True Crime Analysis, Breakthroughs, Insights & Discussions Hosted by Bestselling Author Nick van der Leek
This damning article on cadaver traces was published on August 6th, 2008 in Portugal’s Diário de Notícias. To read the original report, click the link, then right click and hit “Translate to English”.
Isn’t it strange that you only find negative coverage of the McCanns in the foreign media coverage?
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.
Was Madeleine McCann last seen in her bed by her father, Gerry McCann, at approximately 21:15 on May 3rd? That’s the popular default narrative. That’s where Kate says Madeleine was taken from in her book, isn’t it? And it’s what the media mainstream believe, isn’t it?
It’s also the contention of the Netflix documentary THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MADELEINE MCCANN that Madeleine was abducted from her bed and then through the bedroom window. Presumably this is also the main thrust of the theory of British investigators.
In the DOUBT trilogy I put forward a different theory.
There are a few reasons to believe 1) Madeleine never went to sleep on May 3rd, 2) if she died in the apartment, she didn’t die in bed and 3) after she died [assuming she did die] she wasn’t carried from where she fell or lay to her bed.
This is a slippery line of reasoning so try to follow me. We start by looking at the crime scene photos of Madeleine’s bedroom. Interestingly, the Netflix docuseries hardly ever refers to the original police photos.
It’s not terribly clear, but one can just make out a light pink object on Madeleine’s pillow. There’s also a darker pink object, a child’s blanket, in the foreground below the pillow. The light pink object is clearly sitting on Madeleine’s pillow and slightly obstructed from view by the darker pink blanket below it.
Madeleine’s soft, pink Cuddle Cat toy is more evident in the image below.
In dramatised versions of the scene, Cuddle Cat on the pillow and the pink blanket under it are more evident.
Now in theory, this picture is precisely what we’d expect to see. If Madeleine was sleeping or in bed when she was abducted, and she was always with her toy, then the toy would have been left behind precisely where it is left behind.
The problem is, cadaver odor was found on the toy – the pink Cuddle Cat – when it was searched in a separate area, the villa on Rua das Flores where the McCanns moved to a few weeks after the incident.
Goncalo Amaral describes in his book The Truth of Lie how Eddie, the cadaver dog, approached the wicker chair and alerted to the toy on it.
This is not the moment Amaral refers to [at 1:34]in the video below:
At first the toy isn’t on the wicket chair but seems to be inside a basket and under something. It’s not easy for the dog to get to because it’s sort of behind a jutting wall. The dog is nevertheless interested in the area, sniffing the curtains and the floor. Then Eddie hops up, grabs the toy, drops it, scurries off before snatching it again and dropping the Cuddle Cat in the middle of the lounge floor.
The videographer is obviously stunned by this, and fixates for a few seconds on the little girl’s toy lying – cadaver-like – on the gleaming slab of floor.
But the moment Amaral sketches in his book appears to refer to an alert in the kitchenette area at about 5:33. Here the dog also hops up to sniff papers before alerting loudly. Grimes clearly seizes the Cuddle Cat from behind the cupboard, in this instance, and holds it up to the camera.
There’s also a moment at 3:24 when Eddie enters the closet area of the parents’ main bedroom, and spends a long time inside it on the ground level [presumably where the shoes are]. When Eddie finally emerges Grimes bends down and briefly lifts from the floor and examines what appears to be a darker pink blanket, similar in color and texture to the one seen in crime scene photos on Madeleine’s bed.
Now we know that Kate washed Cuddle Cat and contaminated the toy every time she went out in public, which was a lot.
So the fact that the cadaver dog alerted to Madeleine’s toy after three months of washing, contamination [including by Amelie] and airing is pretty incredible in itself.
Another redacted article.https://t.co/qKOOW9VO08
It has to do with #McCann washing Cuddle Cat twice before Madeleine's toy was tested by detectives.
But another version of the article can be read here: https://t.co/4VFYBVIGjL pic.twitter.com/1iZy5BeMg9
— Nick van der Leek – True Crime Rocket Science (@CrimeRocket) March 20, 2019
As soon as we regard the cadaver alert on the Cuddle Cat as genuine, we’re faced with a conundrum. It suggests Madeleine was clutching the Cuddle Cat when she died, or conversely, the Cuddle Cat was in contact with a dead person for an extended period of time. In this scenario, the deceased person was the likeliest to be Madeleine, not so?
