Madeleine McCann - new suspect

[KatherineJaneway]

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]

Nice to see the sun reporting that this man enjoyed torturing a victim, scumbags - so unnecessary, that poor family I wonder if the police reporting that they 'know how she was killed' is strategic in getting people to come forward? Since I would assume, and hope, that any information given to the public is carefully thought out in order to achieve results. Having seen how the Portuguese police royally fucked up this tragedy, you would hope that other police forces would be very careful to not make it worse and risk failing to convict someone if they were sure he is guilty.

I listened to someone knows something after the Maddie podcast and it convinced me more that the cadaver dogs don't alert for no reason. Such a sad story as well.....

Anyway, my feelings about the case are based on facts. It would be very unusual for someone to break into an apartment, take a child and leave no trace of DNA, especially if they had to wrangle said child out of the window.

I'll be interested to see how this happened if they get the evidence to charge this man.

He was questioned 13 years ago, but it never went any further.
Maybe the girlfriend covered for him.at the time? And that's why they are hinting at her now, saying 'Your loyalties may have changed'

Or maybe because he’s due for parole in a few days the police want something else to give them reason to keep him locked up.

The story has disappeared off the BBC news top stories now but the tabloids are despicable. And I have no doubt that most of it has been made up on their part.

The media is having a field day with this one...it's very hard to tell what is and isn't happening right now with it!

For me, I'm not really convinced, though I don't have any strong theories in any other direction. This suspect is definitely a monster...but his prior convictions are crimes that were very brazen. The elderly lady he raped in the same complex (god that felt awful to type!) he made no attempt to hide evidence, left her alive, and then filmed it and showed people. His crime record seems to be a lot like that- very brazen, obvious crimes generally.

In contrast, they were never able to find any evidence of any kind of abduction with Madeline. No DNA, fingerprints, footprints, nothing of the kind. I'm not sure he could have done it- seems a massively different modus operandi to be able to snatch away a child in the night with no evidence left behind?

@ dollybird76 no I’m really not convinced either.

And the way in which this has been conducted, e.g. publishing a mobile phone number from thirteen years ago which police will have known would have been re-issued by now, and would have known that members of the public would ring it and go hysterical over it is really not indicative of good policing at all.

Sounds more like they’ve thrown a few things in the air to make themselves look good. And meanwhile the genie is out and the tabloids are making it all up as they go along.

"I'm not sure he could have done it- seems a massively different modus operandi "

Perhaps that's where the phone call he made that evening comes into play?

Exactly @dollybird76

The tabloids (along with some people in real life!) are having a real field day... ‘we’ve almost nailed him’, ‘I’m sure he’s the one’ etc etc...

There is such a strong desire to solve the mystery and punish someone which makes people gung ho too.

This guy is clearly a convicted rapist, a nasty man who deserves to be banged up for far longer than he is. However that does not necessarily mean he had anything to do with MM. And absolutely nothing released by the police is anything other than vague circumstantial stuff.

I don’t believe for a moment they have anything solid and are just waiting for one final bit of information from someone else to lead to a conviction. Sadly it doesn’t sound anywhere near that.

Thing is, some people are so naive they think as soon as it’s headline news, it must mean something significant. Of course it’s headline news. The tabloids will have jumped at the chance to put MM back on the front page along with a salacious story about a convict who tortured an elderly woman. It means fuck all in terms of actual admissible evidence.

I’ve noticed too that the story is already slipping down the news list anyway

@Caelano and there have been these “potentially major breakthrough” headlines before, with police travelling to this and that country, questions to see if people remember x and y on the night etc, and all of them have come to nothing.

I suspect that by Monday (tomorrow is a weekend so the tabloids have time to publish their hideous stories then,) the story will have disappeared out of the news and there will never even be any update that the lead didn’t yield any results.

And then in five years time there will be another”major breakthrough in the hunt for Madeleine McCann,” and so on.

