April 7, 2021 • 38 mins
Madeleine McCann was just three years old when she vanished from her bed while on holiday in Portugal. There have been multiple sightings and her parents accused of foul play, but there's still no definitive answer as to what happened. Rahni Sadler sits down with Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann, investigator Gonçalo Amaral, who was removed from the case, and other key players in the case.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
In a region known as the Algave on Portugal's southernmost coast.
There's a secret so great, a cover up so vast.
It captivated the world for a decade.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
People want to believe that something like this can't happen
to them.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
It's have you Purdon's worst nightmare.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
For ten years. Jerry and Kate McCann have returned to Portugal,
the last place they saw their daughter, Madeleine. When you
come back to what you do feel closer to Madeline.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Certainly when I go to Prior Delusia do, and that's
why I do go by, but frequently, and although I
don't know where Madlin is, that is the last place
that you know I saw a holder, and I guess
it's apart of me that still feels connective to others.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
But there are still those who believe the couple's connection
to the crime is far greater than they've ever let on.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
The focus is now firmly of the parents. They're lying
and they're concealing guild.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
An estimated twenty million dollars has been spent trying to
find the world's most famous missing person.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
This is the most baffling case I've ever looked.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
At tonight, the new theories on where Madeline may be,
how many wells are there and how difficult are they
to search?
Speaker 7 (01:48):
There are hundreds of wells, three four or five, six hundred.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Wells, the promising fresh clues.
Speaker 8 (01:55):
It's just as logical to believe that you may still
be alive somewhere being held against the world.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
And why detectives at Scotland Yard believe they're closer than
ever to identifying the person who took Madeleine.
Speaker 9 (02:09):
It could be the key to the case.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
A photo of innocence that has become one of the
most recognizable faces on Earth. Taken on the third of
May two thousand and seven, it's the last known image
of Madeleine. Beth McCann.
Speaker 10 (02:32):
She was just setting by the pill breath.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Myself and I've both got feet, just padling, and she
is so happy, just there with her heart and outfit on.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
You're all happy. When Jerry and Kate McCann sat down
with Sunday Night, it was the happy memories of Madeleine
they wanted to share.
Speaker 10 (02:52):
She was incredibly beautiful bb actually.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
And sound like the most biased patents on the planet now,
but she just really compact and just a really kind
of nice, round, perfect head, and you know, and then then.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
She opened her mouth and very well knew she was
with us.
Speaker 10 (03:11):
My can level volume, There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
She's a screamer right from the start.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Cardiologist Durry mckainn and his GP wife Kate had turned
to y vy If after years of trying to concede naturally.
After medline came twins Sean and Emily.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think it was a secret
really that I always wanted to be a mother. I
don't know if maybe that stemmed from being an only
child and sort of you know, wanting not feel in
a family. So yeah, I mean even when I was
in school and stuff. You know, my friends were aware
of it, and my university medical boot yeah book. When
(03:57):
we graduated, it says progodoss Tian with at a sex you.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Say the family felt really complete.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, we did feel incredibly looking.
Speaker 10 (04:09):
Are they knew?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
The mccantid usually holiday in Britain, but in two thousand
and seven friends suggested they traveled to Portugal, a cheap
overseas destination considered fun and family friendly. You didn't want
to go to Portugal?
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Yeah, I mean it wasn't for any kind of major reason.
I just thought, you know, we had three very young children,
and I was just thinking practically, I just wasn't sure
really if it was worth our effort, if it would
be as enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
But she gave in and joined three other families with
five other kids for a week long vacation at the
Ocean Club resort here in the town of Prior Deluge.
The holiday began on April twenty eighth, two thousand and seven.
As it turned out, the kids loved it.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
All the kids were cleaned together, and they were running
and aunt Chase's chess and Madeline especially she loved that
chest and mean on and after her.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
The days were fun for the kids, but the late
nights in Portugal stretched on too long. On the first
night of the trip, the couples discovered the resort's main restaurant,
the Millennium, was too far a walk for eight small children,
so the McCanns and their friends made a block booking
for the next six nights at the Tapas restaurant across
(05:43):
the pool from their apartments. From the restaurant, they had
line of sight to the block of villas where their
children were sleeping. You explained that it wasn't like you
were taking a risk by leaving the kids there. It
never for one second occurred to you that anything would
take place.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I mean we always talk about the decision we made,
but that almost implies that you talked about, you know,
to think that'll be okay or not.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
I mean, that never came into it.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
It was the case, I hope we can eat here,
that'll be ideal the kids even it won't be disruptive,
or get them sorted and then we can all eat.
I mean, it was simply like that there'd been any
risk at all that had occurred to us, then it
just wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Thursday, May third was meant to be the second last
night of their vacation. Cake told me about that afternoon
and that evening medal and said she'd had a great day.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
Yeah, no, she had a really full day. Actually, you know,
she'd they've been to the beach and had like her
and they called it minisale. So she'd been on a
little boat or a dinghy or something. But my memory
of that evening is really vivid. I mean, she was
really tired, but she was just cuddled up on my
knee and we read a story which Jerry said as
(07:02):
one of her favorites, and she often liked to put
on my engagement.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Ring, so she was sitting there at my ring.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
On and we read the story and me als, had
some treats. I had some crisps and biscuits, and then
after they've done the usual kind of toilet teeth, we
went through to the bedroom and read another story.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
If You're Happy and you know it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
The children were in bed by seven o'clock. Their parents
left for dinner at eight point thirty. The tapas bar
was across the pool from their apartments. The McCann's apartment
was on the end, the most accessible from the street.
The front door was locked, but the sliding patio doors
at the back were left unlocked to allow easy access
(07:59):
to check on their children. Madeline was asleep in a
single bed in the front room, where her parents kept
the window closed and locked. The twins, Sewn and Emily
were in travel cots by her side. At nine oh five,
Jerry went back to check on the children.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I saw it, and I had one of those parental
moments where I thought I were still lucky, Like at
three children having a lovely holiday. Kids would really enjoying it.
And I just lingered for a few seconds and thought
how beautiful she was. And that was the last time
I saw.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Last time you saw her, you thought how lucky you were?
Speaker 10 (08:46):
Your word shut at thin. I know.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
It was ten pm Kate's turn to check on the children.
She estimates it took between thirty and forty five seconds
to walk from the Tapas restaurant on the other side
of the pool to their apartment number five A. She
walked into the kid's bedroom and felt a gust of wind.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
The curtains, which had been closed, just swung open into
the room and reveal that the shutter was all the
way up and the window being pushed right across. And
then I just knew, I just knew she'd been taken,
and I ran to the window. Of no idea what
I expected to find or see. You know, you just
hope you're going to see your child. Every second. Wiz
(09:36):
drown the apartment in about ten seconds. Again, I don't
quite know, because you know, I knew in my head
that someone had taken it. I don't know if I
kind of hoped that maybe she was hiding in a
cupboard or something, and then I just legged it out
at the back of the apartment.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And then as soon as I saw.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Jerry and our friends at the table, I mean, I
was just screaming and Madeline's gone. Someone's taken it.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Ten o'clock at night, in the dark in a foreign country.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
And I was just screaming and Madlin's gone, Someone's taken it.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Kate mckenn was running to tell her husband their daughter Madelene,
had disappeared from the villa where she'd been sleeping.
