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Original poster

Madeleine McCann - new suspect

999 replies

KatherineJaneway · 03/06/2020 19:24

A 43-year-old German prisoner who travelled around Portugal in a camper van is now the focus of Scotland Yard's investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52914016]

OP posts:
Thisismytimetoshine · 04/06/2020 13:11

@Casino218

I can't believe that some people think it's the parents. They must not have children or have some sort of personality disorder!
Excuse me? Confused
Seaglasss · 04/06/2020 13:12

It's not their behaviour that made me suspicous of the Mccanns, no one knows how they're going to behave in that situation. It's the smith sighting and subsequent e-fit that is undoubtedly Gerry, although this new suspect doesn't fit either the smith or tanner description?

I hope there is an outcome, so the poor girl can rest peacefully and her family may have some form of closure.

Bollss · 04/06/2020 13:12

Re them being prosecuted, is that under Portuguese law? Do you know anything about it? I hear this claimed a lot, but I don't have any knowledge of Portuguese law myself to be able to assess whether that's likely or not

I know nothing about Portuguese law but they weren't exactly old enough to be left alone. If not prosecuted in Portugal I'd imagine them getting a talking to from social services when they returned tbh.

Smallsteps88 · 04/06/2020 13:16

There is no way in hell if my child went missing I would be calm enough to give press conferences and speak like they did. I don't know anyone who could.

Pretty normal for parents of missing children to give press conferences. You don’t think you could until you’ve been in that situation. I’ve had a child go missing. It didn’t get to press conference. He was found safe and well. But during that stage where he was missing I was a zombie and just went along with whatever everyone was telling me to do. The police, social services, the school. I had zero experience in it so I trusted that the people telling me to do things were doing so because they knew what was best. Quite honestly if someone had told me to stand on the roof of the house and yell his name until he returned I’d probably have done it. I couldn’t think.

Mrsemcgregor · 04/06/2020 13:17

They may well have had SS involvement on return to the U.K.. None of us know.

Seeing as leaving a child in a hotel room was then such a common occurrence that you could pay for listening services at U.K. holiday camps. On cruise ships now you could (and maybe still
Can?) leave the phone line to your cabin open and dial in to listen when you’ve left your children. I doubt very much that they considered the McCanns to be unreasonably negligent. We can only look back with hindsight. The number one reason I wouldn’t leave my kids is because of MM. Had that not happened who knows how I would think?

Ploughingthrough · 04/06/2020 13:18

'It's the smith sighting and subsequent e-fit that is undoubtedly Gerry'

Not undoubtedly at all. In fact heavily doubted. If it was undoubted then this would have been cleared up a long time ago.

TerrapinStation · 04/06/2020 13:18

@WhatWouldDominicDo

Breaking news on the BBC say that the German police consider MM to be dead.
That's very telling, the German Police have no direct involvement, for them to make any kind of publcic comment suggests they have some pretty strong evidence
Tsubasa1 · 04/06/2020 13:18

Is there even a smudge of a possibility that Madeleine is alive? The German suspect left his last victim alive

AlternativePerspective · 04/06/2020 13:19

In fairness, Gerry McCann is a cardiologist. having to stay calm in a crisis and even composed when delivering bad news is his job. And also he will know how to be detached from the world around him because he will have had to deliver bad news to patients and families alike.

Obviously that doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on how someone would behave if it’s their own child in the equation, but that kind of skill is most likely a learned one which probably will have kicked in in a crisis.

JoesExotic · 04/06/2020 13:19

The sky news report (written) says German police believe the know the method of death.

That's VERY specific.

SouthWestmom · 04/06/2020 13:20

Everyone banging on about other mussing children; where? The only comparison would be a British child as that's where the resources have consistently come from.

Katrice Lee? A new lead was investigated last year. There clearly isn't much to go on after all these years and before the days of evidence like mobile phone pings and DNA

Andrew Gosden? Older, left voluntarily

Ben Needham? Development shows the shoe buckle and the probability of an accidental death

In fact I did look at the missing UK kids page before posting and the vast majority are older, probable runaways or family abductions.

So I am happy to publicise the case of any similar missing child in the UK that hasn't had comparable publicity and whose parents have kept pushing

knittingaddict · 04/06/2020 13:20

Perhaps they feel guilty because they left them?

Perhaps? No perhaps about it. Were they supposed to castigate themselves in front of the tv cameras and ask the general public to forgive them? Honestly!

BlackberryCane · 04/06/2020 13:21

@TrustTheGeneGenie

Re them being prosecuted, is that under Portuguese law? Do you know anything about it? I hear this claimed a lot, but I don't have any knowledge of Portuguese law myself to be able to assess whether that's likely or not

I know nothing about Portuguese law but they weren't exactly old enough to be left alone. If not prosecuted in Portugal I'd imagine them getting a talking to from social services when they returned tbh.

