Madeleine McCann -- Missing 5/3/07

It encourages me to see that Madeleine has not been forgotten, even though I feel that her parents know more than they have let on...

By Arthur Martin
Last updated at 8:01 AM on 04th March 2010

Private investigators searching for Madeleine McCann mounted a surveillance operation amid fears that she was being held prisoner in a run-down farmhouse, secret police files reveal.

They acted after a British holidaymaker spotted a ‘gaunt’ blonde girl wearing a black wig being dragged by ‘gipsy women’ 30 miles from where Madeleine was snatched.

Jean Godwin, 56, a retired care home worker, said the girl she saw on the Algarve was ‘100 per cent Madeleine McCann’.

One of the women spotted in Carvoeiro by Mrs Godwin was seen by another British tourist acting suspiciously outside the McCanns’ apartment on the day the youngster vanished from Praia da Luz.

The evidence prompted investigators to follow their suspect to an isolated farmhouse in an orange grove near the town of Silves, north of Portimao. In the following months she paid several visits to the property, a holiday home owned by a teacher and his partner whom the inquiry team deemed to be ‘suspicious’.


Their concerns were raised when they discovered a white Citroen Berlingo with a child’s doll on the back seat and a child’s drawing among rubbish bags – even though the couple did not have young children.

Investigated: Jorge Martins and partner Maria Silveira had their remote home checked
They also spotted the man buying clothes suitable for a girl of five – Madeleine’s age at the time. But surveillance was eventually wound down and the child was never found.

The operation began in 2008 after Mrs Godwin, from Widnes, Cheshire, rang the ‘Find Madeleine’ hotline and gave her suspicions to private investigators. By this stage, the official police inquiry into the disappearance on May 3, 2007, had been closed.

Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry continued to employ private detectives in the hope of finding their daughter but these investigators have no legal powers to force suspects to talk to them. The sightings were passed to the Portuguese police who deemed them irrelevant and promptly archived the reports.

Details of the evidence are contained in a 2,000-page police dossier finally published by the Portuguese authorities after requests from newspapers including the Daily Mail. It contains the testimony of Mrs Godwin, who claims she spotted Madeleine in September 2008.

She said: ‘This was a young girl, in the middle of the two women and holding the hand of each. Her eyes were wide open and my attention was drawn to the large irises.

‘The child was wearing what was clearly a black wig. It was short, cut in a bob style and very thick. The wig was shiny and unnatural looking and out of keeping with her very pale complexion and fair eyebrows.

‘I would say she was about 3ft 1in tall and about five years of age. She was very thin and I would describe her as malnourished. Her cheeks looked gaunt. I think she had a bump on her nose.

'I am convinced that the little girl I saw that morning was Madeleine. I have been asked how certain I am. I will say I am 100 per cent sure.’

Mrs Godwin described the first woman as being an ‘obese’ size 30, in her mid-to-late 40s with ‘dirty and unkempt’ red hair. The second woman was around 60, with unwashed brown hair, and even fatter.

The McCanns’ investigators believe the red-haired woman was Yvone Albino, a cleaner from Silves. Another witness, Jeni Weinberger, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, said she saw a woman resembling Mrs Albino outside the McCanns’ apartment in May 2007.

Mrs Albino, who has two grown-up sons, met teacher Jorge Martins and his partner Maria Silveira at their house in the orange grove.

David Edgar, a private investigator working for the McCanns, described their movements as ‘suspicious’.

Portuguese police confronted Mrs Albino, who said she knew nothing about either sighting and denied any contact with young children. Officers found the house deserted. The woman with Mrs Albino in Carvoeiro was never identified.

Mr Martins and Miss Silveira have never been accused of any crime by police. He told police the doll was given to him by his students several years earlier.

The McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: ‘It’s clear that our investigators have made considerable efforts to follow up leads but without having full access to the files and co-operation from the Portuguese police.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255297/Riddle-Madeleine-McCann-fat-gipsy-women.html#ixzz0iwA1KuNA

Thanks Tish. That was really interesting. It's a shame though when their surveillance doesn't turn up the child they're looking for.

