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"Estrela de Madeleine" (Star of Madeleine)

Courtesy of Alsabella's blog:

14-Mar-2008
Paulo Pereira Cristovão speaks out for his former colleagues

The author of "Estrela de Madeleine" (Star of Madeleine) says about his book that it is "a book that will bother, but I'm free to write what my conscience dictates", he tells 24 Horas.

In the Star of Madeleine, Pereira Cristovão basis himself on conversations with work colleagues, the news, police intervention, and most particularly on the political pressure to which the investigation "was subjected".

"When you have the prime minister of one country talking about how he is going to talk about this with his counterpart about an ongoing crime investigation, there is influence"he states. And it is based on that influence and "British interference" that he places the two PJ investigators, Francisco Meirelles and João Gomes (ficticious names) on the field.

The book begins with the officers being informed of the disappearance of a child from a resort in Praia da Luz. "The information arrived late. There was already a British tv station, the embassy, the British police, and a PJ head that had knowledge of the disappearance and only after was the PJ investigating team informed".

"Time was wasted and then the Police bowed before a theory that was built from the outside in. And the only ones that are going to be thwarted will be the police" he accuses.

Paulo Pereira Cristovão confesses this he is approaching this book differently and in a pro-Portuguese manner. "I want to show we may be (a) poor (country) but resourceful. And that British interference only hindered my colleagues work", he says. For that reason he dedicates his book to his former colleagues from Portimão, Faro, and the DGCB. The Star of Madeleine ends with an enigmatic sentence.

Whoever figures it out will have the key as to what the author thinks happened to Madeleine. No one has been able to so far. As of next Tuesday, Pereira Cristovão invites you to try.

24 Horas, 14-03-2008

Posted by alsabella at 11:05:00 PM 35 comments

Last updated at 11:10am on 18th March 2008

Paulo Cristovao's novel 'The Star of Madeleine' claims the girl's body was dumped at sea

A controversial ex-Portuguese police chief claims Madeleine McCann was dumped in the sea and her body has disappeared forever in a new novel set to infuriate her parents.

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03/18/08 Diario de Noticias Article on "Star of Maddie"

karmaera

Google Translation

http://dn.sapo.pt/2008/03/18/sociedade/ ... _nove.html

Maddie killed and thrown into the sea in a novel "still running"

FERNANDA CÂNCIO

Maddie killed and thrown into the sea in a novel "still running"
A work that promises the truth but wearing "enigma" to unveil
The book ends with the protagonists, the policemen Francisco Meireles and his boss, John Tavares, to contemplate the sea. It is no coincidence: the thesis of former inspector of the Judicial Police Paul Christopher, the author of The Star of Madeleine - Where, When, How, Who, the What and Why, it was that the "March immense that they fill the horizon "that the child's body was hidden. The body which calls "proof-queen" and that over the narrative acknowledges, the voice of Tavares and Meireles, who will never be found. Ensures fact that if this were in the area of Praia da Luz, where "vasculhados were more than 500 apartments and hundreds of cars," "surveyed hundreds of people," "beaten miles and miles of coastline and land from the inside", "would even been found. " But, concludes, "But it was not. Neither could be."

The author does not explain why it believes that it could not be. Only launches clues, as the sea - and recognizes that is his theory. But over the course of the body, the circumstances of the death and its authors did not advance much. Only concede that does not believe that the child has survived a day on May 3, 2007, of his disappearance. And drop over the book, issued details that make up a table. The fact that the apartment of McCann has been found "impeccable", with all the furniture arranged along the walls. The fact that the PJ of Portimão have been, in the very night of the disappearance, called to take account of the case through a contact of the English ambassador to the directorate-national, indicating the existence of contacts with the British Algarve London; that the police have not found any medicine in the apartment of McCann, "or an aspirin", the fact that parents have "party" just for the chance of abduction, without ever put that the child of three years (to make four hence the days) may have left the apartment on her foot and walk lost in the vicinity. "Facts" which in some cases are certificates and other not - after all, as Christopher acknowledges, "the game still runs, although crush."

This means that the investigation continues - with the hearing of witnesses, McCann and the dinner companions that night, two of which warrant the book, are "fundamental" for the discovery of truth. It is because the theory of a conspiracy that is in this book unveils something enigmatic, in the preface promises that soon, a time, revelations and restraint: "Due to legal issues, I can not be me, the author, to tell you what is the Indeed, the reality of the case, I can, however, assure you that they can find it here, on the lines of this book. "

Snippets of the book 'A Estrela de Madeleine' by Paulo Pereira Cristóvão
As summarized/translated by Astro.

From the introduction:
Due to legal issues, it cannot be me, the author, to tell you what the truth, the truth of the case, is; but I can assure you that you can find it here, among the lines of this book.

From the first 7 chapters: what the fictional detectives noticed:

The furniture is impeccably aligned against the walls, as if someone had tried to make as much room as possible, in the center of the living room. In the bedroom, the bed where the child was sleeping is on the opposite side of the window. Under the window, there is another bed that had not been in use. Whomever entered through the window, would have left foot marks on the bed, which in that position resembled a trap. But that had not happened.

Throughout the entire scene, the twins slept undisturbed. They were eventually carried away into another apartment, and never woke up.

(...) discovers that the child's parents have already phoned to England, asking for the intervention of friends, both within the government and the media. Guilhermino had been informed of the situation by the National Director, who had been called by the British ambassador in Portugal.