Speaker 10 (10:25):
Yeah, cape's clearly destroyed.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
And I jumped off. But it's kind of disbelief. She
can't be gone, can't I can't possibly How can she
be gone? The furthest thing from your mind? And I've
seen that to Kate as we were both running.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Did you think that there must be some confusion. She
must be there somewhere.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, I just can't have been taking that doesn't happen.
You just think it doesn't happen. And but kepe saying
she's gone, someone's taking it.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
The mckenn's friends began a frantic search. The ocean club's
manager initiated an emergency warning system, mobilizing sixty staff searching
the club, the beach and surround police joined the search
two hours later.
Speaker 7 (11:19):
They were looking for a child that had wandered away.
That's what everybody thought must have happened. She'd wandered away,
and that was the focus really of what they were
looking for, a child that wandered away.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Paul Luckman is the editor of the Portugal News. He
was one of the first journalists on the scene. When
did you first see the McCanns.
Speaker 7 (11:41):
I saw Kate McCann with one of the friends with
his arm rounder comforting it.
Speaker 10 (11:48):
I've got a photograph of it.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And Kate looked out of her mind.
Speaker 7 (11:54):
She was very distressed and being comforted, and it was
running around treely what mum wouldn't be pretty much out
of their mind. I thought you'd lost a child.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
What was Kate doing? Was she inside or outside the apartment?
Speaker 7 (12:08):
She was outside the apartment.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Was she interacting with police?
Speaker 7 (12:11):
Yes, interacting to some degree. I think the police were
trying to take it very gently. The whole focus was
on a little girl that had got lost, wandered away
and got lost in a strange place.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
From the start, the police investigation had significant failings. Instead
of closing off the apartment as a crime scene. Dozens
of people came and went trampling through the rooms and
the yard, searching for any sign of Madeline. In the process,
recoverable evidence was destroyed, vital clues lost forever. So it
(12:53):
was not at the beginning considered a crime no, or
a crime scene.
Speaker 7 (12:58):
No, no, it really was, and we all know that,
including the Portuguese place. We'll freely admit. In those first
few days, yes, it did trample all overuse they're looking
for the little girl. Nobody even considered this could be
something else.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
It wasn't until four point thirty the next morning that
roadblocks were put in place, six and a half hours
after Madeleine disappeared.
Speaker 7 (13:24):
One policeman said to me, look, if the child was
abducted one hour later, she's in Spain long before, if
any time to close off the roads start. So we're
still looking for a little girl lost in the field
next door. They be halfway cross Spain or going down
to Ports Algaciries into North Africa probably would have been.
(13:45):
Most of the way there we are motorways all the while.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
The next day the world's media had descended on Prior
to Louge. It was a situation Portugal had never experienced.
The privileged child, respected British professionals had gone missing without
a trace.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Please continue to play for Madeline.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
She's love them.
Speaker 8 (14:08):
This is something that just didn't fit the stereotypical idea
that many people might have wrongly, that that sort of
family doesn't have this happen to them.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Clarence Mitchell has represented the family for nearly a decade.
He says the tide of public opinion turned very quickly
on the mccairns.
Speaker 8 (14:28):
Once it was reported that they weren't with the children.
Then the judgment squad kicked in and they were guilty
of neglect.
Speaker 10 (14:37):
At the very least, the.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Couple's stoicism in front of the cameras didn't help.
Speaker 8 (14:44):
The British police said to them before they did any
television interviews, a perpetrator of a kidnap will watch the
media coverage of the distressed relatives to get a sexual
kick from seeing the distress they've caused. They were warned
about this and they were told by the British order
authorities if you can try not to show overt emotion.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
People described you as cold and poker faced, and I.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Don't think I had a day for literally eighteen months
where I didn't have a plung period crying. Now I've
learned that people judge, you know, very readily, and what
you see on camera, you know, isn't the full story.
Speaker 10 (15:25):
They are prolonged periods for several days.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Our cap was my mum said it's like howling like
a wild animal with grief and despair in her bedroom.
And I have to say I really wasn't able to
console because I was paddling frantically below the surface.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Across the pro From the beginning, the search was led
by this man, Detective Gonzalo Amoral. From early on he
had his suspicions about the McCanns. Who do you think
are the most likely suspects in this case, mckenn.
Speaker 11 (16:12):
The mccam couple. We were suspicious that an accident could
have led to the death of Madeleine.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The lead investigator suspected Kate and Jerry had sedated Madeleine,
who'd fallen and died while they were at dinner.
Speaker 10 (16:25):
No one knew in this I.
Speaker 11 (16:26):
Knew, my pro There is no hint, no proof that
the child was kidnapped. On the contrary, there are hints
that the parents were negligent and there are hints that
was hiding of the body.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Four months after their daughter disappeared, the McCanns were declared suspects.
Speculation had hit fever pitch. At times. You felt like
two loan figures with catapults against an army. You must
just feel so helpless.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Suddenly a lot of doors began to close, you know,
the UK government and the authorities kind of withdrew and
there was obviously doubt, you know, amongst sectors of the
general public, and we really felt hamper then. And the
hardest thing, the most upsetting thing for us, was that
obviously impacts greatly on the search for Madeline. You know,
(17:21):
we need people to be helping us to be looking
for so at that point, you know, we felt very alone,
and we felt like we were fighting a million battles.
To be honest, it was very difficult to counter any
kind of negativity in Portugal that was appearing in the media.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
That's because under Portuguese law, they were forbidden from speaking
out in their own defense.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
I can't say anything.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I'm afraid it wasn't credible, how it wasn't So we
were having trial by media with misinformation lies in smears
against this and the threat of breaking judicial secrets if
we talked about details and then investigation.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
The world's media is now camped outside the McCann's villa.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
In the meantime, the media was having a field day
with links from police.
Speaker 8 (18:10):
In fact, if we denied something, it gave them the
story because we'd denied it. So half the time we'd
ignore stuff. We wouldn't give it the credibility by even
commenting on it.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
Charges may be laid against the couple next week.
Speaker 8 (18:21):
So that appears on the Monday in a paper in
Portugal and we know it's wrong. On Tuesday it reappears
in the Daily Mail or the Daily Mirror in London,
and then on Wednesday the mainstream Portuguese press would rerun it,
saying it had been run by the established, illustrious Daily
Mail of London.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And every time a story about the McCanns ran circulation
sword it got to the point where the newspapers would
run almost anything, and.