So in this scenario, did Madeleine die in her bed, with Cuddle Cat beside her? It’s certainly a possibility except for the alerts – blood alerts – behind the living room couch in apartment 5A.
The mere suggestion of blood invokes the possibility of injury. And if blood was discovered outside the bedroom then there is an inference that Madeleine wasn’t in bed when she died.
The cadaver alert below the balcony in the flower bed invokes the likelihood of a fall. Did she fall with Cuddle Cat? If so, if she didn’t die in her bed, then how did Cuddle Cat end up in Madeleine’s bed?
There’s also another serious issue. If the dogs alerted to cadaver odor on Cuddle Cat three months after the incident, why didn’t they alert to the bed where we know Cuddle Cat was found? For that matter, why wasn’t any blood visible on Madeleine’s pillow or blankets?
Well, we know from Amaral’s book that the linen on the bed was stripped and washed soon after.
Amaral also raises another pickle, in the strange configuration of beds in the McCann’s bedroom. The single beds are mooshed together, but then both beds are pushed across the room leaving a great deal of space open on the wardrobe side. Enough space for the twins cots.
Amaral’s makes the astute observation that it appears the twins were kept in one room with the parents, while the third child was left on her own in another room. Perhaps because Madeleine had trouble sleeping, and would rouse the others when she was in distress.
Besides the possibility of Cuddle Cat developing Chucky-like self-locomotion skills and crawling back to Madeleine’s bed, there’s the question of whether the cots were trafficked back to Madeleine’s room. Why? To reinforce an impression that all the children were sound sleepers. When one slept, they all slept and they all slept together.
https://youtu.be/4YSAlGpGo34
There’s also the strange set-up of the other bed in Madeleine’s bedroom. It looks more slept in than Madeleine’s bed does.
The notion that the shutter was raised and the abductor fled through the open window of the children’s bedroom has a serious flaw as well. If all three children were asleep in the same room, then opening the metal shutter would have caused it to rattle loudly as it was lifted, a risk an intruder wouldn’t have wanted to take. It would have alerted passersby in the street, other folks in the apartment complex not to mention the two children in their cots the abductor needed to carry Madeleine past on his way out the window.
Kate McCann also claimed she looked under the bed for Madeleine. Not under the cots, under a bed where there was no place for a child to hide.
So let’s ask the question again, and this is a yes or no answer:
Was Madeleine McCann last seen in her bed by her father, Gerry McCann?
When last did we see a documentary on Madeleine McCann that a) genuinely presented new, game changing evidence or b) was an authentic investigation with no “hidden” agenda? When last did we see a Madeleine McCann documentary that was unbiased, one way or the other?
Typically when the suspects in a case are “exonerated”, or cleared, or no longer part of an official investigation, any aspersions implying their guilt mean the producers can be sued for defamation. If it can’t be proven or tested in court, and if it hasn’t been, then the odds favor the accused/former suspects. And so does the money.
A documentary sympathetic to those at its center is also easier to make if those at its center are friendly in some way to the producers. Friendly meaning family, friends or witnesses participate in a particular narrative which in turn makes those in the narrative appear better than perhaps they otherwise would. A good example is Steven Avery in Making A Murderer Seasons 1 & 2. And let’s face it, sympathy tends to come before facts in True Crime Apologia.
In the opening to episode one of the documentary, an anonymous reporter refers to shutters broken virtually in the first minute…
On May 5th 2007, just two days after the incident, the Telegraph reported:
Jon Corner, a close friend of Mrs McCann and godparent of the twins, said she telephoned him in the middle of the night distraught. He said: “She just blurted out that Madeleine had been abducted. She told me, ‘They have broken the shutter on the window and taken my little girl.’
“They had left the apartment locked while they were having their meal, but when they went back the last time they saw the damage. First they saw one of the window shutters had been forced, and then they saw the door was open and the bed was empty – and Madeleine was gone.
Ten years later that story changed.
His theory is backed up by evidence that discounts claims someone broke into apartment 5A via the bedroom window shutters — because they could ONLY be opened from the inside. Collins says: “I came across no clear indication that a planned abduction took place that night. Madeleine awoke and took the opportunity offered by the open patio doors to leave the apartment.”
In the initial panic…Gerry and Kate reportedly believed someone had “jemmied open” the shutters to get into her bedroom.
In fact the shutters were not damaged in any way.
https://youtu.be/ztb6V0OB5jA
This is why it’s laughable how the Apologia dresses itself under the guise of being a genuine investigation with no bias. OBVIOUSLY it is biased, and obviously those it supports provide some form of resources, whether archival footage, or access, or reinforcement or otherwise.