----

In the meantime, the inspector had been at the Tapas Bar; he had been sitting at the table where the group had also been, and he had talked to the waiters. They had told him that the group usually drank significant amounts of alcohol. On the night that Madeleine disappeared, they had consumed twelve bottles of wine, and some appetizers.

The investigators have gathered informal statements, and they start to compare them. They soon realise that something is wrong. The couple's friends stated that they got up several times to check on the children, while the waiters from the Tapas bar say they did not get up that often at all. But even within the group of friends, there are contradictions.

Two English people, one of them Jane Tanner, say that they saw a man carrying a child that could be the missing infant. The description given by Jane is very vague and carries a factor of doubt, as Gerry and a friend whom he was talking to, standing on the same location as Jane when she passed, saw nobody. The friend confirmed this.

-----------

(...) telling him that a Dutch newspaper has received a map that supposedly shows the location of the child's body, and the lead is being taken seriously.

Francisco meets his chief, and two Dutch journalists, who have been in Portugal for three days, trying to find out the location of the place that is marked on the map. They even hired sniffer dogs. Francisco and João Tavares feel like arresting them on the spot, for endangering the investigation.

But the lead has to be verified. The journalists take an envelope out of their bag, and they produce a document that they say had been received together with the map. It's a spermogram, a document that is issued when someone has his sperm analysed in a lab.

João Tavares notices that there is no identification of the subject on the document, but he also notices a sequence of numbers on the lower right hand corner. He contacts a doctor who informs him that the sequence identifies the lab, the number of the test and the individual that was subject to the analysis.

Therefore, while other colleagues go to Odiaxere, followed by a trail of journalists, João Tavares and Francisco Meireles go to Lisbon, where they identify the individual, who turns out to be a public servant, divorced and with evident problems of self-assurance and self-regulation. The man confesses that all he wanted to do was to help keep the case in the media spotlight, and that he will seek psychiatric help.

-------------------

On the last day of July, the intuition of the investigators and the results from Krugel find two powerful allies that confirmed the scenario that had begun to form: the death of Madeleine McCann, on the evening of May 3.

Eddie's handler opens the door to apartment 5A, and lets the dog in, to walk freely as usual. The dog sniffs around, followed by his handler, the policemen, experts from the scientific police, and a video technician, who registers the procedure on tape. At a given moment, in the living room, Eddie signals the presence of a cadaver to his handler. According to the laws of forensics, it's a cadaver that has been in that condition for at least two hours.

On the next day, it is Keela who is put into action. After several minutes sniffing around the house, she detains herself next to a sofa in the living room. The investigators move the sofa aside, and Keela shows them two tiny spots of dry blood: one on the floor, the other one on the wall. The material is collected, and a decision is made, against the opinion of Francisco, and João Tavares. The samples are sent into a lab in Birmingham.

On the next day, early in the morning, Eddie is called back to service, to investigate the surroundings of the apartment. The dog stops here and there, marking a path that is referenced by apartment 5A and the beach of Luz. Without knowing, Eddie has just confirmed Krugel's findings.

----------------

These two canines, without knowing it, were at the core of a volcano, when in three separate moments, they "accused" Madeleine's parents of, at least, not saying the whole truth about what happened to their daughter.

First, when they were given plenty of time and space to sniff through Robert Murat's house and all of his belongings, and did not discover anything that could minimally incriminate him.

Second, when they detected the odour of death on the key of the car that they used, which was rented more than twenty days after the little girl went missing. In the same car where they found traces of blood and hair under the spare tire.

Third, when, already in the new house where the couple was staying, Eddie once again smelled the characteristic odour of death on a pair of jeans and on a blouse that belong to Kate. The soft toy that the mother carried with her every time they went out, also presented a smell of death that was detected by the same dog. What the heck do we have here, then? - he thought, intrigued. - Did the parents stage this entire circus to hide the truth?

Chapter 8 - 13

Shortly after 2 p.m., Kate sits down on a chair in a room that has been specially prepared at the PJ's department in Portimao. João Tavares sits down in front of her. The strategy is to work in a crescendo: starting out calmly, working towards an emotional peak, hoping for the witness to explode and confess. For the umpteenth time, the events of that late afternoon are remembered, more precisely the time lapse between 6.30 and 8.30 p.m.

Madeleine's mother insists on the same usual reply.

- We arrived, I played with the children in the apartment's living room, I prepared them to go to bed and by 7.30 they were actually asleep. We dressed up and went to dinner with our friends...

- Actually - João Tavares says, in a calm and pondered tone -, we think that some domestic accident happened in that house, which was covered up for fear of the consequences of wrong interpretations by the police or by the people, about your life. You ended up staging this entire abduction situation. You wanted to maintain your reputation of perfect medical couple at all costs, didn't you?

- Then prove it - Kate throws in a dry manner.

- We detected blood traces in the living room, madam.

- That could have been from the day that my daughter bled from her nose.

- We found blood in your rented car...

- That could have come from a piece of the girl's clothing, that could have been dirty with her blood, and then transported in the car.

- It certainly could. Let's have a look at this video, then...

On the tv monitor, Eddie can be seen sniffing over Kate's clothing and marking that it had been in contact with a cadaver. The reactions of the dogs in the vehicle that had been used by Madeleine's parents can also be seen.

