People
Madeleine McCann
Madeleine McCann was born in Leicester and lived with her family in Rothley, Leicestershire. At her parents' request, she was made aKate and Gerry McCann
Madeleine's parents are both physicians and practising Roman Catholics. Kate Marie McCann, ''née'' Healy (born 1968,Tapas Seven
The McCanns were on holiday with seven friends and eight children in all, including the McCanns' three. The nine adults dined together most evenings at 20:30 in the resort's5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, Praia da Luz
The McCanns arrived on 28 April 2007 for their seven-night spring break in Praia da Luz, a village in Portugal'sThursday, 3 May 2007
Daytime: McCann family activities
Thursday, 3 May, was the penultimate day of the family's holiday. Over breakfast Madeleine asked: "Why didn't you come when y brotherand I cried last night?" After the disappearance, her parents wondered whether this meant someone had entered the children's bedroom. Her mother also noticed a large brown stain on Madeleine's pyjama top. The children spent the morning in the resort's Kids' Club, then the family lunched at their apartment before heading to the pool.Angela Balakrishnan20:30: Tapas restaurant
At 20:30 the parents left 5A to dine with their friends in the Ocean Club's open-air tapas restaurant, located on the other side of the pool. 5A lay about 55 metres (180 ft) from the restaurant21:15: Tanner sighting
The sighting by Jane Tanner, one of the Tapas Seven, of a man carrying a child that night became an important part of the early investigation. Tanner had left the restaurant just after 21:00 to check on her own daughter, passing Gerry on Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins on his way back to the restaurant from his 21:05 check. He had stopped to chat to a British holidaymaker, but neither man recalled having seen Tanner. This puzzled the Portuguese police, given how narrow the street was, and led them to accuse Tanner of having invented the sighting. Tanner told the police that at around 21:15 she had noticed a man carrying a young child walk across the junction of Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins and Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva just ahead of her. He was not far from Madeleine's bedroom, heading east, away from the front of apartment 5A. In the early days of the investigation, the direction in which he was walking was thought to be important because he was moving toward the home of Robert Murat, the 33-year-old British-Portuguese man who lived near 5A, and who became the case's first suspect.Caroline Gammell22:00: Smith sighting
The rejection of the Tanner sighting as crucial to the timeline allowed investigators to focus on another sighting of a man carrying a child on the night of Madeleine's disappearance, this one reported to Portuguese police on 26 May 2007 by Martin and Mary Smith, who had been in Praia da Luz on holiday from Ireland. Scotland Yard concluded in 2013 that the Smith sighting offered the approximate time of Madeleine's22:00: Reported missing
Kate had intended to check on the children at 21:30, but Matthew Oldfield, one of the Tapas Seven, offered to do it when he checked on his own children in the apartment next door to 5A. He noticed that the McCanns' children's bedroom door was wide open, but after hearing no noise, he left 5A without looking far enough into the bedroom to see whether Madeleine was there. He could not recall whether the bedroom window and its exterior shutter were open at this point. Early on in the investigation, Portuguese police accused Oldfield of involvement because he had volunteered to do the check, suggesting to them that he had handed Madeleine to someone through the bedroom window.. Kate made her own check of 5A at around 22:00. Scotland Yard stated in 2013 that Madeleine was probably taken moments before this. Kate recalled entering the apartment through the unlocked patio doors at the back and noticing that the children's bedroom door was wide open. When she tried to close the door, it slammed shut as though there was a draught, which is when she saw that the bedroom window and its shutter were open. Madeleine's Cuddle Cat and blanket were still on the bed, but Madeleine was gone. After briefly searching the apartment, Kate ran back towards the restaurant, screaming, "Madeleine's gone! Someone's taken her!" At around 22:10, Gerry sent Matthew Oldfield to ask the resort's reception desk to call the police, and at 22:30 the resort activated its missing-child search protocol. Sixty staff and guests searched until 04:30, at first assuming that Madeleine had wandered off. One of them toldEarly response
Portuguese police
Two officers from the gendarmerie, the ''British police
