Where Is Madeline McCann ?

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Three months on, Madeleine's parents make fresh plea for help in finding their daught

Exactly three months after their daughter was abducted, the parents of missing Madeline McCann today made a renewed plea for help in finding their daughter.


Kate and Gerry McCann travelled to Huelva, the capital of Andalucia in Spain, to put up posters of their missing child across the city.

They are distributing the images of Madeleine across the city exactly three months after her abduction.

Ms McCann said: "Gerry and I want to remind people that our lovely little girl, Madeleine, is still missing. Today will mark three months since she was cruelly snatched from her bed.

We do not know where she is, or where she has been taken, but would urge tourists and residents in Portugal and Spain to keep looking for Madeleine. All we want is to be reunited with Madeleine and to be a happy family once again."

There are no plans as yet to mark the 100-day anniversary since her disappearance, with the couple instead intending to grind their way along the main motorway between southern Portugal and Spain, raising awareness over the four-year-old's disappearance.

Writing on his blog on Tuesday, Mr McCann said he intended to ramp up the campaign over the coming week.

He said: "Relatively quiet day apart from phone calls and campaign related emails. We have busy couple of days coming up so off to bed relatively early."

The couple have been boosted by the news that DNA tests are being carried out on a glass and straw used by a girl resembling Madeleine in Belgium.
The girl was seen by a witness - a children's therapist - who is said to be '100 per cent sure' that the little girl she saw with a young couple on a Belgian cafe terrace was Madeleine.

Police are said to be taking the sighting 'very seriously'.

She has told police the girl was with an English-speaking woman and a Dutchman on the cafe terrace in Tongeren, near Maastricht, on Wednesday.

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The mother of a missing British tot who vanished while her vacationing parents wined and dined said she's haunted by guilt over the mystery.

Kate McCann told The Sunday Times of London that she and her husband, Gerry McCann, made a grave error on May 3 when they went to dinner - leaving 3-year-old Madeleine and her twin 2-year-old siblings alone in their hotel room in Portugal.

"We're just so desperately sorry to Madeleine that we weren't there," McCann said in her first in-depth interview since Madeleine vanished.

"I can't describe how much I love Madeleine. If I'd had to think for one second, 'Should we have dinner and leave them?' I wouldn't have done it."

Ever since Madeleine's disappearance, parents around the world have quietly asked how the McCanns could have left their very young kids alone with no supervision.

The heartbroken mom said she has no good explanation for her actions.

Madeline has turned 4 since she's vanished.

"Even now, every hour I still question myself, 'Why did I think she was safe?' " she said.

"I do feel regret, and I've gone through my life saying I never want to have any regrets. But then you can't not regret something like that."

The McCanns, who are doctors, had put their children to bed, then left their vacation apartment unlocked as they dined about 100 yards away.

The mom said she's convinced Madeline was kidnapped and didn't leave of her own accord.

"I never thought for one second that she'd walked out. I knew someone had been in the apartment because of the way it had been left," she said.

"But I knew she wouldn't do that anyway. There wasn't a shadow of a doubt in my mind she'd been taken."

Even though she has accepted blame for Madeleine's disappearance, Kate McCann insisted she's a good mother, saying, "I love her and I'm a totally responsible parent, and that's the only thing that keeps me going.

"I have no doubt about that. You don't expect a predator to break in and take your daughter out of the bed."

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Portugal police suspect Madeleine was murdered - report

Portuguese police have found traces of blood on the wall of the apartment where four-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann went missing and now fear she might have been murdered, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Police seem increasingly convinced that Madeleine was murdered the night she disappeared three months ago and no longer think she was kidnapped, the Diario de Noticias daily cited sources close to the investigation as saying.

However, it was not clear whether the blood belonged to Madeleine as tests have not yet been completed and the newspaper did not say how police had come to the conclusion that the child was murdered.

A police spokesman declined to comment on the report.

"Portuguese police have known for a month that Madeleine McCann was killed that night (May 3) at the apartment in the Praia da Luz resort, having definitely rejected the chance that she may have been kidnapped," the newspaper said.

"It is confirmed that there were vestiges of blood found in the apartment occupied by the McCanns," Diario de Noticias cited unnamed police sources as saying.

Madeleine went missing from the Praia da Luz resort in the Algarve tourist region on May 3, just yards from where her parents were dining.