- At the medical center where I work, in England, before we came on holidays, people died whom I had been in contact with... you must be forgetting that I am a doctor...

- Yes you are - João Tavared replies - and the death rate at the medical center where you work twice a week is extremely high...

- It's true - the arguida replies.

- Did you ever give your children any medicine to make them sleep?

- No, never - she replies with indignation.

------------------------

At the moment, all they have is a partially positive DNA match �?meaning it could belong either to Madeleine or to her siblings, or to her mother�?/SPAN>

João Tavares has to agree. The investigation had only advanced when they had finally followed their own way of working. While they were searching for paedophile abductors, they had not advanced a single step. They had wasted precious time, looking for ghosts that lasted only two days, like the case of the sailor. The newspapers were running wild, covering the story of a mysterious sailor who had left the marina with the child in his boat, and the police had already searched the man’s boat over a week earlier, in Vila Real de Santo Antonio. There had also been those poor people who had stopped at a gas station with their niece. The media were all over the issue, while the actual persons had been interviewed several days earlier.

------------------------------

Francisco continues:

- We went to dinner that evening, leaving our children who had been asleep since 7.30. An hour later, we were sitting at the table, with our friends who had equally left their children asleep in their bedrooms. We left the door unlocked, in case there might be an emergency. At some point, shortly after 9 p.m., the father went to the apartment and did not see his daughter where she had been sleeping, but he thought that she might be in the parents�?bedroom. He did not check if that was the case. Their friend Russell also went to check on his children, but he returned only an hour later, at the time when Kate, the mother, went into apartment 5A and did not find her daughter. Hence the despair�?The child had been abducted by some stranger who had entered the bedroom and had taken her. This is it, chief!

João Tavares replies:

- Let’s see: according to the neighbour upstairs, mother and daughter had been yelling at each other. It seems that the child was hyperactive. The parents, despite the fact that they are doctors with three small children, did not bring any medication, not even a single tablet for a headache�?or at least we didn’t see any. There were babysitters on offer for free, but they were dismissed that evening, for whatever reason. Among the group of friends, there are checks to suit every taste, according to their statements: every 15 minutes, every half hour, etc. Some only check on their own, others check on all the children, others only listen at the door�?In the case of the twins, they didn’t even need to bother, they simply could not wake up, even in the midst of the turmoil that was generated that night. The caring mother told the neighbour upstairs that the police had been called when the alarm was raised, but she was lying. The first people that called the GNR were the employees of the Ocean Club. The same neighbour said she never saw the mother in a panic, which would be normal for a mother under the circumstances�?As far as I know, nobody ever said that the lady was lying! The father, who was a lot more worried about gathering support in England, made one phone call after another, which were more political than anything else. And why was the child’s father wandering around, in the early hours of the morning, asking for the way to the church, when he had passed it so many times, on the way to the beach? And why did the English friends immediately send out the marketing and public relations heavyweight experts? Hum? And�?if there were that many checks, when was the break that allowed the abductor to enter the apartment? And then there is the mother, saying that someone entered through the children’s bedroom windows, but the GNR people said that the shutters had never been forced�?And then there are the doggies, that never missed a case over 200 times, and now supposedly have got it all wrong?

-----------------------

Murat was known by the McCanns before. When Gerry was questioned about that possible relationship from before the events, he replies that he does not want to comment on that matter, a statement that prompted many interpretations. Could this be the missing element to consider his participation in a possible concealment of the cadaver? Theoretically, yes, but nothing was proved.

-----------------------------

The two policemen conclude that there might have been an accident inside the apartment. There was no apparent reason for a voluntary crime. Maybe something unexpected had happened, and the parents decided that the best action would be not to assume the fact. It was a possibility that should be considered, taking into account the work of the English dog, and also the work that had been done by the GNR’s sniffer dog, that had detected the trail of Madeleine between apartment 5A and another apartment, and lost it there.

The same English dog found a series of clues that lead him to the beach at Luz, the beach where Krugel had found the presence of Madeleine, already a cadaver. The other dog detected small spots of blood in the living room, which the investigators could at least affirm that belonged to one of the three children of the McCanns. All of this put together, gave them a vision that was not enough as evidence, but certainly as an indication, supported by the theory that the child had been killed inside the apartment, transported from there into another apartment, and then taken to the beach of Luz.

And here an online shop for the book
http://www.webboom.pt/ficha.asp?ID=170124
Price:10,80 Euro

The book is not available in English, no, and I'm not sure if it will. I have not heard, so far.
It came out a week or 10 days ago, in Portugese.

Snippets of the book 'A Estrela de Madeleine' by Paulo Pereira Cristóvão
As summarized/translated by Astro.