Speaker 8 (18:47):
So it was like the spin cycle of lunacy, and
a lot of this stuff would just enter the narrative
and would say that. To this day, I get people
saying things that are completely wrong, but they've read it
on Facebook, They've seen it on Twitter, must be true.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
From the beginning, police believed the McCanns had opened Madeline's
window to make it look like a kidnapping. So you
believe that they're lying about the window and when it
was opened.
Speaker 10 (19:14):
See Marshmallo Sunge.
Speaker 11 (19:17):
Yes, we think it's a lie.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Investigators couldn't find any sign that the window had been
forced open or that anyone had used it to enter
or exit the apartment.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I'm not sure now, but on the night the way
Kate found the room, and with the fact that we
were able to raise the shutters, I felt that was
how the abductor had got in. We'd left that down
all week. We checked the window the first day we
were there. We didn't touch the curtains, had remained drawing
(19:52):
the whole week. Just wanted to keep their room nice
and cool and dark. And I went outside and I
was totally gast I was able to lift the shutter
from the outside.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
We just thought you had to use the kind of
the pull mechanism on the inside.
Speaker 10 (20:05):
Shouldn't it shouldn't be and it.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Was like presumed it was like a protective barrier.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I guess outside you shouldn't be able to reason, but
that's one you could.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
How much confusion did this open window cause Portuguese police.
Speaker 6 (20:18):
It seems to me that they became more suspicious of
the mccans because of that, because the mccans right from
the start said Madlin's been taken out of that window.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Professor Dave Berkeley is a forensics investigator with forty five
years experience. He traveled to prior Deluge to investigate the
crime in two thousand and seven and says there could
be a good reason the window was open.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
It's quite possible that that window was opened from the
inside by a burglar so that they could get out
that way if somebody came in through the other door.
Standard practice in reasonably good class burglars to make an
exit route for yourself to open the back door as well,
so if somebody comes in the front door, you can
(21:07):
just simply run out.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
So, if it was an intruder who opened the window
during an abduction, who was it and why did they
take Madeleine? With the world's media watching every development, Portuguese
(21:34):
police were determined to swiftly solve the mystery of the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann. The lead investigator, Detective Amoral, was
convinced Madeleine's parents, Jerry and Kate were involved, seeing.
Speaker 11 (21:50):
This was our point of view in two thousand and seven,
that she was dead.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
I mean, the lyticuous thing is Madland died in the
apartment by an accident and we hid her body. Well,
when did she have that accident and died because the
only time she was left unattended was when we were
at dinner. So if she died, then how could we
have disposed of hiding her body? You know, when there
was an immediate set It's just nonsense. So and if
(22:16):
she died when we were in the apartment or fell
and did, why would we Why would we cover that up?
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Detective Amoral brought in two sniffer dogs, Eddie and Kayla,
from the UK. He claimed the dogs found traces of
Madeline's DNA in a car hired by the McCanns weeks
after she disappeared.
Speaker 11 (22:42):
The fluid is a ninety percent match with the profile
of Madeleine McCain.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
He believed they'd hidden her body at the beach, then
used a rental car to move it to a more
remote place.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
Get some more ludicrous that we've obviously hidden some incredibly
well nobody's founder who heard us so well, like with
undecided we'd move her in the car which we hired
weeks later, and you know, it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Could that DNA categorically prove that it belonged to Madeline?
Speaker 8 (23:17):
No, that was the point. That was the point. It
could have come from Shauna Emilie.
Speaker 10 (23:23):
It was amateurral.
Speaker 8 (23:25):
Are they going to hold their own daughter's body for
two weeks and then put her in the boot of
a vehicle in front of the world's media.
Speaker 10 (23:34):
It's just laughable.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Detective Amoral also had the sniffer dogs Sir to the
McCann's apartment, where he claimed they found evidence of a
cadavera being stored and behind the sofa. Dogs found traces
of bodily fluid that were invisible to the naked eye.
Detective Amarole leaped on it as more of the McCann's guilt,
(24:01):
but the substance behind the sofar couldn't even be determined
to be human blood, let alone Madeline's blood, and the
evidence of the kadaver dogs was questionable.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
I don't put much faith into cadaver dogs. They will
react to any decomposing material, whether it's human or an animal,
or a badger, or even meat that you've spilt some
blood from in the boot of your car that's then
gone off. So I'm not at all in favor of
kadaver dogs being used as evidence.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Three months after he began leading the investigation, Detective Gonzalo
Amarole was relieved of his position and removed from the
investigation entirely. Why do you think Detective Amarole was removed?
Speaker 7 (24:51):
Oh, it's a very difficult one, isn't it. I don't
want to be critical about to his peace. Well, I
know the effort they put into it, but I think
he was somewhat fixated on one single solution when it
clearly you had to look wider.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Subsequent investigators did look much more widely, exploring numerous other theories,
among them that Madeleine was taken in a meticulously planned
abduction by a child trafficking syndicate.
Speaker 7 (25:21):
If they were targeting a blonde child, if they were
working to order almost what they wanted, if they'd been
observing the family, it could have been an opportunist snatched.
They were waiting for an opportunity.
Speaker 10 (25:38):
People say to me earlier on.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Maybe maybe she's been stolen to order had to be ridiculous,
but actually, compared to everything else that's happened, that's a possibility.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Certainly. One of the McCann's friends had seen a man
carrying a child near the apartment block forty five minutes
before Madeleine was reported missing to this artist impression, but
recently police identified the man as a tourist who was
carrying his own daughter home from the resort's crash. There
was another sighting by an Irish family at ten pm,
(26:14):
minutes before Kate discovered Madeline missing, of a man carrying
a small child towards the beach. Police created these photo fits,
but the suspect has never been found.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
They saw him carrying a blond child through prior to
news the night Madeline vavished.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Another theory is that Madeleine woke up and wandered outside
looking for her parents.
Speaker 10 (26:40):
It could be a complete accident.
Speaker 6 (26:41):
She could have got out of the villa and gone
into the street and just been knocked down by somebody
who was drunk driving. That's an incentive for him to
pick the body up and conceal it somewhere.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
The mystery of what happened to Madeleine continues to divide
opinion into this day. There are thousands of websites which
actively discuss the possibilities. For many, the McCanns remain the
most likely suspects. Did you kill your daughter? No?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Never, And you know there's nothing with any logic that kids.
You know, you'd have to start with why, you know, how, when, who?
And there's just simply you know, uncertain of these things
is there's nothing to suggest anything.
Speaker 10 (27:33):
So no, that's an emphatio.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
With no evidence to convict anyone of a crime. The
Portuguese investigation into the disappearance of Madeline McCann was closed
in August two thousand and eight.
Speaker 6 (27:59):
There is no piece of solid ground you can stand on,
nothing you can use to say which of the competing
theories are going to be the correct one.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
But in twenty thirteen British detectives were given permission to
open their own case. All the evidence the Portuguese gathered
had been handed over to Scotland yard the results were astonishing.
