Missing UK Child

[leroy]

Madeleine Mccann was taken from her bed while on holiday in Portugal 6 days ago. She appears to have been abducted and may have been taken out of Portugal. She is 3 years old.

Please download the poster from the URL below and pass to everyone you know. It was created by a member of her family and intended to reach as many people as possible.

http://www1.sky.com/news/Madeleine.pdf

More info

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...264877,00.html

[muffdiver]

Man, that is just horrible.....

[stilleddiesangel]

As you can imagine, this is big news in the UK. The thought is she was abducted by a paedophile ring, possibly to order. The sad belief is that it is highly unlikely she is still alive due to the huge publicity around this in Europe, although everyone is praying she will be returned safely. Her parent and the Portugese police have come under critisism. The Police because it seemed they acted too slowly and the parents because they left the little girl, along with her younger siblings while they went out to dinner (WTF?)

We're all praying she is ok.

[racefan8]

I'm sorry, but leaving the children in a "locked" apartment is neglect. If she was 3, the oldest may have been maybe 9? Someone could have knocked on the door and the children answered it, then left it unlocked for the perp to come back later to take the girl. Or they could have just unlocked it themselves to sneak around for a bit before going back to bed. Kids are kids. Angie is likely right in that the media hype will cause them to kill her rather than sell her. It's horrible that her parents' neglect caused her death.

Makes me think about people who leave their kids in the car and go into a store. Or even to go in and pay for gas. It only takes mere seconds to abduct a child. Why risk it?

[voivod]

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Portuguese police are investigating an area nine miles from where a young British girl was abducted after a tip-off to a newspaper in the Netherlands.


An anonymous letter claiming 4-year-old Madeleine McCann's body is buried under rocks in deserted scrubland was sent to newspaper De Telegraaf and passed on to the Portuguese Policia Judiciaria.

A Dutch police spokesman said: "On Monday De Telegraaf received a letter from an anonymous sender which contained information about where Madeleine McCann may be.

"The letter included a map of the area where the sender claims she is. The newspaper handed the letter over to the police on Tuesday and immediate forensic tests were carried out.

"Today (Wednesday) the police sent the letter and the forensic report over to the Portuguese Police for immediate investigation. The sender is unknown and there has not been any further correspondence from the sender with the newspaper or the police. We take this case very seriously.''

According to De Telegraaf, the letter said Madeleine was buried "north of the road under branches and rocks, around six to seven meters off the road" in a barren and deserted landscape.

A map came with the letter, with crosses marked on it.

Madeleine disappeared on May 3, when her parents left her and her 2-year-old twin siblings in their hotel room while they dined at a restaurant in their hotel complex in Praia da Luz, a resort town in Portugal's Algarve region.

Since then, parents Kate and Gerry McCann have launched an international campaign with the aid of celebrities such as soccer star David Beckham and J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, in the hope of finding the girl. The couple had a brief meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.

[OLO]

Thats so fucked up.

[stilleddiesangel]

We just keep hoping and praying!

[voivod]

Spanish Cops Detain 2 With Possible Links to Madeleine McCann

Spanish police said Thursday they had arrested an Italian man and Portuguese woman who tried to extort money from the parents of Madeleine McCann, offering them information about their missing 4-year-old daughter.

Police said in a statement the two in custody were suspected of trying to swindle the McCanns, who have launched a Europe-wide search for their daughter after she disappeared two months ago during a family vacation in Portugal.

The investigation was still ongoing, however, and the two suspects were being held in Spanish custody, the statement said.

"Police began to investigate them after getting information that they had tried to contact Madeleine's parents to collect a reward," the statement said.

Spanish authorities told Italian diplomats in Spain the man had no connection with the girl's disappearance, according to Italian Foreign Ministry officials who spoke on customary condition of anonymity and declined to elaborate.

