th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Unlike the JonBenet case, there are 9 involved in the story here, not just the 2 parents.
Assuming the Porto police cannot prove it yet, there’s no way 9 will be able to keep on message for ever.
November 25th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Baby Grace news.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/5325283.html
Family hopes DNA not linked to Baby Grace
November 25th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Dot Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 10:09 am
“I think UK is the only country in the world where owners of TV sets have to buy a license.”
—
Not really. I think, at least in Western Europe, one does pay a yearly license for having t.v.-set[s]. Sometimes it’s included in other taxes, sometimes it’s specified on these taxes or charged separately. E.g. here in France it is specified on the “taxe d’habitat”. Fortunately only one charge per household; it used to be PER t.v. set, which could be very costly having more than one [as we "all" have nowadays] …
Besides, I don’t think that paying a license fee gives the right to DEMAND whatever from the broadcasters, apart from impartial news and current affair [as well as good programmes, films and documentaries BEFORE midnight
November 25th, 2007 at 10:35 am
More farcical headlines based on what? Ridiculous fairy tales. I dread looking at the headlines. I am going to concentrate on letter writing this week, rather than endless speculation and wasting my time arguing with mindless pro McCanns.
November 25th, 2007 at 10:35 am
From previous thread.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/25/wmaddy125.xml
”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.”
–
More evidence of McCanns getting ready to get rid of Metodo 3?
November 25th, 2007 at 10:39 am
6, Besides, I don’t think that paying a license fee gives the right to DEMAND whatever from the broadcasters, apart from impartial news and current affair [as well as good programmes, films and documentaries BEFORE midnight
TOSH so if you went to a supermarket and the manager started to fill your trolly with things you dont want,you are saying you would be happy to pay for them?????
November 25th, 2007 at 10:46 am
I am fervently opposed to either of the despicable duo using the death and then disappearance of their child into a career opportunity. Kate in child welfare? Stomach churning. Gerry in politics? I suppose that field is full of liars and the corrupt but I pray that he remains arguido and, as such, is unable to gain further celebrity from a crime. I hope their lives are made so unbearable that they crack. The mother of JonBenet could not cope with what she had done. Let’s see if the McCanns and their partners in crime manage to live with their deeds.
November 25th, 2007 at 10:51 am
9
ned Says:
November 25th, 2007 at 10:39 am
“TOSH so if you went to a supermarket and the manager started to fill your trolly with things you dont want,you are saying you would be happy to pay for them?????”
—
Strange comparison. And after all, I did mention impartial news & good programmes, no? So, if you we stay with your example: in a supermarket there are all kinds of different things and brands on offer. You chose what you want to have. On television there are all kinds of different programmes on offer. You chose which ones you want to see. There’s more than one supermarket for you to chose from. There is more than one channel for you to chose from. You may decide not to go to the supermarket. You may decide to use the on/off switch on your t.v. set.
I propose to abandon this subject now, as it bears no relation to the actual discussion. Sorry, I reacted in the first place. Professional deformation, I guess
November 25th, 2007 at 10:52 am
9 ned Says: November 25th, 2007 at 10:39 am
6, Besides, I don’t think that paying a license fee gives the right to DEMAND whatever from the broadcasters, apart from impartial news and current affair [as well as good programmes, films and documentaries BEFORE midnight
TOSH so if you went to a supermarket and the manager started to fill your trolly with things you dont want,you are saying you would be happy to pay for them?????
+++++++++++++++++
Well…. If I didn’t have to pay at the checkout for whatever had been put in my trolley, I might be prepared to put up with the contents…
November 25th, 2007 at 10:55 am
10 Patch wrote: “The mother of JonBenet could not cope with what she had done…”
REPLY: Yes, I think she gradually disintegrated internally - psychologically and physically. Sometimes this process takes a long time - but if the parents are involved in Madeleine’s death and ‘disappearance’, and either of them have any vestige of a conscience left, it will play on their minds - and it will work itself out into the open somehow in their bodies and in their minds
November 25th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Jehovah’s Witnesses are predatory wolves in sheep’s clothing religious hypocrites.
