On the evening of May third, two thousand and seven, the sleepy resort town of Preya Dalous in Portugal was thrown into chaos. A three year old girl had vanished from her family's holiday apartment while her parents dined at a nearby restaurant. The little girl was Madeline McCann, and what followed was an unprecedented international search effort that capitalized the world and turned the McCanns into household names.
I'm Nicole, I'm Ben, and this is Wicked and Grim, a.
True crime podcast.
Good Morning. The following podcast cemetery mature audience.
Listener dis question is that the double you wouldn't even tell who was who?
You wouldn't. You did a good job. You nailed that way.
I've been practicing.
I mean, that's not something to flex on. Usually that generally just means you're an alcoholic.
I'm just kidding. I haven't.
Yes, you have been, don't lie.
I guess Okay, cheers, cheers. This is the last time we're going to talk about Ben being done, because Ben's done.
I'm done. It's it. I quit my nine to five with the help of all you amazing, awesome people out there. I am pursuing owning my own company and Wicked and Graham and podcasting is a piece of that.
Yeah, okay, what did we What did we keep saying to each other? Because I think it was from a we can't remember what movie it was, but it's basically in there. I think they're on a date and got one person's like, I'm an entrepreneur, and then the chick's like, so you're unemployed? Yeah, or you're not unemployed?
Yeah, she's She's like, so you're unemployed and he's like, no, I'm an entrepreneur and she's like, so you're unemployed. I can't remember what that's from, but yeah, I feel like.
Justin Timberlake is in that scene. I'm pretty sure unless I really am making shure.
Oh shit, that that was the Facebook movie. What's it fucking called?
I can't remember. We actually just watched it recently.
We did you guys know what movie we're talking about? Justin Timberlake And oh, I forget his name too, he plays the Facebook dude names right now. Anyways, it's the one about Facebook and how it all got started and everything.
Ben is like really really tired, So it's probably good that I'm presenting this case today.
Probably my sleep schedules are all over the place. It hasn't been normal last few days. I'm exhausted.
But you hit this for the first time in months. Yes, am I allowed to make fun.
Of you of that, go for it. I'm super sore, so yeah.
But you're back at it. That's all that matters.
Yes, and yeah, it's it's exciting. What's going to be coming down the pipe? This week marks the official start of it all sure, done, done done, because it's probably needing that dramatic effect music.
This alcoholic beverage that I'm drinking currently is fucking amazing. It's actually distracting me every time I take a sip.
The way you held your can up and said this alcoholic beverage, it just pictured me seeing you in a stand being like, I love this alcoholic beverage. Go generic sports team like you know, it's just like so non descript, Oh.
My gosh, with no it's a vodka soda verb. I think it's called I've never had this wild strawberry.
Lemon fantastic, Like holy shit, huh, So you're gonna be buying those more often, that's what you're saying.
I think so, and I'm kind of disappointed now that I'm presenting, because I don't know if I'll be able to drink this whole thing while it's cold.
She got to get you a straw so you can just like have it sit in your mouth as you're reading and slowly sip away. Could you imagine just an ivy maybe just hook it into your veins?
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah, should do it.
So we have some patrons to think we do again. We have quite a few this week, thank you, We do freaking much.
And they're going to be subject to some awesome stuff coming out on Patreon. Well starting the day you're listening to this podcast, because it's about to get revamped reworked with me going full time.
So we actually already have something new we're putting out today.
We do, which is kind of cool. Yeah, you gotta have to go check it out though if you want to know what it.
Is, well, we'll talk about it a bit at the end too.
Oh we will, Okay, Okay, we'll do that then. For now, though, we got to thank the people that signed up this past week. So we have James Bamsey, Crystal Harvey, Courtney Garner, Jessica Maury Tricia Leech s Alexia, I'm gonna probably say her last name wrong, even though she gave us a description on how to say it right. Vlenzuelia, I know I said that wrong. The Lenuelia, the Lenzuela. I'm butchering this. I'm doing so bad. I'm sorry, Alexia. And then also, Lindy V.
You gave it your best effort. That's all that.
Anyways, hold on, my eyes are like tired and I can't even.
See my lasses too. I just gotta throw that out there.