The new Netflix documentary kicks off its first frame by implying that there is still a case to solve, and information out there, because Madeleine is still out there.
Of course this is PRECISELY the same narrative the McCanns have maintained since day one. It was only three months after the incident that the cops began to consider that Madeleine was dead, and cadaver dog searches strongly confirmed these suspicions.
The law – including British law – holds that any person who disappears with no trace for a period of seven years is to be considered deceased. So to allege that Madeleine is alive is unreasonable at best, and technically unlawful at worst.
The call by the Netflix film for “any information” on Madeleine McCann is also misleading. In 2016, nine years after her “disappearace” over 8000 “sightings” had been recorded, which suggests that the number is closer to 12 000 currently. Whether there are 20 sightings or 200 000 sightings, the result is the same. The only difference is the reality becomes more and more muddled behind a curtain of false information and fake leads. Of course if you can claim that MAYBE the missing person is still alive because you’re still investigation, and 199 999 have still to be checked, then a technical legal argument could be made – in theory – that evidence COULD exist somewhere out there proving she may be alive.
Of course the parents can claim that any lead, whether it’s a “sighting” in Antarctica or Vladivostok, that’s not followed up shows police incompetence and evidence of an “incomplete” or “unprofessional” or simply an “insincere” investigation. But the converse is that the investigation into the McCanns wasn’t unfettered or without interference. An obvious example of interference is kicking off the lead detective in the case, attacking him and undermining him in the media, suing him and silencing him. Much of this assault was directly by the McCanns.
This should come as no surprise. Exactly the same process played out in the Ramsey case against Detective Steve Thomas.
Maddie ‘died’ in apartment, court hears – The Express
Of course the title of the 8-part documentary communicates the message even more clearly. It’s not called THE DEATH OF MADELEINE MCCAN, or even THE ABDUCTION, just the “disappearance”.
For as long as Madeleine is “disappeared” and not dead, it remains officially a missing person’s case [the most expensive wild goose chase in true crime history], rather than a murder investigation. If Madeleine is dead, and someone is responsible for her death, it must suit them just fine that a narrative is still being circulated exorting the public to “never give up hope”.
I’m thrilled that the producers of this film have decided to shine a massive magnifying glass on the popular theory that 1) Madeleine McCann is still alive 12 years after her “abduction” and 2) that the toddler was abducted by sex traffickers/pedophiles.
For some time I’ve felt this theory deserves a really good airing in the mainstream, and for folks who believe it to put up their hands, wave their flag of allegiance so we can see it, and make their voices heard.
It should be noted in Kate McCann’s book she makes the case for some sort of pedophile assault on her three-year-old child:
Madeleine McCann News: ‘I Could Probably Forgive Her Abductor’ Says Mother Kate – Huffpost
To date I’ve written a trilogy on the McCann case dealing with why Madeleine is certainly dead, how and why she died, and how and where her body was initially hidden before being finally disposed of.
In the DOUBT trilogy I didn’t want to contaminate the original hypothesis with conspiracy theories, of which there are many, just as there are in the JonBenet Ramsey case.
Just as in the JonBenet Ramsey case, the pedophile scenario invokes some sick, shadowy outsider breaking into the family home [despite the risk of others being home], and then abducts the child etc but forgets to leave any evidence of himself. No footprints, no fingerprints, no fibers, no DNA, no witnesses seeing him breaking and entering, or exiting. Zero. Zip. Nada. Oh but he exists.
In the Ramsey case the pedophile intruder breaks into the home to have sex with his victim, kidnaps her from her bed, bludgeons and strangles the little girl, but then forgets to have sex with her and escapes through a window and levitates over snow without waking anyone up. If no one heard or saw him, if his abduction was successful for all intents and purposes, why did he abandon the victim that he risked it all for before doing what he’d come to do?
Instead of removing his clothes and performing sexual acts, as is his nature, in the Ramsey case the strange pedophile attacker apparently elects to sit down to write a three-page Ransom Note [which takes roughly 20 minutes] using materials inside the house. This is what he chooses to do with his alone time with the victim. For a dude meticulous enough not to leave any trace of himself, not even a single fingerprint on the three-page note, leaving the note is a huge mismatch to the surrounding parapsychology.