——————————–
Mods and Admin
Mary, that is a little strong, could you lessen you condemnation, or all other faiths shall feel left out.
But if you are meaning the possible paedophile connection , then that can be indulged in by all beliefs, allegedly.
It can appear that different religions do harbour criminal activity, but as can be the case, criminals can hide behind a pillar of establishment in order to gain respectability and have contact with their intended victims WITHOUT arousing suspicion
November 25th, 2007 at 10:57 am
“”"David Mills “”" re Panorama Prog in his letter to “Sandy”
“”"”The real question must be how, without any meaningful evidence, the
Portuguese police and the media in Portugal and Britain have been able to
convince most people that the couple were involved.”"”"”"
It certaintly wouldn’t have been anything to do with you, Davey me lad.
David Mills….Staunch supporter of Dr G P McCann and Dr K McCann…under
his pretence of being an Investigative TV Journalist.
November 25th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Tony Bennett, what a bunch of horse crap. I think they’re guilty as sin, but medical science and controlled studies have proved this psychological cause of illness, at least in the case of cancer, and death is a bunch of rubbish. You’re going on New Age “science” not the real variety. Leave medical pronouncements to the professionals — the doctors — like Kate and Gerry McCann
November 25th, 2007 at 11:01 am
I wonder if the metado 3 are uncovering more than the mcc’s want them to know?
November 25th, 2007 at 11:03 am
17…pat
Well….if they sack them….we will soon know.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:04 am
First they have to discredit them. Mind you that has happened already!
November 25th, 2007 at 11:04 am
16…Christoph
Thank you, Dr LOL.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:07 am
19…pat
As the Public tended to discredit them from day one… Team McCann have been
very slow to catch on. @)
November 25th, 2007 at 11:11 am
REPLY: I don’t think so. The best-researched book on the subject, published recently, is very clear that JonBenet Ramsey was done to death by a furious mother in an uncontrollable rage. The parents then hid the body in the basement and only a very thorough police search found it
That’s biased as well Tony. One book came to that conclusion. It is certainly right of you to point out that there was no final DNA match to anyone but DNA of an ‘unknown’ Caucasian male was found on the body. The case in most people’s view remains open.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:14 am
METODO 3, MOROCCO AND AN EXPULSION ORDER
Several weeks ago, when the ‘Madeleine-was-kidnapped-to order-by-a-paedophile-gang-and-is-now-in-Morocco’ fever was at its height, there was a report in a couple of newspapers that an unnamed British man had been expelled (deported) from Morocco.
The report added that the reason he had been expelled was that they had received numerous complaints from hotel owners that this man had been chatting up hotel staff and others offering sums of money if they would come forward and claim to the authorities that they might have seen ‘Madeleine’. Did anyone else see this report?
I am trying to track down the report which I may have on file, but I can’t get it right now by Googling.
It occurred to me that Team McCann and Metodo 3 were trying to promote ‘credible sightings’ of Madeleine by this totally underhand method.
If I can find out more, I will post it here
November 25th, 2007 at 11:16 am
17 Pat,
Uncovering more than the McCs want them to know ?
Look at the Metodo3 website. English version
Divisions -
Insurance
Financial
Legal
Franchises
Fraud
Mutual Insurance
Patent and Copyright Falsification
Information Protection
Due Diligence and Disloyal Competition.
(Nothing about missing children. )
But then under ENTERPRISE -
para 4 sentence 2
“Our motto and objective is to turn all of our efforts into the creation and development of a union of European detectives in the fight against (- wait for it !!-) CORPORATE FRAUD.
Pat, I think you may be on to something here.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:16 am
As Mr McCann explained: “The distance is so small, it was so close it was almost like having dinner in your garden. What we were doing was rigorous with multiple people checking at regular intervals.”
