The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann
Madeleine McCann is a name known across the world for the tragedy that occurred on a family holiday to Portugal. On the 3rd of May 2007, Madeleine was stolen from her family’s hotel room whilst her parents were out for dinner. She has not been found since, although, there have been recent updates in the case.
Kate and Gerry McCann took their three children, Madeleine, aged four, and their younger twins to the Algarve region of Portugal for a family holiday. On the penultimate night, Madeleine and her younger siblings were left in the ground-floor hotel room, whilst their parents met with their friends (now known as the Tapas Seven) for Tapas at the hotel’s restaurant, one hundred and eighty feet away. The McCanns and their friends checked on the children routinely through the evening until Kate discovered that Madeleine was missing at ten o’clock.
The following few weeks whipped up a media frenzy that was compared to the response to Princess Diana’s death. The McCanns were considered suspects by the Portuguese police after misinterpreting some DNA analysis. Eventually, the Portuguese police closed the case in July 2008 due to a lack of evidence. This, however, did not stop the investigation, the McCanns hired private detectives until Scotland Yard opened its own inquiry in 2011.
In June 2020, police in Germany reported that there was a new suspect in the Madeleine McCann case.
The Tanner Sighting
At a quarter past nine on the night of Madeleine’s disappearance, Jane Tanner, one of the Tapas Seven, saw a man carrying a child in his arms, walking away from the direction of the McCanns’ apartment. Tanner reportedly saw a man who was dark-haired, five foot seven, southern-European or Mediterranean appearance, wearing gold or beige trousers and a dark jacket. Tanner said he did not look like a tourist. The child in the man’s arms was wearing light pink, floral pyjamas with cuffs on the legs, similar to Madeleine’s.
On her way back to the restaurant, Tanner saw Gerry McCann talking to another Brit, neither of the men said they saw the man. With how narrow the streets were, the Portuguese police first believed that Tanner had made up the sighting.
Later, the police believed that the man was Robert Murat, a thirty-three-year-old British-Portuguese man who lived nearby and became the case’s first suspect. Ultimately, Murat was cleared due to a lack of evidence.
The Tanner sighting became important as it offered a time frame for the abduction, but Scotland Yard decided it was a red-herring. In 2013, they identified the man as a British holidaymaker who had picked his daughter up from the night creche offered by the resort. His daughter had pyjamas that matched those that Madeleine had been wearing.
The Smith Sighting
The rejection of the Tanner sighting allowed the police to focus on another sighting by Mr and Mrs Smith who were on holiday from Ireland. At around ten o’clock, they saw a man walking away from the McCanns’ apartment and towards the beach. He was seen carrying a fair-haired girl of about three to four years old wearing light pyjamas and had bare feet.
The man was mid-thirties, five foot seven to five foot nine in height, slim to normal build with short brown hair wearing cream or beige trousers. They noted that he looked uncomfortable carrying the child.
In 2013, Scotland Yard publicised the electronic images of the man described by the Smiths.
The McCanns
Kate and Gerry McCann were both practising physicians and Roman Catholics. The two met in 1993 and were married in 1998 and welcomed their first child, Madeleine, in 2003.
Not long into the investigation, the press turned on Kate and Gerry and accused them of being complicit in the kidnapping of Madeleine. The press’ accusations were not entirely unfounded as there were inconsistencies in the McCanns’ story and differences between their stories and those they were at dinner with.
The first of the inconsistencies was that in their police statement, Kate and Gerry claimed they had been checking in on their children through the front door. This later changed to using the patio door that had been kept unlocked for this purpose.
The second discrepancy was over the shutter over Madeleine’s bedroom window. Kate claimed that the shutter was down when they left Madeleine but was open when she realised her daughter was missing. Gerry then said that immediately after, he closed the shutter and realised it could be easily opened from the outside. The Portuguese police, however, reported that the shutter could not be opened from the outside and would make a lot of noise if forced. There was also no evidence of the shutter being forced.
The discrepancies contributed to the view that there was no abduction. Furthering that was Kate’s reaction to realising that Madeleine was missing. Instead of staying with her other children and calling for help either by mobile or shouting, Kate left her children and ran back to the restaurant. Additionally, Kate’s shout of “they’ve taken her!” was viewed with suspicion.
The working theory of the Portuguese police was that Madeleine had died during an accident in the apartment and the McCanns had hidden the body. The Netflix docuseries, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, revealed that one of the police’s theories was that the McCanns had given Madeleine an overdose of Calpol. This theory correlates to the press’ accusations at the time, that the McCanns were sedating their children.
British sniffer dogs were sent to Portugal to help with the case, Keely, a dog trained to sniff out human blood and Eddie, a cadaver dog. The dogs’ response continued to heap suspicion on the McCanns. In the apartment, both Eddie and Keely alerted behind the sofa and Eddie alerted by the wardrobe. Eddie was also alerted by Cuddle Cat, Madeleine’s soft toy. The police also had the dogs search the Renault that the McCanns had hired. Eddie, the cadaver dog, alerted police to something by the driver’s door and then Keely alerted to the boot of the car and the compartment in the driver’s door which contained the ignition key and keyring. The police ran further tests on the key, placing it in a bucket of sand and then placing the key in the bucket of sand onto a different floor of the car park, Keely responded the same each time.
The response of the police dogs promoted the press to report that the McCanns had murdered Madeleine in the apartment and then moved her body.
DNA evidence was found in the back of the Renault. Leicestershire police said that the DNA could be Madeleine’s but was ‘too complex for a meaningful answer’. The Portuguese police, however, released a nine-page report concluding that Madeleine had been murdered in the apartment and that the restaurant meal and check-ups were part of a cover-up.
On October 2nd 2007, Chief Inspector Gonçalo Amaral was removed from his post as the inquiry’s coordinator after telling a newspaper that the British police had only pursued lines of inquiry that were helpful to the McCanns. Amaral was later convicted of perjury in relation to a case of another missing child in the region.
In July 2008, the Portuguese Attorney General announced there was no evidence to link the McCanns to Madeleine’s disappearance and removed them as suspects before closing the case.
Despite being removed as suspects, social media and many others still believe the McCanns were involved in the disappearance of Madeleine. Some believe that if not involved with the disappearance, then the McCanns should be charged with neglect for leaving their children alone.
Christian Brückner
In 2020, the public prosecutor of Braunschweig, Germany, opened an investigation into Christian Brückner, a forty-three-year-old man who had been living in a VW campervan in the Algarve region at the time. At the time, his British girlfriend told the police that Brückner had told her the night before “I have a job to do in Praia da Luz tomorrow. It’s a horrible job but it’s something I have to do and it will change my life. You won’t be seeing me for a while.” The day after Madeleine’s disappearance Brückner’s car was registered to a new owner.
The German prosecutor believes that Madeleine is dead due to Brückner’s history. He had previous convictions for sexual abuse of children and drug trafficking. Brückner had also served a seven-year prison sentence for raping a seventy-two-year-old pensioner in the Algarve.
On the 27th July, 2020 police began searching an allotment in Hanover that belonged to Brückner. They haven’t revealed what they found but hope to bring charges against Brückner in 2022.
