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?

But Kate and Gerry accounts kept subtly changing . That is the issue ! They changed their story about which doors were and weren't locked etc and which door they went into the apartment through when they found her missing. Also the confusion over the forced window that wasn't etc etc
These are key facts .
Also their distress is genuine imo but if you had inadvertently harmed your own child then you would be distressed wouldn't you. There have been several high profile cases where people have murdered someone close to them and looked devastated and destroyed at the press conference appealing for help to find the killer. They are probably devastated for real as the reality of what they have done hits home but onlookers attribute it to the circumstances .
So to me the parents distress proves nothing in terms of their innocence.
Having said that I don't think they were involved but my take on it is that they were as so concerned about their reputations and justifying their leaving of the kids that they were economical with the way they spun the truth. And the PR machine and companies they set up v quickly were v odd not to mention some of the weird stuff in Kate's book ( though I have not read the whole thing only extracts ).
Unfortunately that has muddied the waters and created conspiracy theories and suspicion of the parents ever since.

I agree that watertight recollection without inconsistencies and changes are thought by police to be MORE suspicious than errors and clashing

Peridito - read the thread. There are various other possibilities... wandering out and abduction from outside the apartment, accident, or harm from someone in some way other than abduction from the bed.

I agree completely with flapjackfairy.

Personally (and this is just gut feeling, so worth no more and no less than anyone else’s view) I dont believe the parents know what happened and have no direct involvement.

But I do think that from the outset, along with the utter shock and distress, there was an agenda of trying to protect reputations (and remember this wasn’t just the parents on holiday alone; they were part of a large group of professionals, all of whom had a lot at stake.) I’m not even suggesting there was necessarily a really cold, calculated attempt to deceive people.... it may well be all a bit more blurred than that. But I do think that in desperately wanting to find the child and know what happened, while sumultaneously trying to present themselves in the least negative light, they have muddied the waters.

I bet if you looked at the witness statements of anyone involved in a crime where they'd provided several statements over the course of time, and compared them to the statements of other witnesses and their own previous statements, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't have subtle changes between things they said happened/they saw. It's human nature.

Similarly it's human nature for them to fasten into one explanation for her disappearence, especially when that one explanation a) placed the blame on someone else and b) leaves a faint hope that she's still alive.

Starlings - of course you would expect some inconsistencies! That’s why reconstructions are so helpful. Person A can’t remember exactly what time they got up from the table, Person B was walking down the street but not exactly sure when, Person C ordered a drink at the bar, Person D left the restaurant... the point of a reconstruction is to triangulate all these events to create as accurate an account as possible. To not cooperate with this muddies the waters because it implies that a reconstruction might have exposed things such as how frequently the children were checked etc

I finished watching this last night and I can't believe after watching how anyone would believe they had anything to do with her disappearance.

At the time, I never knew what to believe and did think there was something not quite right, especially with the sheer amount of publicity and media headlines at the time.

This is the first time I've revisited the case since DC was born and I was left upset by the last couple of episodes. It's all so separately sad, not just MM but all the other missing children they featured and the frustration with the initial PJ investigation just left me feeling angry and desperate for the McCanns.

I suspect the refused to cooperate because they knew by that stage that the PJ were trying to pin it on them.

Why did the two dogs identify the smell of death and blood independently of each other in multiple places in the McCan’s apartment and in their hire car? Two of those places were her bedroom wardrobe and her toy ‘cuddlecat’. Why then did Kate wash cuddlecat before the dogs were involved? Why was Garry out playing golf two days after Madeline went missing? Why did they pay off their mortgage with the funds raised to search for Madeline?

I’m quite surprised with the sympathy towards her parents on this thread.

Really starling?

I would have thought most parents would be moving heaven and earth to get as accurate a picture of events as possible.

As for the fact that the parents were suspect... of course they were, because in most cases of a missing child or possibly harmed child, close family are responsible. It would be no different in the U.K.

The trouble is there seems to be such a lack of credible evidence from what we’re lead to believe for any of the theories. The window thing. From what I recall there was no forensic evidence to suggest the window/shutter scenario. No finger prints, smudges, fibres from clothing.