Speaker 9 (28:25):
On the evidence, we believe that there is a possibility
that Madeline is alive.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
What had happened to Madeleine might not have been an
isolated incident. Between two thousand and four and two thousand
and ten, within a sixty kilometer radius of where Madeleine disappeared,
there were twelve crimes where an intruder broke into the
properties of UK families. On six of those occasions he
(28:55):
either got into bed with or sexually assaulted a young
female child.
Speaker 9 (29:00):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Detective Inspector Andy Redwood was in charge of the investigation.
Speaker 9 (29:06):
Well, what we can see here is clearly a man
who has got a very very unhealthy interest in young
white female children, who is attacking whilst they're in their
beds on their holidays.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
In the period before Madeline vanished, there were several sightings
of suspicious men loitering in the area. A neighbour reported
bogus charity collector's door knocking villas, a schoolgirl saw a
fair hair man casing the McCann's apartment from multiple directions.
A British holidaymaker also reported seeing a suspicious man lurking
(29:40):
outside their apartment. Two men were seen on the balcony
of an empty unit two doors up from the McCanns,
and four hours before Madeline vanished, an unidentified man was
seen loitering in the stairwell of the McCann's apartment block.
Speaker 8 (29:56):
There had been a number of crimes from the Algave,
where by there had been attempted break ins where children
had been asleep and intruders had been disturbed in some
cases and they fled from the chances bedroom.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
In the months before medal And disappeared, there was a
fourfold increase in the number of robberies in the area,
and just weeks before Medline arrived there were two unsold
burglaries in the very block where the mccairns would stay well.
Speaker 6 (30:27):
I think the Portuguese police and the Portuguese Tourist Board
would have been quite keen not to feature their number
of burglaries that were going on in Pria de Luce
and other towns on the Algave, and the fact that
were random pedophiles going around taking children out of holiday
apartments would have probably been quite a disincentive to families
turning up for their holidays, so they wouldn't want to
(30:50):
feature that. I think that's possibly an explanation why the
MET recently were able to find more examples of indecent
assaults on children than we've been told about previously, and.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
This week explosive claims from Madeline's nanny at the Ocean
Club's crate. She says the resort was considered so unsafe
nanny's were given rape alarms and told not to go
outside alone. Scotland Yard has recently been given a final
injection of cash to follow up their strongest lead.
Speaker 12 (31:28):
There is an employee, somebody who worked within the Ocean
Village complex who it's felt has some information or some
knowledge which may be of assistance.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Colin Sutton is a former investigator with Scotland Yard. He
has repeatedly explored the prior to Louse area where Madeline disappeared.
How difficult would it be to find a body in
that area around prior to Louge.
Speaker 12 (31:56):
Oh, It's almost impossible. It would be possible without specific
information or intelligence which enabled you to focus the search
in a particular area. It's a large area of a
very low population of scrubland, of ancient wells. There are
(32:17):
areas there where you know humans probably don't go from
one year or one decade even to the next. It
would be very easy to secrete something there and be
really confident that it wouldn't be found.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
You visited the area where on earth could Madeline's body be.
Speaker 6 (32:37):
It was the most higher bodyable place I've ever been
in in my life.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
If she was killed in the area, how many places
would there be to hide a body?
Speaker 7 (32:48):
Oh fast quantities. There are hundreds of wells, three four
or five six hundred wells still exist, and you would
need local knowledge.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
If somebody had dumped Madeline's body down a well, what
chance would there be that she would be found five.
Speaker 7 (33:06):
Ten years time somebody suddenly decides to clear the well
and that they will bring it back into operation. I
hope about the only possibility they would clean it out
and bones would be found.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
However, Detective Amorole as an extraordinary conspiracy theory on why
Madeleine's body is yet to be found. So you think,
I five the British Secret Service helped conceal Madeleine McCann's body.
Speaker 11 (33:39):
And attend I'm not saying that much, but I'm saying
for sure they had their involvement in this situation.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Do you seriously think that the British government would allow
its agents to cover up a major crime? Not?
Speaker 11 (33:53):
Well, I'm not British, so I can't answer that.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
But despite Gonzalo Amarole's preposterous theories. A Portuguese court has
upheld his right to express them in a book he
calls the Truth of the Lie. Gonzalo Amarle is claiming
some big cover up with I five and Gordon Brown.
What do you think of those claims.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
I mean, the less the lest said about going to
tell Amaral the better.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Do you find it offensive that people are carrying on
this way?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, I mean it's of coursed a lot of uxet
and stamished. The search.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Madeline Beth McCann would be fourteen on May the twelfth.
Artists have shown how she may have changed in the
decade since you disappeared. Reported sightings can continue. So far,
there have been eight thousand, six hundred and eighty five
across one hundred and one countries.
Speaker 6 (35:10):
I'm sure the reason why this case has run as
long as it has and still arouses fantastic interest now
is because every single one of the explanations, the possible explanations,
is implausible, yet we know one of them must be correct.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
In your opinion, will this crime ever be solved?
Speaker 6 (35:32):
It might be solved if Madeline's body is found and
there's evidence either on the body or in the location
where the body's found. That would point to somebody, But
otherwise I don't think it will ever be solved. There
is just no physical evidence whatsoever that we can use
at this time, even to eliminate some of the.
Speaker 12 (35:54):
Theories Madeleine McCann didn't disappear into thin air on her own.
Somebody must know what happened. Somebody knows the truth.
Speaker 8 (36:07):
In the absence of any evidence to suggest she's been harmed,
it's just as logical to believe that she may still
be alive somewhere. Being held against the world, in fact,
would have grown up now speaking a foreign language. In
some cases literally, people who have been held against their
will have come out of the woodwork literally. In some cases,
(36:27):
it's like the girls in Cleveland, J C. Lee Dugard,
Natasha Campus, Elizabeth Fritzel, Sean Hornback, and so it does
give them hope.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Here in their hometown of Wrothley, the mccannsal tried to
keep up some sense of normal life. Jerry's continued to
work as a cardiologist. Kate put off her career as
a GP to look after her younger children. The twins
Shawn and Annelie, now twelve, have largely stayed out of
the spotlight as their parents continue the fight to keep
(37:06):
meddling in all of our thoughts.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
People want to believe that something like this can't happen
to them, and because the perpetrators have not been brought
to justice, they can't be blamed.
Speaker 10 (37:23):
You can't see that. That's it.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
You haven't got station, got a name, you haven't got
anyone to blame. But you know, as you say, it's
every prudent's worst nightmare. I mean, it's touched everybody.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
I think.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
You will not rest until you find your daughter, until
you wrap your arms around her.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
I don't believe any pardent could no, and I don't
believe we could ever reach a point where we just
think of what we've done everything now. You know, while
the situation remains as it is, you know Mardin's out
there and she needs us to find.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
You'll keep looking forever.
