Missing Madeleine McCann case

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The British girl Madeleine Beth McCann , in the media often Maddie (born May 12, 2003 in Leicester ), disappeared on May 3, 2007 from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal and has been missing ever since . The Portuguese police closed the investigation after 14 months, but resumed it five years later. The British police opened their own investigation in 2011. The case became known worldwide through the search activities of their parents Kate and Gerald McCann and the continued media coverage.

Circumstances of disappearance

Resort Ocean Club (2008)

Kate and Gerald McCann, a couple of doctors who live in Rothley in the central English county of Leicestershire , were on vacation in April / May 2007 with their four-year-old daughter Madeleine and their two-year-old twins in the Portuguese coastal region of the Algarve and lived in apartment 5a in the Ocean Club holiday complex in Praia da Luz.

On the evening of May 3, 2007, the parents ate with three befriended couples and an accompanying mother in a restaurant in their holiday complex. The four couples had organized the trip together and all had small children who slept in the vacation homes used by the families. According to the statements of the couples, one parent alternately looked after three of the children every half hour; the fourth couple used a baby monitor to hear any noises from their children. The McCann's children and another of the couples were in neighboring apartments in a corner building of the facility about 50 meters from the restaurant.

At 10 p.m., Kate McCann noticed Madeleine's disappearance. A window in the apartment, which had previously been closed, was now unlocked. With this information they informed the Portuguese police.

First investigation

Praia da Luz (2015)

From May 3rd to May 11th, 2007, hundreds of police officers, the fire brigade and volunteers searched the resort and the surrounding area. According to information from the regional police director on May 5, the police arrived at the resort 10 minutes after the parents reported the missing person and began the search within 30 minutes. The authorities at airports and border crossings to Spain were immediately alerted.

Investigators initially suspected the girl had been kidnapped, for example for an international pedophile ring or for a criminal organization that sells children abroad for adoption . Several British people have been temporarily arrested as suspects in Portugal. The parents were questioned as witnesses. A waiter in the restaurant disagreed with their statement that they checked on the children every 30 minutes.

Jane Tanner, a friend of the McCanns, testified that she saw a man coming from the apartment at around 9:30 p.m. on May 3 with a bundle wrapped in blankets - according to a later testimony with a child dressed in pink pajamas be. The suspect had a light skin color - according to Tanner later a Mediterranean - skin color, was about 35 to 40 years old, about 170 cm tall, had short but long hair on the neck and a dark jacket, dark shoes and beige trousers. The Portuguese investigators only released this description on May 24, under pressure from the newly elected British Prime Minister Gordon Brown . They did not give the reason for the three weeks of reluctance. The McCanns had considered legally enforcing the release.

International search campaign

Sympathy in Rothley (2007)

On May 4, 2007, Kate and Gerald McCann asked the suspected kidnappers on British television to release their daughter and asked the general public to support the search for her. Celebrities, including footballers Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham , supported the appeal. British newspapers published a photograph of Madeleine on their front pages. This media campaign was organized by John McCann, an uncle of Madeleine's. Shortly thereafter, the UK government hired government official Clarence Mitchell to serve as media advisor and campaign manager to the McCanns . Gerald McCann tried to collect clues with the Find Madeleine website and to inform the public about the progress of the investigation.

On May 11th, after the Portuguese police stopped searching in Praia da Luz, a Scottish businessman spent around 1.5 million euros on clues that would lead to the discovery of Madeleine. Like the international press, he assumed a kidnapping. Celebrities like Wayne Rooney , David Beckham and Joanne K. Rowling increased the reward to several million euros. Many large corporations posted Madeleine's photographs in their outlets; Athletes wore yellow bandages as a token of solidarity with the fall. Because of its strong media presence, the authorities received thousands of reports, but these did not lead to any success in the investigation. Free riders allegedly collected donations for the search or tried to sell alleged evidence of Madeleine's whereabouts to their parents for large sums of money.

On May 30th, the parents began a trip through Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Morocco to involve the local population in the search for their daughter and to ask for photos to be released in and around the resort of Praia da Luz so to identify possible suspects. At the beginning, as Roman Catholics, they attended a general audience with the then Pope Benedict XVI. in Rome. The meeting was mediated by the Archbishop of Westminster , Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor . The Pope blessed the parents and a photograph of the missing girl.

The efforts of parents to involve the international public in the search also met with criticism from June 2007: The extent of this effort is unusual and atypical for parents of kidnapped children. The months of media coverage of the case also provoked satirical reactions.

By the end of 2007, witnesses said they saw Madeleine at least four times. They referred to places in Portugal, Malta, Morocco and Belgium. Police investigations, some with phantom images, yielded nothing.

