True Crime Analysis, Breakthroughs, Insights & Discussions Hosted by Bestselling Author Nick van der Leek
Most of the focus of the crime scene at the Ocean Club fixates on the labyrinth of doors, windows, beehive balconies, apartments, stairwells and foliage surrounding Apartment 5A.
But what about the other end of the complex?
In Goncalo Amaral’s book he briefly mentions that access to leisure areas wasn’t controlled.
A case in point is the rear area behind the tennis courts, behind the Tapas Bar and kids creche.
The creche is easily identified as a square, white tented structure.
I also found the last two and especially the final episode very difficult to get through.
Scams, Cons, Frauds and Liars Netflix Doccie on Madeleine McCann – Episode 7 Review & Analysis
Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva is the relatively short, quiet, J-shaped road running along the rear [the north end] of the Ocean Club apartments where Madeleine McCann was snatched.
The road running alongside the property to the west side, the road Gerry and Kate McCann used to do their respective checks, and the road Jane Tanner was standing on when she spied Tannerman, is Rua Dr Gentil Martins.
It’s a curious thing that the names o these roads are never really mentioned, but then, they’re mouthfuls to say let alone remember. For our purposes we’re refer to the one at the top as “Da Silva” and the one to the side [the east side] as “Gentil Martins”.
Happy with that?
Before we deal with the Pepper Trees on Gentil Martins, let’s first orient ourselves in terms of the scale of the hotel, also the distance from he hotel to the beach and finally the realistic avenues of flight a potential abuctor could have [or would have] taken.
In the image above the two red arrows refer to Da Silva at the top [behind the Ocean Club hotel] and Gentil Martins running in a northerly direction along the side of the hotel. Unfortunately the map doesn’t seem to be accurate in its description of Gentil Martins, the road running up to Da Silva.
The two black arrows refer to the Tapas bar relative to the hotel and street grid, as well as the scale. The scale at the bottom denotes “20 metres”, indicative of a relatively compact street grid. This is important, as is the relatively small size of the resort town as we’ll see in the next image.
It’ easy to get disoriented as one zooms out, even if you’re very familiar with the grid pattern.
The original grid [above] is reproduced, with the long red arrow directing the viewer to Gentil Martins [the red location balloon in both images refer to the same location]. The black arrow shows the Tapas Bar and the red oval circle the Ocean Club at a slightly reduced scale.
The most important aspect of the above map is the new scale [see blue oval bottom right] – 100 metres. The distance from the Ocean Club to the urban edge of Praia da Luz [or the coastline] is approximately 300 metres if travelling southeast [follow the black arrow down] in a straight line. Not far at all, is it?
It’s also important to remember it’s downhill all the way to the coast, in some places steep downhill, and conversely, uphill all the way back to the hotel, and in some places the uphills are inclined fairly steeply too.
Gentil Martins for example in a road tilting upward from the bottom closer to the coast, to the top, whereas Da Silva – running laterally behind the apartment complex] – is mostly flat. However as the road tilts into a “J” with the tail of the “J” swooping up on the west end, the road necessarily also starts to go uphill.
It’s useful to know the road beneath the black arrow is a major traffic artery running down to the city centre of Praia da Luz, and this road is known as Rua 1º de Maio. The road to the east of this road which sort of connects to Da Silva and loops in a weird dog’s leg alongside the hotel to the east [in-line with the tennis courts and Tapas Bar] is the relatively quiet Rua da Escola Primária. We won’t be paying attention to either of these roads in this post.
The satellite screengrab ought to make the entire mosaic clearer still. Now we’re on a 50 metre scale with the coastline area missing and some of the distracting urban fabric smudged out. Not at the top right how Gentil Martins curves upward [black arrow at right top]. We also see a slight kink in Gentil Martins [see yellow circle] inline with the Tapas Bar and close to the southeast boundary of the Ocean Club.
Although the kink is visible in the street grid view, it’s less obvious. The two red arrows do not run in a straight line. The black arrows on the left are Rua 1º de Maio [the main road running down to the left of the hotel, the west, towards the town centre] and Rua da Escola Primária [running further left in a kind of squiggle].
Now we want to take a closer look at the road indicated by the red arrow pointing diagonally down from the top of the map to Da Silva.
Specifically note how the long avenue of Pepper Trees runs alongside Da Silva for the entire breadth of the Ocean Club hotel. The small black arrow on the right denotes the entrance to Apart 5A where Madeleine McCann was supposedly abducted. The yellow circle indicates the location of “Tannerman” and the clear “line-of”sight” up Gentil Martins to the T-Junction with Da Silva.
If someone was walking along Da Silva there would be similar line of sight, however if they worked closer to the tree line, or even under the tree line along the hotel parking lot [or along the hotel itself] line-of-sight diminishes and in some cases disappears entirely.
For an abductor carrying a child on foot, it would be important to stay out of line of sight as a matter of urgency. Which route afforded the abductor more cover? To the east [to the right or anywhere on Gentil Martins], or to the west [along Da Silva]…?
