He declared that Madeleine McCann was likely dead. Peter Van Sant : Mr. Wolters, it's been said that German prosecutors are always very tight lipped … You must have some strong evidence that allowed you to make that statement to the public. Just as German law does not allow Wolters to use Brueckner's full name, he also cannot say what that evidence is. Jim Gamble : I heard the news that the Germans had a credible suspect … and my first thing was, here we go again.
Jim Gamble was head of the U. Over the years, he has seen countless leads end up as dead ends. But this time, he believes the Germans may be on the right track.
Jim Gamble : Everyone, including myself, who's touched this case is more hopeful with the German case than, than we've been in 13 years. The five members of the McCann family, including Madeleine and her younger twin brother and sister, stayed at the Ocean Club.
They were joined by several other families. They'd gone there for generations. It would seem to be family friendly and safe. It was — we had lots of fun. She's very extroverted and lively. But their idyllic holiday would soon come to an end. On May 3 at around p. Jim Gamble : That was their routine behavior. They had been doing it all week. Jane Hill : And the friends would take turns. So, every 15 minutes or so one of the adults from the group would go back … and just check on their sleeping children and check that everything was OK.
At 10 p. But Madeleine's bed was empty. Madeleine's gone. Jane Tanner : It's the least thing you'd ever think in a million years that you know a child is going to be abducted in a safe family resort.
When Tanner heard that Madeleine had disappeared, she says she remembered that earlier in the evening as she walked near the Ocean Club, she passed a man who had caught her attention. Jane Tanner : As I was walking up the road this man was walking across the top of the road, carrying a small child, and the thing I noticed the most was he holding her and I could see the — her bare feet and the bottom of the pajamas. Tanner told the Portuguese police what she had witnessed that night.
But investigators didn't appear to take immediate action. Jane Hill : There was quite a laissez-faire attitude … she's wandered off somewhere. She's probably got lost. We'll find her. She'll come back. Jane Hill : My editor took me off the air the day after she disappeared and said get on a plane to Portugal.
In some ways, Madeleine was more than a daughter to the McCanns. She was their miracle. Unable to conceive, the couple endured a series of grueling in vitro fertilization procedures until Kate finally became pregnant with Madeleine. Jon Corner : The bond between Kate and Madeleine was — is something that, amazing, really. Within days, Madeleine's face fueled one of the largest international searches for a missing child in history. Jane Hill : It was heartbreaking because photographs were released that the family had taken on that holiday.
Jane Hill : Every day me and my team were there, we just watched the press pack grow and grow and grow. As the cameras followed the McCanns everywhere, it seemed Kate was never without Madeleine's pink stuffed animal. And if she was upset or not well, then she has cuddle cat.
So, it provided me with a little bit of comfort, something of Madeleine's close to me. Days passed and the McCanns grew frustrated as the Portuguese police conducted their investigation and shared very little.
Jane Hill: Portuguese police are not allowed to reveal any details of an ongoing investigation, not just to people like me, to the family involved. You get rumor, gossip, and speculation … there was no proof of anything, that's the trouble …. Jane Hill : There were … rumors circulated, all the time. I can't tell you what a rumor mill it was. A week after Madeleine's disappearance, suspicion fell on a man who lived just down the street from where Madeleine had vanished.
And he spoke Portuguese, and … engaged with a number of reporters and others in proximity to the investigation and offered himself up to provide help by way of translation or advice.
Police quickly named Murat a suspect. Witnesses say Murat showed up at the Ocean Club after Madeleine disappeared, and claimed he was acting suspiciously. Murat's mother said that wasn't possible. Then, the public began to turn on the McCanns for leaving their daughter alone. Jane Hill : There were … people saying that. Why would you not keep an eye on your child?
I wouldn't be able to leave three children, in that situation. Portuguese investigators also began eyeing the McCanns. Three months after Madeleine vanished, specially trained sniffer dogs were flown in to scour the family's vacation rental. Traces of blood were detected inside the apartment and in the trunk of the McCann's rental car.
Partial samples of the blood were recovered and sent to a British lab for DNA testing, but the results indicated that the blood found in the apartment did not belong to Madeleine and the results from the DNA in the rental car were inconclusive. Jim Gamble : Well I've seen the letter from the forensic science lab. It was not a complete DNA sample. Jim Gamble : The car wasn't actually retained by the McCann's until weeks after Madeleine had gone missing.
It just doesn't add up. The forensics don't add up. And yet, four months after Madeleine vanished, Portuguese police declared the McCanns "arguidos"— suspects in their own daughter's disappearance.