Suspicion against the parents

At the beginning of August 2007, the Portuguese investigators found traces of blood in the holiday apartment with dogs trained on the odor of corpses. They then suspected that Madeleine died there on May 3 and that her body was removed from the apartment two to four hours later. The property of a British man living near the complex, Robert M., who had been considered the main suspect until then, was searched again, but without result. On August 12, the Portuguese police announced that the evidence of Madeleine's death was slightly stronger than other evidence; However, one continues to investigate in all directions and do not suspect the parents.

Police later said they found more traces of blood in a rental car that Kate McCann rented on May 28, 2007. The parents were then interrogated again on September 7 and 8, 2007 and then declared suspects who, under Portuguese law, may be questioned more intensively than before. According to a later published transcript of her interrogation, Kate McCann is said not to have answered any of the 48 questions put to her.

On September 10, the parents returned to the UK with the approval of the Portuguese authorities. There, they accused Portuguese investigators of trying to get Kate McCann to testify that she accidentally killed Madeleine and later disposed of the body in her rental car.

The chief investigator of the case, Gonçalo Amaral, criticized in October 2007 that the British investigators had adopted the kidnapping thesis of the parents and only investigated in this direction. He was then dismissed from office. His successor Alípio Ribeiro resigned from office in May 2008. On July 21, 2008, the Portuguese public prosecutor closed the investigation. The parents as well as Robert M. were no longer classified as suspects. Ribeiro described the decision as premature. On July 24, 2008 Amaral published the book A Verdade da Mentira ("The Truth of Lies"): In it he suspected that Madeleine had died in a "tragic accident". Her parents covered this up, “faked a kidnapping” and later made the body disappear. The McCann couple then sued Amaral for defamation and had the sale of their book in Portugal temporarily stopped with an injunction.

In March 2008, several British tabloids apologized to the McCann family for reports that they were complicit in Madeleine's disappearance and death. The parents were awarded high compensation, whereupon they declared that they would use the money exclusively for the further search for Madeleine.

On August 4, 2008, the Portuguese police released some investigation files into the case. According to this, British forensic scientists could not clearly assign the traces of blood in the mother's rental car to Madeleine and therefore could not consider the parents to be complicit.

In the ongoing trial of the McCanns' libel suit against former police chief Amaral, two Portuguese courts banned the sale of Amaral's book in Portugal in 2009 and 2015 and awarded the McCanns compensation. Two appellate courts lifted these bans in 2010 and 2016, respectively, because Amaral's theses are covered by freedom of expression and do not violate the rights of parents. They stuck to the libel suit and stressed that they wanted to be able to continue to finance the search. The parents lost the trial for damages in the amount of 500,000 euros before the Supreme Court in Lisbon.

New investigation

In May 2009, the UK media released new forensic experts' images of the child's suspected current appearance. On April 25, 2012, the British police published such images again. Investigators said that new clues made it possible that Madeleine was still alive. Even Interpol was one the then age out of the girl matched search image.

In a 2011 publication, US case analyst Pat Brown criticized the behavior of investigators and parents. She believed the girl's accidental death and a subsequent parenting cover-up was likely. The McCanns Carter-Ruck law firm had the book prevented from being sold on Amazon. Several publishers, including Barnes and Noble , kept distribution going.

At the request of Prime Minister David Cameron , the British Metropolitan Police Service decided on May 12, 2011 to dispatch experts to a new investigation ( Operation Grange ) into the Madeleine case. The team spent two years reviewing the investigation files of the Portuguese police and the seven private detectives hired by the McCann family (around 30,500 documents in all). In 2013, head Andy Redwood announced that 3,800 leads and 38 possible suspects had been identified in five states. These traces are now being followed in cooperation with the authorities of these states. Arrests are not expected for the time being.

According to media reports on October 13, 2013, a witness said he had recently seen Maddie McCann alive on an unspecified Mediterranean island ; the girl was introduced to him there. On October 14, 2013, Scotland Yard presented new leads to the case on the BBC program Crimewatch . The Smith couple testified to the police in Portugal in May 2007 that they had met a man on the evening of the crime who had carried a child towards the beach at around 10 p.m. In 2008, Martin Smith added that the man he was watching could have been Gerald McCann himself. The former chief investigator of the case, Gonçalo Amaral, relied on this statement in his 2008 book. Two phantom images of the man, which were created in 2008 after the statements of the Smith couple, were first published on the BBC broadcast. After that it was a white man with short brown hair, between 20 and 40 years old. The investigators offered a reward of up to 20,000 British pounds for information that would lead to the identification of the man. About 1,000 witnesses then reported. Martin Smith accused the Portuguese police of not taking his testimony of May 3, 2007 seriously and that they almost exclusively followed up on Jane Tanner's observation. The man she saw could be identified as a tourist by 2013 who had carried his own child home.

