Madeleine documentary

[mentallyfacked]

New documentary due to be released on Netflix on Friday.

I've covered this subject quite extensively while I was studying law. I will be watching with a heavy heart, it is just one of those cases I can't let go of sadly.

Anyone else going to be watching?

I found the Kennedy dad and son so odd Too. so much time and money invested in the case by them . It was really unfair to place Murat as a suspect because he offered to help them in the early days but not them.

What really bothers me was that from 9pm -10pm no one checked on the kids, by the time Kate came to check on them, Madeleine could have been well out of praia de luz. They then spent a couple of hours searching the town , again time wasted. So when actual wide search began , it was really late. She could have been out of the country by that time.

Just watched the whole thing and I wasn’t sure either way before but I’m more inclined to believe they’re innocent after watching it.
I think if they had murdered their daughter then surely they would just slink off into the shadows never to be seen again thinking they’ve got away with murder.
Instead they are the ones who have kept maddy alive in the press, that’s all their doing.
They approached the home office asking them to investigate all over again. Why if there was a chance they could be caught.
Without her parents continuously pushing for years Madeline would’ve been forgotten about years ago just a sad story in the press, the UK police wouldn’t have even been involved.
Instead they keep coming forward knowing each time they’re going to be called neglectful/Murderers/ child killers and despite knowing this and knowing what the country thinks of them they still keep coming forward regardless, they still keep asking for help anywhere and everywhere they can get it despite knowing the backlash they will get. The still come forward knowing this backlash could have an effect on their other children. Why would they do that if they were guilty it strikes me as something you would only do out of sheer desperation.

Jogging/tennis, they may very well have been in denial/self preservation mode, trying to keep themselves together

I often run when I need to clear my head. This is an extreme version of needing to clear your head I guess. While you're away from the house and running you can pretend everything is fine at home and when you get back she'll be home again. Maybe it gives your brain some respite from the awfulness.

You must have so much pent up energy too. Should you just sit still in a chair and cry?

Indeed, there are only so many tears a person can shed.

They’d have to be extreme narcissists to keep pulling public attention back to the issue for 12 years and expecting not to get away with it. It isn’t impossible, of course, but it is unlikely.

I think the millionaire Kennedy man became involved in order to bring fame and glory to himself !
His son ! What a twat! He said Murat looked dodgy (words to that effect) .
And look at the state of him?
Two fools !

People always say, oh I would have done X, I wouldn’t have done Y, I’d be behaving in such and such a way. But none of us know. What people are really saying is, I’d like to think that I’d behave differently
/more appropriately/whatever.

It seems the McCanns approach was logical, rational and expedited. Much more of a take charge approach, problem/solution situation. I admire their ability to marshall resources and keep the momentum up.

I once found myself in a high stress situation of long duration. Someone remarked to me that they couldn’t understand how I could get up, get showered, do my hair and put some makeup on”given the circumstances”.

I found the remarks really hurtful as that was part of my coping mechanism, starting each day as I usually would. Well I knew then that those weren’t idle remarks, I knew they were judgements and criticism. Also, what was the alternative and how would it have helped? Slobbing out all day, unwashed and in dirty clothes and feeling even worse as a consequence? It all helped me to hold it together when I needed a really clear head.

So from my experience, the jogging and so on that the McCanns get criticised for, is not some kind of indication of guilt/lack of emotion. That’s just silly.

I’ve had three tragic things happen to me in the last 10 years - two unexpected bereavements of immediate family and one scary and potentially horrific diagnosis for my DC. I dealt with each very differently, so it’s taught me there’s no “set” way to behave when confronted with the unimaginable.

Many times the comfort of your routine can stop you falling apart.

Can I ask a Q? Does any one know if the sniffer dogs searched anywhere else in the hotel?
Is there proof of their reliability

I'm another one fascinated by this case from day one. My DS was born the day MM went missing, I woke up in hospital to the breaking news and my DD is a very similar age to MM.

I really want to believe the parents. I see a mother in extreme pain and despair looking at Kate in the early days in Luz. I agree that them continually raising the profile of the case makes no sense as if you were guilty you would want it to quietly go away BUT there are so many issues with this case that make me feel deeply uneasy:

• Why refuse to allow a police reconstruction of events?
• Why not let the twins be tested for sedatives, if only to exonerate themselves?
• Why were the twins able to sleep through all the commotion in the flat after the alarm was raised?
• Why publicise so heavily in the early days especially the 'look into my eyes' campaign. If you really believe that a gang of child traffickers have taken your baby then surely you have just made it far too risky to for them keep her alive?
• Why did both the blood and cadaver dogs alert in the flat?
• Why were they so certain from the very first moment that MM had been abducted and not wandered away? Wouldn't you at least entertain all the possibilities?

- Why is there a pact of silence within the Tapas group?

And many more - I think that's the problem, there are just so many moments that make you think and feel that something is off with the case.

Agree with your post MrsCholly, I also had a child of the same age at the time. Could never get over the thought of leaving a child that age for 10 minutes even in a foreign country and the twins who were even younger- all your parental instincts go against it. The analysis of interviews afterwards and the Tapas 7 being given pretty much new identities, nothing makes sense. Neglect is the very least of it.

But a lot of those things are either inaccurate or just need a bit of imagination to understand.