Briton Robert Murat, 33, has been identified by police as the main suspect in the investigation and his property has twice been searched.

The daily also said police had identified a second suspect -- a 40-year-old white man -- and were also investigating some friends of the McCann family who were staying at the resort when the girl went missing.

Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have campaigned relentlessly to draw attention to her disappearance. British business tycoons and celebrities ranging from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling to soccer stars have contributed to a reward for her return.

There have been a number of possible sightings of Madeleine -- from Morocco to Argentina -- since she went missing but police have come up with no concrete results.

Last week Belgian authorities said they were conducting DNA tests on a bottle and a straw after another possible sighting of the missing girl.

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Belgium DNA sample not Madeleine

Belgian prosecutors have confirmed that a DNA sample taken from a restaurant did not match that of the missing British four-year-old girl, Madeleine McCann.

The investigation began after a local woman reported seeing the child at the cafe, near the Dutch border, in the company of a man and a woman.

Belgian authorities say the DNA belonged to a man, but they added that her presence at the cafe could not be excluded.

Meanwhile, traces of blood found at the Portuguese holiday apartment where the girl disappeared is still being tested at a laboratory in Birmingham.

The four-year-old went missing on a family holiday to Portugal on 3 May. Since then there have been a number of unconfirmed sightings from Morocco to Argentina.

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Sombre service to mark 100 days since Madeleine disappeared

Kate and Gerry McCann will today mark 100 days since their daughter Madeleine disappeared from their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, southern Portugal, attending a special church mass before spending the rest of the day with their family.

But if the anniversary will be a sombre and muted day for the couple, police in Portugal say the search has taken a new direction, indicating that they are increasingly confident about a breakthrough.

Until recently, the couple have been briefed weekly on developments by police at the British consulate in nearby Portimao, but they have not been given details of the new lines of inquiry. This week they met investigators in a more formal meeting at the judicial police headquarters.
"It has been 14 weeks and it is pretty apparent that there has been a shift in the investigation," Mr McCann said on Thursday. "We are not privy to why that is."

The couple have given a series of interviews to British and Portuguese media in the past few days in the lead-up to the anniversary, amid increasingly unfavourable reports in local newspapers alleging that the police are once again scrutinising them and their circle of friends.

Speaking to the BBC's Today programme yesterday, Mr McCann said: "[The police] haven't said that she's dead, on multiple occasions they [said they] believed they were looking for a missing child, but there's been a shift. I want to see the evidence because it's so important to us as parents to know about it."

It was reported yesterday that Portuguese officers are examining a car that was rented in Faro, about 50 miles from the resort, by a British man on April 28, the day the McCanns arrived in Portugal, and was returned a week later, the same day they should have returned to the UK.

According to the local Jornal de Noticias newspaper, the car, an Opel Corsa, is being examined by police. None of the party of friends accompanying the McCanns on their holiday rented a car that week.

Meanwhile two police spaniels, trained to detect traces of blood and human remains, are understood to have returned yesterday to the UK. The dogs, attached to South Yorkshire police, have been working alongside three British officers who have been assisting the investigation.

A sample of blood found in the apartment in which the McCanns were staying is being examined in Birmingham by the Forensic Science Service.

The service in Praia da Luz is one of a number of events to mark the date. The family have asked for prayers to be offered in Catholic churches. Mrs McCann's parents will be distributing posters and balloons and balloons in central Liverpool, while at Ascot the jockey Frankie Dettori will wear a T-shirt bearing her image. The Everton football team and England rugby team have pledged support.

The first videos have appeared on the YouTube site launched yesterday by the McCanns to be a central clearing house for children across the world who have disappeared or been abducted. The details of children from Brazil, Greece, Holland and elsewhere have been posted.

In a message of support, the American first lady Laura Bush said: "Please tune into this new YouTube channel and join the ... important effort to protect children in our global society."

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100 days on, and the agony sharpens for the McCanns

One hundred long and dreadful days on, Kate and Gerry McCann mustered their strength and their determined hopes yesterday, and attended a small church in Praia da Luz for a service for their missing daughter Madeleine.
They came out to receive a crushing blow from the police: for the first time the Portuguese officer heading the investigation said the little girl could be dead.

Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa revealed that new evidence had given 'intensity' to the possibility she was killed.



In an apparent reference to the discovery of blood specks at the McCanns' flat, he said renewed searches using British sniffer dogs had revealed clues which could point to Madeleine's death.
However, Gerry McCann, like his wife, refuses to give up hope. Asked whether he could forgive the person who snatched Madeleine as she slept in her bed, he told BBC's Heaven and Earth programme: 'We don't know what's happened to Madeleine, so it's very difficult to forgive in advance. We've had incredible pain over the past three months, and we pray that Madeleine hasn't. Ultimately it will be God who judges.'

Speaking about her Catholic beliefs, Kate McCann added: 'There are times when I've felt I could not lean on my faith, but they're short-lived. It's in those darker moments, when the fear and the panic sets in and you find yourself asking why, why did this happen to Madeleine, why did you let this happen?'

The search for Madeleine was highlighted as the new Premiership football season kicked off yesterday. Everton - her favourite team - showed a video of Madeleine during the match against Wigan, and other Premiership clubs made gestures of support.

In Glasgow a rousing march to galvanise support for the McCann family was played at the World Pipe Band Championships. Members of the family stood with lone piper Alistair Gillies as he played the specially written tune, entitled 'Madeleine McCann'. Meanwhile in Liverpool city centre Kate McCann's parents, Susan and Brian Healy, distributed posters, stickers and balloons to members of the public.

But if the couple and their families insist that they remain hopeful that the little girl will be found alive, the waking nightmare in which they have found themselves since Madeleine disappeared became, if anything, more difficult last week.

The discovery by British police dogs of blood in the apartment from which Madeleine vanished has prompted a torrent of speculative reporting in local newspapers, much of it hostile to the couple and hinting darkly at police suspicions about the McCanns themselves and the seven friends with whom they were holidaying.

In a number of interviews last week they have been forced to deny that they were somehow involved in the death of their own daughter, or that they suspected their friends of involvement.

The surge in interest in the family, meanwhile, has meant they are increasingly under siege in the loaned apartment in the small Algarve town into which they moved a month ago, surrounded and followed by Portuguese journalists and film crews wherever they go, leaving them feeling 'trapped' and 'bullied', according to Kate McCann.

Then, on Wednesday they were told that their twins were no longer welcome at the creche in the holiday complex at which they were staying, while Francisco Pagarete, the lawyer representing Robert Murat, said he wished 'those bloody McCanns' would go home.

So dense is the fog of rumours, unsourced briefings, false trails and dead ends in this case that it is impossible to determine the true status of the police investigation, or the facts on which it is based. Portuguese officers have insisted that their strict laws mean they can disclose nothing about the case, but yesterday further details emerged in a local newspaper, purportedly based on leaked police statements, claiming to shed more light on what happened on the night of 3 May. These, too, are unconfirmed and unverifiable.

According to the newspaper Sol, the McCann children were put to bed at 7.30pm in their apartment, and an hour later their parents went to a tapas restaurant in the Ocean Club complex, which is next to the apartment block but separated by a wall and a narrow lane. They were joined in the next half hour by most of their friends, who left at different points over the next few hours to check on the children, though it is not clear whether each parent checked on all of the children or only their own.

At 9.05pm, the paper said, Gerry McCann left the table to check the children and on his way back ran into Jeremy Wilkins, a British man whom he had befriended on holiday, and the pair chatted for 10 minutes in the street outside the apartment, where they were seen by Jane Tanner, one of the group who had spent much of the evening with her own daughter, who was unwell. Tanner told police that around this time she also saw a man walking away from the apartment carrying a child, but that she did not draw any conclusions about this until later.

Gerry McCann, the newspaper report said, had noticed that the door to the children's room was more open than before and that there was more light than normal in the apartment. It claims that he assumed that Madeleine had moved into her parents' room because the twins' crying disturbed her, but that he didn't check.

At 10pm it was Kate McCann's turn to look in on the children; moments later she ran back to the table screaming that Madeleine had been taken.

The newspaper report also contained speculation that Madeleine may have died on the night she vanished, suggesting also that her body may have been moved in the months since 3 May.

It is understood that the British officers and police dogs that have been assisting the Portuguese investigation have now completed their work. In the past week a number of sites and vehicles have been re-examined by the British team. The DNA test results on the sample obtained in the bedroom may be available as early as this week.