The investigators also presented phantom images of two blonde men who, according to witnesses, observed the McCanns' apartment the day before Maddie's disappearance and who spoke Dutch or German. The phantom images and the call for witnesses were therefore broadcast on October 15 on the Dutch television program Opsporing Verzocht and on October 16 on the German television program Aktenzeichen XY ... unresolved . The Portuguese police then reopened the investigation and found new suspects and witnesses. As of 2017, the case cost a total of £ 11 million.

The McCanns continue to believe their daughter is alive. Gerald McCann said in 2015: “We will turn every stone to look for her.” In June 2015, Kate McCann led a half-mile bicycle tour from Edinburgh to London to raise funds for an English missing people organization.

Investigations against suspects in June 2020

At the beginning of June 2020, the Braunschweig public prosecutor announced that it was investigating the case against a 43-year-old German on suspicion of murder . It is a man with a criminal record for multiple sexual abuse of children who is currently serving a longer prison term for a sexual offense and drug trafficking. The Braunschweig public prosecutor's office is investigating because the accused had his last place of residence in their district before his stay abroad. According to media reports, the suspect had been informed in 2013 by an investigation error of the Braunschweig police that he had been linked to the case: he had been summoned for questioning about the “Missing Madeleine McCann” and “personal verification of Christian B. " receive.

The suspect was regularly traveling in a camper in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007 . He earned his living by working in the catering trade and through drug trafficking, theft and break-ins in hotels and holiday homes. At the time of Madeleine's disappearance, he was in the Praia da Luz region. It has been proven that he received a phone call from a Portuguese number that evening and spoke on the phone for about half an hour. In addition, the next day he had his Jaguar XJR6 , built in 1993, registered to someone else. The police concentrated on identifying the unknown interlocutor whose phone number was known.

In view of the new status of the investigation, the case was again the subject of the television program Aktenzeichen XY ... unsolved on June 3, 2020 , in which witnesses were sought.

literature

  • Gonçalo Amaral: Maddie. The truth about the lie. Argo, Marktoberdorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-937987-79-8 .
  • Pat Brown: Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Barnes & Noble, New York 2011 ( online excerpt ).
  • Danny Collins: Vanished. The Truth About the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Blake Publishing, London 2008, ISBN 978-1844546145 .
  • Kate McCann: Madeleine. The disappearance of our daughter and the long search for her. Bastei Lübbe, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-7857-2443-9 .
  • McCann Family Forum (Ed.): The Madeleine Investigation. Incompetence or Corruption? Authorhouse, Bloomington 2009.
  • Daniela Prousa: Analysis of the Madeleine McCann missing person case. Publishing house for science and culture, Duisburg / Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-86553-353-1 .