Peter Van Sant : The enormous media coverage in this, do you believe in some ways that pressured Portuguese authorities to say, we have our real suspects? It is Kate and it is Gerry. Jim Gamble : Well, I can't speak to that.
But in my opinion, do I think that that type of pressure would focus the attention of a senior investigating officer? Of course. Jim Gamble : The McCanns should have been suspects day one, minute one, hour one. And I don't believe for one second the McCanns committed this crime.
But what I'm saying is … Your attention should be, first of all, to look at the parents and actually to rule them in or rule them out - not to wait until your months down the line where you have exhausted all of your other ideas, and to then say, "Well, actually, it must be the parents. Surprisingly, almost immediately after being declared suspects, the McCanns were allowed to fly to the U.
Kate McCann told her family that Portuguese investigators had pressured her to sign a confession, in which she was to admit that Madeleine had died accidentally, and that Madeleine's disappearance had been staged. Meanwhile, road blocks went up at about 10 a. A forensics team from Lisbon showed up during the day as well. And in a case when the first few hours are crucial, investigators were relatively late to the scene, Amaral recalled, and "the lateness triggered a delay to the sequence of events.
During those first pivotal hours, however, Gerry called his sister and brother-in-law, Trisha and Sandy , back in England, and they called the Foreign Office in London, the British Consulate in the Algarve and the British Embassy in Lisbon—a guarantee that within hours Madeleine's disappearance would be front-page news back in the U. Nothing had been touched in the apartment, no valuables taken, no passports.
They think someone must have come in the window and gone out the door with her. Per Collins, investigators determined that the shutters—a metal variety that were over all the back windows of the apartment building and could be raised and lowered from the inside—didn't show signs of tampering, indicating no one had entered the apartment through the window.
Asked about Madeleine and her siblings having been left alone in the apartment while their parents went to dinner, Brian Healy told The Guardian , "It is not right to say that they just left them. They could see the chalet from where they were sitting in the restaurant, they were a hundred yards away. They went back every half hour to check on the children. When they returned at the end of their meal she was gone. My daughter can hardly speak.
She is distraught, she is crying and in shock. After being up most of the night, Gerry and Kate headed out at about 6 a. Fliers with Madeleine's picture had been put up all over the resort and at local businesses in the area. Later that day, Gerry and Kate sat down for separate interviews at the police station, after which they returned to the Ocean Club at around p.
The couple drafted a statement and approached the cameras, Kate holding Madeleine's Cuddle Cat. As everyone can understand how distressing the current situation is, we ask that our privacy is respected to allow us to continue assisting the police in their current investigation. Police followed up by announcing to the press that they weren't " percent sure" that there had been a kidnapping.
All of them fervently denied keeping anything from police, collectively or individually. At the same time, the rampant finger-pointing continued over leaving their children alone to go to dinner, the media happy to report on every single theory—and there were many—as well as question the McCanns' parenting choices.
A two-year review follows. A computer-generated image of what Madeleine might look like aged nine is released, a day before Portuguese authorities say they are not reopening their investigation. In May , UK detectives reviewing the case say they have identified "a number of persons of interest". By July, Scotland Yard announces it has "new evidence and new witnesses" in the case and opens a formal investigation. By October , Scotland Yard detectives say they have identified 41 potential suspects.
A BBC Crimewatch appeal features e-fit images of a man seen carrying a blond-haired child of three or four in Praia da Luz at about the time Madeleine went missing. Portuguese police reopen their investigation - to run alongside Scotland Yard's - citing "new lines of inquiry". In January British detectives fly to Portugal amid claims they are planning to make arrests. In June searches in Praia da Luz are carried out, including an area of scrubland situated south-west of the Ocean Club complex.
It yields nothing of interest. A month later, in July , four suspects are quizzed by police but no new developments emerge. In April the four official suspects investigated by police are ruled out of the investigation but senior officers say they are pursuing a " significant line of inquiry ". A year later, in June , police reveal that a year-old German prisoner - named by German media as Christian B - has been identified as a suspect.
The McCanns thank police, saying: "All we have ever wanted is to find her, uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice. German investigators have classed it as a murder inquiry and say they are assuming that Madeleine is dead. The UK's Metropolitan Police says it has received more than calls and emails since a new appeal for information was launched on Wednesday. New suspect identified in Madeleine McCann case. It is more than 13 years since Madeleine McCann, then aged three, disappeared.
Here is the story so far. Image source, PA Media.
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