I hope Madeleine is found some day.

Thanks for the article.. I am glad that her name and face is still out there.. I have doubts as to whether Maddie is still with us, but I pray for closure for the family...

I dont think they had anything to do with this and it is typical that ppl in their situation are always doubted...

God Bless Maddie

Murder chief for Maddie

Top cop spearheads new probe into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

By Lucy Panton, Crime Editor, 09/05/2010
BRITAIN'S top murder cop has been lined up to spearhead a new probe into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, we can reveal.

Det Chief Insp Colin Sutton, 49, who has been involved in some of the UK's biggest inquiries - including the murder of Milly Dowler and the terror reign of the Nightstalker sex beast - is seen as the best man to handle the challenging review.

Senior child protection officer Jim Gamble has asked Scotland Yard to take a fresh look at the three-year investigation.

He blasted Portuguese cops for their handling of the hunt for Maddie - who vanished aged three from her family's Algarve holiday apartment in 2007. Now the Met Police are set to review all leads in the case, using technology and standards expected in a UK homicide or kidnap.

It will delight Maddie's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann. A senior police source said: "They deserve reassurance that everything that can be done has been done."

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/808480/Top-cop-spearheads-new-probe-into-the-disappearance-of-Madeleine-McCann.html

MADELEINE SUSPECT 'ON BEACH SNAP'

Sunday May 9,2010
By James Murray



DETECTIVES have been handed a photograph showing a man behaving oddly in the days before Madeleine McCann was kidnapped.

A British holidaymaker accidentally captured him in the background of a family snap taken at the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in April 2007, days before Madeleine, then three, disappeared.

It was passed to detectives from Leicestershire who are assisting the police in Portugal. Last week we published Gail Cooper’s account of her encounter with the strange man when he later came to her holiday villa in the resort, asking for money for an orphanage.

Today we reveal that one of Mrs Cooper’s friends, Leanda Hodson-Mackey, took a snap of her husband Stephen, 34, and son, then aged two, and the man appeared in the background, walking along the beach during a downpour.

Although his features cannot be clearly made out, there is a rough image which could be enhanced with FBI picture improvement techniques.

Mrs Cooper, 53, from Newark, Nottinghamshire, told the Sunday Express last week she believes the same man went on to kidnap Madeleine McCann.

She had flown to Luz with a party of 13 family and friends in the week before Madeleine was taken, to celebrate her 50th birthday. Mrs Hodson-Mackey, 34, and her family spent four days at an apartment in the Mark Warner complex with Leanda’s mother Trudy Dawkins, 49, and her husband Lee, 40.

The apartment was directly above apartment 5a, where the McCanns would stay the following week.

Last night Mrs Dawkins, also from Newark, said: “When we were back home it was on the news that Madeleine had disappeared and we all racked our brains to see if there was anything we could remember which would help the investigation.

“We all remembered this man walking along the beach in the rain, then Gail recalled he later went to her villa.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/174024/Madeleine-suspect-on-beach-snap-

Maybe there's a link to this man, hopefully someone will recognize him and they can locate him. If he was just vacationing and not a regular, it will certainly be a longshot to find out who he is.

McCanns Launch Missing Child Alert System

Kate and Gerry McCann will today help launch a revamped nationwide alert system for missing children.

The parents of Madeleine McCann have been campaigning for a system to be operational in the UK since the disappearance of their daughter in Portugal in May 2007.

The network will be compatible with other European countries for the first time.

Similar to the amber alert in the US, the system is aimed at raising public awareness if a child goes missing and will also allow police to issue Europe-wide alerts.

Regional and national television and radio stations will broadcast messages, in some cases interrupting scheduled programmes.

The revamped system is being launched on International Missing Children's Day.

Chief Constable Peter Neyroud, head of the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA), said: "Through Child Rescue Alert the community is able to form a strong alliance to help in the hunt for child abductors when an alert is activated.

