Saturday 9 January 2010

Madeleine McCann: "Jane Tanner never left that table that night."

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CBS video from January 20th, 2008, featuring an interview with private investigator, Joseph Moura speaking to CBS presenter, Hannah Storm. I will précis Hannah Storm's questions and type Moura's answers in full.

The video begins with the presenter talking about the Madeleine McCann case, how it has seen the biggest search in Portuguese history and shows some footage of helicopter and ground search. The voice-over introduces Francisco Marco of the Metodo 3 Spanish detective agency which was engaged by the MCanns to help in the search for their daughter. Francisco Marco states that they know where Madeleine is, who her kidnapper is and how he/they did it. There are images of the McCanns and some audio: Gerry from the prepared statement the couple made soon after their daughter's disappearance; Kate from the interview they did for a Spanish TV channel, saying she believes that Madeleine is still, "out there."

Joseph Moura went to Praia da Luz to investigate the case.

The first question put to Moura is whether he believes this or not, that Madeleine is "out there," alive and that Marco knows where she is.

"Joseph Moura: No, I don't because I think it's a pretty ridiculous statement to be making.

Hannah Storm: asks a question about a sighting 2 days after the disappearance, when Maddie was reported to have been seen with 3 people in a van.

JM: The Portuguese police had 160 police officers working on this case. If this was a set of facts consistent with the real case, they would've identified this person by now.

HS: Question about whether the parents brought about the child's death or if someone abducted her.

JM: Having worked the case in order to identify a timeline, what is the real important part of this case is that in my mind was there enough opportunity for these people to have committed a crime and then dispose of the body. We find that the timeline doesn't fit. They couldn't possibly have been involved. Whether accidental or not, they would've had to dispose of the body and there just wasn't enough time.

HS: Question about how many nights in a row the parents left the children alone.

JM: They had already been out five nights in a row and they had set a pattern and every night was 8.30 sharp they had reservations at the restaurant and they all went there to dine and they had between six and seven bottles of wine when they had their dinner. So, when you start looking at that time element, looking at the waiters who served them and at the bartenders who brought them bottles of wine, then that's how you get that time frame that we're talking about.

HS: Asks if Kate and Gerry left the children alone every night.

JM: They did. They weren't the only ones. Their friends also did the same.

HS: Asks about baby-sitters.

JM: It's a good question because they do provide a baby-sitting service at the compound.

HS: Asks if the holiday apartment was visible from the restaurant. JM had visited the Tapas restaurant and sat at the table the McCanns and friends had occupied on the night of May 3rd 2007.

JM: You cannot see the actual apartment that they were staying at from the table where they sat down.

HS: Asks if the McCanns therefore wouldn't have seen anyone coming or going.

JM: They had no actual view whatsoever.

HS: Mentions that Kate McCann has refused to take a lie detector test.

JM: I think that a lie detector test is inconclusive. I wouldn't take one and I would never advise a client of mine to take one. So, that doesn't necessarily bother me.

HS: Asks about inconsistent stories and specifically about Jane Tanner's statement about having seen a man carrying a child.

JM: Jane Tanner gives a very inconsistent story. It's not a truthful story. I'm not quite sure why she did it. I mean it would be impossible for all these people to be getting up and going to check on the children, going off for walks, when they have only an hour and twenty minutes time frame. They have dinner, they had seven bottles of wine and they had their coffees. There's just not enough time to do all these things. She never left that table that night.

HS: In a word, do you think this girl's alive?

JM: I do not."


It seems that Joseph Moura is saying that he thinks the McCanns and friends could not have been involved in Madeleine's disappearance because there just wasn't enough time for them to have made her disappear into thin air as she appeared to have done. Also, he appears to be implying that they wouldn't have managed all the checks they listed on their timeline for the evening on the covers of a child's sticker album, repeated in their interviews.

Mr Moura states, quite categorically, that Jane Tanner never left the table that night. So, I am extrapolating that he believes, or at least believed at the time, that fewer or no checks were actually made on the children, thus creating a greater window of opportunity for any would-be abductor. How he would explain the total lack of forensic evidence of an abductor having passed through the apartment, I don't know: the only fingerprints on the window that was said to have been forced and found open by Kate McCann were her own. No break-in and no traces at all left behind by the abductor.

The most interesting aspects, for me, of this interview are that Mr Moura strongly insists that Jane Tanner did not leave the table and that the timeline details as given by the Tapas 9 would have been impossible, given the time available and their dining and drinking habits.

So, let's run through a few options of what could have happened to Madeleine McCann.

1) There were no checks whatsoever on the children, thus leaving a huge window of opportunity for the abductor, although Gerry was in the vicinity of the apartment when he bumped into Jez Wilkins.

2) The checks were all carried out with the group playing musical chairs and there was a very small window of opportunity for the abductor, who was watching and waiting and accomplished the deed in a matter of a few minutes, leaving no trace of himself and making a clean gettaway.

3) Gerry's was the only check and the abductor had lots of time, thus leaving the McCanns guilty of neglect leading to significant harm under the Children and Young Persons Act (1932)

4) The Tapas 9 are a bunch of lying toads and at least two of them know what happened to Madeleine.