There is no doubt that locals here have been struck by the couple's remarkable composure over the past 100 days, but there is no widespread sense of the hostility claimed by Francisco Pagarete. 'People in the town have a lot of sympathy for them,' one woman manning a stall on the beach told The Observer yesterday. 'We feel a lot of pity. For as long as nobody knows what happened, nobody knows anything, of course we support them, and of course they should stay.'

'I think people here have found them a little cold,' said another Portuguese woman who declined to be named. 'But then, I suppose English people are cold, compared with the Portuguese.'

The couple continue to say it is too soon for them to think of returning to Britain. Father Haynes Hubbard, the Anglican chaplain of the Algarve who led yesterday's service, said that those present did not agree 'for one second' that they should leave.

Certainly when the couple emerged into the dazzling noon heat yesterday, greeted by scores of locals and holidaymakers and more than three dozen TV cameras and photographers, they were greeted by a spontaneous burst of applause. Outside the Ocean Club, however, someone had scribbled with a finger in the dust of a car window. The message: 'Circus, go home.'

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Maddy: 'The worst limbo'

MADELINE McCann's mother said today she would rather know her daughter was dead than live in limbo forever.

It has been 102 days since the four-year-old girl disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in the Portuguese seaside village of Praia da Luz.

Kate McCann said she and her husband Gerry needed to know what had happened to her - even if that meant learning the worst.

The couple have always said they will cling onto the hope Madeleine is still alive until they see concrete evidence to the contrary.

But on Saturday Portuguese police acknowledged for the first time that she could be dead in the light of newly discovered clues.

Mrs McCann told Woman's Own magazine: "I've never liked uncertainty. And this is the worst kind of limbo.

"Gerry and I have spoken about this and in our heart of hearts we'd both rather know - even if knowing means we have to face the terrible truth that Madeleine might be dead. We both need to know."

In her interview Mrs McCann paints a vivid picture of her daughter as a sociable and funny child.

She said: "She has a lot of personality and her name actually means 'tower of strength'. But she hated it when we called her Maddie - she'd say, 'My name is Madeleine', with an indignant look on her face.

"I bet she's giving whoever she's with her tuppence worth."

Toy

Mrs McCann has almost always been seen clutching Madeleine's favourite soft toy, Cuddle Cat, in the months days since her disappearance.

Referring to the stuffed animal, she said: "In a way I wish they'd taken this with her. It would be a comfort to know Madeleine had something she loved, wherever she is.

"I can't prepare myself for bad news. I simply don't know how."

Madeleine's mother also spoke about her daily struggle to carry on.

"When children have gone missing in the past - Holly Wells, Jessica Chapman and Sarah Payne - and I've watched the news and thought, 'that's my worst nightmare'," she said.

"I had no idea how those mothers got through the day. But until you're in that situation, you can't even begin to imagine what it is that gets you out of bed and into the shower. You just have to go on.

"And it doesn't take the guilt away. Whenever I laugh with the twins or eat something nice - it's always there in the back of my mind, 'Madeleine would love this'.

"I suppose I'm really just going through the motions of life hoping, every night when I go to bed, that this will be the last day I'll have to get through without her."

Criticism

She also responded to criticism of her and her husband for leaving their three children alone in their flat while they dined in a nearby restaurant on the night Madeleine disappeared.

Mrs McCann said: "I ask myself, 'Why did I think it was safe?' But it felt safe. You don't expect a predator to break in and take your daughter."

She added: "I always had this little prayer I'd say at night: 'Please keep them safe, healthy and happy'.

"But safe in my head was about the children falling over or getting hit by a car.

"I never worried someone would watch us, break in and then take our daughter away. Why would I?"

* The full interview with Kate McCann appears in the new issue of Woman's Own on sale tomorrow (Tue).

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The hunt for information

There is so much speculation around it is difficult to know what can and can't be believed. Was Madeline McCann abducted or did she die in her bedroom? Was it a tragic accident or a deliberate act? Do Gerry and Kate McCann or one of the family friends know more that they are telling?

What is clear is that there is more speculation now than ever, after a three-way war has broken out between the British and Portuguese media and the Portuguese police, with Gerry and Kate at the centre of it.