In the United Kingdom it was agreed that Madeleine's home force, Leicestershire Police—led by Chief Constable Matt Baggott—would coordinate the British response, although it remained a Portuguese inquiry. A strategic coordinating group, or "gold" group, was put together, representing Leicestershire Police, theMedia and PR
A PJ officer acknowledged in 2010 that Portuguese police had been suspicious of the McCanns from the start because of the "First Portuguese inquiry (2007–2008)
First ''arguido''
Twelve days after Madeleine's disappearance, Robert Murat, a 34-year-old British-Portuguese property consultant, became the first '' arguido'' (suspect) in the case. Born in Hammersmith,Witness statements
In statements to the PJ, witnesses described men behaving oddly near apartment 5A in the days before the disappearance and on the day itself. Scotland Yard came to believe that these men may have been engaged inMcCanns as ''arguidos''
Early suspicion
The first indication that the media were turning against the McCanns came on 6 June 2007, when a German journalist asked them during aPortugal sends a letter rogatory
On 28 June 2007, the McCanns suggested to the PJ that the police request help from Danie Krugel, a South African former police officer who had developed a "matter orientation system", a handheld device that he claimed could locate missing people using DNA and satellites. On hearing about this years later, one scientist said it had caused his " BS detector to go off the scale". Kate wrote in 2011 that Krugel's claims made no sense, but the couple were desperate. In the second week of June they sent Krugel hair and eyelashes from Madeleine collected from the McCann family home by relatives in the UK. Krugel arrived in Praia da Luz on 15 July and told the McCanns his equipment had picked up a "static signal" in an area of the beach near the Rocha Negra cliff.Mark Townsend and Ned TemkoBritish sniffer dogs arrive
Keela was a forensic investigation dog trained to give her handler, Martin Grime, a "passive alert" to the scent of human blood by placing her nose close to the spot, then freezing in that position. Eddie was an enhanced-victim-recovery dog (EVRD, or cadaver dog) who gave a "bark alert" to the scent of human cadavers, including shortly after the death of the subject, even if the remains were buried, incinerated, or in water; he was trained to bark only in response to that scent and not for any other reason. The dogs arrived in Praia da Luz on 31 July 2007 and were taken to apartment 5A, nearby wasteland, and the beach. Both dogs alerted behind the sofa in the living room of 5A, and Eddie gave an alert near the wardrobe in the main bedroom. There were no alerts on the beach or wasteland. The PJ obtained warrants to search the house the McCanns had rented on Rua das Flores, and the silver Renault Scénic the couple had hired 24 days after Madeleine went missing. The house and grounds were searched on 2 August. The only alert was from Eddie when he encountered Cuddle Cat, which was lying in the living room; Keela did not give an alert. The police left with boxes of the McCanns' clothes, Cuddle Cat, a pair of latex gloves, suitcases, a notepad, two diaries—including one that Kate had started after the disappearance—and a friend's Bible she had borrowed. A passage the Bible's owner had marked from 2 Samuel, about the death of a child, was copied into the police case file along with a Portuguese translation. The items were taken to another location, where Eddie alerted his handler to one of the boxes of clothes. A source close to the McCanns' lawyers told reporters that, if there was indeed a smell of corpses on Kate's clothes, it could have been caused by her contact with corpses as a family doctor. The police removed the Renault and, on 6 August, Keela and Eddie were taken to an underground car park opposite the PJ headquarters in Portimão, where ten cars were parked, 20–30 feet apart, including the McCanns' and Murat's. Eddie, the cadaver dog, gave an alert outside the McCanns' car by the driver's door.Keela and Eddie in 5ABritish DNA analysis
Hair and other fibres were collected from areas in the car and apartment 5A where Keela and Eddie had given alerts, and were sent to theA complex LCN ow copy numberDNA result which appeared to have originated from at least three people was obtained from cellular material recovered from the luggage compartment section ... Within the DNA profile of Madeleine McCann there are 20 DNA components represented by 19 peaks on a chart. ... Of these 19 components 15 are present within the result from this item; there are 37 components in total. There are 37 components because there are at least 3 contributors; but there could be up to five contributors. In my opinion therefore this result is too complex for meaningful interpretation/inclusion. ... cannot answer the question: Is the match genuine, or is it a chance match.