"It is fitting that the NPIA should relaunch (the) alert on International Missing Children's Day, which forms a poignant reminder of the sense of devastation caused to the parents and families of children who go missing."

Police say the first few hours after an abduction are crucial in locating a missing child.

But they expect the alerts to be rarely issued and will use new computer software to handle the anticipated deluge of calls from concerned members of the public.

The system is being co-ordinated by the NPIA and any national abduction will be led by Greater Manchester Police.

Portugal, Spain and the Czech Republic have already introduced their versions of child abduction alerts that link with the European network.

The previous national alert system was established in 2005 and has only been used on a handful of occasions.

An alert can only be issued when the child is aged under 18, there is a reasonable belief he or she has been abducted and could be in imminent danger.

http://web.orange.co.uk/images/ice/news/bskyb_image_15637659_400x240.jpg

Thanks for the update. I am glad that Maddies parents have risen above all the negativity and suspicion. I cant imagine what it wud be like to lose a child, and even worse to be accused in having a hand in it... On account that there is no evidence that says they know anything about this sad crime, I will believe that Maddie and her family were victims of a heinous crime like many we have seen over the years.. No forced entry, and a missing child!

Portuguese man 'saw lost Madeleine'

May 25 2010

A Portuguese man has come forward to report a possible sighting of Madeleine McCann the day after she disappeared, it has been revealed.

Carlos Moreira, 65, saw a young blonde girl wearing pyjamas like those of the missing British child in the back of a van on May 4, 2007.

But he only contacted the private investigation team employed by Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, last week.

It is understood that he did not think the information was relevant until learning in a recent TV programme that Portuguese police did not mount roadblocks following the little girl's disappearance.

Madeleine was nearly four when she went missing from her family's holiday flat in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on the night of May 3, 2007, as her parents dined with friends nearby.

At about 8am the next morning Mr Moreira saw a young girl lying at an angle in the back of a white van at a roadside snack bar near the Portuguese capital Lisbon, some 170 miles to the north. He said she was with a man and a woman.

It is understood Mr Moreira was not certain that he saw Madeleine, but recalled that the girl was wearing pink and yellow pyjamas similar to the ones the missing child had on when she vanished.

He told a newspaper: "When the van door was opened, she did not wake up, as if she was drugged. This girl was blonde and looked around four."

McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "I can confirm that Mr Moreira has been spoken to by the private investigators currently searching for Madeleine.

"I cannot go into any further detail for operational reasons. He has done absolutely the right thing in coming forward with his information despite it being so long after the event."

http://www.wirralnews.co.uk/wirral-news/uk-world-news/2010/05/25/portuguese-man-saw-lost-madeleine-80491-26517479/

hmmm.. not sure about that sighting a day later.. I do have hope in the composite they have...with international coverage, he shud be found easily...

McCanns: We fear the hunt for Maddie is over

By ANTONELLA LAZZERI
November 3, 2010

KATE and Gerry McCann fear the three-year hunt for missing daughter Maddie is about to end.

They revealed the Find Madeleine Fund has dwindled from £2million at its peak to £300,000.

Their worldwide search for Maddie - aged three when she disappeared on holiday in Portugal in May 2007 - will be wound up because they will no longer be able to pay specialist investigators when the money runs out.

Kate, 42, said: "It will be just me and Gerry left looking for her."

For three and a half years Kate and Gerry have searched tirelessly for Maddie.

Every spare moment has been devoted to the hunt.

But Kate yesterday admitted that for the first time she fears they may never find her.

Within weeks of Maddie being snatched from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, money from the public poured in to boost the Find Madeleine Fund.

At its height it stood at £2million. But now there is just £300,000 left.

Desperate for help, the couple are launching an online petition asking the public to back them and demand the British and Portuguese governments do more to find Madeleine.

And they have sent out "begging letters" to sponsors, including author JK Rowling, tycoon Richard Branson, comic Jack Dee and other high-profile celebrities asking them to contribute to the fund.

They hope the public will be touched by their plight and give too.