Speaker 10 (37:59):
We will.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Not a hand, no ban
In a region known as the Algave on Portugal's southernmost coast.
There's a secret so great, a cover up so vast.
It captivated the world for a decade.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
People want to believe that something like this can't happen
to them.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
It's have you Purdon's worst nightmare.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
For ten years. Jerry and Kate McCann have returned to Portugal,
the last place they saw their daughter, Madeleine. When you
come back to what you do feel closer to Madeline.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Certainly when I go to Prior Delusia do, and that's
why I do go by, but frequently, and although I
don't know where Madlin is, that is the last place
that you know I saw a holder, and I guess
it's apart of me that still feels connective to others.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
But there are still those who believe the couple's connection
to the crime is far greater than they've ever let on.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
The focus is now firmly of the parents. They're lying
and they're concealing guild.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
An estimated twenty million dollars has been spent trying to
find the world's most famous missing person.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
This is the most baffling case I've ever looked.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
At tonight, the new theories on where Madeline may be,
how many wells are there and how difficult are they
to search?
Speaker 7 (01:48):
There are hundreds of wells, three four or five, six hundred.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Wells, the promising fresh clues.
Speaker 8 (01:55):
It's just as logical to believe that you may still
be alive somewhere being held against the world.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
And why detectives at Scotland Yard believe they're closer than
ever to identifying the person who took Madeleine.
Speaker 9 (02:09):
It could be the key to the case.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
A photo of innocence that has become one of the
most recognizable faces on Earth. Taken on the third of
May two thousand and seven, it's the last known image
of Madeleine. Beth McCann.
Speaker 10 (02:32):
She was just setting by the pill breath.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Myself and I've both got feet, just padling, and she
is so happy, just there with her heart and outfit on.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
You're all happy. When Jerry and Kate McCann sat down
with Sunday Night, it was the happy memories of Madeleine
they wanted to share.
Speaker 10 (02:52):
She was incredibly beautiful bb actually.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
And sound like the most biased patents on the planet now,
but she just really compact and just a really kind
of nice, round, perfect head, and you know, and then then.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
She opened her mouth and very well knew she was
with us.
Speaker 10 (03:11):
My can level volume, There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
She's a screamer right from the start.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Cardiologist Durry mckainn and his GP wife Kate had turned
to y vy If after years of trying to concede naturally.
After medline came twins Sean and Emily.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think it was a secret
really that I always wanted to be a mother. I
don't know if maybe that stemmed from being an only
child and sort of you know, wanting not feel in
a family. So yeah, I mean even when I was
in school and stuff. You know, my friends were aware
of it, and my university medical boot yeah book. When
(03:57):
we graduated, it says progodoss Tian with at a sex you.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Say the family felt really complete.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, we did feel incredibly looking.
Speaker 10 (04:09):
Are they knew?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
The mccantid usually holiday in Britain, but in two thousand
and seven friends suggested they traveled to Portugal, a cheap
overseas destination considered fun and family friendly. You didn't want
to go to Portugal?
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Yeah, I mean it wasn't for any kind of major reason.
I just thought, you know, we had three very young children,
and I was just thinking practically, I just wasn't sure
really if it was worth our effort, if it would
be as enjoyable.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
But she gave in and joined three other families with
five other kids for a week long vacation at the
Ocean Club resort here in the town of Prior Deluge.
The holiday began on April twenty eighth, two thousand and seven.
As it turned out, the kids loved it.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
All the kids were cleaned together, and they were running
and aunt Chase's chess and Madeline especially she loved that
chest and mean on and after her.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
The days were fun for the kids, but the late
nights in Portugal stretched on too long. On the first
night of the trip, the couples discovered the resort's main restaurant,
the Millennium, was too far a walk for eight small children,
so the McCanns and their friends made a block booking
for the next six nights at the Tapas restaurant across
(05:43):
the pool from their apartments. From the restaurant, they had
line of sight to the block of villas where their
children were sleeping. You explained that it wasn't like you
were taking a risk by leaving the kids there. It
never for one second occurred to you that anything would
take place.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I mean we always talk about the decision we made,
but that almost implies that you talked about, you know,
to think that'll be okay or not.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
I mean, that never came into it.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
It was the case, I hope we can eat here,
that'll be ideal the kids even it won't be disruptive,
or get them sorted and then we can all eat.
I mean, it was simply like that there'd been any
risk at all that had occurred to us, then it
just wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Thursday, May third was meant to be the second last
night of their vacation. Cake told me about that afternoon
and that evening medal and said she'd had a great day.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
Yeah, no, she had a really full day. Actually, you know,
she'd they've been to the beach and had like her
and they called it minisale. So she'd been on a
little boat or a dinghy or something. But my memory
of that evening is really vivid. I mean, she was
really tired, but she was just cuddled up on my
knee and we read a story which Jerry said as
(07:02):
one of her favorites, and she often liked to put
on my engagement.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Ring, so she was sitting there at my ring.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
On and we read the story and me als, had
some treats. I had some crisps and biscuits, and then
after they've done the usual kind of toilet teeth, we
went through to the bedroom and read another story.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
If You're Happy and you know it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
The children were in bed by seven o'clock. Their parents
left for dinner at eight point thirty. The tapas bar
was across the pool from their apartments. The McCann's apartment
was on the end, the most accessible from the street.
The front door was locked, but the sliding patio doors
at the back were left unlocked to allow easy access
(07:59):
to check on their children. Madeline was asleep in a
single bed in the front room, where her parents kept
the window closed and locked. The twins, Sewn and Emily
were in travel cots by her side. At nine oh five,
Jerry went back to check on the children.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I saw it, and I had one of those parental
moments where I thought I were still lucky, Like at
three children having a lovely holiday. Kids would really enjoying it.
And I just lingered for a few seconds and thought
how beautiful she was. And that was the last time
I saw.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Last time you saw her, you thought how lucky you were?
Speaker 10 (08:46):
Your word shut at thin. I know.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
It was ten pm Kate's turn to check on the children.
She estimates it took between thirty and forty five seconds
to walk from the Tapas restaurant on the other side
of the pool to their apartment number five A. She
walked into the kid's bedroom and felt a gust of wind.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
The curtains, which had been closed, just swung open into
the room and reveal that the shutter was all the
way up and the window being pushed right across. And
then I just knew, I just knew she'd been taken,
and I ran to the window. Of no idea what
I expected to find or see. You know, you just
hope you're going to see your child. Every second. Wiz
(09:36):
drown the apartment in about ten seconds. Again, I don't
quite know, because you know, I knew in my head
that someone had taken it. I don't know if I
kind of hoped that maybe she was hiding in a
cupboard or something, and then I just legged it out
at the back of the apartment.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And then as soon as I saw.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Jerry and our friends at the table, I mean, I
was just screaming and Madeline's gone. Someone's taken it.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Ten o'clock at night, in the dark in a foreign country.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
And I was just screaming and Madlin's gone, Someone's taken it.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Kate mckenn was running to tell her husband their daughter Madelene,
had disappeared from the villa where she'd been sleeping.