McCanns made ''arguidos''
Lowe's email was translated into Portuguese on 4 September 2007. The next day, according to Kate, the PJ proposed that, if she were to admit that Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment and that she had hidden the body, she might only serve a two-year sentence. Her husband would not be charged and would be free to leave. Both parents were given ''arguido'' status on 7 September, and were advised by their lawyer not to answer questions. The PJ told Gerry that Madeleine's DNA had been found in the car boot and behind the sofa in apartment 5A. Gerry did respond to questions, but Kate declined to reply to 48 questions she was asked during an eleven-hour interview. The DNA evidence was a "100 percent match", journalists in Portugal were told. British tabloid headlines included "Corpse in McCann Car" (''McCanns return to the UK, Almeida report
Despite their ''arguido'' status, the McCanns were allowed to leave Portugal, and on legal advice did so immediately, arriving back in England on 9 September 2007. The following day Chief Inspector Tavares de Almeida of the PJ in Portimão signed a nine-page report concluding that Madeleine had died in apartment 5A as a result of an accident, that the restaurant meal and apparent regular checks on the McCann children had been part of theGonçalo Amaral's removal, later developments
On 2 October 2007 Chief Inspector Gonçalo Amaral was removed from his post as the inquiry's coordinator and transferred to Faro after telling the newspaper ''Inquiry closed (21 July 2008)
On 21 July 2008 the Portuguese Attorney General, Fernando José Pinto Monteiro, announced that there was no evidence to link the McCanns or Robert Murat to Madeleine's disappearance. Their ''arguido'' status was lifted and the case was closed.Fiona Govan, Nick BrittenAmaral's book (24 July 2008)
The lingering tensions between the McCanns and the PJ had reached such a height that Amaral resigned from the force in June 2008 to write a book alleging that Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment and that, to cover it up, the McCanns had faked an abduction.Paul Hamilos and Brendan de BeerMadeleine's Fund inquiry (2007–2011)
Raising money
The McCanns set up Madeleine's Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned Ltd on 15 May 2007, twelve days after the disappearance. Over 80 million people visited the fund's website in the three months after the disappearance. From September 2007, Brian Kennedy of Everest Windows supported the couple financially, and Kennedy's lawyer joined the fund's board of directors.{{cite news , last1=Summers , first1=Anthony , last2=Swan , first2=Robbyn , title=Madeleine McCann: 'I listened for 15 seconds and knew they were innocent' , url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/11077525/Madeleine-McCann-I-listened-for-15-seconds-and-knew-they-were-innocent.html , work=The Daily Telegraph , date=10 September 2014 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181011121105/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/madeleinemccann/11077525/Madeleine-McCann-I-listened-for-15-seconds-and-knew-they-were-innocent.html , archive-date=11 October 2018, url-status=live {{as of, 2017, February it had seven directors, including the McCanns. Appeals by public figures were screened at football matches across the UK. Between May 2007 and March 2008, the fund received £1,846,178, including £1.4 million through the bank, £390,000 online, and £64,000 from merchandise."Madeleine search fund raised £2m"Private investigators
Madeleine's Fund hired several firms of private investigators, causing friction with Portuguese police. Shortly after the disappearance, an anonymous benefactor paid for the services of a British security company, Control Risks. There had reportedly been four independent sightings from North Africa; Brian Kennedy went to Morocco himself in September 2007 to look into one. A Norwegian woman had reported seeing a girl matching Madeleine's description in a petrol station near Marrakesh, Morocco, on 9 May 2007; the child had reportedly asked the man she was with, in English, "Can we see Mummy soon?" When the witness returned home to Spain, she learned about the disappearance and telephoned the Spanish police. A month later, according to Kate, the police had still not formally interviewed the woman, which led the McCanns to fear that leads were not being pursued. The McCanns themselves travelled to Morocco on 10 June 2007 to raise awareness. They spent the night at the British ambassador's residence and were briefed byOakley International
{{further, #Smith sighting In 2008, Madeleine's Fund hired Oakley International, aFurther police inquiries (2011–present)
Gamble report
The McCanns met the BritishOperation Grange
In May 2011, under Home SecretaryFunding