When asked if Madeleine might have wandered out through the unlocked patio windows towards the swimming pool, or beyond to the beach, the McCanns dismiss it out of hand.
“We’re absolutely certain. We double and treble-checked and have no doubt she was taken,” said Mr McCann. Yet another scenario is now emerging in the local press. It is built on the recollections of other guests and workers at the resort.
The official story from the McCanns is this. Mr McCann said he checked on his three children at 9.05pm. He noticed that a door in the apartment which had been left shut was ajar.
He thought nothing of it but it may have indicated that a kidnapper was already there. But his daughter was fast asleep so he went back to the tapas bar.
Another of the group, Jane Tanner, says she took her turn 10 minutes later. She claimed later to police that she saw a dark-haired man of about 35 carrying a child as she walked back to the bar afterwards but thought nothing of it.
Soon after her return - at 9.45pm - Dr Oldfield did his round of the bedrooms. In a first statement to police, it is unclear if he actually went inside the McCann flat.
Indeed, one scenario is that many of the checks of the children were not visible, but involved listening at doors or even from outside the apartments.
However, in a second statement Dr Oldfield insists he did look in Madeleine’s bedroom, believes he saw her there, and that there was light coming in through the windows as though the heavy shutters had been opened.
Again, he thought little of it until afterwards. Then, of course, it was Mrs McCann’s turn. She found Madeleine gone.
Madeleine’s aunt Trish Cameron recalled that she received a call later that night from her younger brother, Mr McCann, who told her: “I went back to check the children at nine o’clock. They were all sound asleep, windows shut, shutters shut.”
Mrs Cameron related that when Mrs McCann went to the two apartment a little under an hour later: “The shutters had been jemmied open. They think someone must have come in the window and gone out of the front door with Madeleine.”
But what is now perturbing Portuguese police is how could she be abducted when the McCann group were checking so often? Or have reports inadvertently exaggerated how vigilant the parents really were?
A worker at the tapas bar says that only a tall man, believed to be Russell O’Brien, got up from the table during the entire evening. Of course, this witness might be wrong. A busy barman could not have eyes on the McCann party for two and a half hours.
And what of Najova Chekaya, the aerobics teacher running the quiz? She was invited over to the McCann table by Mr McCann himself when the game ended at 9.30. She stayed for half an hour. She later claimed to friends that nobody left the table.
There is another conundrum too. It concerns the sighting by Jane Tanner of the man carrying a child. He was wearing beige trousers and smart black shoes. Her report is taken seriously by police.
Yet a British holidaymaker, Jeremy Wilkins, has given a deposition that does not support her evidence. He knew Mr McCann because he played tennis with him, and was walking his eight-month-old son in the night air when the drama unfolded.
He says that he met Mr McCann, who had come out of his apartment at 9.05pm, and had a word with him. Soon after that Jane Tanner would have crossed paths with Mr Wilkins and his baby.
Mr Wilkins says he saw no man carrying a child or Jane Tanner herself. “It was a very narrow path and I think it would have been almost impossible for anyone to walk by without me noticing,” he said.
So today the questions remain. Was Madeleine kidnapped or killed? Or unwatched, did she simply walk out and get lost? How could there be a break in with a jemmy through metal shutters without waking the twins or alerting a passerby?
Someone, somewhere must know the answers
November 25th, 2007 at 11:22 am
16 Christoph says (November 25th, 2007 at 10:57 am): “Leave medical pronouncements to the professionals - the doctors - like Kate and Gerry McCann…”
REPLY: Like: ‘The smell of death on my clothes and Cuddle Cat was because I took Cuddle Cat to work and had been working on six corpses in the two weeks before I went on holiday”. Or: “It felt so right/was at worst naive” to leave three childen under 4 on their own with an unlocked door exposing them to the risks of fire, abduction, injuring themselves or becoming severely distressed. Or: “Body fluids found in the spare wheel well of our hired car were dirty nappies or rotting meat”.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Good post Stevie.