“If Madeleine McCann died on May 3rd, where was her body hidden?” [MAP]
Pepper Trees in Portugal – Portugal News
The mindfuckery reaches a dizzying crescendo in the final episode in the Netflix documentary, especially in the last 30 minutes. One moment a brand new suspect is identified, then another, then another, THEN ANOTHER, THEN ANOTHER…
Madeleine McCann: Did this man snatch Maddy? – The Mirror [2012]
Madeleine McCann ‘snatched by wobbly fat woman and is still alive’ – Daily Star
It’s almost with gleeful celebration that these names and numbers are touted. Why all of this information is “saved” for last is odd. Why not have an episode that deals exclusively with the long list of suspects [all of whom turned into dead ends], rather than throwing darts at a board and going, could it be this guy, how about this one? Could Madeleine be in Morocco? How about Australia? What about this Marina here, at 06:00 on May 4th?
There is a cultish triumphalism about “keeping the faith” in episode eight that reminds me of Apocalyptic Doctrine in the bible. The longer the Apocalypse doesn’t happen, the more certain it is to happen. If Armageddon hasn’t happened after 2000 years of prediction, oh boy, are we close to it happening now!
Also, the longer the Apocalypse doesn’t happen, the more evidence there is that it’s about to. It’s the End of Days. Something is about to happen.
It seems the same counter-intuitive gospel is being used here. The longer Madeleine remains missing the more certain she is to be found. The longer she remains missing, the more certain there is to be evidence that shes out there.
If we applied this gospel to our everyday lives, whether applying for a job, or asking someone out on a date, most would agree that the longer the period without confirmation, the more certain the reply is likely to be negative.
Of course it’s of no use to be broadly dismissive [of anything] in true crime. And, like we see in The Matrix, one can’t be told what something is, one must experience it in order to know it. Saying something is bullshit is one thing, smelling it is another.
With that in mind, let’s take three specific examples of mindfuckery in the final episode, to see what we’re dealing with.
1. It’s The Ocean Club’s Fault
Kate McCann found out that a booking they’d made at the Tapas Restaurant had been visible to others. In other words, it’s written explicitly in the registration/bookings book that the families would spend a week dining in the Tapas Bar at a particular time because their children were somewhere else. Now it’s the Ocean Club’s responsibility for allowing this sensitive information to fall into the hands of a shadowy, lurking pedophile abductor who happened to be floating around the Club there and then.
One of the co-authors narrating the story provides reinforcement for this same mind-job. This time it’s the fault of the authorities for not informing tourists that Praia da Luz was swarming with pedophiles, and if they’d only known this, they would never have left their children alone.
This is a wonderful jab firstly at the irresponsible Ocean Club staff, and secondly at the bungling Portuguese cops. Had they done their jobs, the parents could have dined in peace without their child being abducted while they were away.
There seems to be absolutely no question that leaving young children alone for an extended time actually invited some sort of incident in the first place.
We did not get nanny service for Madeleine, says Kate McCann – Telegraph
One aspect of the McCann narrative that is also missed is that the McCanns didn’t just leave three-year-old Madeleine so that they could dine somewhere else, they left three children, including two one-and-a-half-year-olds. In addition to this, when the McCanns were dining out, Kate herself didn’t do her check when she was supposed to, but gave up her check to someone else. On the night of May 3rd, the night Madeleien disappeared, by the time Kate did her one check Madeleine was already gone.
It’s also strange what Kate doesn’t seem to say – not in the documentary nor in so many of the interviews she’s given over the years. It would be the most natural [and understandable] thing in the world for her to say, and if she said it one would probably feel a lot more sympathy for her. “I feel guilty. I feel bad. It’s my fault…”
But you don’t hear those words. Instead it’s everyone else’s fault but the McCanns, and everyone else is a suspect, or made serious mistakes, or errors in judgement, but the McCanns.
Instead when Kate has spoken about feeling guilty, as she did in April 2017, it’s about money.
Ten years after she vanished, Kate said: “You do feel guilty. Other families haven’t had the publicity and money.” Former GP Kate, 49, admits she used to feel “really embarrassed” about the £11 million spent on the investigation.
I wonder – do they feel guilty about £20 million spent on a documentary that’s really about implicating a host of obvious suspects, while clearly making an effort to exonerate them in the court of public opinion?
One should also note that after years of adverse publicity, the Ocean Club resort where Madeleine died or disappeared went bankrupt. A lot of people lost their jobs. All the money Kate felt embarrassed about could theoretically have gone to saving some of those jobs lost as a result of unrelenting bad press surrounding the luckless resort.
The property, which the new owner is partially shielding from public view, was axed from tour operators’ recommended accommodation after stunned holidaymakers learned it was “the Maddie flat.” A British expat living in the resort told The Sun Online said today: “The place is no longer being used as a holiday option. I’m surprised it lasted so long as a viable let with its grim history.”
What happened to Praia da Luz holiday apartment where Madeleine McCann went missing? – The Mirror [May 2017]
The McCann’s had rented the flat from Mark Warner Holidays for around £1,500 for a one-week holiday when three-year-old Maddie vanished from her bed on May 3, 2007.
The two-bedroom apartment lay empty for a month but was then used by two families for a one-week and fortnight-long holiday before it was finally sealed off as a permanent crime scene. Once the world’s media had departed the front of the Ocean Club complex and Portuguese police closed their investigation in 2008, the property was put up for sale for around £250,000. The price was repeatedly slashed until it was eventually sold earlier this year for around £113,000 by British widow Kathleen Macguire-Cotton.