In September 2018, the Home Office announced: "We have received and are considering a request from the Metropolitan Police Service to extend funding for Operation Grange until the end of March 2019". Up to that month, Operation Grange had cost £11.6m. In November 2018, an extra £150,000 is granted to continue the investigation, the latest in a series of six-month extensions which took the cost of Operation Grange to an estimated £11.75m. June 2019, the British government said it would fund Operation Grange until March 2020.Theories: Planned abduction, burglary, wandered off
DCI Redwood made clear that Operation Grange was looking at a "criminal act by a stranger", most likely a planned abduction or a burglary that Madeleine had disturbed.Sandra LavilleTracking mobile phone calls
Using mobile-phone tracking techniques, and with the cooperation of over thirty countries, police traced who had used cell phones near the scene of Madeleine's disappearance within the important time frame.{{sfn, Summers & Swan, 2014, p=255 The analysis turned up several calls and texts near the Ocean Club between a 30-year-old former Ocean Club bus driver, and his 24-year-old and 53-year-old associates. Detectives interviewed them in June 2014; they denied any connection to the disappearance. Police also found that the cell phone of Euclides Monteiro, a former Ocean Club restaurant worker who had previously been fired for theft, had been used near the resort that night. Originally from Cape Verde, Monteiro died in 2009 in a tractor accident. The suspicion was that he had been breaking into apartments to finance a drug habit; his widow said he had been questioned previously about break-ins involving the sexual assault of children but had been cleared by DNA evidence.Holiday-home sexual assaults
Scotland Yard issued another appeal in March 2014 for information about a man who had entered holiday homes occupied by British families in four incidents in the western region of Algarve between 2004 and 2006, two of them in Praia da Luz. On those occasions he had sexually assaulted five girls, aged 7–10, in their beds. The man spoke English with a foreign accent and his speech was slow and perhaps slurred. He had short, dark, unkempt hair, tanned skin, and in the view of three victims a distinctive smell; he may have worn a long-sleeved burgundy top, perhaps with a white circle on the back. These were among twelve incidents reported in the area between 2004 and 2010. The PJ reportedly believed the intruder in the four incidents between 2004 and 2006 was Monteiro.Searches and interviews in Praia da Luz
In June 2014, officers from Scotland Yard and the PJ, accompanied by archaeologists and sniffer dogs, searched drains and dug in {{convert, 60,000, m2, acres of wasteland in Praia da Luz. Nothing was found. The following month, at Scotland Yard's request, the PJ in Faro interviewed four Portuguese citizens, with Scotland Yard in attendance. No evidence was found to implicate them. One man, an associate of Robert Murat, was first questioned shortly after the disappearance.Brendan de BeerGerman investigations in 2020
In June 2020, theOther inquiries
In the early days of the inquiry, Portuguese police searched through images seized from paedophile investigations, and Madeleine's parents were shown photographs of sex offenders in case they recognized them from Praia de Luz.{{sfn, Summers & Swan, 2014, pp=269, 272 Several British paedophiles were of interest. In May 2009, investigators working for the McCanns tried to question one, Raymond Hewlett; he had allegedly told someone he knew what happened to Madeleine, but he retracted his statement and died ofTabloids and social media
"Trial by media"
Eilis O'Hanlon wrote that the disappearance "could almost stand as a metaphor for the rise of social media as the predominant mode of public discourse".Eilis O'HanlonLibel actions
In addition to their legal efforts against Gonçalo Amaral and his publisher, the McCanns and Tapas Seven brought libel actions against several newspapers. The ''Daily Express'', ''Daily Star'' and their sister Sunday papers, owned by Northern & Shell, published front-page apologies in 2008 and donated £550,000 to Madeleine's Fund.Mark Sweney and Leigh HolmwoodNetflix documentary (2019)
{{main, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCannSee also
* List of people who disappeared * Reactions to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann * Reported sightings of Madeleine McCann *Notes
{{Notelist, 90emReferences
{{Reflist, 30emWorks cited