Yet as absurd as that theory was, District Attorney Mary Lacy bought into it hook, line and sinker, and more than 20 years later, the mainstream media is still hopping from one pedophile suspect to the next in an endless game of “find the pedophile”.
Who does this benefit? Clearly it benefits someone.
Pedophile Confesses to Killing JonBenet Ramsey in Letters to Friend – Rolling Stone [January, 2019]
I killed JonBenét Ramsey!’ Convicted pedophile Gary Oliva has confessed to the murder of six-year-old pageant princess in prison letters to his friend – claiming it was ‘an accident’ – MSN [January, 2019]
Although Gary Oliva has suddenly been receiving a lot of press again in 2019, immediately following the recent settlement of the $750 million lawsuit between Burke Ramsey’s lawyer and CBS, he’s hardly a new suspect.
As early as 2002 Oliva was identified, investigated and apparently cleared as a suspect by the cops in Boulder. Of course, confirming Oliva as an official suspect or not is quite complicated. The information is there, it’s just muddy and muddled, that’s all.
From Daily Camera:
In the 2002 jailhouse interview that was part of the “48 Hours Investigates” broadcast, Oliva denied hurting or killing JonBenet. He also said he had never used a stun gun on a child. But Oliva did admit to an obsession with the Ramseys’ youngest child. “I believe she came to me after she was killed and revealed herself to me,” he said. “I’d like to see a memorial set up for her. I haven’t seen that, anywhere.”
In an interview with the Daily Camera after the 2002 CBS broadcast, then-Boulder Police chief Mark Beckner said Oliva remained a suspect in the Ramsey case.
Interestingly, although Oliva is making the headlines now, the cops gave no credence to Oliva in October 2002.
In fact CBS reported:
Smit is convinced that a pedophile came into the Ramsey home and killed their daughter. “I’ve probably got 25 good leads. And I probably have another 50 pages of other leads to follow,” he says.
Among the files he’s keeping on sex offenders in Boulder, Gary Oliva’s name stands out. Police said that in 1991, months after he sexually assaulted the little girl, Oliva tried to strangle his mother with a telephone cord. And in December 1996, Oliva, then a fugitive and a homeless drifter, may have been less than a block away from the Ramsey’s house.
Why aren’t the Boulder police taking these leads more seriously? Police have dismissed Oliva because his DNA doesn’t match evidence at the scene. The Ramseys say police have a double standard: While some suspects have been cleared because their DNA doesn’t match, they have not been cleared for the same reason.
Just this week, police said Oliva is not a suspect. Sources say his DNA doesn’t match evidence at the scene.
Now we’re seeing a similar narrative play out in the McCann case, except the pedophile abduction theory isn’t new here either. The #1 suspect originally on the sex trafficking conspiracy radar appeared to be one Robert Murat – basically the McCann version of Gary Oliva – except Murat’s a lot more of an upstanding citizen. Unlike Oliva, Murat had no criminal record and no convictions at the time he was falsely fingered as a suspect.
In fact if anything, Murat participated in the investigation as a volunteer translator, far more than can be said about the McCanns who were [like the Ramseys] less than co-operative with the local authorities, to put it mildly. In fact on the evening Madeleine vanished, the only people not looking for the little girl were Kate and Gerry.
The false “tip-offs”, meanwhile, started as early as May 2007, the same month as Madeleine’s disappearance. One of those tip-offs came from the Tapas 7 [the McCanns’ pals] who mistakenly identified Tannerman as key abductor suspect. Even though Tannerman had played tennis with Gerry, and came forward to say “hey, it was me” it took six years for him to be officially cleared.
Murat formed an important part of the false tip-offs extravaganza during the crucial first days of the investigation.
False tip-offs hamper hunt for Madeleine – The Guardian
As such, Murat successfully sued several newspapers for defamation for printing slurs about him as early as one year after Madeleine’s “abduction”. At the time, Murat won a record settlement of 600 000 pounds.
But because Murat lived quite close to the crime scene [like Oliva], he remained a sort of default choice as prime suspect, aside from the original prime suspects of course. As long as the crime remained unsolved, suspicions hung like a cloud over Murat.
Based on the Netflix trailer, it seems Murat will be mentioned as part of the pedophile narrative not so much implicating him, but implicating 1) the pedophile conspiracy narrative and thus giving it some substance and 2) accusing the authorities [presumably the Portuguese cops] of an improper investigation, thus undermining their allegations [including those identifying the parents as arguidos/suspects].