Ok, I'm trying to get clarification on which law you're saying a couple from a council estate would be prosecuted under. If like me you don't know anything about Portuguese law, how are you saying this would happen?
JoesExotic · 04/06/2020 13:21

@Tsubasa1

Even though it isn't reported he had killed before, I believe the media around this potentially caused him to panic and dispose of her.

TerrapinStation · 04/06/2020 13:22

@TrustTheGeneGenie

Whether they were involved or not I have no idea, but what makes me suspicious of them is the way they have acted.

There is no way in hell if my child went missing I would be calm enough to give press conferences and speak like they did. I don't know anyone who could.

Equally if they had been a poor couple who lived on a council estate for instance they would have been prosecuted for child neglect and had the two other kids taken away. There wouldn't have been half the publicity and there's no way in hell they'd still be looking into it now. It's tragic but every child should be of equal importance but they're not.

You can't be sure how you would behave and there's no way at all you can say how anyone else would behave, you simply can't, you can imagine how you might but no one can say for sure until they are in that situation.

And even of you could how on earth could it be of any import? I'm going to stick my neck out and say you aren't KM so why does your potential reaction matter?

SouthWestmom · 04/06/2020 13:24

Social services did visit them when they came back. It's really easy to find that out. Why do people post such hoicked bosom cats bum outrage over this.

AlternativePerspective · 04/06/2020 13:24

Regardless of what people think of the circumstances at the time, and I have voiced opinions in the past, at the moment there is a specific investigation into a specific other individual who is not connected with the parents here.

Surely while they’re talking about an actual lead all this speculation about where and why prosecutions should have been issued at the time is irrelevant.

The thread will be pulled and then people will start complaining that they’re not allowed to talk about MMC when atually that’s not true in this instance.

JoeExoticsEyebrowRing · 04/06/2020 13:26

Jesus, I can't believe that this case might actually be solved, I feel quite emotional about it.

If you think that the parents might be involved because of certain things that don't add up then OK I can just about get that..... If you think the parents might be involved because they didn't act in a manner that you would deem appropriate then you're a twat.

MrsNoah2020 · 04/06/2020 13:31

AlternativePerspective Agree - and the same for Kate McGann too. GPs frequently have to break bad news, and it can be even worse than in hospital, as they have often known the family for years.

But, doctors or not, none of us has a clue how we would behave in the McCanns' situation unless - god forbid - the same happens to us. People often go into survival mode in a crisis, and can appear calm and unemotional. I remember a lovely patient in A&E who had an uncontrollable haemorrhage and was literally bleeding to death in front of our eyes (this was in the context of a late-stage terminal illness). She, her partner, the chaplain and I all ended making slightly awkward small talk about Wimbledon, of all things, as we were waiting for the end. That probably wasn't how anyone thinks they would respond to bleeding to death, but reality can be very different from your expectations. In times of crisis, clinging to any vestige of normality is a natural response.

Thesearmsofmine · 04/06/2020 13:31

I do hope that this is solved, I feel the not knowing is the worst thing for her family.

I can’t stand the vitriol aimed at the parents. Of course they wouldn’t have left the children but it wasn’t uncommon, many people will still be doing it and will continue to do so. So many armchair detectives out there and it doesn’t help anybody just causes upset.

Smallsteps88 · 04/06/2020 13:32

@AlternativePerspective

Regardless of what people think of the circumstances at the time, and I have voiced opinions in the past, at the moment there is a specific investigation into a specific other individual who is not connected with the parents here. Surely while they’re talking about an actual lead all this speculation about where and why prosecutions should have been issued at the time is irrelevant.

The thread will be pulled and then people will start complaining that they’re not allowed to talk about MMC when atually that’s not true in this instance.

Totally agree.
IamPickleRick · 04/06/2020 13:33

I just find it such a waste of time to go over what the parents did or didn’t do. None of that finds the little girl. Judging them doesn’t find out what happened to her. It’s just toxic air.

Here we have a suspect who sounds like it could be a really hot lead, and people are still saying the same thing they’ve said for 13 years...

Viviennemary · 04/06/2020 13:34

Their arrangement for childcare were highly inadequate to say the least. I expect nothing will come of this latest development. Of course everybody wants this sad case to be finally solved but I don't hold out much hope.

ScarfLadysBag · 04/06/2020 13:34

It's unbelievable to think this could finally be solved after all these years, but also unbelievably tragic. The statements being made suggest they are quite certain that this man is to blame, it seems.

SheldonSaysSo1 · 04/06/2020 13:35

I really hope this lead is the one and can bring some closure for her family. To still have no idea what happened 13 years later is unimaginable and they must still have a small shred of hope that she will be found okay. It's about time they are given closure and allowed to grieve for her properly, as its highly likely she died shortly after her abduction.