Holiday firm leaves resort where Madeleine McCann disappeared – The Express
Madeleine McCann case: Resort firm Mark Warner sues insurers for losses – The Guardian
• Company blames adverse publicity for parents staying away
• Claim centres on losses for ‘interrupted business’
‘We’ve just had enough of it’: Ten years on, Praia da Luz remembers the night Madeleine McCann disappeared – Telegraph [May 2017]
…for two years after her disappearance, the number of tourists “noticeably decreased”. “People lost their jobs because of this. A lot of shops and restaurants closed down. It had a huge influence on the real estate market.”
‘OUR FRESH HOPE’ Madeleine McCann parents’ delight as cops ask for more funding to keep search for missing child alive – The Sun [March, 2019]
If it was the Ocean’s Clubs fault, they and much of Praia da Luz have paid a price and done their penance many times over.
2. “New Technology will help us find Madeleine…”
This is a decent point raised in the final episode. Advances in technology are improving the forensic side of true crime investigations. The application of these technological breakthroughs in the McCann case could be applied in two areas above all, DNA testing and facial recognition software.
The Netflix narrative doesn’t highlight either of these very practical areas in any detail, but instead goes to the fuzzier area of time-lapsing Madeleine’s appearance. What would she look like now?
Ernie Allen [pictured above] is the ex-President & CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in America. He narrates chunks of virtually every episode in the series [with apparent impartiality].
In the final minutes of episode eight we see Allen working side-by-side with the McCanns for the first time. Allen is touting cutting edge technology to the McCanns, and doing so on camera. It has nothing to do with DNA [and there is much in dispute and much uncertainty regarding the DNA evidence surrounding this case] or facial recognition software. It’s simply a kind of digital “aging”.
Although the value of “aging” Madeleine’s face has dubious application in my opinion [especially if Madeleine is no longer with us], the interaction between Allen and Kate is worth noting.
Observe how both Allen and Kate emphasise how Madeleine’s features resemble her mother’s. Gerry is not mentioned and remains uncharacteristically silent throughout this aspect of the discussion.
Why would it be “upsetting” to see her three-year-old recast as a little girl, apparently alive and well? If Madeleine is dead, then clearly all of this is a reminder of what Madeleine herself has missed, isn’t it?
3. “There are many, many, many similar cases of abductions where years went by and the people were found, and they’re JUST LIKE Madeleine..”
The Intertextual aspect in the McCann case is very important, and provides potentially a lot of insight to understanding this case. Although the documentary does hint at the relative rarity of a child as young as Madeleine being abducted [as part of the official statistics], they gloss over the truly Intertextual aspect.
In the final flourish of episode eight cases are noted where children are abducted only to return “safe and sound” years later, and in a solitary instance decades later.
The trouble is, all of these reference cases involve children around ten or eleven years old, or even older, and in two of the three instances cited, the children are abducted from public outdoor areas such as waiting for a bus or outside riding a bike.
In Elizabeth Smart’s case the fourteen-year-old was abducted from home. Yeah, she was fourteen, not three going on four.
In the single instance cited where a child was much younger, it was a baby snatched at a hospital, and in that case the baby [not identified by name in the series] grew up and self-identified herself to her parents. The baby wasn’t snatched or abused by pedophiles.
The unidentified woman highlighted by the series is Carlina White, the case with the longest-known gap in a non-parental abduction in history where the victim was reunited with her parents [23 years].
Clearly all of these cases are miles apart from from a three-year-old girl supposedly abducted, because if one thing is clear, a three-year-old child is way harder to look after or even engage sexually with for an extended period [as uncomfortable as that is to hear] than an older child.
When very young children are abducted for sexual purposes they are typically murdered very soon after. The idea that a survivor of a pedophile ring might be allowed to grow up and one day wander off, back into society and then blow the lid off this massive enterprise is idiotic in the extreme. It simply doesn’t happen.
Now for a few final observations.
In the final episode we see Julian Peribañez, the detective hired by the McCanns finally appearing to deliver on his mandate. Some pedophiles are arrested.
Then we see Peribañez driving in what appears to be a Porche, performing the role in front of the cameras of a successful, stylish, smart detective.
Uhhhh…did I miss something? Where is Peribañez’s name even mentioned in the article about the arrest? Francisco Marco, the director general of the beleaguered Metodo 3 agency is mentioned.
On December 17, 2007, Marco claimed “Madeleine will be home for Christmas”. During this period Metodo 3 were receiving £50,000 a month to “find Madeleine”.
Metodo 3 under investigation in a case of Embezzlement and Money Laundering
Spain: four arrests in Catalonia spying case
MADRID, 19 FEB – Four people from the ‘Metodo 3’ agency, including the owner, Francisco Marco, the director and two employees were arrested Monday night as an investigation into the Catalonia bugging scandal picks up pace. Two of the arrested have admitted illegally taping conversations…
Of course we don’t see Amaral in the final episode, at all. During the entire series we never see Amaral driving around or looking cool. Instead whenever we see him he’s stuck in an undisclosed space between rooms. It’s oppressive and boring, and the lighting and divided space behind him is faintly distracting. The filmography is subtly trying to express the sentiment that Amaral is neither here nor there.
Peribañez by contrast is represented as a young, powerful predator of criminals, driving effectively through the streets, a force for good.
But hello…what sort of record did Goncalo Amaral have, in terms of arrests and achievements? It’s simply not mentioned anywhere in the series. Isn’t it important?
