Remember the missing little girl...

[slipknotpsycho]

couple months ago that was all over the news, she was said to have been kidnappped on their vacation?


Missing girl's mother named suspect - Yahoo! News

By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press Writer
51 minutes ago



PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal - In a shocking twist, the mother of a 4-year-old British girl missing since May was named a suspect and called in for questioning Friday by police along with the child's father, after traces of blood were found in their rental car.

The girl's aunt said police suggested Madeleine McCann might have been killed accidentally and offered the mother a plea deal if she confessed.

Kate McCann was questioned for more than four hours in a second straight day of interrogation into the disappearance of Madeleine in southern Portugal.

Her husband, Gerry McCann, followed her into the police station in the southern Portuguese town of Portimao for a separate round of questioning. Friends and relatives said the mother told them she had been named a formal suspect and was offered a deal if she confessed, and that Gerry McCann was told he would likely also be named a suspect.

"They tried to get her to confess to having accidentally killed Madeleine by offering her a deal through her lawyer â?? 'If you say you killed Madeleine by accident and then hid her and disposed of the body, then we can guarantee you a two-year jail sentence or even less,'" Gerry McCann's sister, Philomena, told ITV news.

A police spokesman, Olegario Sousa, confirmed to The Associated Press that police had named a new suspect, but would not say it was Mrs. McCann. He cited privacy laws in declining to comment further.

The couple strenuously professed their innocence Friday.

The day's developments marked a dramatic turn in a case that has pulled at the world's heartstrings for months, ever since Mrs. McCann ran screaming from a hotel room saying her daughter had disappeared. The McCanns, both doctors from central England, said they were dining at the time in a hotel restaurant, but returned frequently to check on Madeleine and her twin 2-year-old siblings.

Since then, the McCanns have toured Europe with photos of Madeleine and the child's stuffed animals and clothing, even meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Celebrities including J.K. Rowling and David Beckham made public appeals that helped the family raise more than $2 million.

The money, controlled by an independent auditor, is meant for charities that aid in missing children cases.

Until Friday, suspicion had focused on a British man who lived near the hotel from which Madeleine disappeared and who was the only formal suspect. But police said new forensic tests done on evidence gathered months after the girl vanished found traces of blood in the couple's car, according to Justine McGuinness, a spokeswoman for the family.

The new evidence â?? including the traces of blood missed in earlier forensic tests â?? was uncovered by sniffer dogs brought from Britain.

McGuinness said the police allegations against Mrs. McCann didn't add up, since the rental car had not been acquired until 25 days after Madeleine's May 3 disappearance. Gerry McCann called the allegations against his wife "ludicrous."

"We will fight this all the way, and we will not stop looking for Madeleine," he wrote on the couple's Web site on Friday.

Even as public opinion reeled from the new allegations, there was fresh criticism of police for taking so long to build their case.

John Corner, a McCann family friend, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the listing of Mrs. McCann as a suspect gave him "an uncomfortable feeling that the police are not looking outward" for Madeleine's abductor.

But Sonya Sceats, an international law analyst at London's Chatham House think tank, said police were allowing the evidence to lead their investigation.

"It's all turned on the DNA evidence. It only became available very recently, and they are moving in response to that," Sceats said by phone.

Under Portuguese law, formal suspects gain certain legal protections, but police also have more latitude to question them. Police also have to show suspects any evidence against them.

Clarence Mitchell, a family friend and former spokesman for the McCanns, said Friday after speaking with Mrs. McCann that she found the police questioning â?? which included an 11-hour session Thursday â?? "grueling."

"It's very intense, but she's remaining strong and determined to prove that they had nothing to do with their daughter's disappearance and they are innocent victims of the crime," he told the AP.

Asked about a plead deal, Mitchell said: "It is my understanding that during the police interview with Kate McCann, senior police officers told her lawyer that that if she were to confess to killing Madeleine accidentally it would help her case when she came before the judges for sentencing and that they would probably consider a relatively short sentence of three to four years â?? in other words, a plea bargain."

The McCanns' cause, and the couple's apparent strength in the face of adversity, has hit a nerve among millions, who have followed their lives as they cared for their two other children and went to church in Praia da Luz, the seaside town where Madeleine disappeared, and where they have stayed ever since. Photographs of the bright-eyed, fair-haired girl have been posted throughout the world.