Web links

Commons : Madeleine McCann  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Madeleine's desperate parents: Hope, pray, wait. In: Der Spiegel. May 14, 2007.
  2. ↑ British toddler abducted, police believe. In: The Guardian , May 5, 2007; Police reveal suspect as hunt for three-year-old Madeleine widens. In: The Guardian , May 6, 2007.
  3. ↑ Kidnapped Madeleine: Portugal's police under pressure. In: Spiegel online , May 10, 2007.
  4. ↑ a b Madeleine case: 1.5 million euros reward exposed. In: Spiegel online , May 11, 2007.
  5. ↑ Silence means forgetting. In: Die Welt , June 6, 2007.
  6. ↑ Guilt will never leave us, say Madeleine's parents. In: The Guardian , May 26, 2007.
  7. ↑ Madeleine's parents seek consolation from the Pope. In: Die Welt , May 31, 2007.
  8. ↑ Child Abduction: How to Cash in with the Maddie Case on the Internet. In: Der Spiegel. May 19, 2007.
  9. ↑ Police arrest free riders in the Madeleine case. In: Die Welt , June 6, 2007.
  10. ↑ Vatican: Blessings for Madeleine's parents. ( Memento of September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Vatican Radio , May 30, 2007.
  11. ^ Desperate appeal from Madeleine's parents. In: Die Welt , June 6, 2007.
  12. ↑ Titanic Magazine: Satire with Madeleine. In: Der Stern , November 1, 2007.
  13. ↑ a b Timeline: Madeleine McCann. In: The Guardian , May 22, 2009.
  14. ↑ Was Maddie murdered in the hotel room? Die Welt, August 5, 2007.
  15. ↑ Traces of blood in Madeleine's hotel room. In: Die Welt , August 7, 2007.
  16. ↑ The police have no suspicions against Madeleine's parents. In: Die Welt , August 12, 2007.
  17. ↑ Allegedly blood in the McCanns' rental car. In: Die Welt , September 7, 2007.
  18. ↑ Maddie's mother declared a suspect. In: Die Welt , September 7, 2007; Now Madeleine's father is also under suspicion. In: Die Welt , September 8, 2007.
  19. ^ Caroline Gammell: Madeleine McCann: Kate McCann refused to answer 48 questions from Portuguese police. In: The Telegraph , August 4, 2008.
  20. ↑ Madeleine's parents return to England. In: Die Welt , September 10, 2007.
  21. ↑ Detective leading hunt for Madeleine sacked after blast at UK police. In: The Guardian , October 3, 2007.
  22. ↑ The Madeleine case filed. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), July 21, 2008.
  23. ↑ Leo Wieland: New book on the Madeleine case: "The parents hid the dead Maddie". In: FAZ, July 24, 2008.
  24. ↑ Kidnapped Maddie, "The Truth of Lies". In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 12, 2010.
  25. ^ Owen Gibson: Express Newspapers forced to apologize to McCann family over Madeleine allegations. In: The Guardian , March 19, 2008.
  26. ^ Judge bans sales of Madeleine McCann book. In: The Guardian , September 9, 2009; Madeleine McCann's parents win libel damages in trial of police chief. In: The Guardian , April 28, 2015.
  27. ^ Madeleine McCann book ban overturned by Portuguese court. In: The Guardian , October 19, 2010; Libel conviction of ex-detective in Madeleine McCann case overturned. In: The Guardian , April 20, 2016.
  28. ↑ Parents lose compensation litigation in Portugal. In: Spiegel Online , February 1, 2017.
  29. ↑ Madeleine McCann aged 6: New picture of how missing Maddy looks now. In: Mirror , May 2, 2009.
  30. ↑ Great Britain: Missing Madeleine McCann may be alive. In: Die Welt , April 25, 2012.
  31. ↑ McCann, Madeleine Beth ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  32. ↑ Metropolitan Police: Operation Grange
  33. ↑ Sandra Laville: Madeleine McCann: police target 38 potential suspects identified in Review. In: The Guardian , July 5, 2013.
  34. ↑ Hope in the Maddie case: Scotland Yard has "significant findings". In: T-Online, October 14, 2013.
  35. ↑ Irish couple key witnesses as British police launch new inquiry. In: Irish Central , October 14, 2013.
  36. ↑ Additional statement from Martin Smith 2008.01.30
  37. ↑ Madeleine McCann: Key witness accuses Portuguese police of not taking his vital prime suspect evidence seriously. In: Mirror , October 16, 2013.
  38. ↑ Carsten Volkery: Scotland Yard: New lead in the Maddie case leads to Germany. Spiegel online, October 15, 2013.
  39. ↑ New lead in the case of the missing Madeleine McCann. Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 27, 2017.
  40. ↑ Gabi Biesinger: Missing Children's Day: Maddie McCann - wanted for eight years. Deutschlandfunk Kultur, May 25, 2015.
  41. ↑ Press release from the Braunschweig public prosecutor's office from June 3, 2020: Investigations into the Madeleine "Maddie" McCann case on staatsanwaltschaft-braunschweig.niedersachsen.de (from June 4, 2020)
  42. ↑ Disappearance of Madeleine McCANN on May 3, 2007 in Praia da Luz / Portugal - Witnesses wanted on bka.de (from June 4, 2020)
  43. ↑ Murder investigations against 43-year-old Germans in the "Maddie" case. In: Der Spiegel . June 3, 2020, accessed June 3, 2020 .
  44. ↑ BKA: Investigations in the case of Madeleine "Maddie" McCann , press portal of the Federal Criminal Police Office (04.06.2020)
  45. ↑ German investigative errors in the Maddie case: This is how Christian B. found out that the police were watching him. In: Der Spiegel . June 12, 2020, accessed June 13, 2020 .
  46. ↑ Simone Salden, Lisa Duhm, Birte Bredow, DER SPIEGEL: Madeleine McCann case: What is known about the suspect - DER SPIEGEL - Panorama. Retrieved June 7, 2020 .
  47. ^ Madeleine McCann: German prisoner identified as suspect. BBC News, June 4, 2020, accessed June 4, 2020 .
  48. ↑ Madeleine McCann case: Germans under suspicion of murder. In: zdf.de. June 3, 2020, accessed June 3, 2020 .
  49. ↑ Book reviews of Madeleine. Our daughter's disappearance and the long search for her : mirror ; Tagesanzeiger.ch