Indiansummer
Here the description of the book in portuguese:
Sinopse

Paulo Pereira Cristóvão, autor do livro A Estrela de Joana, propõe-se contar a sua versão sobre o mediático caso de Madeleine McCann, a menina de três anos desaparecida no Resort Ocean Club, na Aldeia da Luz, a 3 de Maio de 2007. Com base em factos fidedignos recolhidos através de fontes privilegiadas, Pereira Cristóvão apresenta o relato de uma investigação criminal entrelaçando-o com uma narrativa ficcionada cujo objectivo será esclarecer o leitor e dotá-lo de argumentos que lhe permitam retirar as suas próprias conclusões. Ajuizando o caso conduzido pelos agentes da Polícia Judiciária em conjunto com a polícia britânica, o autor chama a si «a oportunidade de se dizer aquilo que ainda não se escreveu e, essencialmente, o que ainda ninguém pensou ou não teve a coragem de revelar». No centro da acção, encontramos o protagonista Francisco Meireles, um inspector de Investigação Criminal da Polícia Judiciária de Portimão convocado à Praia da Luz devido ao desaparecimento de uma criança pequena. A GNR também se encontrava no local e, mesmo antes de se informar sobre o sucedido, Francisco começa por observar a multidão que se concentrava em redor do apartamento, onde supostamente Madeleine foi vista pela última vez. A realidade é que a uma semana de completar quatro anos, a menina desapareceu sem deixar rasto chocando a opinião pública e figurando nas principais manchetes dos media em todo o mundo, sem que alguém avançasse com uma solução efectiva. Com um olhar clínico e profissional, Pereira Cristóvão, ciente que o caso ainda permanece sob segredo de justiça, tenta assim, neste livro, dar resposta às dúvidas que sempre subsistiram e apresenta uma nova visão, elucidativa e vital para a conclusão dos factos e apuramento da verdade.
Temas
Translation by Google
Synopsis

Paulo Pereira Kitts, author of the book The Star of Joanna, it is proposed to count your version on the media event of Madeleine McCann, a girl of three years disappeared in the Ocean Club Resort, in the village of Luz, on May 3, 2007. Based on facts gathered through reliable sources privileged, Christopher Pereira presented the report of a criminal investigation entrelaçando it with a narrative ficcionada whose aim will be to clarify the reader and give it to arguments that will enable it to withdraw its own conclusions. Ajuizando the case conducted by agents of the Judicial Police in conjunction with the British police, the author calls them "the opportunity to say what is not yet written, and, essentially, what nobody thought or did not have the courage to reveal" . At the center of the action, find the protagonist Francisco Meireles, an inspector of the Criminal Investigation Police, Judicial Portimão convened to Praia da Luz due to the disappearance of a young child. The GNR also was at the site and even before we know about what happened, Francisco begins by observing that the crowd focused around the apartment, where he allegedly Madeleine was seen for the last time. The reality is that a week of completing four years, the girl disappeared without trace shocking the public and appearing in major media headlines around the world without someone move ahead with an effective solution. With a look clinical and professional, Christopher Pereira, aware that the case remains under secrecy of justice, tries so, in this book, to respond to questions that always subsistiram and presents a new vision, clear and vital for the completion of the facts and clearance the truth.
Themes

Chapter 14 - 19

About 'The Frenchman from Spain': After this episode and after yet another phone call from this individual, João Tavares refused to see him again, because apart from the lack of quality of the information that he was offering, he was far too worried about being photographed at the PJ’s door in Portimao, and giving interviews where he said nothing relevant and where he complained about having leads that the police did not value.

The silence that followed would end up proving that he had no credibility.

Later on, João Tavares found out that the Spaniard had proposed to sell to Metodo 3, for 40 000 euros, information that allegedly would lead them to the whereabouts of Madeleine McCann.

------------------------

At this point, the policemen cannot hide their secret anymore. They have formally indicted the McCanns of having, at least, participated in the concealment of their daughter’s body, and they have inferred from it that there has been a link between that concealment and the facts that originated the death that they suspect.

As they could not discern any reason for anyone that was close to the child to end her life intentionally, they opted for the possibility of a domestic accident, or a small aggression that might have ended tragically.

This was the sequence that originated the formalization of the status of suspects in the practice of a crime, on the parents of the child. The same policemen had defended, since the beginning, that the statements that the parents had made, concerning not only the missing child but also her siblings, proved that their behavior had been an infringement of the Portuguese Penal Code, and effectively constituted a crime of Exposure and Abandonment.

The secret that the policemen kept was that they suspected that the McCanns were telling them a lot less than what they knew. The entire development of the process ultimately confirmed that suspicion.

-----------------------------------

When questioned about the relationship that was visible between Madeleine and her parents, all the witnesses that were interrogated by the investigators were unanimous in saying that there was a lot of complicity between father and daughter. The neighbor that lives above apartment 5A stated that she heard Madeleine shouting, during those days that the family spent at the Ocean Club, for two sorts of reasons. Either because she was yelling at her mother while her mother yelled back, or because she was screaming out for her father. This portrait was interesting for the policemen, as it offered them an idea of what that family could be like.

Later in time, when they read the mother’s diary, they confirmed just that. Kate called her daughter ‘hysterical�?and hyperactive, consuming the mother’s strength to a limit, while she complained that Gerry didn’t help her much with the children, leaving her with the chore, the heavy chore, of taking care of those children on her own. She was probably not referring to the action of ‘raising�?them, but rather to daily care: food, clothing, baths, putting them to bed, teaching discipline. This also helps to understand the reason why Madeleine, and probably also the twins, preferred their father. He was associated to playing and to good things. The mother was associated to less pleasant issues of daily life.

------------------------

Most of the Portuguese media reported the events, published new information about the case, and fulfilled its informative role, at the end. In Great Britain, things were done another way. Most of the English journalists, with their media under the control of higher powers, provoked national reactions with less favorable comments about the Portuguese populations and its institutions, using literally anything to make three main notions prevail: that Madeleine had been abducted during her sleep; that the parents were completely innocent of anything that was related to that; that the Policia Judiciaria was composed of a band of incompetent drunks, who didn’t know the first thing about criminal investigation.