I think I do. Alexia, the Lenzuelia. Okay, a Lenzuela, Alexia Belenzuela. There we go. I think I nailed it on the.
Last one day. I think, well, you can let us know.
I even try to get Google to help me out, and it was just actually it wasn't making a.
Difference, much to everybody's disbelief. We do use Google.
The only difference between us and the other pronounce or whatever you want to call it, Yeah, the whole like Texas Beech thing, the difference between us and other podcasts is we just don't it out and we just own it.
And maybe we should sometimes or also I think a lot of podcasts I've been listening to, well, I don't actually listen to a shit podcast, but they then tell me make it and like I'll be listening and I'm like, that's freaking wrongs. But they pronounce it so well and they don't like overthink it that it's just like boom, yeah.
Yeah, they just pretend that they're saying it right.
Yeah.
Well, when it especially comes to patrons, I am not going to sit here and pretend I know how to say their name correctly, you know, so I will apologize, But that is butcher.
That was a cool name, So there you go. I feel like if you have a hard pronounced name, maybe it's a cool name. Maybe maybe that's our names are not hard to pronounce.
Ben and Nicole. That's about as standard and white as you get.
Heay. But the amount of times, okay, we're going to start here in one second. The amount of time though, I get asked, how do you spell your first and last name? Mostly the last, like people that actually don't know how to.
Spell it well, because with Gibson there could be two bees.
I guess, and like Nicole, sometimes they're gonna be an h yeah. But but sometimes they generally, I think, don't know. Do you ever get asked how to sell ben? Actually yes, but they're thinking it's Benjamin Benjamin.
Yes, yeah, there's some stories about that that I'm not going to dive into. But yeah, some people can fuck off. I know my own name, tell me that. That's just as far as I'll go.
Oh yeah, sure, it's ben Yeah, yeah, Okay, So let's dive into this case here today we're talking about Madeline McCann.
I just shivered before you said the name, not after.
Okay, this case, this case, actually, I mean a lot of case are very interesting, with this one I find very interesting and just like I don't know, this one heart strings. Yeah. So Madeline McCann is a name we've heard a lot about, right, especially recently with the recent controversy, But we'll get around to that closer to the end. There's been a lot of coverage on this case and a lot of opinions, but we're going to try our
very best to stick to the facts. So Madeline Beth McCann was born on May twelfth, two thousand and three, in Leicester, England, her parents Gerald or Jerry. I'm going to refer to him as Jerry Enough and Kate McCann were both doctors, and shortly after they had Madeline, they had a set of twins as well. In May two thousand and seven, Jerry and Kate were going on a holiday to Portugal with their three children, but they weren't just going as a family. They were actually going with
nine adults and eight children. Like, that's a gang and a half.
It's a whole gaggle of people.
Yeah, so they're all going to Praya Dalouz to spend some time together. The adults all knew each other in some way, with a lot of them being doctors like the McCanns. They would later be dubbed to the media as the Tapis seven because they dined together in the resorts Tapis restaurant most evenings, being that all were vacation
in the same apartment complex. This meant that the adults could all pitch in to help look after each other's children, and they can make use of the hotel's daycare center and nightcare as well.
Oh that's handy.
That is handy, isn't it.
I do have to say though, being known as like the Tapis seven, that's interesting. Like, I'm sure there was a phase in my life where if I got murdered or something and they come to my house, I'd be known as like the Domino's box guy because of the stack of Domino's pizzas, like in the garage and stuff.
Now we saw a good Yeah, there was when we lived on at the other house because you could get delivery. We can't get delivery where we are now.
And when we collected the little tabs off the boxes, you got like free pizza. So often you were.
Pissed when they took that away. It was because of COVID. COVID ruined a lot of things. Yeah, So the McCanns had apartment five A, which was one of the two grand floor apartments in that particular building, and another of the families from their group had the other. But the McCann's apartment was a little bit different. Therefore, the their front door opened up onto the street outside the hotel complex, and their balcony could be accessed by climbing up some steps.
The patio door around the back of the apartment opened up onto the hotel's pooled, the tennis courts and the restaurant in the bar. So they were like, you know, I feel like almost the place you could just get everywhere from, no kidding.