The Italian man was arrested on an international warrant — issued from France, where he was wanted for alleged association with a crime group — the statement said. He had served an 18-month sentence in France for child mistreatment, specifically his daughter, it said. A Spanish police spokeswoman had said the warrant itself had nothing to do with the McCann case.

The Portuguese woman was detained due to her association with the Italian man, and there was no warrant for her arrest, the spokeswoman said.

Both the man and woman were arrested Thursday morning in Sotogrande, a town in the southern Spanish province of Cadiz, the spokeswoman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with police rules.

Two Portuguese detectives took part in the arrests, police in Lisbon said.

"We thought they might be involved in the Madeleine case. It is a possibility, but we have found no concrete evidence yet," Portuguese police inspector Olegario Sousa told The Associated Press by telephone, declining to provide further details.

Members of the McCann family in Britain said they were withholding comment until more information was known.

"We have no comment to make, because we know no more than we have seen on the news," said John McCann, brother of Madeleine's father, Gerry.

Madeleine's great uncle, Brian Kennedy, said he did not know any details about the man's detention. "We are trying not to get our hopes up too much because they so frequently get dashed," he told Sky News.

Madeleine disappeared on May 3 after her parents left her and her brother and sister, 2-year-old twins, alone in their room while they went to a restaurant inside their hotel complex in Praia da Luz, a tiny resort town in Portugal's Algarve region.

Police have identified just one suspect in the case, but made no arrests before Thursday.

[voivod]

Police: British girl may be dead

• Portuguese police now considering possibility that Madeleine might be dead

• Special church service held to mark 100 days since 4-year-old disappeared

• Sightings, reported breakthroughs come to nothing or proved to be hoaxes

• British girl went missing from Praia da Luz resort in Portugal, May 3

PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal (AP) -- Police investigating the disappearance of a four-year-old British girl at a Portuguese resort are now considering the possibility that she might be dead, a senior official says.

Investigators say Madeleine McCann vanished May 3 from an apartment where she was sleeping with her two-year-old twin siblings in a tourist complex on Portugal's southern Algarve resort coast while her parents were dining in the hotel's restaurant.

"In the past few days there have been some developments, some clues that have been found that could point to the possible death of the little child," the British Broadcasting Corp. quoted investigator Olegario Sousa as saying during an interview in Portugal Saturday.

"All lines of inquiry are open, but this line has a little more intensity," added Sousa.

Three days after she went missing, a Portuguese police spokesman based in the regional capital Faro said evidence pointed to a possible abduction which could have had "sexual" motives.

However, Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Noticias reported Monday that highly trained sniffer dogs brought from Britain found traces of blood on a wall in the room where the children had been sleeping on the night Madeleine disappeared.

The newspaper report, which did not cite sources, said investigators were analyzing if the blood was Madeleine's. It also said there was evidence someone tried to wipe away specks of blood off a wall.

Police in Britain are reportedly testing samples to determine if it is blood, and the find has fueled speculation that the child could have been harmed or murdered in the room.

Portuguese police and British detectives returned last week to search the home of 33-year-old Briton Robert Murat, the only named suspect in the disappearance.

Using rakes and hedge cutters, police cleared vegetation from the grounds of the house where Murat lives, which is about 100 yards from where Madeleine was last seen.

A hundred days after girl's disappearance, her parents joined a church congregation in prayers for her safe return in this seaside resort on Saturday.

Dozens of journalists and curious tourists crowded the approaches to the town's small church as the McCann family arrived for the service, one of several events planned to mark 100 days of the British girl's disappearance.

[smithjc]

I read about this right after it happened and it's just heartbreaking.

[voivod]

Report: Portugese Police to Name Parents as Suspects in Madeleine McCann Disappearance

Friday, September 07, 2007

VIANA DO CASTELO, Portugal — The parents of a British girl who disappeared four months ago are to be named formal suspects in the case Friday, a family spokesman and a family friend said, a shocking twist to a case that has drawn international attention.