The suggestion they’re playing with through this glamorous and flattering depiction of Peribañez seems to be if you worked in law enforcement and managed to get someone arrested at some point, and you drive a Porche, it means you’re one of the good guys. Well done! Nice work for solving those cases… [It’s left to the audience to connect the dots between that and the Hope Narrative that’s been hammered into place over the final few minutes].
The final minutes of the series really does ratchet up the “Hope Narrative”. Fittingly, a priest is used to bolster this idea of “keeping the faith” as a moral imperative.
I agree with Ernie Allen and the premise of the final episode: Somebody knows. Somebody does know exactly what happened to Madeleine. Is it more likely to be Madeleine’s parents or some faceless shadow?
This one?
How about that one?
Or maybe…that one over there?
Indeed.
The McCanns swear they haven’t watched the 8-part series featuring 40 experts discussing the case of their daughter’s disappearance. And even though their arch-nemesis Goncalo Amaral appears in six of the eight episodes of the documentary, a man they have actively sued over the past eight years, and whom they currently owe £750,000 in compensatory damages, the McCanns claim they haven’t watched it.
They wouldn’t want to hinder the investigation, see.
So despite a small stadium of experts, commentators, cops, detectives, reports – everyone really who was involved, they haven’t condescended to participate in the production, although the McCanns-over-the-years appear in every episode without exception, but the McCanns-as-they-are-now simply don’t appear in it. This is unlike senhor Amaral who does. We see Amaral as he was, and we seem him now, expressing his views in-the-now.
But it seems senhor Amaral may be in some legal trouble. Because the documentary was made in the United Kingdom, it seems if Amaral has made more “false allegations” [in a similar vein to those that led to the £750,000 in compensatory damages claim mentioned above] then the McCanns lawyers will apparently have the road paved with gold to go after the former detective again.
On March 14th, 2019 the Express highlighted this possibility as well:
Madeleine McCann latest: Kate and Gerry ‘could sue policeman’ over TV documentary
A day earlier the Mirror was crowing about the same possibility.
Madeleine McCann Netflix documentary could trigger fresh legal action by parents
EXCLUSIVE Lawyers for Kate and Gerry McCann are said to be ‘closely watching’ what Goncalo Amaral will say on the upcoming show
On the same day the Guardian addressed speculation that the show had been “inexplicably” delayed because of “opposition from the missing child’s family”. I’m guessing what that means is the missing child in this semantic labyrinth is Madeleine McCann. Is that fair or is it excessively speculative? And then I’m guessing the missing child’s family [Madeleine’s family] are the McCanns, or is it other relatives who have been opposed?
I’m a true crime writer, full-time, and so it’s my job to figure out things like mindfuckery, word chess and smoke and mirrors. It’s my job to try to get a sense of clarity about what’s actually going on. I must admit to being a little muddled by this.
Is the Netflix documentary good for the McCanns or bad?
Is it good for Amaral, or not?
Since I’ve written a trilogy of books about this case, it’s probably worth making sure either way, isn’t it? So why don’t we? Let’s use something solid and tangible to address and try to answer this slippery question.
What we’ll do is look at the 40 experts interviewed by the makers of the documentary, and then try to get a sense if there is any bias, and where the bias falls.
We know that in a similar documentary series that has been associated with this one, that the Making A Murderer seasons while appearing investigative, neutral, factual and unbiased, actually deliberately seems to lead viewers to question the prosecution of Steven Avery [convicted of the murder of Teresa Halbach].
So one can say with some confidence that the Making A Murderer seasons are somewhat sympathetic to Avery. Some may say obviously and some may say subtly.
So what is the case with this documentary? Is there explicit or tacit support for one particular camp? Yes or no?
Below is a list of cast members appearing in the documentary, taken from the authoritative Internet Movie Database [IMDb].
Absent:
– US Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
– Journalists/authors with an expressly contrary view such as
Of this list of 40 who all appear in the Netflix documentary, only two are explicitly anti-McCann – Amaral and Almeido. Both testified against the McCanns’ version of events in court. Grime, via the cadaver alerts, is implicitly a problem for the abduction narrative; and thus the documentary tries to debunk the efficacy of the blood evidence as insufficient/not evidence at all.
Three out of 40 represents 7.5% of the total cast making any kind of counter narrative to the PRO McCann narrative. This means more than 90% of those on this list, featured in the £20 million documentary, are PRO McCann including around 20 individuals employed directly by them as PR consultants, lawyers or investigators.
Former Merseyside detective Arthur Cowley and Dave Edgar who were also employed by them are not mentioned in the list, however they appear briefly at the end of episode 7 and were both PRO McCann. Jon Corner, who was also employed by the McCanns, is also not mentioned on the list and he was also PRO McCann. Lee Marlow, a PRO McCann reporter and one-time “Feature writer of the year” award winner, employed by the PRO McCann Leicester Mercury is also not included in the list. PRO McCann investigator Kevin Halligen, employed by the McCanns who featured in the documentary is also not included on the list above.
Clearly not all 40 names here are experts of any kind, some are actors or mere players, others are writers, members of the clergy or onlookers of some sort, to the McCann narrative. A substantial number appearing in the series are unquestionably supportive family members and supportive friends of the McCanns.
Statistically it may be interesting to calculate which cast members got proportionately the most airtime and which received the least. By contextualising in which episode [themed a particular way] more insights into the motives of the documentary will likely be revealed.