Speaker 10 (10:25):
Yeah, cape's clearly destroyed.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
And I jumped off. But it's kind of disbelief. She
can't be gone, can't I can't possibly How can she
be gone? The furthest thing from your mind? And I've
seen that to Kate as we were both running.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Did you think that there must be some confusion. She
must be there somewhere.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, I just can't have been taking that doesn't happen.
You just think it doesn't happen. And but kepe saying
she's gone, someone's taking it.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
The mckenn's friends began a frantic search. The ocean club's
manager initiated an emergency warning system, mobilizing sixty staff searching
the club, the beach and surround police joined the search
two hours later.
Speaker 7 (11:19):
They were looking for a child that had wandered away.
That's what everybody thought must have happened. She'd wandered away,
and that was the focus really of what they were
looking for, a child that wandered away.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Paul Luckman is the editor of the Portugal News. He
was one of the first journalists on the scene. When
did you first see the McCanns.
Speaker 7 (11:41):
I saw Kate McCann with one of the friends with
his arm rounder comforting it.
Speaker 10 (11:48):
I've got a photograph of it.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And Kate looked out of her mind.
Speaker 7 (11:54):
She was very distressed and being comforted, and it was
running around treely what mum wouldn't be pretty much out
of their mind. I thought you'd lost a child.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
What was Kate doing? Was she inside or outside the apartment?
Speaker 7 (12:08):
She was outside the apartment.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Was she interacting with police?
Speaker 7 (12:11):
Yes, interacting to some degree. I think the police were
trying to take it very gently. The whole focus was
on a little girl that had got lost, wandered away
and got lost in a strange place.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
From the start, the police investigation had significant failings. Instead
of closing off the apartment as a crime scene. Dozens
of people came and went trampling through the rooms and
the yard, searching for any sign of Madeline. In the process,
recoverable evidence was destroyed, vital clues lost forever. So it
(12:53):
was not at the beginning considered a crime no, or
a crime scene.
Speaker 7 (12:58):
No, no, it really was, and we all know that,
including the Portuguese place. We'll freely admit. In those first
few days, yes, it did trample all overuse they're looking
for the little girl. Nobody even considered this could be
something else.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
It wasn't until four point thirty the next morning that
roadblocks were put in place, six and a half hours
after Madeleine disappeared.
Speaker 7 (13:24):
One policeman said to me, look, if the child was
abducted one hour later, she's in Spain long before, if
any time to close off the roads start. So we're
still looking for a little girl lost in the field
next door. They be halfway cross Spain or going down
to Ports Algaciries into North Africa probably would have been.
(13:45):
Most of the way there we are motorways all the while.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
The next day the world's media had descended on Prior
to Louge. It was a situation Portugal had never experienced.
The privileged child, respected British professionals had gone missing without
a trace.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Please continue to play for Madeline.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
She's love them.
Speaker 8 (14:08):
This is something that just didn't fit the stereotypical idea
that many people might have wrongly, that that sort of
family doesn't have this happen to them.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Clarence Mitchell has represented the family for nearly a decade.
He says the tide of public opinion turned very quickly
on the mccairns.
Speaker 8 (14:28):
Once it was reported that they weren't with the children.
Then the judgment squad kicked in and they were guilty
of neglect.
Speaker 10 (14:37):
At the very least, the.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Couple's stoicism in front of the cameras didn't help.
Speaker 8 (14:44):
The British police said to them before they did any
television interviews, a perpetrator of a kidnap will watch the
media coverage of the distressed relatives to get a sexual
kick from seeing the distress they've caused. They were warned
about this and they were told by the British order
authorities if you can try not to show overt emotion.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
People described you as cold and poker faced, and I.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Don't think I had a day for literally eighteen months
where I didn't have a plung period crying. Now I've
learned that people judge, you know, very readily, and what
you see on camera, you know, isn't the full story.
Speaker 10 (15:25):
They are prolonged periods for several days.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Our cap was my mum said it's like howling like
a wild animal with grief and despair in her bedroom.
And I have to say I really wasn't able to
console because I was paddling frantically below the surface.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Across the pro From the beginning, the search was led
by this man, Detective Gonzalo Amoral. From early on he
had his suspicions about the McCanns. Who do you think
are the most likely suspects in this case, mckenn.
Speaker 11 (16:12):
The mccam couple. We were suspicious that an accident could
have led to the death of Madeleine.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The lead investigator suspected Kate and Jerry had sedated Madeleine,
who'd fallen and died while they were at dinner.
Speaker 10 (16:25):
No one knew in this I.
Speaker 11 (16:26):
Knew, my pro There is no hint, no proof that
the child was kidnapped. On the contrary, there are hints
that the parents were negligent and there are hints that
was hiding of the body.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Four months after their daughter disappeared, the McCanns were declared suspects.
Speculation had hit fever pitch. At times. You felt like
two loan figures with catapults against an army. You must
just feel so helpless.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Suddenly a lot of doors began to close, you know,
the UK government and the authorities kind of withdrew and
there was obviously doubt, you know, amongst sectors of the
general public, and we really felt hamper then. And the
hardest thing, the most upsetting thing for us, was that
obviously impacts greatly on the search for Madeline. You know,
(17:21):
we need people to be helping us to be looking
for so at that point, you know, we felt very alone,
and we felt like we were fighting a million battles.
To be honest, it was very difficult to counter any
kind of negativity in Portugal that was appearing in the media.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
That's because under Portuguese law, they were forbidden from speaking
out in their own defense.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
I can't say anything.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I'm afraid it wasn't credible, how it wasn't So we
were having trial by media with misinformation lies in smears
against this and the threat of breaking judicial secrets if
we talked about details and then investigation.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
The world's media is now camped outside the McCann's villa.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
In the meantime, the media was having a field day
with links from police.
Speaker 8 (18:10):
In fact, if we denied something, it gave them the
story because we'd denied it. So half the time we'd
ignore stuff. We wouldn't give it the credibility by even
commenting on it.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
Charges may be laid against the couple next week.
Speaker 8 (18:21):
So that appears on the Monday in a paper in
Portugal and we know it's wrong. On Tuesday it reappears
in the Daily Mail or the Daily Mirror in London,
and then on Wednesday the mainstream Portuguese press would rerun it,
saying it had been run by the established, illustrious Daily
Mail of London.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
And every time a story about the McCanns ran circulation
sword it got to the point where the newspapers would
run almost anything, and.