News sources are listed in the References section only. {{refbegin, indent=yes, 90em *{{Anchor, Bainbridge{{cite journal, last=Bainbridge, first=Caroline, year=2012, title='They've taken her!' Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Mediating Maternity, Feeling and Loss, journal=Studies in the Maternal, volume=2, issue=1, pages=1–18, doi=10.16995/sim.85, doi-access=free *{{Anchor, Collins{{Cite book, first=Danny, last=Collins, title=Vanished: The Truth about the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, location=London, publisher=John Blake, date=2008 *{{cite news , last1=Enright , first1=Anne , author-link1=Anne Enright , title=Diary , url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n19/enri01_.html , work=London Review of Books , volume=29 , issue=19 , page=39 , date=4 October 2007 , archive-url=https://archive.today/20071011001215/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n19/enri01_.html , archive-date=11 October 2007 , url-status=dead , access-date=7 March 2019 , df=dmy-all *{{cite journal, last=Goc, first=Nicola, year=2009, title=Framing the news: 'bad' mothers and the 'Medea' news frame, journal=Australian Journalism Review, volume=21, issue=1, pages=33–47, url=http://eprints.utas.edu.au/9197/2/9197.pdf, access-date=12 February 2017, archive-date=10 August 2017, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170810035210/http://eprints.utas.edu.au/9197/2/9197.pdf, url-status=live *{{cite journal , last1=Kennedy , first1=Julia , s2cid=145731936 , title=Don't you forget about me: An exploration of the "Maddie Phenomenon" on YouTube , journal=Journalism Studies , date=2010 , volume=11 , issue=2 , pages=225–242 , doi=10.1080/14616700903290635 *{{cite web , last1=Lawton , first1=Jerry , title=Transcript of testimony , url=http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Transcript-of-Afternoon-Hearing-19-March-2012.pdf , publisher=Leveson Inquiry , date=19 March 2012 , pages=45–95 , archive-url=http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122202552/http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Transcript-of-Afternoon-Hearing-19-March-2012.pdf , archive-date=22 January 2014 , url-status=unfit , access-date=23 May 2013 , df=dmy-all *{{cite journal , last1 = Machado , first1 = Helena , last2 = Santos , first2 = Filipe , year = 2009 , title = The disappearance of Madeleine McCann: Public drama and trial by media in the Portuguese press , journal = Crime, Media, Culture , volume = 5 , issue = 2, pages = 146–167 , doi = 10.1177/1741659009335691 , citeseerx = 10.1.1.889.722 , s2cid = 145465416 *{{cite journal , last1 = Machado , first1 = Helena , last2 = Santos , first2 = Filipe , year = 2011 , title = Popular press and forensic genetics in Portugal: Expectations and disappointments regarding two cases of missing children , journal = Public Understanding of Science , volume = 20 , issue = 3, pages = 303–318 , doi = 10.1177/0963662509336710 , pmid = 21796881 , hdl = 10316/41854 , s2cid = 8167032 , hdl-access = free *{{cite book, last1=Machado, first1=Helen, last2=Prainsack, first2=Barbara, title=Tracing Technologies: Prisoners' Views in the Era of Csi, location=New York and Abingdon, publisher=Routledge, date=2016, orig-year=2012, chapter=Setting the Scene: Portugal *{{Cite book, first=Kate, last=McCann, url=https://archive.org/details/madeleineourdaug0000mcca, url-access=registration, title=Madeleine: Our Daughter's Disappearance and the Continuing Search for Her, location=London, publisher=Bantam Press, date=2011, isbn=9781446437605 *{{cite book , last1=Rehling , first1=Nicola , editor1-last=Parkin-Gounelas , editor1-first=Ruth , title=The Psychology and Politics of the Collective , date=2012 , publisher=Routledge , location=New York and Abingdon , pages=152–167 , chapter='Touching Everyone': Media Identifications, Imagined Communities and New Media Technologies in the Case of Madeleine McCann , isbn=9780415510264 , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jBzHwqMfdegC&pg=PA152 , access-date=31 May 2020 , archive-date=9 October 2021 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211009233832/https://books.google.com/books?id=jBzHwqMfdegC&pg=PA152 , url-status=live *{{cite journal , last1=Spence , first1=Des , title=Madeleine McCann , journal=BMJ , date=2 June 2007 , volume=334 , issue=7604 , page=1168 , doi=10.1136/bmj.39231.432211.59 , pmc=1885328 , jstor=0507311 *{{Cite book, first1=Anthony, last1=Summers, author-link=Anthony Summers, first2=Robbyn, last2=Swan, title=Looking For Madeleine, location=London, publisher=Headline Publishing Group, date=2014, ref={{sfnref, Summers & Swan, 2014 *{{cite journal , last1=Synott , first1=John , last2=Coulias , first2=Andria , last3=Ioannou , first3=Maria , title=Online trolling: The case of Madeleine McCann , journal=Computers in Human Behavior , date=June 2017 , volume=71 , pages=70–78 , doi=10.1016/j.chb.2017.01.053 , url=http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/31051/3/Authors%20Copy%20Online%20Trolling%20the%20Case%20of%20Madeleine%20McCann.pdf , access-date=1 December 2019 , archive-date=28 April 2019 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428105512/http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/31051/3/Authors%20Copy%20Online%20Trolling%20the%20Case%20of%20Madeleine%20McCann.pdf , url-status=live {{refendExternal links