It was a very centralized location by the sound of it. Yeah, and I mean you have like I mean, it's good to have access and egress on your balcony for fire hazards situations. Oh safety over there, not anymore, just saying, but I mean that that is always a plus. However, you got to make sure you are locking that.
As yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. So this was the only way into the apartment that could be seen from the inside of the hotel complex. Okay, the patio door. Sorry, we kind of chatted in between there, so that piece of information is important that you could see that the paddy door faced kind of the resort.
Okay, and then from the resort you could see into their apartment through the patio doors.
Well kind of. The adults kind of claimed that, I think, so okay. Because the adults of the group put the children to bed around seven pm every night, they then would go to the Tapis restaurant at eight thirty. They specifically asked for a certain table every night so that they could see the apartments from the restaurant, but the children were left alone when the adults went for dinner.
Okay, how old were the kids? Sorry? Do we get there? You that here? Sorry, I am I getting ahead of my They're.
Pretty young actually, well because Madeline is three, like almost four. Yeah, and the boys, the twins are younger.
Oh yeah, that's that's that's pretty sketchy to be leaving alone, even if you could just see the windows of your apart apartment. That's kind of not.
Okay, so we're touching on the first controversial point in the case. The restaurant that the group ate at every night was about fifty five meters away from the apartments, but only if you could walk in a single straight line. To actually get to the restaurant from five A, you had to go out onto the main street and go down the street, meaning that you had to walk close
to one hundred meters to get there. And the group could actually only see the top of the apartment buildings, not the patio door, and definitely not the front door from where they were sitting. But they had their own way of making sure the children were all right. This is what their way was. Okay, About every half an hour, one of the parents from each family would go and check on the children.
Okay, all right.
So every half an hour they one of the sets of parents would leave the restaurant and go check on their kids.
Okay, I mean that's not perfect, but that's not bad. I'm going to make the devil's advocate argument here of say, the kids having an afternoon nap and parents who are like I would never leave my kid at home alone. Sure, you're right, but your kids having an afternoon nap, you might be out in the backyard gardening, might not be in the house to hear pop in the house every half an hour or so. I don't see a whole lot of a difference, really. I mean, there is a little bit of a difference, but not.
A it's a little bit more of a journey.
It is, but there because what I see is if they're sitting in a restaurant, they can't They might be able to see the windows of flights go on or something like that. Typically you'd think, but if you're going into the building, that's when you'd hear crying, for example, you couldn't hear that from the restaurant.
No, absolutely not.
You probably wouldn't be able to hear crying. Say, if you're in the backyard gardening or something like that too. I mean, chances are you might, but not always. There's situations where it might be similar to you might as well be across the street in a restaurant.
Yeah.
So I'm not saying that what they're doing is good, but I'm saying that at least they have a solid plan on how to take care of it and make it a better situation.
Yeah, they're making somewhat an effort, Yes, but I think I don't know nowadays, I'm just thinking that you couldn't do that. No, no, right, I mean, but this isn't that long ago. This was in like two thousand and seven.
No, well, I'm not saying they should do that. I'm saying, one hundred percent they should not be doing this. Yeah, however, it's not like they're that far off from what people do in a regular basis anyways. Yeah, is what I'm saying.
I mean, what they could have just done is one night, maybe the guys go out for dinner and the next night the girls go out for dinner or something. Right, just switch it up exactly, Or they put all the kids in one room and like one person just has.
To stay or bear with me here, this is a stretch. I know they get a babysitter.
Well, yeah, because the place did apparently have a care center exactly, so I don't know. Okay, So about every half an hour, one of the parents from each family would go check on the kids, So meaning that on May or two thousand and seven, the first check happened at about nine pm from the McCanns. Gary or Jerry, Where did Gary come from? Jerry went first, Good old Gary. They had decided, you're not gonna like this part here. They had decided to use the patio door to get
to the restaurant that night. Aw that was because the children slept in the room closest to the front door, which the mccans kept locked, and they were afraid that going in and out that way would wake up the children. But that also meant that the patio door that opened up to the living room had to stay unlocked, because it only locked from the inside of the apartment.
Yeah, you don't do that.
Yeah, that kind of just makes me shiver a little. No.
Rule number one of any sort of horror movie always says that you lock your patio door when you are anywhere, Lock your doors, lock your doors, hid your kids hi'd your wife lock your doors? Right?