---------------------------

On a warm afternoon in early September 2007, the mobile phone rings. The number on the screen started with �?044�? On the other end of the line, a male voice speaking in English, confirmed the owner of the telephone:

- Yes, how can I help you?
- We would like to count on your daily comment, for half an hour, from Praia da Luz.
- As far as I can help you�?BR>- Well, we will pay 1500 euros for every afternoon that you meet up with our team and comment on the evolution of the Madeleine case.
- Ok.
- There is just one small detail�?BR>- Yes?
- We have an editorial line that is positioned against this form of investigation, and we would obviously like to know whether we can count on your support.
- We have a problem there, my friend�?it’s that I am in favor of the investigation line that is being carried out by the Policia Judiciaria.
- But if the problem is money�?2000�?BR>- Maybe you have misunderstood me, but when you arrived here, I was already here and when you leave, I will stay here and there is no money that will make me betray the country or the things that I believe in, do you understand?
- Hum, ok, but we all have a price, haven’t we? 2500 and we have a deal.
- Look, little fellow, if you have a price then that is your problem, I don’t have a price and you know what? Do not call me again. If you call me again, I will go and meet you to wash my honor in your face.

KazLux wrote:

Chapter 20 - 22

He knew that the definite solution of this case would come as the result of the hard work and the exhaustive exploration of every single theory that would be annexed to the process in the meantime.

If a single lead, pointing to precise persons or locations, failed to be explored until its natural elimination, it would always be a loose end that others would use to argue the neglect and the incompetence of the Portuguese police. Thousands of leads were explored by the investigators from the Algarve and from Lisbon.

In order to eliminate any doubts, over five hundred apartments and hundreds of vehicles were thoroughly searched in the area, and hundreds of persons were questioned. Kilometers and kilometers of coastline and inland terrain were searched. If Madeleine was in the area, dead or alive, she would have been found. But she wasn’t. Nor could she be.

-------------------------------

Excessively and exhaustively covered by the media, this disappearance took over the lives of people and many identified with the pain of Gerry and Kate, who on the other hand called all possible attention upon themselves.

Everything was scrutinized into the smallest detail, and the constant following of the process by the media lead to breaks of the judicial secrecy, and inevitably some details of the process were made public. With daily revelations about the developments, the McCann family started a steep decline in the public opinion, and lost the national support that they had enjoyed. They then opted to return to England, turning their backs on those who had supported them so intensely and unconditionally.

For this people, that still believes in Justice and that was genuinely solidary with the McCanns, this attitude, right after they had been made arguidos, was a stab of a knife into their back. For this people, they should have stayed at least until the lab test results were known, and then they would make a decision. Instead, for the moment that they chose, for what had happened two days earlier, for the silent preparation, and for the way that it was done, the Portuguese people think that the McCanns have fled Justice.

-----------------

Diplomacy tells us to treat our allies well, but not to the point of compromising heads of state with issues that are not solved yet.

The information services of each one of those states also counseled their leaders to prudently stay away from that matter. The ones at the Vatican are actually the best in the world.

Benedict XVI was the high point of a campaign that had started much earlier, with the visible and well publicized visits at the church in Luz, constantly appealing to religion and to God. The visit to the Vatican represented a conquest for those that were coordinating the pro-McCann campaign; yet, nothing could be done when that State decided to redraw all references to Madeleine from their official site, a clear message that they wanted to distance themselves from the case.

What led to this happening only days before the first lab test results were revealed? Coincidences? Surely not!

From that small, yet influent state, strong winds blew when Rome received the news that the McCanns held a key to the church, which had been given to them by a parishioner from a group that was associated to the Church, bypassing the local priest. The clerical hierarchy fell upon the Portuguese church, which after being admonished, ended up blaming the poor priest, who had not contributed to the situation at all.

Those nightly prayers, even though “God is everywhere�? were seen by many as visits to the only location where the couple thought there were no wiretaps, thus being able to talk freely. In reality, although they believed they were being tapped, at home and on the phone, the fact was that they were not.

"THE MCCANNS' GUILTY"

If the disappearance of Maddie was the plot of a novel by Agatha Christie, Hercule Poirot would have reunited the McCann 's couple and the seven British friends by the side of the pool of the Ocean Club, and in an exercise of reasoning would have solved the mystery.

The researchers from the Judicial Police did not. They act from the beginning influenced by a thesis blowing at the highest level from England, the thesis of the abduction.

But the intuition, powerful weapon of the criminal investigation, told them that the key to the disappearance of Madeleine could be in what they called the British context: They had the conviction that the McCann's and their friends probably knew more than they told.

(...)

Every night, the employees of the Tapas restaurant prepared the oval table, by the pool side of the Ocean Club for the dinner of any fun group of nine British that were spending their holidays there.

None of the couples took their children: the children were sleeping alone in the apartments. They began to arrive to the restaurant around half past eight.They liked to drink. Some asked for martinis and beer as an aperitif. Others, like Kate, preferred a daiquiri mixture prepared in the shaker with white rum, lemon juice and sugar syrup. They were mad about wine.

The women ordered white wine very cold. The men selected red wine. Over dinner,that would last almost till midnight,they usually drank amongst them between 10 and 12 bottles, always in a good mood.