And in years to come when people talk about the unsolved mystery, it will be said that “it was believed she was murdered by a man doing time for other crimes but no evidence could be found, and her body was never discovered.”

It's very possible, in the information released, that a paedophile with a history of breaking and entering would take the child as an opportunistic crime. Lifting a sleeping child isn't hard, and if doors were left unlocked and he wore gloves it's doable. Plus the DNA was trampled all over and the apartment not secured for hours after the police turned up. Very easy for any stray DNA to have been lost forever.

My sister was the most over-zealous, helicopter parent I've ever met, yet her kids have had accidents, my niece when 2 slipped out of a room at someone's house and fell down the stairs and hit her head on an ornamental spike on a table. The amount of blood was horrific. I wouldn't judge my sister for her one 'lapse'.

Yet my other sister who was very laid-back, never had any bad accidents happen to her kids.

It’s horrible to even have to type about this sort of thing, but one fact (as opposed to all the salacious stuff) which the media has reported is that along with the rape conviction of an elderly woman, the numerous burglaries and drugs convictions, there are several convictions for sexual offences against a child. The sentences for these crimes don’t appear to be long, it’s more a case of him having had a lot of short sentences in the past.

I think when a lot of people see ‘child’ they perhaps think of a tiny child like MM. But I’m assuming it’s far more likely that these offences were to do with underage girls, so not necessarily non- consensual, but girls under age. The Kosovan girlfriend he had was reportedly under age.

I’m not minimising this at all- it’s all vile. But the point is, there doesn’t seem to be anything in his known, very lengthy history of offending that has any resemblance to MM case. As @dollybird76 says, his M.O. seems to be very different.

It's very possible, in the information released, that a paedophile with a history of breaking and entering would take the child as an opportunistic crime.

It could even be both. He could have been looking at the movements over previous days and known what the group was doing (checking on the children every 20 mins).

If the reporting that the German police say they know how she died is true then I think there is good cause to be cautiously hopeful. That could be press speculation but if they have said that I doubt it is without good reason.
Perhaps he has told his cell mate he did it and that, for example, he wrapped her in the rug and took her to his car. The fact that there is a rug missing from the apartment could be a fact that is true but has never been released information so for someone to say that they either a) they were there b) have been told that detail by someone who was there or c) have hit on a verifiable fact by sheer luck. A or b are fair more likely than c and would give the police good reason to think he knows what happened. But it is not even close to enough to prosecute on and he could deny ever having said it so now the police have a pretty good idea that he was in involved but need to prove it. They are either trying to flush out someone else with information or pressure him into thinking they have vital information in the hope that it will make him talk.

It’s a sad fact that many rapists don’t face justice. As we’re seeing, it’s looking like he only has to serve a year for that charge. Whereas, the murder and abduction of a child is going to get you a long sentence, hopefully life imprisonment. So it would explain why he was far more brazen about the rape he committed.

Also, with a lot of these monsters, they start small (burglaries etc) and tend to ramp up the level of their crimes. If anyone saw the documentary don’t fuck with cats, it’s like how he started off killing cats, but when that stopped being ‘thrilling’ enough, he moved onto people.

In terms of DNA, as an experienced burglar, he would’ve known how to minimise leaving anything behind. Also, the crime scene wasn’t secured and many people passed through the apartment, making it difficult to track down any DNA that he might’ve left.

We were staying not far away when this happened and also had a little blonde girl of a very similar age (understandably we were detained at Faro on the way home for a while while extra checks were done).
The thing about this suspect is it actually makes sense for him to have done it - there was always the “what were the chances of someone just randomly breaking in and deciding to take Madeleine?” Issue but this man was a thief and also a sexual predator so it looks like he may have been watching the apartments to see when they were empty (he assumed) but when he went in he came across Madeleine and took her instead. I think one reason people suspected her parents was the seeming lack of logic.
I really hope they have found the guilty party this time and can prove it. DDs BFF takes part in a sport at a high level and the McCann twins are on the same circuit so she knows them reasonably well. BFFs Mum says they are a lovely family but understandably very guarded about who they speak to.