Speaker 8 (18:47):
So it was like the spin cycle of lunacy, and
a lot of this stuff would just enter the narrative
and would say that. To this day, I get people
saying things that are completely wrong, but they've read it
on Facebook, They've seen it on Twitter, must be true.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
From the beginning, police believed the McCanns had opened Madeline's
window to make it look like a kidnapping. So you
believe that they're lying about the window and when it
was opened.
Speaker 10 (19:14):
See Marshmallo Sunge.
Speaker 11 (19:17):
Yes, we think it's a lie.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Investigators couldn't find any sign that the window had been
forced open or that anyone had used it to enter
or exit the apartment.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I'm not sure now, but on the night the way
Kate found the room, and with the fact that we
were able to raise the shutters, I felt that was
how the abductor had got in. We'd left that down
all week. We checked the window the first day we
were there. We didn't touch the curtains, had remained drawing
(19:52):
the whole week. Just wanted to keep their room nice
and cool and dark. And I went outside and I
was totally gast I was able to lift the shutter
from the outside.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
We just thought you had to use the kind of
the pull mechanism on the inside.
Speaker 10 (20:05):
Shouldn't it shouldn't be and it.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Was like presumed it was like a protective barrier.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I guess outside you shouldn't be able to reason, but
that's one you could.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
How much confusion did this open window cause Portuguese police.
Speaker 6 (20:18):
It seems to me that they became more suspicious of
the mccans because of that, because the mccans right from
the start said Madlin's been taken out of that window.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Professor Dave Berkeley is a forensics investigator with forty five
years experience. He traveled to prior Deluge to investigate the
crime in two thousand and seven and says there could
be a good reason the window was open.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
It's quite possible that that window was opened from the
inside by a burglar so that they could get out
that way if somebody came in through the other door.
Standard practice in reasonably good class burglars to make an
exit route for yourself to open the back door as well,
so if somebody comes in the front door, you can
(21:07):
just simply run out.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
So, if it was an intruder who opened the window
during an abduction, who was it and why did they
take Madeleine? With the world's media watching every development, Portuguese
(21:34):
police were determined to swiftly solve the mystery of the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann. The lead investigator, Detective Amoral, was
convinced Madeleine's parents, Jerry and Kate were involved, seeing.
Speaker 11 (21:50):
This was our point of view in two thousand and seven,
that she was dead.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
I mean, the lyticuous thing is Madland died in the
apartment by an accident and we hid her body. Well,
when did she have that accident and died because the
only time she was left unattended was when we were
at dinner. So if she died, then how could we
have disposed of hiding her body? You know, when there
was an immediate set It's just nonsense. So and if
(22:16):
she died when we were in the apartment or fell
and did, why would we Why would we cover that up?
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Detective Amoral brought in two sniffer dogs, Eddie and Kayla,
from the UK. He claimed the dogs found traces of
Madeline's DNA in a car hired by the McCanns weeks
after she disappeared.
Speaker 11 (22:42):
The fluid is a ninety percent match with the profile
of Madeleine McCain.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
He believed they'd hidden her body at the beach, then
used a rental car to move it to a more
remote place.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
Get some more ludicrous that we've obviously hidden some incredibly
well nobody's founder who heard us so well, like with
undecided we'd move her in the car which we hired
weeks later, and you know, it's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Could that DNA categorically prove that it belonged to Madeline?
Speaker 8 (23:17):
No, that was the point. That was the point. It
could have come from Shauna Emilie.
Speaker 10 (23:23):
It was amateurral.
Speaker 8 (23:25):
Are they going to hold their own daughter's body for
two weeks and then put her in the boot of
a vehicle in front of the world's media.
Speaker 10 (23:34):
It's just laughable.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Detective Amoral also had the sniffer dogs Sir to the
McCann's apartment, where he claimed they found evidence of a
cadavera being stored and behind the sofa. Dogs found traces
of bodily fluid that were invisible to the naked eye.
Detective Amarole leaped on it as more of the McCann's guilt,
(24:01):
but the substance behind the sofar couldn't even be determined
to be human blood, let alone Madeline's blood, and the
evidence of the kadaver dogs was questionable.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
I don't put much faith into cadaver dogs. They will
react to any decomposing material, whether it's human or an animal,
or a badger, or even meat that you've spilt some
blood from in the boot of your car that's then
gone off. So I'm not at all in favor of
kadaver dogs being used as evidence.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Three months after he began leading the investigation, Detective Gonzalo
Amarole was relieved of his position and removed from the
investigation entirely. Why do you think Detective Amarole was removed?
Speaker 7 (24:51):
Oh, it's a very difficult one, isn't it. I don't
want to be critical about to his peace. Well, I
know the effort they put into it, but I think
he was somewhat fixated on one single solution when it
clearly you had to look wider.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Subsequent investigators did look much more widely, exploring numerous other theories,
among them that Madeleine was taken in a meticulously planned
abduction by a child trafficking syndicate.
Speaker 7 (25:21):
If they were targeting a blonde child, if they were
working to order almost what they wanted, if they'd been
observing the family, it could have been an opportunist snatched.
They were waiting for an opportunity.
Speaker 10 (25:38):
People say to me earlier on.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Maybe maybe she's been stolen to order had to be ridiculous,
but actually, compared to everything else that's happened, that's a possibility.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Certainly. One of the McCann's friends had seen a man
carrying a child near the apartment block forty five minutes
before Madeleine was reported missing to this artist impression, but
recently police identified the man as a tourist who was
carrying his own daughter home from the resort's crash. There
was another sighting by an Irish family at ten pm,
(26:14):
minutes before Kate discovered Madeline missing, of a man carrying
a small child towards the beach. Police created these photo fits,
but the suspect has never been found.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
They saw him carrying a blond child through prior to
news the night Madeline vavished.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Another theory is that Madeleine woke up and wandered outside
looking for her parents.
Speaker 10 (26:40):
It could be a complete accident.
Speaker 6 (26:41):
She could have got out of the villa and gone
into the street and just been knocked down by somebody
who was drunk driving. That's an incentive for him to
pick the body up and conceal it somewhere.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
The mystery of what happened to Madeleine continues to divide
opinion into this day. There are thousands of websites which
actively discuss the possibilities. For many, the McCanns remain the
most likely suspects. Did you kill your daughter? No?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Never, And you know there's nothing with any logic that kids.
You know, you'd have to start with why, you know, how, when, who?
And there's just simply you know, uncertain of these things
is there's nothing to suggest anything.
Speaker 10 (27:33):
So no, that's an emphatio.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
With no evidence to convict anyone of a crime. The
Portuguese investigation into the disappearance of Madeline McCann was closed
in August two thousand and eight.
Speaker 6 (27:59):
There is no piece of solid ground you can stand on,
nothing you can use to say which of the competing
theories are going to be the correct one.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
But in twenty thirteen British detectives were given permission to
open their own case. All the evidence the Portuguese gathered
had been handed over to Scotland yard the results were astonishing.