Kate McCann arrived at a police station in Portugal for a second day of questioning Friday, and family spokesman David Hughes told The Associated Press she would be formally named as a suspect.

"They told her last night that it would happen today. That's definite," he said.

Madeleine's father, Gerry McCann, also was expected to meet with police later in the afternoon and a friend of the family, Clarence Mitchell, told the AP that he too would be named as a formal suspect.

The couple has maintained their innocence throughout.

Hughes, the family spokesman, said the police have 22 questions that they want to ask Kate McCann, which require her to be made a formal suspect. Under Portuguese law, the legal move grants certain protections to the suspect, but allows police more latitude in questioning.

Kate McCann and her husband, Gerry, have spearheaded an intense media campaign since Madeleine went missing from a holiday apartment in the Algarve region where she was sleeping with her 2-year-old twin siblings.

The parents were having dinner in the hotel's pool-side restaurant with friends and said they checked on their children at regular intervals.

The McCanns toured Europe with photos and stuffed animals of Madeleine, even meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. Celebrities such as J.K. Rowling and David Beckham made public appeals that helped the family raise more than $2 million.

The intense publicity has helped lead to numerous reported sightings of the girl, from as far away as northern Europe and Morocco.

[voivod]

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!



Report: Mom of Missing Madeleine McCann Believes She's Being Persecuted Because of Her Looks

LIVERPOOL, England — The mother of missing British 4-year-old Madeleine McCann believes she's being persecuted because of her looks, and thinks that if she "had a bigger bosom and looked more maternal, people would be more sympathetic," a London newspaper reported Tuesday.

The parents of Kate McCann, in a remarkable interview in the Liverpool Daily Post, said their daughter "feels persecuted, not by the general public who have been extremely supportive, but by some sections of the media."

"Kate is a very sensitive, caring person and one of the most maternal people I know -- she puts me to shame," Madeleine's grandmother, Susan Healy, told the newspaper.

Madeleine was 3 when she disappeared May 3 from her parents' hotel room in the resort city of Algarve, Portugal, while the couple dined at a nearby restaurant. The investigation initially focused on a possible kidnapping, with numerous reported sightings throughout Europe, none of which turned up positive.

Portuguese police early last month turned their investigation toward the couple, naming both Kate McCann and her husband Gerry as official suspects. Without sufficient evidence to charge or hold them, the couple was allowed to return to England.

[chefcraig]

Have I got this correct? This woman man have had a hand in her daughter's murder, and she's concerned that folk will fail to have sympathy for her because she's as flat as an ironing board?

[graeme]

This whole thing is a mess. Did the parent's have a hand? no idea, but something is not right in the whole handling of this affair.

Then again, maybe some things are just a mystery.

A missing girl is a sad affair but the press has gone way overboard on this one.

Perhaps because the poor little thing is so pretty. Plenty of ugly kids go missing every year yet the Brit press has gone apeshit on this one. Another symptom of a tv age I guess.

This in now way relegates the fact that this fucking sucks you understand?

I hope to god they find her well, fat chance, or find the people that are responsible. After so long, I think any kidnapper with even half a brain has ditched her long ago.

This life sucks.

Kiss your kids and tell them how much they mean to you tonight folks.

[voivod]

Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are looking into a possible sighting of the girl with a suspect’s girlfriend, the London Daily Mail reported Monday.

A witness believes he saw the girl with a man and a woman in Portugal two days after she vanished and had identified the woman as Michaela Walczuch, the German-born girlfriend of suspect Robert Murat, the Mail reported.

The witness, who has not been identified, told police that the couple was behaving suspiciously, and looked as if they were trying to hide the child, the Mail reported.

The report follows certainty by an investigator hired by the McCann family that Madeleine is alive and that he is close to finding her.

Madeleine disappeared from her family’s vacation home in Praia da Luz, Portugal on May 3 while her parents were dining with friends close by. Her parents have been on-again, off-again suspects in Madeleine's disappearance.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...e_id=1770&ct=5