It wouldn’t be difficult to lift a sleeping child I agree.
But this man was a prolific burglar, most of his convictions seems to be for burglary and drugs offences and no doubt if he frequently stole from hotel rooms he would have had previous opportunities to abduct a young child.

I’m convinced that when people read ‘paedophile’ most of them assume tiny children. Not necessarily. This vile man is a paedophile but it seems far more likely, given the known information, that he was involved with girls under the age of consent, not tiny little children. This will be reported as a ‘child’ because legally they are, but they could be 15 not 3.

Prolific offenders (as he is) tend to have a M.O. It would be extremely unusual for someone who tended to break into rooms to steal tourist valuables to suddenly decide to abduct and murder a tiny child. Not impossible of course, but highly improbable.

@diddl

Very good point about the phone call. I hope they get some more information on it soon- it seems that's what they're looking for.

Though, to play devil's advocate - If we assume he did pull off an abduction, assumed rape and eventual murder with no evidence, which I guess would require either a lot of skill and planning or a lot of luck...would he have used his own phone? I guess it's not impossible, especially back then when phone tracing wasn't as common, but that seems a little bit of an oversight if he did.

The fact people are saying he was bragging about it at bars I don't think is necessarily that conclusive. It was the 10 year anniversary of her death when the tip was called in, at a point when she was front of the media again. False confessions from nasty people like him are really common especially with these well-known cases. The Jon Benet-Ramsey case has had over 13 convicted murderers falsely confess to it. It can definitely happen.

The bit that does bring me pause is the fact he changed the name registered to his campervan the next day. That does seem pretty guilty, but who knows. There's some things there that could point at him, I'm not totally ruling it out, but right now I'd need to see more to be convinced either way. That would be one hell of a coincidence if not though.

@Caelano @AlternativePerspective I completely agree with both of you. This has been a pretty botched investigation from day one, and the media has really not done anyone any favours. Seems they were enjoying something to report on that wasn't COVID or Brexit and now the tabloids are bored again.

Just to add (really enjoying the discussion everyone!) I don't particularly think the parents did it, or really subscribe to any other theories on what happened. Just a little skeptical at this stage of this particular lead, but we'll see.

No, I don’t think the parents did it, and I have no other particular theory either (it’s bizarre that anyone does) but there is nothing about this particular suspect that stands out from all the other leads the various police forces have supposedly had over the years.

And yes I’m sure the papers were glad of a new headline after weeks of Covid overload...

I’m convinced that when people read ‘paedophile’ most of them assume tiny children. Not necessarily. This vile man is a paedophile but it seems far more likely, given the known information, that he was involved with girls under the age of consent, not tiny little children. This will be reported as a ‘child’ because legally they are, but they could be 15 not 3.

I would agree with this, based on the length of the sentence he received (around a year),

If he is found guilty, I wonder if all the people who accused the parents of murder and a cover-up will apologise. I doubt it.

I never believed the parents were responsible for her disappearance, but I remember wondering whether they lied to the police about the frequency of their checks. This would have meant that the window of opportunity for an abductor was bigger than reported. It also explains why the parents' behaviour seemed uncomfortable at times.

@Cadent

If he is found guilty, I wonder if all the people who accused the parents of murder and a cover-up will apologise. I doubt it.

Probably not. They’ll say this man is a scapegoat or something similar (already seen comments like it on twitter).

Some people are so desperate to blame the parents, they’ll look past anything and willingly defend a sex offender.

@dollybird76 the phone call seems to have been an hour or so before she went missing if he took her bit it wasn't planned he'd have no reason to not use his own phone. He breaks in to steal "tourist shit" but Maddie comes wandering out of the bedroom and he decides spur of the moment to grab her or he tries to shut her up and accidentally kills her. He wouldn't have known when taking a call an hour earlier that that was going to happen.