Madeleine McCann's Disappearance And The Mystery That Ensues
She was just three when she disappeared, how could she vanish into thin air?
Madeleine McCann disappeared on 3 May 2007. She was just three years old at the time. The toddler was on vacation with her parents and siblings in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Portugal at the time.
Her parents, Drs. Kate and Gerry McCann, rented a holiday apartment for their stay. The family was not alone, though. Seven of their friends joined them for this adventure away from their home country, the United Kingdom.
Every evening, after the children were in bed, the McCanns would go to a restaurant close to the resort. Most reports say that the tapas place was 130–180 feet from where they were staying.
However, that is as the crow flies. Meaning a straight line. It was actually quite a trek to get to the restaurant. And the apartment was not as visible as some reports have speculated.
With their friends who had children, the McCanns came up with a plan. Each of them would take turns checking on all the kids. It seemed like a foolproof plan.
And allowed the adults to continue to have fun.
On the night of Madeleine’s disappearance, Gerry McCann checked in on the kids at 21:05. The children were all safe and tucked in. Everything seemed to be fine.
But one of their friends, Jane Tanner, claimed to have seen a man carrying a child across the street just ten minutes later.
The Initial Investigation
Kate McCann was supposed to check on the children at 21:30, but one of their friends, Matthew Oldfield, offered to do it instead. He went into the McCann’s apartment and noted that the door to the children’s bedroom was open but didn’t hear any noise.
He reported back that everyone was fine.
When Kate went back to check on the kids, she was shocked to find Madeleine missing. She calls emergency services and reports that her daughter is missing from their apartment.
Law enforcement made several mistakes in the early hours of the investigation. Border and marine police were not brought in on the investigation, so it was possible that someone could have left with the young child.
Further complicating things was that it took interpol more than five days to issue a missing person alert for Madeleine.
One officer, Goncalo Amaral, believed they made up the abduction. He claimed "all they did at the time was lie" when he spoke about the McCanns. After he was removed from the investigation, he wrote a book that accused them of accidentally killing their daughter and then reporting her missing to cover their crime up.
The McCanns sued and won initially. However, they lost on appeal.
It came as more outlets reported that the McCanns were considered suspects early on. Including suspicions that they over sedated Madeleine to ensure she stayed asleep.
Brian Healy, Kate’s father, told an interviewer about a possible and plausible theory. "Kate may have used Calpol [to help her sleep], but it's just outrageous to think of anything else."
Police disagreed and pursued this lead.
Suspicious Behavior?
The morning of her disappearance, Madeleine mentioned that she woke up crying the previous night. She asked her parents why they weren’t there when she needed them.
This would give motive to them giving her more sedatives to help her sleep.
Investigators believed the same thing. They tailored their search for answers to the McCanns almost entirely. Something needed to break in the case. But nothing ever did.
Eventually, the McCanns were cleared of any wrongdoing without charges ever being brought against them.
That has not stopped internet detectives from looking into the case and theorizing about what happened. Many look at the McCann parents and wonder why they were never charged with neglect. Even if they didn’t have anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance, there’s no denying them drinking the night away with their children outside of their purview was criminal.
It is believed that their positions as physicians helped them. Also, the rotation of parents checking on the children may have prevented them from being charged.
As for where Madeleine’s body may have ended up if the McCanns did accidentally kill her? One internet theory that has no evidence is that they put her in a fridge and told the villa management company it stopped working. Then they bought another one.
The McCanns also rented a car 25 days after Madeleine’s disappearance, which brought suspicion onto them.
Test And Photos
While renting a car in and of itself is not suspicious, events surrounding the McCanns rental car drew attention to it. A cadaver dog indicated to the police that a dead body had been in the car. Another dog helped find human blood in the vehicle.
DNA tests were done on what was found in the car. The results came back inconclusive.
Another sticking point is the last known photo of Madeleine. It was allegedly taken the afternoon of her disappearance. She was sitting next to Gerry and her sister.
But many people began claiming that the picture could not have been taken on the day that the McCanns said it was. One photojournalist, Nick Van Der Leek, says that while the picture shows a sunny day, it was very cloudy on the day that it was allegedly taken.
Further, Van Der Leek says that the picture was likely photoshopped. He pointed out that a version of the picture was part of a memorial to Madeleine. However, that rendition cropped out Gerry and her younger sister. Something that would have been nearly impossible to do.
And why would someone want to take Gerry and her sister out of the picture?
While there are some people who still believe that Gerry and Kate McCann are responsible for the disappearance of their daughter, no government entity shares the suspicion. Portuguese officials have archived the case citing a lack of evidence, though recently, there have been pushes for them to reopen the case.
The United Kingdom government also absolved the McCanns of any wrongdoing.
There was a twist in the case around 2017. German authorities offered Christian Brueckner as a suspect. They claimed to have evidence that he was the one who took Madeleine and possibly killed her.
They found a hard drive full of child pornography. There were also witnesses who saw around the area that Madeleine disappeared. One came forward and claimed he made highly inappropriate remarks.
But most everything they have against him is circumstantial evidence. Nothing links him to Madeleine or the McCann family at all.
A picture of the man Jane Tanner described did resemble Brueckner.
However, her testimony was debunked. What she allegedly saw was a man taking his own daughter back to their holiday apartment. Investigators said they were positive that it was not Madeleine with the man.
Will the mystery of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance ever be solved? It is likely, advances in technology and detective work happen every day. So, whether someone steps forward or not, a day will come when the little girl at the center of the world’s most talked about missing person case will get justice.