Madeleine McCann investigation

[lyndie]

I saw today that possible excavations are to start in the resort where MM went missing.

Does anyone think the progress The Met have made is astonishing given the length of time that has elapsed? I can't help but wonder what progress could have been made if they had been involved at the start.

I really hope that somehow they can find out what happened and give her family some sort of closure. I know the ins and outs of what happened and her parents leaving her have been discussed at length on MN but from a crime point of view I would be very interested to see if the Portugese police had done enough or not.

Actually, perhaps costa's is Amaral

Do you mean the early Crimewatch, nomorequotes? Not the one last October, which wasn't even filmed in Portugal, and told us absolutely nothing new. Well, except that the man Jane Tanner saw had now mysteriously, after 6 1/2 years absence, come forward, and he was carrying a child back from the night creche, so it wasn't him after all.

I think people slow down at car crashes because they realise that it could have been them, so better ease of the gas.

A lot of people like history.... Research it/read books/ look at files etc

This is recent history

Can someone show some stats on how reliable cadaver dogs are, especially after a considerable passage of time?

This American case throws considerable doubt on their reliability:

"Zapata, 68, was charged with first-degree murder last year after the dogs indicated they sniffed human remains in a small basement "crawl space" at the former family home in Madison and other properties linked to him.

But Dane County Judge Patrick Fiedler ruled last month that the evidence that led to the charge could not be put before the jury.

He said the dogs were too unreliable in detecting the odour of remains and noted that no remains were actually found.

The judge agreed with an analysis of the three dogs' track record by Zapata's defence team that found they were INCORRECT 78 per cent, 71 per cent and 62 per cent of the time."

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Mr Fiedler told the court: "The state has failed to convince me that it's any more reliable than the flip of a coin." Zapata denies murder, and the jury in the case went out on Friday to start considering its verdict.

A source close to the McCanns' solicitors said: "The legal team are in touch with the lawyers who represented the defendant in the case.

www.mccannfiles.com/id157.html

Disagree La Volcan
Why do some some people stand in the street watching someone at the edge of a tall building.
Same thing.

Anyway, bowing out now. Everyone is entitled to their view. Just hope there are some answers for all those close to the case sooner rather than later.

I read that cadaver dogs are only correct around 30% of the time when a body is no longer in situ, and that they are not generally seen as 'admissible' evidence on court, but merely to help police in an investigation.

When a body is still in situ, they reliability increases immensely.

Zapata later pleaded guilty and confessed the body had been where the dogs signalled

www.charleyproject.org/cases/z/zapata_jeanette.html

In 2005, investigators called Eugene, who had remarried and moved to Nevada in 1997, and questioned him. The following day, Eugene cleared out a storage locker which he had rented in 2001. Police searched the locker with cadaver dogs a short time later. The dogs again detected the scent of human remains, and they also indicated the presence of human remains in the attic and crawl space of the Zapata residence, and in a vehicle Eugene rented during a visit to Wisconsin in 2004. During his trip to Wisconsin, he purchased trash bags, some large containers and cleaning supplies and visited the Juneau County Solid Waste Landfill; records indicate he dropped off items weighing 60 pounds. A search of the landfill turned up no clues, but the cadaver dogs again indicated the odor of human decomposition.

In August 2006, Eugene was charged with first-degree murder in connection with Jeanette's presumed death. He was tried for her murder in September 2007. The jury deliberated for 30 hours, but was unable to reach a verdict, and a mistrial was declared. In February 2008, Eugene made a plea arrangement with prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to reckless homicide in Jeanette's death and admitted he had "snapped" during an argument about their divorce. He stated he hit her on the head with a paperweight and he strangled her to death, then dumped her body in a rural area east of Madison. Eugene explained that later he had purchased land in Juneau County, Wisconsin, moved Jeanette's remains there, and buried them. The body stayed there until 2001, when Eugene moved to Nevada. He placed the body in his storage locker at that time, only retrieving it when the police questioned him in 2005. Then he dismembered Jeanette's body, wrapped the pieces in plastic bags and put them in a dumpster at the Juneau County Landfill.

Eugene was sentenced to the maximum of five years in prison for reckless homicide. He had to be sentenced according to the laws in 1976. With time off for good behavior, he could be freed in as little as three years and one month. He also agreed to pay his daughter Linda $5,000 in restitution for the expenses related to Jeanette's death. In spite of his confession, Eugene later stated he only pleaded guilty to avoid a second trial. His second wife and two of his three children with Jeanette still believe he is innocent. Linda, who was ten years old in 1976 and came to believe her father is guilty, is no longer on speaking terms with the rest of the family.

Aren't dogs bloody clever!

That must mean the McCanns are then....

*guilty then

Yes Anya I have four.

I just have a dd who likes to think she is a dog!

I have a dog too. I love him.

Again. As i said upthread, the dogs found dna in the apartment, not just "the scent". Dna was sent to uk for processing, and they (the uk lab, bugger all to do with inept portugese) contaminated the tiny sample and it was useless.

So what was behind the sofa and places like that? Was that sniffed by the Dogs to be blood? Can they smell where someone has cut a knee and a plaster fell down the back of the sofa?

No-one is disputing that sniffer dogs are clever. Where are the stats on their reliability as evidence? Particularly in a case where so much time had passed. It's no good just quoting random cases.
You seem to hold them up as the key piece of evidence against the McCanns when it seems flimsy at best.

Blood found by forensics in the apartment was found not to be Madeleine's, right at the beginning of the investigation.

Effective all your questions would be answered by reading the files - the blood dog signals blood the cadaver dog signals cadaver, they both alerted behind the sofa but read it for yourself or watch the video - it's also available online

But you brought up the Zapata case cherabel, not me? I'm not quoting random cases - I'm pointing out that they were correct in the Zapata case

Sorry, was just musing about dogs and how the can be trained, the dead, blood, people, drugs, bombs, money.

If you watch the video you'll see that Almaral believes the McCann's "regularly using" Calpol was something suspicious -he speculated that they used Calpol to make her sleep. We know different, I think.

And guide dogs, epilepsy dogs, disabled helper dogs - they're just amazing

Those files are thousands of pages long and people are quoting all this dog stuff, I thought you knew what you were all talking about and I don't get straight answers.