I have made passing remarks in my three narratives to debunk the pedophile/abductor theory, starting with the obvious. If a stranger abductor wants to steal a child, the easiest way to do that is in a public area like a beach or a park. What an abductor won’t do nine times out of ten is break into a locked or secure home, grab the child [leaving traces of himself], and then break out again, all with the threat of being caught in flagrante delicto.
But more important than imputing the typical profile of a stranger abductor, is looking at the behavior of the parents following the abduction. In the Ramseys’ case, following the murder of their daughter by a random kidnapping pedophile, what did they do – they sent their other child to another nearby residence and never seemed particularly concerned for Burke’s safety. By January 1997, within a month of his sister’s murder, Burke was back at school and his father back at work, back to business as usual.
He continued going to the same school, and security protocols at the school were casual, to put it mildly. Not the sort of thing a parent convinced their child was attacked by a neighborhood monster still-at-large would do, and of course, Burke Ramsey himself wasn’t in the least bit frightened either. No nightmares. Not much concern that his sister had been killed in the basement. In fact when Burke was asked why he wasn’t at school during those first weeks, it wasn’t to hide away from an attacker, but the press.
In the McCann case, it’s not often reported that the McCanns continued to stay in the Ocean Club hotel for an additional two months following the “abduction”. Besides that, their other two children continued to be dropped off at the Ocean Club creche [Kids Club] as per normal, immediately following the abduction.
When the McCanns left to see the Pope in May 2007 [less than a month after Madeleine’s “disappearance”, they left both their children behind in the pedophile paradise of Praia da Luz before continuing a whirlwind tour of Europe.
From BBC:
They have left their two-year-old twins in the Algarve with Mr McCann’s sister, Trish Cameron, and her husband Sandy, deciding they were too young to take on the trip to Italy. The couple are also due to visit Spain, the Netherlands, Morocco and Germany to raise awareness of their daughter’s disappearance.
In fact the pictures the tabloid media were able to get of the couple in the weeks following the abduction were all at the same resort where Madeleine was “abducted”. All the pictures of the McCanns in the aftermath were taken as they went to drop off their other children at the creche first thing in the morning, so that they could concentrate on attending to the PR surrounding Madeleine.
But that’s not the most ridiculous aspect of this conspiracy. That is reserved for the idea that all evidence to the contrary, Madeleine is still alive. With zero confirmed evidence of Madeleine being sighted in twelve years, Madeleine still being alive is based on less evidence than that she isn’t.
Based on cadaver traces alone [in apartment 5a, in the garden below the apartment, in the villa, on Madeleine’s cuddlecat toy, and inside the rental vehicle’s trunk] it’s clear someone died. If it wasn’t Madeleine, was it someone else [in the apartment, in the rental car, in the villa…]?
McCann team tests car for traces of Madeleine – Telegraph [2007]
Witness Statement of Alexander James CAMERON – PJFiles [2008]
Detectives ask: Where did the car go? – Daily Star [September 16, 2007]
Michael Wright Rogatory Interview – 16th April 2008
It’s this narrative that Madeleine is still alive that’s the reason I believe this documentary actually has the tacit support of the McCanns despite appearances to the contrary. The fact that the documentary is coming out a month before the 12th anniversary of her disappearance isn’t an accident. It’s been carefully planned and executed. So much of this case is about precisely that – appearances and PR. And after losing their latest lawsuit, the McCanns need some fresh impetus to their bogus “there is always hope” spiel.
From News24:
Top British police officer Jim Gamble claims that they’ll find Maddie within his lifetime, according to Daily Mail reports.
“There’s huge hope to be had with the advances in technology. Year on year DNA is getting better,” Gamble has said, “Year on year other techniques, including facial recognition, are getting better. “And as we use that technology to revisit and review that which we captured in the past, there’s every likelihood that something we already know will slip into position.”
It’s been suggested that Maddie is still alive and was taken by human traffickers because of her financial value as a “middle-class British girl”, Metro reports. The long-awaited documentary is expected to be released on Friday, despite opposition from Madeleine’s family.
Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have repeatedly refused to take part in the show, according to The Guardian. They’ve also reportedly urged others to refuse doing interviews with production house Pulse Films, who’s making the series.
‘There will always be hope’: Madeleine McCann’s parents refuse to give up hope in nine-year search – Evening Standard
Madeleine McCann still alive – and could be minutes from where she disappeared, claims ex-detective – Belfast Telegraph
New Netflix documentary claims that Maddie McCann is alive– news.com.au
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