One doesn’t see Amaral’s lawyer, friends or family interviewed, and virtually none of the staff employed at the Ocean Club were interviewed either. This seems a strange and slippery oversight for a £20 million documentary that seemingly spared no expense to pay for experts in order to produce a credible and honest investigative effort.
There’s something fundamentally wrong with this search map of the east side of Praia da Luz, from 9News. Can you tell what it is?
On March 18, 2019, Mark Saunokonoko touched on the mostly unexplored country that is the search for Madeleine McCann’s remains – assuming she died and there is a body.
In If Madeleine McCann was killed or died, where might her body have been hidden? Saunokonoko cites Britain’s leading expert in locating missing persons, whether abducted or murdered.
Obviously getting expert information is just good investigative journalism, but let’s face it, 40 experts were interviewed in the £20 million Netflix documentary series. Do those 40 experts, individually or collectively, solve the case or even advance it towards where it needs to go?
Experts can give a narrative credibility whether in court, in a documentary or in a news story. One expert or 40 doesn’t, however, suddenly recast reality. Credibility isn’t reality. Reality is what it is.
Saunokonoko’s expert, Mark Harrison, was tasked to build a report based on the theory that Madeleine was dead and her remains were somewhere. It’s important to contextualize how Harrison came onto the scene. Who employed him? When did he come onto the scene? How did he investigate that was different and useful, and what ultimately did he find out?
Well he wasn’t employed by the McCanns. It wasn’t Harrison who first suggested using cadaver dogs and Harrison wasn’t the first to suggest Madeleine had died on May 3rd, either. He was brought in to investigate that possibility, rather than that he came in and introduced everyone to that possibility.
Kate McCann herself had hinted as much through a dream she said she’d had in late July 2007. This is very important, that the shift in this direction came from the McCanns although South African boyyhunter Danie Krugel seemed to be the first to a) recommend the use of cadaver dogs and b) suggest Madeleine was no longer alive.
Krugel’s visit and Kate McCann’s dream – that Madeleine was no longer alive – seemed to sort of coincide, didn’t they?
Kate had dream of where to dig – The Sun [April 6, 2016]
TURNING POINT Kate McCann’s dream about Maddie’s buried body led to her wrongly becoming the police’s prime suspect – The Sun [March 27, 2019]
Understandably the Polícia Judiciária didn’t take Krugel’s advice to heart immediately, but when Kate tearfully called them up giving the impression for the first time that she thought Madeleine was dead, clearly they started to consider it. And the change in the McCanns attitude to the case in late July caused the cops to shift the focus of their investigation.
It seems when Harrison made the same recommendations as Krugel, he was able to provide guidance. He made specific recommendations – use cadaver dogs, and use specific dogs from the South Yorkshire Police Department with a track record in international cases. And so, that’s what the Polícia Judiciária did.
In Gonçalo Amaral’s book [published in August 2009], he emphasises this damaging claim from Harrison which contradicts the spirit of the Netflix documentary ten years later:
After a week of intense work, Harrison presents the results of his study to my coordinating group. Even if we were expecting it, his conclusions confirm our worst fears. The most plausible scenario is the following: there is no doubt that Madeleine is dead, and her body is hidden somewhere in the area around Praia da Luz. He praises the quality of the work carried out by the Portuguese authorities in trying to find the little girl alive. According to him, the time has come to redirect the searches in order to find, this time, a body hidden in the surrounding area.
Harrison also produces a map which, based on his research [of the witness statements, and of the McCanns themselves] suggests Madeleine’s body may be in one of these five areas.
But Harrison’s map is fundamentally flawed. Can you see why? Here’s a hint. At the time Harrison made his recommendations, the Tannerman sighting was considered both credible and “the most credible” sighting. We know the Tannerman sight suggested the abductor was heading east, away from the apartment, but we also know the Tannerman sighting has since been debunked.
And here’s another. This is the view from the Rocha Nechra [red circle on the far right] towards Praia da Luz…
In Kate McCann’s book, chapter 6th dealing with the morning after Madeleine’s disappearance [May 4th], a neighbor is mentioned across the road on the east side of the apartment [across the Rua Dr Gentil Martins]. This unidentified, anonymous neighbor tells the McCanns she saw a car going up the Rocha Negra at night. Kate notes there is a track going up the Rocha Negra but it’s not meant for vehicles. So what was a vehicle doing up there? There are several photos showing the McCanns running this same track.
It’s important to note that in the photo on the right, we can see a long way back to houses and apartments behind the McCanns. This also means folks in those houses and apartments have line of sight – over several miles to them.
Writing about the morning of May 4th, Kate – referring to strange lights late at night on the Rocha Negra – conjures “visions of Madeleine being disposed of somewhere on the overhanging cliff…” Kate actually uses the word “conjures” as well. Conjures visions. When Kate tells a police officer about it, he’s dismissive.
He has good reason to be dismissive. If someone as far away as the apartment block could see suspicions goings-on on the Rocha Negra, even at night, was it really the ideal place to surreptitiously “dispose of” someone?
And those words don’t particularly suggest Kate thinks her daughter is alive, does it?
If Harrison’s map was based on the testimonies of the Tapas 7 [including Jane Tanner] and the McCanns, and the map focused on the east side of Praia da Luz, what was the fundamental flaw?
