Maddie - The True of the Lie - Book review - The truth about what might have happened to Madeleine McCann

I have some difficulties remembering the last time I read a book from top to bottom without interruptions. This book was written by one of the former Portuguese judicial police inspectors (Gonçalo Amaral) responsible for the investigation of Madeleine McCann´s missing which happened more than two years ago (03 May 2007) while she was enjoying vacations with her parents in Algarve, Portugal.

Frankly I must admit that after knowing that the group of parents use to dinner in a restaurant leaving all their kids alone sleeping in their apartments, I felt something was wrong with the investigations when no one suspected of any other scenario but the kidnapping.

If one try to put himself in all those parents` position it is easy to realize that if some accident had occurred during the time they were at the restaurant they all would immediately feel guilty of what happened and, I believe, it is possible to conceive they could all try to minimize the damage doing everything to make it look like a kidnapping. Of course this is all hypotheses and does not prove anything by it self.

Watch the impressive documentry about this case near the end of this page just above the comment box.

• There is a unlocated dead body which was substantiated by the English dogs (EVRD - Enhanced Victim Recovery Dog; CSI – Crime Scene Investigation = dog that search and locate human blood even in very small amounts) and corroborated by the preliminary lab results.
• These evidences were found behind the seating room´s couch, beside the closet on the parents` bedroom, on a piece of clothing from Maddie, on the teddy bear (which was seen by all being carried by Maddie's little sister on the following days after the disappearance), on two pieces of clothing from Kate, on the car key and in the luggage compartment of the car that the parents rented several days after the disappearance.

This book was written by someone who knew every detail from the investigation and even though he was taken from that same investigation, and perhaps be guilty of some of the mistakes that took place during the probe (not the only guilty though), I do not believe he would bring to the "outside" facts that were not already in the investigation process. So it is interesting to know some of the facts that were determined during investigations which were never brought to "day light".

It is important to remember that those facts still does not show us exactly what happened to Maddie that night. But one thing is for sure: they do show us what did not happened...

There are several occurrences which happened both on that distressing day as well as on the following weeks that show how the kidnapping assumption does not make much sense:

• The kidnapping theory was defended by Maddie´s parents from the beginning.

• Among the group (in which the McCann´s family was part of) only Maddie´s parents declare having observed the open window on the children´s bedroom. The majority could not testify it because they only went to the apartment after the alert was made. The only finger prints found on that open window belong to Kate McCann´s left hand.

• The only testimony made by someone outside the group which refer the open window was made by Amy, one of the educators from the Ocean Club (the place where they were accommodated), who pointed the observation between 22h20m and 22h30m. So, long after the time the alert was made and does not prove that the window was open at the time the "crime" took place. It is also strange that after noticing her missing child a mother would have left her other young children alone in the same room (still with the window opened) from where the alleged kidnapper had taken Maddie.

• The set of testimonials and testimonies show many inaccuracies, incongruities and contradictions. In some cases this could be seen as false testimonies. In particular the key testimonial to the kidnapping theory from Jane Tanner which was successively altered, losing all its credibility and becoming ambiguous and disqualifying itself.

_{A video showing Eddie and Keela (two forensic dogs) and their handler ex PC Martin Grime at work in Portugal on the case of Madeleine McCann.}

_{The dogs clearly alert to the scent of cadaver and blood on clothing in the hired Renault Scenic and in Apartment 5A where Drs Gerry and Kate McCann stayed with their family in Praia da Luz in May 2007.}

There are people saying that this book has the intention to accuse Maddie´s parents of her dead but after reading it carefully I think that`s not true.

There is not a single word in this book stating that they have killed her. But it is also true that this does not mean they do not know what happened that day and tried to hide it...

About 4 months after the disappearance, the investigation took a new direction after Mark Harrison (Highly respected National Search Adviser NPIA (National Police Improvement Agency) for Missing persons Searches, Homicides and Big scale Natural disasters in the United Kingdom) arrived to Algarve and start working with the Portuguese police, Leicester police and the Scotland Yard members present in the field.

After one week Mark Harrison made a report where he stated that there were large possibilities of Madeleine being dead and her body concealed somewhere around the area.

It was also him who advised for the need to get help from dogs specialized in finding dead bodies.

It`s also interesting to know that from the vast experience of Mark Harrison in cases of homicides of under 5 years old victims in the UK since 1960 there were 1528 cases, in which 82% of them were committed by the parents and 96% were committed by persons with close relations with the victims. Only 4% were committed by people not known by the victims...

• Madeleine McCann @ Wikipedia

  Disappearance of Madeleine McCann

• Response to the disappearance @ Wikipedia

  Response to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

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A Verdade da Mentira
by Goncalo Amaral

Translation credits: Anna Andress: From my big desk

It`s not easy to really know what happened to Madeleine McCann that day but it`s easy to see that there was lot of negligence in the way those parents look over their children, at least during those vacations.

I`m not saying they deserved what happened or even that they are guilty of Maddie´s dead. Even though I believe they love their daughter, I am not so sure they don`t know what happened and managed to hide it very well.

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