Sunday 18 July 2010

McCanns - Their Best Moments.

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Video uploaded to YouTube by Claudia7929. An excellent video Claudia!



The video highlights some of the most significant moments of the Maddie case. Here are a few I have selected for special attention:

0.00 - 0.16: Eddie the 'cadaver dog,' alerting to cadaver odour around the McCanns' vehicle they hired three weeks after Madeleine disappeared. Martin Grime points out that Eddie can smell the odour emanating from around the door seals.

0.19 - 0.30: Keela, the CSI dog, who is trained to detect traces of human blood, in the boot of the hired car, demonstrating her 'passive alert,' signal by becoming still with her nose pointing to the area where she has detected the odour.

0.31 - 0.43: Eddie investigating clothing that was taken from the McCanns' rented villa, alerting to specific items: Kate McCann's checked trousers; a white top belonging to Kate McCann; a child's red T shirt.

0.45 - 1.04: Eddie in apartment 5A, examining the McCanns' wardrobe, giving his barking alert which would indicate the presence of cadaver odour. Eddie will also alert to human blood, but since Keela did not alert in this area, it can be assumed that Eddie was alerting to cadaver odour.

1.05 - 1.42: Eddie in the lounge/dining area of apartment 5A. Martin Grime seems to be trying to draw Eddie's attention to the curtains behind the sofa, but Eddie appears to be desperate to get behind the sofa. He is then seen running in and out and barking furiously.

1.42 - 2.04: Keela's 'passive alert,' to the possible presence of human blood behind the sofa.

2.20 - 2.40: Eddie running around the sink unit in the McCanns' rented accommodation, seen sniffing round the cupboard doors and jumping up at the sink. He is detecting something there and Madeleine's soft toy, Cuddle Cat is revealed hidden in the cupboard.

5.00 - 5.16: Sandra Felgueiras asks the McCanns if they gave their children, 'something like Calpol to help them sleep.' Gerry McCann states that they are not going to comment, 'but there is absolutely no way we used any sedative drugs...' at which point Gerry McCann makes one of the best known gestures that indicate lying: he pulls at his ear lobe.

6.08 - 6.20: Kate McCann talking about Madeleine's having asked why they did not come when she and Sean were crying. Kate McCann dismisses Madeleine's comment as 'a passing remark.' How could any mother dismiss her child's question about being alone and crying and no one coming as 'a passing remark.'?

7.20 - 7.40: Kate McCann talking about the small window of opportunity the abductor had to take Madeleine. She looks like she's having trouble getting her mouth under control. Too much free vino?

7.40 - 8.15: The McCanns are asked about returning to Praia da Luz to participate in a reconstruction of the events surrounding their daughter's disappearance. Gerry McCann comments that he would be concerned about the world-wide media attention and also wonders 'what additional information would be gained from such a process.' Well, it might have served to highlight the apparent inconsistencies in witness statements given by Kate and Gerry and their merry band of holiday mates.

Also, if the Madeleine had been abducted and the McCanns were desperate to find witnesses, then the world-wide media attention had the potential to jog a few memories of people who were in the area at the time, but I think the possibility of the inconsistencies showing up was much more important to them.

8.15 - 9.11: Jane Hill of the BBC asks Kate McCann if she felt like getting out there and searching for her daughter when some residents of Praia da Luz had taken a week off work to search the area. Kate McCann sighs, tuts, takes her time to answer and then really evades the question by talking about how hard they were working and how they were almost totally non-functioning in the first 48 hours.

So, after those first 48 hours, did she get out there and help with the search? No! The McCanns addressed the world's media, they walked along the beach holding hands and I guess they were very busy, as Kate McCann says, 'doing other things.' Just like they must have been busy doing other things when Madeleine found herself alone and crying and no one came, the McCanns were too busy doing other things to get themselves out there and physically search for her.

The McCanns should feel ashamed of some of the things they didn't do in the supposed search for their daughter: no search in those first few days when others blistered their feet in the hunt; no involvement in a reconstruction; Kate McCann's not answering those 48 questions. I'm sure there are many more examples, but those will do for now. Shame on you Kate and Gerry McCann, that you should call yourselves responsible parents. Shame on you.

Kate McCann: those questions she refused to answer - part 2

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OK let's take a look at a couple more of those 48 questions.

2. Did you search inside the bedroom wardrobe? (she replied that she wouldn’t answer)

3. (shown 2 photographs of her bedroom wardrobe) Can you describe its contents?


We know that the only question Kate McCann answered in 11 hours of interrogation was question 49. So, having been shown photographs of her wardrobe taken on the night of Madeleine's disappearance, she refused to describe what she saw in them.



Blue bag in wardrobe

The above is an image of the wardrobe from the official police files. I can make out what looks like a heap of laundry on the second shelf from the bottom, a holdall on the next shelf up and perhaps something thin and flat two shelves up from there.

In police interrogation, one question often leads to another. So, what might the follow-up question have been to the one about describing the contents of the wardrobe? Where is that holdall? Do you still have that bag? There were stories about a blue sports bag disappearing and Gerry McCann denied ever having such a bag in Praia da Luz, but that looks rather like something that could be described as a (navy) blue sports bag.

When the English police contingent in Praia da Luz brought over the sniffer dogs, Eddie and Keela and their trainer Martin Grime, Eddie the Enhanced Victim Recovery Dog showed very keen interest in the wardrobe.


Wardrobe

The above image shows Eddie next to the wardrobe in the McCanns' bedroom in apartment 5A, head in the air, barking. This is how Eddie alerts to having detected the odour he is trained to find: cadaver odour.

So, was there anything in the wardrobe, which was in the photographs shown to Kate McCann, that would have led to further very awkward questions? That navy blue holdall? The heap of clothes that look like they've just been thrown in there?

The Portuguese police obviously felt that the contents of the McCanns wardrobe had some significance in this case, which we can see was backed up by the reactions of Eddie the 'cadaver dog.'


No wonder Kate McCann looked somewhat shell-shocked when she was brought out of the police station, after having been constituted 'arguida.' Images of Eddie alerting to cadaver odour behind the sofa and in her wardrobe, as well as in other places and on her clothes, possibly left her wondering how quickly she could get on a plane and get out of there!

And then, of course, there was Keela, the CSI dog, alerting in many of the same places to the presence of blood!

Rather than, as she subsequently claimed, the PJ tried to incriminate her, in my opinion and possibly in the eyes of a good proportion of the general public, Kate McCann incriminated herself, in a way, by her refusal to answer these questions.


The McCanns found explanations for the presence of cadaver odour and blood found in their hired vehicle, which led to both sniffer dogs alerting, but I don't think I have read of their offering any explanation for Eddie alerting in the area of the wardrobe. Keela did not give her alert signal in the wardrobe, so Eddie was alerting to cadaver odour. Perhaps that's where Kate McCann kept the clothes she was wearing at work when she had allegedly been the physician attending 6 deaths before her holiday. Yea right!