In September 2017, following the ten year anniversary of Madeleine McCann’s disappeatance, Australia’s Sunrise show interviewed American criminal profiler Pat Brown. At about 4:44 in the segment, the female reporter notes:
“Well, uh…your views on this [Madeleine McCann]…uh…have been…almost…silenced. You haven’t been on American TV for seven years [Brown nods on the split screen]. The UK media won’t talk to you…[Brown: Correct]. You’re here on Australian TV…um, and as you say, your book was banned from Amazon. Um, what do you think it is particularly about your theories that are…um…not liked by American and British authorities…”
Pat Brown replies:
“Well, I think the problem is the evidence does not support abuction.”
The segment, titled “Crime expert claims Maddie McCann died in her holiday apartment 5A” has been viewed over 1 million times, and received about 1700 comments on YouTube, which is clearly indicative of the level of public interest in this question, and arguably its newsworthiness to the public, if not to American and British media.
As a former mainstream media and magazine journalist, where it was my stock and trade to pitch stories and engage with newspapers and editors, I had a very personal and very direct experience with the media in the McCann case.
So I’m a little confused. Who is getting thrown under the bus here? Is it the journos trying to report on a counter-narrative [the flip side of the narrative coin to the McCann’s version of events] which incidentally is also the “disgraced” lead detective’s scenio [he’s also been blocked, banned, sued etc], or are the McCanns being unfairly victimised by the media? Which is it?
If the media are so crooked and willing to throw the McCanns under the bus at the drop of a hat [as portrayed in Netflix docuseries The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann], why didn’t any British publication mention the series I wrote on the case – ever?
On the ten year anniversary, DOUBT and DOUBT II consistently outsold Kate McCann’s book, and DOUBT remained the #2 Amazon Bestseller on the Amazon.co.uk True Crime charts for days on end when coverage of the McCann case was at a peak.
Right now [March 25th, 2019] DOUBT is #9 on the same Bestseller list currently [just three spots behind Kate McCann’s book]. But not a single British reporter has ever contacted me and not a single article or reference to my book has appeared, even in articles dealing with all the books written on the McCann case, and believe me I checked.
Even more obvious in its absence from this category is the lead detective Goncalo Amaral’s book Truth of the Lie. In fact if you search for Amaral’s book on Amazon it’s only available in Portuguese.
From my side, the lack of engagement from the media isn’t sour grapes [well, LOL, maybe a little], but the broader point is there seems to be more of an agenda of the media towing the McCann line [perhaps for fear of being sued if they don’t] than of anti-McCann propaganda in the mainstream media.
But the way Netflix portrays it, the media coverage of the McCann case was and still is evil, biased, unfair and dishonest, and reporters inexplicably had and still have an axe to grind with the McCanns.
Fact is it was open season on the McCanns in the media for a very short window of time, and one could argue that the negative coverage following the cadaver alerts and the DNA narrative didn’t emerge in a vacuum.
I’ve worked in a newsroom in a major media house. Before I worked side-by-side with teams of editors, reporters, multimedia crews and sub-editors, I suspected there might be agendas and protocols and political and corporate arrangements running the show at newspapers as a matter of course. Sometimes there are. In some cases there are. But the media on the average day in terms of its basic coverage and general mandate is also a very dumb machine that simply does as it’s told.
Get the story. Tell the story as you see it.
Someone important says something, the media reports on it. Someone else important responds to it, the media reports on that. It’s often that simple.
The media’s strong point isn’t analysis or interpretation. If the media inveigles itself in these areas, especially when it comes to legal matters, it exposes its big fat cash cow underbelly to litigation. It would prefer not to if it can get away with it. It prefers to play dumber than it really is and instead panders to its audience and stakeholders.
Personally I find this attitude patronizing and cynical, but then patronizing isn’t necessary a bad word when you’re the one profiting out of the process. And some media coverage is neither here nor there, it’s simply a reflection of public sentiment. The media works as a sort of marketing machine, gauging public demand but also attempting to shape, influence and shift it. The media recycles what it’s told and it feeds the monster [us], tries to keep the monster full and satiated while trying to keep itself in the black. The media also has budgets, revenues and targets.
In this sense the media acts like both a barometer and a mirror, and sometimes what it reveals [us] is a salivating, greedy, addicted and oftentimes deeply ignorant flock of sheep. We too tend to believe what we’re told as an extension of the media doing the same thing.
Many journalists, including those writing about true crime, aren’t paid or even asked to think about it. They’re not required to prognosticate on the guilt or innocence of a particular character, in fact if anything they’re required not to. They’re told to record, report and repeat what others say, and often that’s all they do. So media coverage is by definition limited in its investigative scope.
In general this is how the media appears, but of late bias has certainly crept into media reporting and into entire media organisations. Media companies are increasingly political and sometimes explicitly so [for example Fox News coverage of Trump versus CNN].
When I researched the DOUBT trilogy two years ago in 2017, I found 90% of the contemporary media coverage supportive of the both the McCanns and the “Madeleine is alive and missing” myth. The only exceptions to the media masturbating the pedophile narrative [apologies for the metaphor, but it’s an objectionable and bogus narrative to begin with], I found, were in the odd story by Australia’s Mark Saunokonoko and Natasha Donn’s reporting for the Portugal Resident.
In other words, if you wanted to find a counter-narrative to the reigning pro McCann Apologia, you wouldn’t find it in Britain or America. You had to go to the ends of the Earth – New Zealand, Australia and an obscure little English periodical in Portugal – to find it. Is that fair? Is that balanced? Is that ethical? Is this free speech? Is it defensible from the perspective of a free press?