(...)

That night of May 3, Thursday, Gerry and Kate McCann, both of 39 years old, were the first to arrive at Tapas. It would be half past eight.

Thirty minutes later, as always happened since April 27 when they arrived to the Ocean Club, all friends were already accommodated at the oval table near the illuminated pool: David and Fiona Payne, both doctors, parents of two small children ; Russell O'Brien, doctor, and Jane Tanner, also with two babies; Mathew Oldfield and Rachel,doctors, which had a 18 month old baby, and Dianne Webster, of 62 years old Fiona's mother. That afternoon, around five and a half, Kate and Gerry walked with the three children near the beach, about 800 meters of the village.They were in the restaurant Paraiso.

Kate and her husband were with two more English couples. The employees remember it very well. There were six adults and seven children. Only the small children ate the kids menu. Madeleine ate spaghetti bolonhese. Adults asked for beer. Madeleine still ate an ice cream and played with her father in the swings.

It was the last time the child was seen publicly. All left the restaurant Paraiso by 18,15 and took the path to the Ocean Club. In a little more than two hours, after they put the children to sleep,the McCanns' were at Tapas for the routine dinner with their friends.

(...)

It was a pleasant Spring night.The customers of the oval table oval glowed with joy. Kate was the more reserved.They asked for the usual drinks and the dinner, grilled fish and meat kebabs with the usual wine.The employees did not notice anything different.

Nothing led them to be suspicious of anything. They barely knew that a mysterious crime would, in the evening, shake the tranquility of the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz and throw the resort to the limelight of newspapers and televisions around the world. While the adults dined happily, eight children slept alone in four apartments: the three children of McCanns', two of Russell O'Brien and Jane Tanner,and two of David and Fiona Payne and the baby of Rachell and Mathew Oldfield .

Only David and Fiona used a system of communication to ensure that children did not cry.

The employees of the Tapas, that were working followed with particular attention any call from the oval table in that evening did not notice many people get out of the chairs in that night to go see their children.

They are sure that two men stood up, almost at the same time, only a few minutes after the dishes were served, shortly after nine o'clock. One of them was Russell O'Brien. The other was Gerry McCann. The rest of the group continued to eat and drink.

Russell, doctor, married to Jane Tanner,only returned to the table one hour later. He told his friends that he found the eldest child, the age of Maddie, very indisposed: the girl was vomiting and he changed the bed linen.

Gerry took about 25 minutes. To reach the apartment, Gerry had to circumvent the pool, leave the Ocean Club and go about 20 meters from the street poorly lighted till the small access gate of eight steps that ends in the door.

Back to the dinner, he crosses in the street with a British television producer Jeremy Wilkins, that he met during the holidays. Jeremy was walking his baby to making him sleep. The two men, who usually played tennis at the Ocean Club, greet each other and exchange two fingers of conversation. The street was deserted.

When Gerry sits again at the dinner table, Russell O'Brien had not yet come back,he finally, returns almost at 22 hours, nearly half an hour after Gerry. Then, when Russell had barely explained that the eldest child was vomiting, Kate McCann put the glass of white wine and gets up to go see her children.

Employees had already taken 12 bottles of wine to the oval table in an hour. For the time being, everything is still calm. Five minutes later, the Ocean Club turns into a chaos.

Kate McCann appears in the rear balcony of the apartment, which faces the interior of the Ocean Club. She screams and calls by her husband, Gerry, at the table with his friends. Kate is about 50 meters in a straight line. All hear her, but not all can see her because of the palm trees between the pool and the apartment.

The friends raise and precipitated themselves in the direction of the house rented by the McCanns'. That night, they did not took the digestives. They loved small glasses of bitter almond. The dinner was interrupted. Only one person stays at the table: Dianne Webster,Fiona's mother.

All the other run for Kate. They found her in a trance: They took our Madeleine,she repeats, without stopping, shouting. The friends enter the apartment, open and close doors, experiment the windows,open and close the blinds. Among the confusion, Dianne appears, the eldest of the group, which stayed at the table and walked slowly to McCann's apartment. Dianne goes to Maddie's room and sees how the twins Sean and Amelie, despite the noise, sleep like angels.

The Ocean Club,that was calm, becomes suddenly a confusion of screams and running. Alarmed guests appears at their windows.

The employees of the resort who were still on duty at that time also approach the McCann's apartment. The upstairs neighbor, Pamela Fenn, owner of the flat that lives there for half a dozen of years also goes to the McCann's door. She recalls very well of seeing Kate without a tear on her eyes. Pamela offers herself immediately to call for the GNR. Kate thanks her but tells her that it was not necessary because she had already called.

Maddie's mother did not told the truth. The first call for the Guard was made by an employee of the Tapas restaurant around 22h40 more than half an hour after Kate discovered that her child was missing. The first patrol comes on top of 23 hours. The military do not speak English and collect the first testimony with the help of an employee of the resort which acts as a translator.

(...)

When the first investigators of the Judicial Police arrived to the Ocean Club, only a few minutes after midnight, in the early hours of 3 to May 4, they speak with Gerry and Kate.

The conversation took place in the apartment of the crime the 5A. The two twins, Sean and Amelie, sleep deeply. The policemen, trained to look in for the minimum details, observe curious how the house is impeccably tidy.It does not seem a place of holidays where three children run and jump the whole day.