Speaker 9 (28:25):
On the evidence, we believe that there is a possibility
that Madeline is alive.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
What had happened to Madeleine might not have been an
isolated incident. Between two thousand and four and two thousand
and ten, within a sixty kilometer radius of where Madeleine disappeared,
there were twelve crimes where an intruder broke into the
properties of UK families. On six of those occasions he
(28:55):
either got into bed with or sexually assaulted a young
female child.
Speaker 9 (29:00):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Detective Inspector Andy Redwood was in charge of the investigation.
Speaker 9 (29:06):
Well, what we can see here is clearly a man
who has got a very very unhealthy interest in young
white female children, who is attacking whilst they're in their
beds on their holidays.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
In the period before Madeline vanished, there were several sightings
of suspicious men loitering in the area. A neighbour reported
bogus charity collector's door knocking villas, a schoolgirl saw a
fair hair man casing the McCann's apartment from multiple directions.
A British holidaymaker also reported seeing a suspicious man lurking
(29:40):
outside their apartment. Two men were seen on the balcony
of an empty unit two doors up from the McCanns,
and four hours before Madeline vanished, an unidentified man was
seen loitering in the stairwell of the McCann's apartment block.
Speaker 8 (29:56):
There had been a number of crimes from the Algave,
where by there had been attempted break ins where children
had been asleep and intruders had been disturbed in some
cases and they fled from the chances bedroom.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
In the months before medal And disappeared, there was a
fourfold increase in the number of robberies in the area,
and just weeks before Medline arrived there were two unsold
burglaries in the very block where the mccairns would stay well.
Speaker 6 (30:27):
I think the Portuguese police and the Portuguese Tourist Board
would have been quite keen not to feature their number
of burglaries that were going on in Pria de Luce
and other towns on the Algave, and the fact that
were random pedophiles going around taking children out of holiday
apartments would have probably been quite a disincentive to families
turning up for their holidays, so they wouldn't want to
(30:50):
feature that. I think that's possibly an explanation why the
MET recently were able to find more examples of indecent
assaults on children than we've been told about previously, and.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
This week explosive claims from Madeline's nanny at the Ocean
Club's crate. She says the resort was considered so unsafe
nanny's were given rape alarms and told not to go
outside alone. Scotland Yard has recently been given a final
injection of cash to follow up their strongest lead.
Speaker 12 (31:28):
There is an employee, somebody who worked within the Ocean
Village complex who it's felt has some information or some
knowledge which may be of assistance.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Colin Sutton is a former investigator with Scotland Yard. He
has repeatedly explored the prior to Louse area where Madeline disappeared.
How difficult would it be to find a body in
that area around prior to Louge.
Speaker 12 (31:56):
Oh, It's almost impossible. It would be possible without specific
information or intelligence which enabled you to focus the search
in a particular area. It's a large area of a
very low population of scrubland, of ancient wells. There are
(32:17):
areas there where you know humans probably don't go from
one year or one decade even to the next. It
would be very easy to secrete something there and be
really confident that it wouldn't be found.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
You visited the area where on earth could Madeline's body be.
Speaker 6 (32:37):
It was the most higher bodyable place I've ever been
in in my life.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
If she was killed in the area, how many places
would there be to hide a body?
Speaker 7 (32:48):
Oh fast quantities. There are hundreds of wells, three four
or five six hundred wells still exist, and you would
need local knowledge.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
If somebody had dumped Madeline's body down a well, what
chance would there be that she would be found five.
Speaker 7 (33:06):
Ten years time somebody suddenly decides to clear the well
and that they will bring it back into operation. I
hope about the only possibility they would clean it out
and bones would be found.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
However, Detective Amorole as an extraordinary conspiracy theory on why
Madeleine's body is yet to be found. So you think,
I five the British Secret Service helped conceal Madeleine McCann's body.
Speaker 11 (33:39):
And attend I'm not saying that much, but I'm saying
for sure they had their involvement in this situation.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Do you seriously think that the British government would allow
its agents to cover up a major crime? Not?
Speaker 11 (33:53):
Well, I'm not British, so I can't answer that.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
But despite Gonzalo Amarole's preposterous theories. A Portuguese court has
upheld his right to express them in a book he
calls the Truth of the Lie. Gonzalo Amarle is claiming
some big cover up with I five and Gordon Brown.
What do you think of those claims.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
I mean, the less the lest said about going to
tell Amaral the better.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Do you find it offensive that people are carrying on
this way?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, I mean it's of coursed a lot of uxet
and stamished. The search.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Madeline Beth McCann would be fourteen on May the twelfth.
Artists have shown how she may have changed in the
decade since you disappeared. Reported sightings can continue. So far,
there have been eight thousand, six hundred and eighty five
across one hundred and one countries.
Speaker 6 (35:10):
I'm sure the reason why this case has run as
long as it has and still arouses fantastic interest now
is because every single one of the explanations, the possible explanations,
is implausible, yet we know one of them must be correct.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
In your opinion, will this crime ever be solved?
Speaker 6 (35:32):
It might be solved if Madeline's body is found and
there's evidence either on the body or in the location
where the body's found. That would point to somebody, But
otherwise I don't think it will ever be solved. There
is just no physical evidence whatsoever that we can use
at this time, even to eliminate some of the.
Speaker 12 (35:54):
Theories Madeleine McCann didn't disappear into thin air on her own.
Somebody must know what happened. Somebody knows the truth.
Speaker 8 (36:07):
In the absence of any evidence to suggest she's been harmed,
it's just as logical to believe that she may still
be alive somewhere. Being held against the world, in fact,
would have grown up now speaking a foreign language. In
some cases literally, people who have been held against their
will have come out of the woodwork literally. In some cases,
(36:27):
it's like the girls in Cleveland, J C. Lee Dugard,
Natasha Campus, Elizabeth Fritzel, Sean Hornback, and so it does
give them hope.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Here in their hometown of Wrothley, the mccannsal tried to
keep up some sense of normal life. Jerry's continued to
work as a cardiologist. Kate put off her career as
a GP to look after her younger children. The twins
Shawn and Annelie, now twelve, have largely stayed out of
the spotlight as their parents continue the fight to keep
(37:06):
meddling in all of our thoughts.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
People want to believe that something like this can't happen
to them, and because the perpetrators have not been brought
to justice, they can't be blamed.
Speaker 10 (37:23):
You can't see that. That's it.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
You haven't got station, got a name, you haven't got
anyone to blame. But you know, as you say, it's
every prudent's worst nightmare. I mean, it's touched everybody.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
I think.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
You will not rest until you find your daughter, until
you wrap your arms around her.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
I don't believe any pardent could no, and I don't
believe we could ever reach a point where we just
think of what we've done everything now. You know, while
the situation remains as it is, you know Mardin's out
there and she needs us to find.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
You'll keep looking forever.
Speaker 10 (37:59):
We will.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Not a hand, no ban
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