More commonly you’ll find the British tabloids coming up with puff pieces like this:
And:
Madeleine McCann Netflix viewers convinced they’ve spotted clue proving she was snatched – The Mirror
Really? Are Netflix viewers convinced?
I made a few forays to get publicity for my book and even those journalists that seemed more inclined towards Madeleine no longer being alive [named above] apparently didn’t feel my research was worth their time. That’s their right. But that’s editorial independence for you.
One journalist that I spent a lot of time – hours in fact – talking to and sharing my research was Mark Saunokonoko. [Listen to one of our conversations here]. I’ll give you a Noddy badge if you find Saunokonoko referring to me anywhere, once, ever. Saunokonoko has now produced a very popular and well-produced podcast series in which he quotes American author and criminal profiler Pat Brown at length.
The point is the media isn’t lynching the McCanns, and for the most part my impression is that the media today seem to beating the drum and playing the tune of the McCanns whenever they make a peep.
In contrast the coverage of Amaral is typically less flattering. A case in point is the media attacking Amaral for making money out of selling his book [a book that is virtually invisible to the entire English-speaking world]. Bear in mind Amaral is unemployed and lost his job and income as a result of investigating the McCann case.
And yet when it comes to the same issue, the McCanns making mountains of dosh on the sales of their book [which right now is selling like hotcakes thanks to the documentary they had nothing to do with], the media are far more supportive and sympathetic. The McCanns have also cleverly never disclosed the princely sum they received when they signed their lucrative publishing contract.
In the past, there have been some ugly skirmishes between the McCanns, the media, trolls and even Pat Brown, which I will cover in a post specifically dedicated to that subject.
Fortunately the court of public opinion is vast, and thanks to the democratisation of information, it’s becoming even more vast. As such, I for one as a former journalist don’t actually need the media or experts to endorse me or my work. I simply need my readers to trust me, to purchase my work and to keep purchasing it, and to do that I have to be a reliable, trustworthy, consistent and honest source, and one with no agenda.
I have no affiliation, no horse in the race other than to address and focus on the facts such as they are. And to some I execute that mandate, some might say quite well. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me, all this in spite of the media’s thumbs up for some while thumbing their noses at others.
Although the McCanns have washed their hands in public of the Netflix documentary that’s all about them, their struggles, and the search for their daughter, they do feature prominently in every episode.
On March 15, 2019, People was one of many publications to claim that the McCanns “didn’t participate in or approve of” the Netflix documentary. Do the McCanns really not approve of the narrative that Madeleine may still be alive, as The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann documentary asserts?
That’s odd because the eight-part docuseries does the McCanns [and their version of events] many favours, not to mention the timing of it. The timing of the docuseries – from a PR perspective – is perfect.
So maybe we should mention the timing and one other thing – the money and potential fortunes – that’s ebbing and potentially flowing around the McCanns and the McCann case as of right now.
In terms of timing, the European Court of Human rights is about to rule, about to pronounce a verdict now, at the end of an eight-year legal slugmatch between the McCanns and their arch nemsis. The Portuguese detective that initially led the investigation features prominently in the Netflix documentary, although much of what he says is juxtaposed with others casting doubt or disputing his version of events.
Goncalo Amaral did the unthinkable in this story – he had the temerity to suspect both parents of complicity in covering up whatever happened to the doctors’ daughter.
A similar scenario played out in the Ramsey case when lead detective Steve Thomas suspected the Ramseys and then resigned in protest when Alex Hunter, the Boulder District Attorney failed to press any charges against them [or anyone]..
Amaral was fired in October 2007 just five months into the investigation, and only one month after the McCanns were named official suspects in a highly controversial shift. This also caused the media coverage to change dramatically in tone from sympathetic to suspicious.
In any event, the timing of the Netflix docuseries coming out now is interesting, if nothing else.
Parents Of Madeleine McCann Owe Legal Fines Following Libel Court Battle [23rd March, 2019] – LadBible
The docuseries does a brilliant job of besmirching Amaral’s reputation as a possibly corrupt cop and potentially compromised individual.
If the series was as unbiased as it purports to be, it would have also investigated Julian Peribanez, the former Metodo 3 investigator hired by the McCanns with the same meticulous thoroughness. It seems a little tricksy to have the McCanns’ detective narrate large fractions of the documentary where he openly criticises, accuses and undermines his opposition in the case.
In many of the slick true crime documentaries, the devil is in the details, not in terms of factors or evidence, but how the audience is influenced. Amaral is invariably interviewed in the same dour, claustrophobic setting.
The McCann’s PR person who also does plenty of narrating here, is shown in a lofty office which conveys a sense of professionalism and authority. Peribanez, Amaral’s counterpart , also appears in a professional setting, and then occasionally he is depicted “on the job” as it were, the crack detective in a fancy car basically role-playing the Spanish version of Magnum P.I.
But Peribanez is not exactly a model citizen himself.
Along with his boss, Francisco Marco and other Metodo 3 staff, he got into big trouble in early 2013. He and a number of other Metodo 3 staff were revealed to have been behind the illegal recording of conversations between high-level Spanish politicians in a Barcelona restaurant. Peribanez was discovered to have been involved and arrested. However, unlike his boss Marco, Peribanez rapidly admitted his guilt, confessed all to the police, and may have ended up assisting the police with their enquiries.
