Portuguese police say they believe Madeleine was abducted but is still alive and in Portugal. On 26 May , police issue a description of a man seen on the night of Madeleine's disappearance, possibly carrying a child. In June , a Portuguese police chief admits vital forensic clues may have been destroyed as the scene was not protected properly. In July , British police send sniffer dogs to assist the investigation, and inspections of the McCann's apartment and rental car are conducted.
By August it is days since Madeleine disappeared. Investigating officers publicly acknowledge she may not be found alive. Prosecutors later say there is no new evidence to justify re-questioning them. Gerry McCann releases a video in November saying he believes his family was watched by "a predator" in the days before his daughter's disappearance.
On 20 January the McCanns release sketches of a suspect, based on a description by a British holidaymaker of a "creepy man" seen at the resort. In April, Portuguese police fly to the UK to sit in on interviews conducted by Leicestershire Police of the McCanns' friends they had dinner with on the night Madeleine disappeared. On 3 May , one year since the disappearance, Mrs McCann urges people to "pray like mad" for her little girl.
By July Portuguese police say they have submitted their final report on the case. Weeks later, authorities shelve their investigation and lift the "arguido" status of the McCanns.
On 3 November , new images of how Madeleine might now look are released. In March , the McCanns criticise the release of previously unseen Portuguese police files - detailing possible sightings of Madeleine - to British newspapers. A month later, in April, Gerry McCann says it is "incredibly frustrating" that police in Portugal and the UK had not been actively looking for his daughter "for a very long time".
In November , the couple sign a publishing deal to write a book about Madeleine's disappearance. The McCanns' book, Madeleine, is released in May.
A two-year review follows. A computer-generated image of what Madeleine might look like aged nine is released, a day before Portuguese authorities say they are not reopening their investigation. However, Wolters said the suspect will not be freed from custody as there is a case pending against him over the rape of an elderly woman in Portugal. A court in Brunswick had sentenced Christian B.
During the trial for that case, two witnesses said they had found a gun, video cameras and several tapes at Christian B. One of them later watched some of the footage and saw a man raping an elderly woman tied to a bed, the report said. He made a living doing odd jobs in the area where Madeleine was taken, and also burgled hotel rooms and holiday flats. Police believe he was living in a white Westfalia camper van with yellow skirting at the time of the kidnapping and they are keen for witnesses who remember seeing the vehicle back then to come forward.
Christian B. In Germany, prosecutors are combing through the files to see if the suspect had anything to do with the disappearance of a five-year-old girl named Inga from the town of Schoenebeck in Saxony-Anhalt in So, it provided me with a little bit of comfort, something of Madeleine's close to me.
Days passed and the McCanns grew frustrated as the Portuguese police conducted their investigation and shared very little. Jane Hill: Portuguese police are not allowed to reveal any details of an ongoing investigation, not just to people like me, to the family involved.
You get rumor, gossip, and speculation … there was no proof of anything, that's the trouble …. Jane Hill : There were … rumors circulated, all the time. I can't tell you what a rumor mill it was. A week after Madeleine's disappearance, suspicion fell on a man who lived just down the street from where Madeleine had vanished.
And he spoke Portuguese, and … engaged with a number of reporters and others in proximity to the investigation and offered himself up to provide help by way of translation or advice. Police quickly named Murat a suspect. Witnesses say Murat showed up at the Ocean Club after Madeleine disappeared, and claimed he was acting suspiciously. Murat's mother said that wasn't possible. Then, the public began to turn on the McCanns for leaving their daughter alone.
Jane Hill : There were … people saying that. Why would you not keep an eye on your child? I wouldn't be able to leave three children, in that situation.
Portuguese investigators also began eyeing the McCanns. Three months after Madeleine vanished, specially trained sniffer dogs were flown in to scour the family's vacation rental. Traces of blood were detected inside the apartment and in the trunk of the McCann's rental car. Partial samples of the blood were recovered and sent to a British lab for DNA testing, but the results indicated that the blood found in the apartment did not belong to Madeleine and the results from the DNA in the rental car were inconclusive.