I’m sure I read somewhere that there was lichen on the window sill and it hadn’t been disturbed. The window was in 2 parts which slid open vertically so the whole aperture would be covered in half a window so quite a tight squeeze for an abductor carrying a child to get out of. Plus a three foot drop on the other side. Plus that window was in full view of the road and the apartments behind.

Soubriquet - how do you know it's a vicious rumour?
she's quoted as saying "I was desperately hoping that Madeleine would be back before the cat got washed. In the end Cuddle Cat smelt of suntan lotion and everything. I forgot what colour it was. "

The McCanns also told friends and family at home that the window in the bedroom had been smashed. Their own solicitor has to reassure the court that there was no evidence of this. It seems like they were desperate to spin one story.

These are the main theories/possibilities: news.sky.com/story/what-happened-to-madeleine-mccann-six-possible-theories-examined-10852674

I thought the toy had been washed after 21 days? I’m sure that was said in the documentary?

Morning, everyone.

Just a reminder that while it's fine to discuss the documentary please do keep discussion to the contents of the documentary itself. We'll delete anything that sounds like unsubstantiated speculation or outright accusation. We've also made a few deletions of posts that we just felt were too unkind, given this family's tragic circumstances.

If we have too many deletions in the thread we will have to zap the entire thing so please do think carefully when posting.

Thank you.

It should also be remembered that quite apart from the PJ, the case has been investigated by the Met Police to the tune of millions of pounds (as well as by private investigators) and they have never announced that MM was definitely abducted from her bed. As has been said countless times there is no substantiated evidence of what happened at all.

To my mind, for anyone to say they agree that MM must have been abducted from her bed because that’s what the parents say, is as absurd as the people at the other end of the spectrum who are equally convinced that the parents are responsible for her disappearance. To take an absolute unequivocal viewpoint either way is absurd. The truth is, none of know, so the logical thing is to keep an open mind.

Nobody knows what happened but it never made any sense to me to think it was anything other than abduction for various reasons. The wandering off alone is as ludicrous as blaming the McCanns for her disappearance imo.

I would have liked the documentary to have reconstructed the abduction through the window scenario. Does anyone know if any of these scenarios have been reconstructed? I’m assuming they must have been surely?

Why are you even mentioning ‘blaming the mccanns’? It’s quite possible to not accept their version unequivocally yet not to hold them responsible you know!

And my point which I’ve explained very clearly is that it’s the insistence on abduction from the bed when there is no sound evidence of that, which makes many people feel uneasy. It’s possible that she got outside and was taken. But the parents are insistent they couldn’t have happened.

Given that there are conflicting accounts of window forced open/ window easily opened, door locked/unlocked/closed/ajar, together with the accounts that on at least once previous evening MM and at least one sibling were awake and crying for their parents, it really doesn’t seem that unlikely she could have got out of bed. She was a healthy active, bright almost 4 years old kid not a baby. My children were certainly capable of opening doors, even unlocking them if necessary, by that age.

@acciocat my mum told me a story while we were watching this at the weekend. We were on a family holiday in Spain, I was two and my brother was 4, her and my dad went down to the bar a couple of floors below the room leaving us asleep. Next thing she knew, mid drink my brother wandered into the hotel bar in his pyjamas! She said she was mortified, felt like an awful mum and it haunted her for years after. Proves your point though! And this was the first evening we had been left alone too x

I don't unequivacably believe she was taken from her bed. I can understand why they have chosen to stick to their explanation though.

And yes, if I thought that the police were deliberately trying to PIN something I knew I hadn't done on me, as opposed to investigating me with an open mind, then I might chose not to co-operate further.

Why are you even mentioning ‘blaming the mccanns’? It’s quite possible to not accept their version unequivocally yet not to hold them responsible you know!

Why am I mentioning it? Because people do blame them and continue to disbelieve that Madeleine was abducted.

Well I can’t understand why they would to Say that they know for certain that MM was abducted from her bed when there is no evidence to support that. If the Met police knew that had happened I’m sure they would have reported it. As it stands, despite money being ploughed into the investigation year after year, there is no clear evidence.

Greatduck- yeah, some people believe that. Just as some people believe everything the mccanns say as gospel.

My point is that the logical thing is to admit that we don’t know!