The sofa has not one single crease and chairs are positioned meticulously. There is any clothes forgotten or out of the place, not even toys in sight.Only the cuddle cat, that was always with Maddie, is now tight in Kate's hands. The kitchen is clean, without the smallest vestige of remains of milk or children food.

The inspectors searched the house. They did not find the smallest signal of break in neither in the door or the windows. They noticed that the couple had not at home any medicine contrarily to the normal for a family in holidays. On that night, the McCanns' left the apartment and were housed in another flat of the Ocean Club. The crime scene is free for the team of experts of the Laboratory of Scientific Police that left from Lisbon.

The twins are taken by the parents. Kate carries the girl in her arms and Gerry the boy. Amelie and Sean continue to sleep and not even noticing the change. The couple is only authorized to carry the indispensable things to spend the night in another apartment.

The Judicial Police gives the next day, to the family the rest of things. The vestiges collected in the apartment where the crime happened were useless:they were contaminated by the crowd of curious that entered that house after the alarm.

(...)

Katherine Marie Healy and Gerald Patrick McCann "Kate and Gerry", for the most close grew separated by thousands of kilometers. It was difficult that one day they met in an island of 50 million inhabitants.

She is English from Liverpool, he grew in a working neighborhood of Glasgow, in Scotland. Most Scots are catholic and the English are mostly Anglicans. Kate's family is part of the English minority faithful to the Church of Rome. The religion and the faith will be determinant to the union of Kate and Gerry.

The Catholic girl from Liverpool,when she decided to study Medicine, went to the University of Dundee in Scotland where she met the future husband, also student of the medical school.

Kate and Gerry belonged to the same group. She is snob, he is more sociable. But Kate according to what a colleague told the British newspaper The Mail on Sunday begins to loose the irritating superior air and turns into a bohemian. She goes to bars, drinks beer and amuses herself until early morning. Ends the graduation without problems. The book of the end of the course, in 1992, recalls her as one of the most popular of the medical school of the University of Dundee. It was known by the suggestive nickname of Hot Lips.

(..)

The complicity between the four couples fueled the rumor that they engaged themselves in an exchanging sexual game known as swing.

The insinuation emerged for the first time in an English blog and ran world. The Criminal Police also became interested, but with caution in the sexual secrets of the McCanns'. The issue would only have interest to the investigation if the exchange of partners exceed the discretion of that group of friends.

If the swing was open to other men and women, the author of the abduction could well be one of presumable sexual partners of Kate or in a more tortuous theory, his wife, who for various reasons could feel despised.

Another fact interested the researchers concerning the sexual habits of the McCanns' and friends: Madeleine as well as the twins, was born by artificial insemination.Would Gerry be the real biological father? Or the girl was not born by in vitro fertilization, and the father would be one of the swingers? All the hypothesis were open as the manuals of criminal investigation teach.

The Criminal Police nevertheless was just chasing a possibility, the abduction. The crime could be justified by one of five reasons: Madeleine was taken by a pedophilia network ; stolen by a family to be sold to adoption; abducted for the payment of a ransom,taken by real biological father or abducted by circumstances related to the swing.

(...)

Maddie's eyes are not equal. The left has shades of blue and green. The right is green and displays a sign of malformation in the iris, that in medicine is called coloboma, popularly known as cat's eyes. Gonçalo Amaral did everything to persuade them.

Kate and Gerry, obsessed with the divulgement of photos of the missing daughter did not listen to him. He asked them to at least not show a frontal photo of Madeleine .Without success. The McCanns' were stubborn.

The girl has yet another sign, brownish in the twin muscle of the left leg a particularity that was not disclosed. If Madeleine was kidnapped to be sold to a pedophilia network or a family for adoption, as was being investigated and the parents suspected, the divulgement of the eyes, that made her recognizable throughout the world, could led to her death this was at least the strong belief of the Criminal Police.

The girl was easily recognizable. Her life would not worth a centime. The kidnapper would hardly be able to sell her. Nobody would want her nor the pedophiles nor the family of adoptionj. No buyer would accept risks. Maddie was marked. Only one solution was left to the abductor: get rid of her.

Kate and Gerry, despite the cautious advice of the Judicial Police, even published the pictures of the eyes of the daughter. They did so aware of all the risks. One day after the disappearance, the angel face of Maddie already appeared in all the world.
http://www.correiomanha.pt/not.....;id=268199

kizzy wrote:

The first book to be published/printed in the UK is due out on 5th April 2008

“Vanished: The Truth About the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann" by Danny Collins

RRP £7.99 but available (amongst others) from Tesco on line for £6.39

Of course, we know nothing about this author's credibility and knowledge, but I thought you would want to know anyway.

princess_leia wrote:
£5.99 from Play.com and free delivery

http://www.play.com/Books/Books/-/100/1 ... type=genre

ETA Release date is 5th May!