The publicity has helped lead to numerous reported sightings of the girl, from as far away as northern Europe and Morocco, amid speculation she might have been taken by an international pedophile ring.

Just after Mrs. McCann entered the police station Thursday, another family representative read out a statement from her appealing to what she called Madeleine's abductors to "do the right thing."

"It is not too late. Please let her go or call the police," she said.

The only formal suspect until now has been Robert Murat, who lives with his mother near the hotel from which the girl disappeared. He has always maintained his innocence. Sousa said Murat's status as a suspect had not changed.

slipknotpsycho Reviewed by slipknotpsycho on 09-07-2007. Remember the missing little girl... couple months ago that was all over the news, she was said to have been kidnappped on their vacation? Missing girl's mother named suspect - Yahoo! News Rating: 5

[Bogart]

It's too bad this has happened. They blame things on other people and then the evidence doesn't add up, like the story in the US several years a go when a mother blamed a black man for stealing her care with her two children in the back seat knowing damn well she drowned the kids herself.

[slipknotpsycho]

It's too bad this has happened. They blame things on other people and then the evidence doesn't add up, like the story in the US several years a go when a mother blamed a black man for stealing her care with her two children in the back seat knowing damn well she drowned the kids herself.

i remember that actually....

[Weedhound]

I've been following this case fairly closely slip.....true crime is a hobby of mine. While it IS extremely common for parents to kill their children I really REALLY don't think that's what happened here. I think the cops are just desperate at this point. The evidence completely fits a stranger kidnapping (and murder...that child is dead and has been since day 1) it really does not fit the parent/child murder scenarios that I've read about.

Call me Detective Weedhound.....:S2:

[Weedhound]

Susan Smith.....lovely woman......who drowned her two kids and blamed a non-existent black "carjacker". Things like this are eventually found out imo.....the evidence just doesn't fit the story.

Det WH.... God I'm gonna have some fun w/that one..

[snowblind]

this case is saddening. i was where it happened 2 summers ago. its a really beautiful place. i dont think they killed her becuase they have 2 other children aswell. though it is strange that the others werent touvhed. although madeline was the smallest so argubly the easiest to manhandle.
the parents had reported they thought they had been followed all week, so to leave the children on their own was highly stupid, something they must feel a great sense of regret about. there was also a free childcare service within the resort they where stayin at. its so sad.
the police in portugal are about 15-20 years behind that of the uk and america so they have handled it extremely poorly. they left it 6 weeks before searching their only leads house. more than enough time for him to murder several children and hid the evidence.
it is a very tragic case, but with the amount of time that has passed their is really no hope that she will be found, even if she is alive and god forbin has been takin in to the slave/sex indusrty. i would wish her death rather than that.

peace

snow

[Bogart]

Det WH.... God I'm gonna have some fun w/that one.. [/QUOTE]

Go for it Det WH

[slipknotpsycho]

I've been following this case fairly closely slip.....true crime is a hobby of mine. While it IS extremely common for parents to kill their children I really REALLY don't think that's what happened here. I think the cops are just desperate at this point. The evidence completely fits a stranger kidnapping (and murder...that child is dead and has been since day 1) it really does not fit the parent/child murder scenarios that I've read about.

Call me Detective Weedhound.....:S2:

oh i never said i believed it or anything... i just posted it cuz i knew a few here who were following the story, and since it just hit the news about an hour before i posted it, i figured i'd go ahead and get the jump on it...

i haven't been really following the story, i know of it, and i know minimal details but that's about it.

[Weedhound]

Well and of course you have to check everything out in something like that.....may not have happened here but it certainly does happen.

Bogart....check your reps you devil.

[Weedywildwoman]

I just hope she is found alive. I know the chances are not great that she will be found alive. There have been a few cases that have had children found alive...Elizabeth Smart, Dana Pervia (sic), Steven Stayner, Shawn Hornbeck, Natascha Kampusch, Ben Owingsby, Timothy White, Shasta Groene, and others. Unfortunately, they had fallen prey to the filth of our society, but they are alive.

As for the parents having killed her, even accidentally, I think it is the police wanting to wrap up a case that has caused them embarrassment over the mass publicity it has gotten and the light that has shown their inadequacies in not moving quickly enough in the beginning. The parents made a mistake in leaving the children alone, but they don't deserve what has happened to them and Maddie.