The “pact of silence”? They’re friends, they don’t want to gossip, they spoke to the police repeatedly to give statements.
The eye thing? They desperately hoped she was still alive and had been taken by someone who wanted to keep her/adopt her, not someone who wished her harm, and thought that might mean they’d let her go. My DC has several distinguishing marks and if not for this case, I’d think it made sense to highlight them.
The sleeping twins? My DC can sleep through anything, including being lifted and carried around, people talking, smoke alarms etc in the first part of the night, especially if he’s had a tiring day. On the other hand a mouse fart will wake him at 5am.
Being sure it was abduction? Well, if you believe Fiona Payne’s statement, Kate actually said “She’s gone, Gerry, Madeleine’s gone” when she first ran back to the table, and the Tapas 7 separated and went looking for her... which implies they were at least considering that she’d wandered off. Plus if the windows were open, that would have made them suspect someone else’s involvement. And soon after that, Jane Tanner will have mentioned seeing a man carrying a child. This sighting seems to have been of a genuine holidaymaker with his daughter but no-one knew that at the time.

I’ve seen people on other threads frothing in disbelief that they apparently went to bed for an hour at 4am. “If my child was missing, I couldn’t have gone to bed!” I mean, really? They’d been awake for nearly 24 hours at that stage, the last 6 of which had been incredibly stressful and awful. One of the group probably said, “Lie down for a bit, you need to rest”.By 6am they were up again searching the streets.

And people don’t act logically or rationally all the time. Abductions and murders and missing persons cases are rarely cut and dried with no odd loose ends. People lie because they’ve done something slightly dodgy and it makes them look like they’re guilty of something much worse (maybe they didn’t check on the kids as often as they said, maybe they gave them all some antihistamine syrup at bedtime - not great parenting obviously, but not huge crimes either). None of these things are indicative that the parents had any involvement, to my mind.

When it first happened, I was horrified at their negligence, and I’m ashamed to say I wanted them to be punished for it. I wanted them to have done it because that would solve the mystery and they would get their just desserts. Now I have a child of my own and realise that they’re already being punished for their thoughtless mistakes more than they could be by any prison sentence. I guess I’ve learned to be more compassionate.

I think all these questions will never be answered unless someone somewhere confesses or someone is dobbed in.

And some of the questions raise other ones. Like the open window and shutter. If that is the case, and the only person who witnessed it was Kate, why did none of the others who were checking their children not notice as they had to pass that window?

Jane Tanner is adamant she passed Gerry and Jez but they are equally adamant they did not see her. Which was it? Or is it both?

It’s the most famous missing persons case in the world and is now firmly part of the True Crime genre. It does make me think of the JonBenet Ramsey case.

Agree Mrscholly.

I don’t believe the parents had direct involvement in the disappearance, and I think their anguish is completely genuine. And we certainly can’t judge anyone by their behaviour in extreme circumstances because sometimes keeping to a ‘normal’ routine is the only thing which keeps you sane in completely ab normal situations.

BUT there are too many inconsistencies and questions about the whole case. There was so obviously an agenda from outset about damage limitation, and trying to protect their reputations rather than just being completely transparent in their focus on finding her

My main issue with the parents is that (at least as far as I'm aware) have never come out and said 'we did a stupid thing leaving them alone and we're paying the ultimate price, please learn from our mistake and don't do it' - they always seem to justify what they did in leaving the children (but maybe thats how they can cope and keep their sanity)

With regard to the howling and comparing it to hearing someone has died - I've also heard it when a child has been removed by social services, it's that realisation that your child has gone, (even if they haven't died, but she probably realised internally at that moment that she was never going to see her daughter again)

FWIW I think the most likely abduction scenario is she went looking for her parents and was taken when outside alone

The fund was set up within a few days of her going missing, Not a charity but a limited company. That's what's so odd, the fact that a lot of people seemed to be in it for the long haul

I wonder how many parents did this after their child was abducted. How did they anticipate the amount of money they would receive to actually set up a company for it?

And yes I agree there are too many inconsistencies. Kate book just gave me the chills to be honest. Her account in that changes slightly to her original statement. I’m sure that day would be seared in to my memory

If she had been sedated, surely one of the tapas group would have mentioned it in their statement. They were good friends, but I'm not sure I'd cover for them if it was me

I’ve wondered why the abductor would clatter and clamber around opening curtains, windows and shutters when there were 2 other means of entry/exit. Unless it was more than one person. Open window, pass child out?

suziq10
Can I ask a Q? Does any one know if the sniffer dogs searched anywhere else in the hotel? Is there proof of their reliability

The dogs were taken to several different apartments in the complex. The only one they made any alerts in was 5a (the McCann's apartment).

The dogs were also shown around 10 different vehicles. The only they alerted to was the one used by the McCanns.

The dogs were provided with a large amount of clothing. The only items of clothing they alerted to were connected to the McCanns.

All of the places that were alerted to by the dogs were found to have blood or cadaver deposits. The Forensic Science Service was unable to shown conclusively who the samples belonged to.

A reconstruction would indeed have triangulated the various timings, places, events. My understanding is the the parents ‘didn’t think it would help’ to find her so didn’t cooperate with it. I find that extremely weird.
Surely any parent in that situation would want each moment of that evening to be documented as accurately as possible... unless there were inaccuracies from the outset about timings etc which then escalated

I'm just watching the last episode.
Its just so atrociously sad

if anyone is interested in reading more about the dogs, the source material from the official police files can be found here

www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARTIN_GRIMES.htm