I'm sure there are other scenarios, so please add any you think may be plausible or implausible (like the abduction theory itself) if you wish.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

IMO the checks boiled down to listening only when returning to the apartments to go to the loo and there is no evidence of abduction...
Algarveisfedup

Anonymous said...

IMO Gerry is the one who has been seen by a witness (Jeremy W.)going to check on the children,but he went into that appartment after meeting Jeremy,not finding Maddie inside and screaming their name(what Carpenters wife heard)and afterwards finding the girl dead,cleaning up,carrying her direction to the beach(what Smith family saw).All happenned between 21:20-22:00
Claudia

Ironside said...

Thanks Anna as always..Will we ever know the truth? I am having a day of despair.How can anyone keep such a secret? a little girl is dead.

Hi Claudia.

AnnaEsse said...

Ironside, I think the reason the McCanns tend to stick to the well-rehearsed scripts and mantras is fear of what might just spill accidentally from their lips. With so many people watching and waiting and aware of their previous gaffs, I think they're on a knife edge now with the court case coming up on Tuesday.

AnnaEsse said...

Claudia, to me your theory holds water. The staff at the Tapas bar probably wouldn't have noticed which of the males in the Tapas Crew were absent and for how long.

Anonymous said...

Hola IRON!
Well,as I was young I did work in a resort,very similar to the ocean,in a bar like tapas and next season in the creche,all I can say I was busy myself serving,doing cocktails and talking to the turists and co-workers and haven´t noticed which of the guests were absent either for how long.There´s some guests like the MCC´s and friends they booked table every night,so I could not tell for sure who of them was absent on what night
Claudia

Anonymous said...

This doesnt explain the dogs or the lack of evidence of an intruder

GMKOMD

Anonymous said...

I have only just read the book now and then started looking on the internet and making up my own timeline.Question: What ever happened to Russell's story about changing bedding for his vomiting child, did he use bedding from his apartment to make Maddies bed look ok and why is his partner the one who "saw" the abductor?He was away 45 minutes to "check" on his child and sent Matt to
call Jane Tanner, who ate, left and was in her apartment after Russell rejoined the table. She was still in the apartment when Mrs McCann found her daughter gone.
Also, there must have been a hiccup
between the couples because of Mrs McCann's run with Matt, which is why his wife, Rachael did not join supper on the 2nd. The next day all the couples ignored the McCanns after an unpleasant scene at the table after too many liquers- they even had their supper separately with their children without the McCann family. This remains a riddle, but honestly too many loose ends and I still wonder why Jane Tanner was always the one who spotted everything, wherever the McCanns were, she saw them, whether it was Kate running or Kate and Gerry at the playpark with the children...boy she was there and saw it all. I wonder if she had a good holiday being such a busy body?
Last but not least, it is also puzzling why Dianne remained at the Tapas after everyone rushed off to help? Her daughter was Kate's best friend? Did she know something?
I believe that 2 things could have happened. More later after more investigation.

Anonymous said...

I agree... Tanner and Russell know more than they are letting on. I wonder if Smith actually saw Russell with a girl, and not Gerry.
Ng

Anonymous said...

I have only just stumbled on a face book page,'justice for Madeleine '.. Up until now I always believed that were innocent, even though I didn't like them . I thought it strange that i didn't like them ,given what they went through .but now, I'm obsessed with funding out the truth, and am thinking outside of my usual passive zone.

AnnaEsse said...

Thank you, Anonymous. It's interesting what we pick up on, possibly at a subconscious level. When I saw the video of the first press interview the McCanns gave, I had the feeling that something wasn't right. I usually feel really choked up when someone is talking on a subject like a missing child, but when Kate McCann was speaking, there was nothing. When I watched the interview again, it seemed to me that Kate McCann screwed up her face in a parody of emotion, but for me, there was nothing there. That's when I went looking and found an online forum, where there were others who were having doubts.

Anonymous said...

AnnaEsse - I agree with you. I was really shocked and taken aback when I first saw the interview with Kate McCann, there was nothing there as you say. I was on holiday in the South of Spain with my own daughter (5 months younger than Madeleine) and I remember being absolutely shocked that a mother would react in this way. I remember that I was stopped by a camera crew interviewing people at random over the abduction and I refused to be interviewed as I was incredibly angry that three young children had been left alone in the first place and I obviously did not want my own daughter on camera. I thought a 'neutral' position would be better for finding poor Madeleine.

AnnaEsse said...

Thank you, Anonymous. I agree with everything you have said. Kate and Gerry were interviewed for Vanity Fair magazine* in January 2008 and when Gerry was asked about Madeleine's eye defect, using it in their campaign in spite of advice from the police not to, he said that he realised the kidnapper could have harmed Madeleine because of it, but it was "a good marketing ploy." Marketing his daughter?

*Google "Unanswered Prayers Vanity Fair." for the interview.

Julie said...


I've never believed Jane Tanners statement about the man carrying a child. The reason why is because the child was the wrong way round, unless he was walking backwards, or he turned her around, or he dragged the bed out and picked her up from the other side.