But why has such a war started? One answer is because of the Portuguese legal system and the information vacuum from the police, with details of the investigation remaining unknown because of strict Portuguese laws designed to keep police work secret. The secrecy law that prevents information being shared applies not only to police, but to anyone involved in the investigation.

Under the law of judicial secrecy anyone who releases details of a police investigation while it is still under way could face criminal procedures. In practice, the law has prevented the police from making appeals, or confirming or denying speculation surrounding Madeleine's disappearance. It also prevents Gerry and Kate from speaking out.

For me, the secrecy law presents serious concerns about the Portuguese police's ability to undertake such a complex inquiry. It is this specific law that creates the problem, providing no opportunity to appeal for information from the public, to release a description of what Madeleine was wearing on the night she disappeared, and saying what time she disappeared, for example. In relation to the secrecy law I have sympathy for the Portuguese police, as this is what they have to work within - but it needs changing urgently.
This week we have seen a reinvigorated investigation, which for many weeks has limped along, apparently rudderless, lacking focus and direction. On Saturday, as a result of a review by British detectives, we saw Robert Murat's house re-searched, presumably looking for evidence - evidence that was potentially never secured when the police first searched the address. The house and grounds and vehicles were all searched in less than eight hours. If Robert Murat did have evidence at his address was it really likely to be there 11 weeks after the first search?

We also saw Mrs Murat driving her vehicle to the police station in order for them to search it. Why? If the vehicle contained potential evidence the police should have gone and seized it.

Then the most amazing evidence emerged on Monday that blood has been found in the bedroom that Madeleine was sleeping in. Thirteen weeks after Madeleine disappeared and after the apartment had been thoroughly forensically examined (or so we are told), cleaned and re-let - the police find an area of blood that is apparently invisible to the naked eye. This evidence could be vital, although as of yet we do not know if it belongs to Madeleine and are probably unlikely to know this for another week at the earliest.

Whoever the blood belongs to, why was it missed in the initial forensic examination? What else have the police missed or failed to investigate thoroughly?

With new focus to the police inquiry I would expect to see further development over the forthcoming days - in the build up to the 100-day mark. I also anticipate that there will be more pressure on Gerry and Kate McCann by the Portuguese media, more speculation and more rumours. Whatever the situation, the Portuguese police need to act now, to put a stop to the leaks and enable the investigation to be focused on one thing: finding Madeline.

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DNA in Belgian pub not Madeline McCann's

A DNA sample taken from a Belgian pub where someone reported seeing Madeleine McCann was not that of the missing British four-year-old girl, Belgian prosecutors said.

Tests were carried out on a milkshake bottle left on a table outside a cafe in the east Belgian town of Tongeren after a woman said she was certain to have seen the missing British four-year old with a Dutch-speaking man and an English-speaking woman.

But the DNA from the test belonged to a man, said Tongeren prosecutors in a statement.

There have been at least two previous reported sightings of the girl in Belgium this northern summer after she disappeared three months ago from a resort hotel in Portugal's Algarve region.

"This does not mean that that Maddie's presence is ruled out," said an emailed statement from prosecutors' spokeswoman Katja Vandoren.

"The possibility exists that the bottle was finished by the man who was with the little girl present."

Vandoren said the DNA profile had been checked with Belgian and Dutch central DNA databases and had not found any matches.

No vehicle matching the one the witness reported seeing had been found, Vandoren said.

"We continue to examine all useful tips."

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Accidental death new focus of McCann case

New evidence has led police in Portugal to reorient the investigation into Madeline McCann's disappearance to focus on the possibility she died accidentally.

A senior police source said that a key piece of evidence has forced Portuguese police to suspect the British 4-year-old may have died accidentally on the night she disappeared from an apartment in the resort town of Praia da Luz, The Telegraph in London said Wednesday.

"They say that abduction is no longer the main lead and that accidental death is the strongest theory they are working on," the anonymous source said.

The evidence was found a month ago, but police have not divulged exactly what it is or how it seemingly contradicts the initial police assessment that McCann was abducted.

The source said that while the evidence has led investigators in a new direction regarding the child's disappearance, which occurred on May 3, it still leaves many questions unanswered.

"The apartment is the key -- all the answers lie there, they say - but they are far from resolving what exactly happened and why the body disappeared," he told the British newspaper.

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