In 2014, it was announced that he had become a ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ by publishing, jointly with the former head of Metodo 3 in Madrid, Antonia Tamarit, a book blowing the lid on corruption in Portugal but also, more specifically, the cess-pit of dark, nefarious and illegal activities carried out by Metodo 3. By this time, many of the top Metodo 3 staff had been arrested or imprisoned over the illegal recording of conversations at a Barcelona restaurant, and Metodo 3 had gone into liquidation.
So, in a classic case of ‘thieves falling out’, Peribanez and Tamarit decided to wrote a ‘tell-all’ book exposing the corrupt and criminal activities they had themselves been engaged in…
When the McCann’s Arch Apologist Tracey Kandohla weighs in on the couple’s behalf, then PR is to be expected. It’s from Kandohla that we’re informed of the cost of the docuseries: £20 fucking million or $26.43 million.
That’s more than the budget – almost twice the budget – of the entire search for Madeleine McCann by the authorities over the span of twelve years, the most expensive missing person’s search in history.
If we add the cost of the documentary to the cost of the search we’re in the region of £32 million spent on “the disappearance and search for Madeleine McCann.”
That’s a shitload of money based on a rather glaring assumption, that Madeleine McCann is alive and went missing to begin with.
Kandohla notes in her puff piece that the Netflix series was “commissioned in 2017” and conflates the commissioning of the series with “the explosion of the true crime genre.” In other words she’s suggesting the Netflix documentary was commissioned to make a mint out of the true crime genre, but she neglects to provide specifics on who commissioned it.
By mentioning the two documentaries in the same sentence, she also effectively compares The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann to Making A Murderer – the latter not necessarily a paragon of true crime documentary investigation in terms of accuracy or neutrality either.
Dead Certainty – How “Making a Murderer” goes wrong. – New Yorker
Making a Murderer Part 2 is more entertainment than investigation. It feels a little gross. – Vox
‘Making a Murderer’ Left Out Crucial Facts, Prosecutor Says – New York Times
5 key pieces of alleged evidence missed out of Making a Murderer – Digital Spy
Kratz: ‘Making a Murderer Part 2’ is biased and deceptive, new defense evidence is a ‘joke’ – Post Crescent
Steven Avery’s Defence Lawyer Responds To Claims Making A Murderer Is Biased – Unlilad
‘Making a Murderer’ Review: Part 2 Is a Long, Painful Look at Old Evidence with Little New to Say – IndieWire
Does anyone seriously think the filmmakers are going to make a profit on a budget of £20 fucking million for a documentary? The answer to that probably depends on who the filmmakers [and backers] are.
In Steven Avery’s case, all the Making A Murderer documentaries ultimately bore fruit, didn’t they? In February 2019 it was announced Avery had “won” the right to an appeal. You could say that, but you could also argue his PR had triumphed eventually. It’s not the first time that’s happened either. The Paradise Lost trilogy of documentaries also led to the release of the three men accused of murdering three boys in West Memphis [the West Memphis Three].
PR also played a huge role in the “acquittal” of Amanda Knox. Her father Curt once confided that his best move was to hire a PR guru within days of his daughter’s arrest. PR can and does influence legal narratives.
Was catching the commercial true crime wave really the only objective in making the 8-part series? Because the timing is very interesting. On January 31st, 2017 the Guardian reported on the first major legal setback the McCanns suffered in ten years.
So we see in 2017, the same year the legal tide turned against the McCanns, the 8-part documentary was commissioned. It was a major PR coup for them if the commissioning of the documentary with an enormous budget which just happened to support their own “pedophile abduction” theory to a “T”, happened coincidentally. But was it? Was this pure happenstance?
While Amaral’s libel damages as they stand now [£29 000] are fiddlesticks, barely a tenth of what the McCanns sued him for, it’s possible if the McCanns lose their final appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, the floodgates will open, clearing the way not only for Amaral to launch countersuits but potentially also many new media that the McCanns have sued for the years for defamation. Even if this doesn’t happen, a verdict that goes against them at this stage could swim the pendulum of public and media sentiment against them.
Interestingly in the Guardian article cited above the McCann’s refer to how much “the landscape has changed” in the eight years since they lodged their lawsuit against Amaral. Well, no landscape has changed more fundamentally than the media landscape, particularly with the advent of social media and more recently, streaming services like Netflix.
It’s clear Netflix has made available a documentary that is likely to influence people’s opinions on the McCanns, one way or the other. Does Netflix hold any responsibility in this regard? Should they? Should they be held to account for the veracity of the investigative content they provide to their subscribers especially as regard high-profile true crime?
In the past, Netflix has been beholden to the consumers of its product.
Netflix nixes ‘Bird Box’ crash footage after backlash – CNN
It remains to be seen whether true crime audiences will be aggravated or impressed, or simply too entertained to care about veracity or bias of the £20 fucking million documentary that the McCanns didn’t participate in [well, they appear in every episode], haven’t seen [apparently] and don’t support [ahem…].
If the the European Court rules against the McCanns, despite the influence or lack of the costly docuseries, will Amaral institute a colossal damages claim against them for systematic character assassination?
Whether he does or doesn’t, and whether the ruling goes for or against them, the McCanns are in an unusual position for the first time in many years. Instead of hope they have something to fear, and perhaps this time there is real reason to fear.
What do you think?
https://youtu.be/eye7IVL4iqQ
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