My theory has always been on this that they regularly left the kids for the whole evening without checking, or at least that’s not how it started, but as the holiday went on the dinner party became the priority each night and complacency set in and very little checking was done on the night in question. This is what they are trying to cover up. They were all pissed and gave different stories which a day or so after they couldn’t remember but it was too late to go back on. Madeline wasn’t killed by any of them. There was a huge window of opportunity for abduction which they are denying. In other words they are gulity of serious neglect which is what they have all been trying to cover up for so long and when the parents became suspects it became even more important to stick to their original stories - which of course don’t add up.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:29 am
21 Matt
I wonder how true some of the reports have been in the newspapers? Metado 3 could be very p*ss*d off- and wish they never touched this case as this looks like it could finish them if they don’t come up with something
November 25th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Tony 23
I don’t doubt that the McCanns are lying about something (it could just be the ‘regular checking’), but why would Metodo3 - or indeed any PI agency - be willing to be a part of so-called ‘credible sightings’? I mean, it assumes that the PIs have been TOLD to make things up. Would the McCanns risk something like that? How would the McCanns put it to the PIs?
GM to Marco: Listen here, mate. We’re responsible for our daughter’s disappearance. I’ll give you a couple of hundred thousand euros if you can get some Moroccans to say they saw our lovely daughter Madeleine.
I find it very suspicious that the McCanns have employed the best legal counsel, but the worst PIs. It looks like they’re trying to save themselves rather than find their child.
November 25th, 2007 at 11:31 am
22 Eric Voglin
Here is one account of public opinion on the JonBenet Ramsey case, from Boulder, in 1999:
QUOTE
BOULDER — And you thought everybody had an opinion about who killed JonBenet Ramsey?
In a Colorado News Poll of Colorado residents, nearly four of 10 respondents said they didn’t know or were unsure who killed the child beauty queen. Talmey-Drake Research & Strategy of Boulder conducted the poll for the Denver Rocky Mountain News and KCNC-TV News 4 from June 16 to June 27.
Questions were posed to roughly 400 men and women in the metro area, plus about 200 in other parts of Colorado. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
In the poll, 38% of the 594 people questioned said they didn’t know who killed JonBenet.
There are those with opinions, however. Twenty-five percent of the respondents believe the 6-year-old’s mother, Patsy Ramsey, killed her. Far fewer, 6 percent, think John Ramsey killed his daughter. JonBenet’s 12-year-old brother, Burke, was suspected by 5 percent of those surveyed, even though police and prosecutors earlier this year cleared him in the 2 1/2-year-old case. It was an intruder, 7 percent said. And 4 percent refused to answer the question.
The Ramsey family has denied involvement in JonBenet’s death. Attorneys for family members refused to comment Wednesday.
In the poll, 98 percent of the respondents said they had heard about the Dec. 26, 1996, slaying.
Pollster Paul Talmey said he has rarely seen such high public awareness of a crime. “It’s right up there,” he said. “There is a broad, broad awareness of this case.” Talmey was not surprised by the number of people who said they didn’t have an opinion about who killed JonBenet.
“People have really a strong feeling about not claiming somebody’s guilty unless they have a fair amount of information,” he said. “People think, ‘Gee, it has dragged on. If it was really clear who did it, there would have been an indictment by now.”‘ Still, the acquittal of O.J. Simpson of murder charges has caused the public to be far more willing to sound off on major crimes, said Mimi Wesson, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Law and a mystery novelist.
“People have come to grips in a dramatic way with the fact that the criminal-justice system doesn’t always produce a just outcome,” she said. “And once people acknowledged that, then I think they felt freed up to substitute their own reasoning and information gathering processes for the criminal-justice process.”
REST OF REPORT SNIPPED