Clutching her husband's hand tightly, an emotional Kate admitted: "There is only enough money in the Find Madeleine Fund to keep the hunt going until spring 2011.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3209287/Kate-Gerry-McCann-fear-hunt-for-missing-daughter-Maddie-nearing-end.html

Petition

FindMadeleine.com

Hi, Justice4All!

Thank you for the update.

Hi Ann. You are welcome. This is a heartbreaking case. I feel bad for Madeleine's parents.

Relative of Little Girl May Find McCanns’ Account of Disappearance ‘Too Upsetting’ to Read
Missing Madeleine book is ‘truthful and scathing’

By Mel Fairhurst
Published: 25/11/2010

An aunt of missing youngster Madeleine McCann has described a new book about her disappearance as “truthful and scathing”.

The girl’s parents, Gerry and Kate, have secured a multimillion-pound deal to write an account of their search for their daughter, who vanished from a holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007.

Money raised by sales of the book, entitled Madeleine, will be used to pay for their ongoing hunt for the child, who was aged four when she disappeared.

The couple, who are both 42 and have five-year-old twins Amelie and Sean, revealed recently that their search fund was dwindling.

Read more: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2024271?UserKey=

I hope the book is successful and will bring in the funds to keep searching.

UK cops 'developed' McCann evidence

Published on Tue Dec 14 07:16:33 GMT 2010

British police helped "develop" evidence against Madeleine McCann's parents as they were investigated by Portuguese authorities looking into their daughter's disappearance, according to diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks.

Britain's ambassador to Portugal, Alexander Wykeham Ellis, reportedly made the claim to his American counterpart on September 21, 2007 - two weeks after Portuguese police named Gerry and Kate McCann as "arguidos", or formal suspects, in the case.

In a cable to Washington, US Ambassador Al Hoffman wrote: "Madeleine McCann's disappearance in the south of Portugal in May 2007 has generated international media attention with controversy surrounding the Portuguese-led police investigation and the actions of Madeleine's parents.

"Without delving into the details of the case, Ellis admitted that the British police had developed the current evidence against the McCann parents, and he stressed that authorities from both countries were working co-operatively.

Read more: http://www.worksopguardian.co.uk/news/national-news/uk_cops_developed_mccann_evidence_1_2855398

Madeleine McCann is in America – and I know who took her

From EMILY NASH and JON CLARKE in Huelva, Spain

Published: 18 Feb 2011
AN INVESTIGATOR has told cops Madeleine McCann was taken to the US - and he has named two key suspects.

Marcelino Italiano, 36, said she had been snatched by an Algarve-based paedophile ring. The amateur sleuth added: "They can get away with anything."

Maddie vanished in Portugal in May 2007.

Angolan-born Italiano said the gang of influential and dangerous perverts had hunted children in the Algarve before smuggling them out of Portugal.

And he told how he had to flee for his life when his investigations threatened to unmask them.

The 6ft 4in nightclub bouncer said: "I know these people were involved and I have been told that Madeleine may now be in America.

"I can't say how, but I have known these people and believe they can get away with anything.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3418713/Madeleine-McCann-is-in-America-and-I-know-who-took-her.html

Reopening the wounds: Kate McCann visits Maddie's room twice a day and the pain is raw. But she hopes her book will revive the hunt

By Natalie Clarke
Last updated at 6:48 PM on 16th April 2011

Earlier this week, Kate McCann signed off the final chapter of her book about her lost daughter, Madeleine. It is now with the publishers, and a rush is on to have the book edited, printed and on sale by the planned publication date of May 12, which will be Madeleine’s eighth birthday.

The book, simply entitled Madeleine, gives Kate’s account, in her own words, of her daughter’s disappearance during a family holiday in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007, and the dramatic events that followed.

Four years after Madeleine’s disappearance, there is, sadly, still no prospect of an epilogue to the book anytime soon, answering that heart-rending mystery: Where is Maddie?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377420/Kate-McCann-hopes-book-revive-hunt-Madeleine.html