Jim Gamble : Well I've seen the letter from the forensic science lab. It was not a complete DNA sample. Jim Gamble : The car wasn't actually retained by the McCann's until weeks after Madeleine had gone missing.
It just doesn't add up. The forensics don't add up. And yet, four months after Madeleine vanished, Portuguese police declared the McCanns "arguidos"— suspects in their own daughter's disappearance. Peter Van Sant : The enormous media coverage in this, do you believe in some ways that pressured Portuguese authorities to say, we have our real suspects? It is Kate and it is Gerry. Jim Gamble : Well, I can't speak to that. But in my opinion, do I think that that type of pressure would focus the attention of a senior investigating officer?
Of course. Jim Gamble : The McCanns should have been suspects day one, minute one, hour one. And I don't believe for one second the McCanns committed this crime. But what I'm saying is … Your attention should be, first of all, to look at the parents and actually to rule them in or rule them out - not to wait until your months down the line where you have exhausted all of your other ideas, and to then say, "Well, actually, it must be the parents.
Surprisingly, almost immediately after being declared suspects, the McCanns were allowed to fly to the U. Kate McCann told her family that Portuguese investigators had pressured her to sign a confession, in which she was to admit that Madeleine had died accidentally, and that Madeleine's disappearance had been staged.
Kate refused. Jane Hill : I'm sure there were people in the U. And that was reflected particularly in the British tabloid press.
Jim Gamble : And what happened … is, the war of the tabloids began to take place. The onslaught of wild accusations continued for months, effectively portraying the McCanns as killers. Jim Gamble : And then you get the armchair detectives. It wasn't until the following summer, in July , that Portuguese investigators cleared the McCanns. By then, Gerry and Kate had spent nearly a year under a cloud of suspicion. KATE MCCANN [ interview]: It's hard to describe how utterly despairing it was to be named arguido and subsequently portrayed in the media as suspects in our own daughter's abduction.
The police also cleared Robert Murat. But what had happened to little Madeleine? The McCanns remained singularly focused on finding out. More than two years had passed since Madeleine McCann's mysterious disappearance, and Portuguese investigators were no closer to knowing what happened to her.
As head of the U. Jim Gamble : A video … that said … "It's never too late to do the right thing. Peter Van Sant : I understand that the video was in seven different languages, is that right? Peter Van Sant : Give me a sense of the number of sightings … that were pouring in from all over the world during these years. But things were about to heat up. In , Gamble was asked by the British government to officially review the case.
Peter Van Sant : When Portuguese police began this investigation, you believe they made some fundamental errors. Jim Gamble : I — I do think they … made some critical errors. Gamble says Portuguese investigators failed to take a close look at everyone staying near the Ocean Club at the time.
Jim Gamble : It was clear that the, you know, searches … were ad hoc. The fact is that all of the details of all of the people who'd stayed in that apartment block … or been in proximity at the time, hadn't been captured. Gamble also found that cellphone data around the Ocean Club the day Madeleine went missing hadn't been properly analyzed.
Jim Gamble : The telephone companies captured all of that information in Yet … there was absolutely no evidence that any of that cell site data had been … investigated. In June , Gamble finished his case review and submitted recommendations to the British government. But for almost a yea r nothing happened. Jim Gamble : Gerry McCann wrote an open letter on the front page of a popular tabloid … to the prime minister. Operation Grange became one of the largest and most expensive investigations in British history.
The full weight of Scotland Yard was now brought in to assist the Portuguese investigation. Jane Hill : There was a sense in the U. Let's go through witness statements. Let's see whether we can make fresh appeals for information and really revitalize this. That meant taking another look at every possible scenario of what might have happened that night. Jim Gamble : Could this be that the child simply walked away? Could it be a burglary that's gone wrong?
Jim Gamble : Could someone have broken into the room and might they have been disturbed by Madeleine … and could they have responded, you know, out of fear — out of anger and nervousness … and taken her away? There was one dark scenario that weighed most heavily; the possibility that Madeleine had been kidnapped by a sex offender.
Operation Grange solved one early mystery: the identity of the man seen in a police sketch, whom that family friend had reported seeing. Scotland Yard determined it was just a man on vacation with his child. Jim Gamble : I have on many occasions looked at images of children who have been found.
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