No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators

Synopsis
A body stuffed in a car trunk swallowed by the swirling, muddy waters of the Missouri River. A hiker brutally murdered, then thrown off a cliff in a remote mountain range. A devious killer who hid his wife's body under a thick cement patio. For investigators, the story is often the same: they know a murder took place, they may even know who did it. But without key evidence, pursuing a conviction is nearly impossible. That's when they call NecroSearch International. Necrosearch boasts a brain trust of the nation's top scientists, specialists, and behaviourists who use the latest technology and techniques to help solve "unsolvable" crimes, no matter how decayed the corpse, no matter how cleverly the killer has hidden the victim's body. Now, for the first time ever, readers are taken on a fascinating, often-shocking journey into a realm of crime investigation of which few people are aware. Necrosearch's most challenging cases are described, step-by-step, as these modern-day Sherlock Holmes's detect bodies and evidence thought irretrievable, and testify in court to bring cold-blooded killers to justice.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/maddie/article1092704.ece

‘True Lies�?of Maddie parents

By ANTONELLA LAZZERI

Published: 26 Apr 2008

THE disgraced cop who led the search for Maddie McCann has written a money-spinning book �?pointing the finger at her parents.

Goncalo Amaral, 48, who was booted off the case after five months, refuses to believe Gerry and Kate McCann had nothing to do with the tot’s disappearance.

He authorised their status as suspects, but was removed after allegedly enjoying boozy lunch breaks while leading the hunt in Portugal.

Amaral’s book True Lies accuses Maddie’s parents of dumping her body at sea after accidentally killing her. He says British police were too close to the couple and did not follow up leads he suggested.

His lawyer Paulo Santos said of the book: “It’s not speculative, but factual.�?

But the McCanns�?spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: “We are not surprised at this.

“It is sad that people feel the need to make money out of Madeleine.�?

On the front line in the search for Maddie

Gonçalo Amaral's intriguing memoir of the Madeleine McCann case offers no solution but reveals a man obsessed by the investigation

It is a shame that this revealing memoir from Gonçalo Amaral, the police chief who ran the Madeleine McCann investigation until he was unceremoniously fired last year, has not been published in English. It's also a fairly safe bet that it won't be. Within minutes of its appearance in Portuguese bookshops, the McCanns' spokesman let it be known their lawyers would be giving it a thorough read, with an eye to the kind of libel action that ended up costing the Express group £500,000 earlier this year. And that was before the Portuguese authorities finally cleared the couple last month of any suspicion.

Maddie
: A Verdade da Mentira (The Truth About the Lies)
by Gonçalo Amaral
pp214,
Guerra e Paz

But it's not just lawyers who have been reading it. The book is, the publisher reports, swiftly heading to the top of Portugal's bestseller list (although, given the size of the country's book market, this is likely to earn Amaral more fame than cash). Surely it won't be long before enterprising translators feed the juicier bits to an online conspiracy community that, in the 15 months since the cherubic three-year-old went missing from Praia da Luz, has elevated Madeleine into something close to a new Elvis. Or in the phrase Amaral prefers to use, with no evident trace of irony, in the book's acknowledgements: 'cybernauts and bloggers who have been defending the cause of truth and justice.'

The least surprising, as well as the least convincing, section of the book is its conclusion, which basically echoes the case Amaral had failed to make before he was fired, and Madeleine's parents were cleared: that the little girl died in her family's holiday apartment, 'perhaps as a result of a tragic accident', on the night of 3 May 2007, that there followed a 'fake abduction', and that her parents 'are suspected of involvement in the hiding of the body of their daughter'. This reviewer - as well as any objective person - would surely by now have ruled out any of these possibilities. The book does nothing to change one's view that there is no plausible case against the McCanns. Helpfully for the McCanns' lawyers, particularly now that they and a third former arguido, Robert Murat, have been cleared, these assertions are all printed in bold type on the book's final page.

Much more riveting is Amaral's detailed account of the investigation he led from the night Madeleine went missing until last October when, after he allowed his anger over what he saw as British obstructionism to seep on to the front page of a Portuguese newspaper, he was dumped from the case. Nothing that Amaral says adds up to a solution to the mystery surrounding Madeleine's disappearance and there clearly isn't enough here even to build a coherent court case. Amaral is completely at odds with his own attorney general in his interpretation of events, as Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, has pointed out.

But Amaral's account does provide a glimpse of the sheer scale of the work he, his colleagues and visiting contingents from Britain brought to bear on the investigation: knocking on some 400 doors in and around Praia da Luz, interviewing hundreds of people, sifting through forensic evidence and posting timeline after timeline on the walls of their headquarters in the nearby city of Portimao.

Mistakes, clearly, were made, most glaringly the failure to secure, photograph and scour the McCanns' apartment and the surrounding area as a potential crime scene and avoid the possibility that potentially crucial evidence had been lost or contaminated. Yet even for those of us who happen to believe that Elvis is no more, the book offers a page-turning compendium of unexplained puzzles - as are so frequently found in wide-ranging, complex investigations.

As it happens, I was in the middle of Kate Summerscale's award-winning account of a Victorian murder case, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, when the review copy of A Verdade da Mentira arrived from Lisbon. Putting Summerscale down in favour of Amaral was a bit like switching from In Cold Blood to, well, Cybernauts Seeking Truth and Justice.

But Amaral does write, if not poetically, then fluently and, at times, grippingly. Moreover, his account contains inescapable echoes of Summerscale's eloquent insights into our abiding fascination with detectives and detection, particularly when a mystery remains unsolved. And doubly so when the mystery invites vicarious intrusion into the suddenly tragic private life of an ordinary, middle-class family.

Daily Mail

Former Portuguese police chief claims Maddie's body was dumped at sea in new novel set to anger McCanns

On the front line in the search for Maddie

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Madeleine McCann	[email protected]