So Jerry went into the apartment and went to the door to the children's bedroom. The twin twins were in travel cots in the middle of the room, and Madeline was in a bed close to the bedroom door and opposite the only window in the room. The window faced the main street, not the hotel complex, but the metal shutter was down and the only way to open it
was from the inside. The children were asleep. Madeline was wrapped in bed with her comfort blanket, her toy called Cuddlecat, and was wearing a pair of white and pink pajamas. I hate the descriptions of that kind of shit. I almost not everyone to put them in.
That's because I know why those ties there too. Yeah.
The only thing that really stood out to Jerry that particular trip to check on the children was that he remembered mostly closing but not fully closing the door to the bedroom, and now it was actually completely open. He did this same thing again, though mostly closed the door to the bedroom, but nothing seemed out of the place. There was also a children's gate between the bedroom and the rest of the apartment and that was still closed, so Jerry let things be and went back to the restaurant.
One of the adults of the group, a woman named Jane Tanner, had also gone up to check on her children at the same time. She remembers seeing how I want to see Gary every time. Now this is gonna fuck with me. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.
She remembers, just don't say it in the mirror three times, otherwise they'll show up.
She remembers seeing Jerry outside five eighth talking to another British person on holiday, but she also remembers seeing someone else. At around nine fifteen, Jane spotted a man carrying a young child and heading east away from the building. The man looked to be in his mid thirties to early forties, with dark hair and dark eyes. Jane said that he
looked like he was either Southern European or Mediterranean. Only about an hour later, this sighting would become hugely important because the child he'd been caring had been wearing similar pajamas as Madeline. Around nine thirty, when it came time to do the next rounds of checks, it was Kate's turn. She got up, but the father from the family next door in five b Matthew Oldfield offered to check in on the McCann's children while he was checking in on
his own. Kate sat down and Matthew went to the park to the apartment instead. He first checked on his own children and then went into five A. There he found the door to the children's bedroom again wide open, but he didn't go in. He had a quick look into the room, but he couldn't hear anything. It sounded like the children were still fast asleep, so he turned around and left. That put the next check at ten pm, and this time Kate did go herself to check on them.
Kate left the restaurant and entered the apartment through the unlocked patio door. The first thing she noticed was at the door to the children's room was wide open, and when she went to close it, the door actually slammed in her face. She opened it again, realizing that it actually closed because of a draft. The shutter on the window inside the room was up and the window was open, and Madeline was not in her bed.
That is a moment where any parent their heart would absolutely sink. Oh my gosh, yeah, holy shit, what I just I mean, I'm pretty sure that it's not the case, but I'm going to just talk about this anyways, the sighting of the individual carrying the child away in the similar pajamas. What if it was literally just some dude and his kid was just also wearing these like pink pajamas. He's carrying his kid somewhere.
It was it was I'm going to say that later, but.
I was, oh, really, yeah, okay, yeah, it.
Was literally someone picking up their kid from that care center and going back.
Hashtag called it so.
Yeah.
I had a feeling we were going to get onto this, and it was like, no, it was actually the dude. That's where I thought you were going to be going. But I was like, what if it's just some fucking dude and.
His some random Yeah, some random dude also on holiday picking up his child and going home.
I mean, how many little girls have like pink and white pajamas?
A lot? I would assume.
Yeah, so I would assume any father carrying his kid to and from a daycare or to the apartment or whatever, their kid falls asleep on the road trip or in his arms or whatever, it's just because it was late.
I have pink and white pajamas, for God's sakes.
Yeah you do.
So there you go.
So it was just a dad carrying their kid. Yeah, but that's not to say that, uh, Madeline's still not missing.
So both of the twins were still fast asleep, that Madeline wasn't anywhere in the apartment, and Kate went straight into panic mode. She briefly searched the apartment and then ran back towards the restaurant, screaming, Madeline's gone. Someone has taken her. Both the group that the mccans were traveling or both. Oh yeah, I did say that, right, the group that the mccans were traveling with and the hotel staff sprang into action.
The hotel staff too, Hey.
Oh yeah, they had like a protocol thing.
Oh that's good. That's awesome, it's really good. Procedures are important.
Oh wow.
See coming from the safety professional background, procedures they are. They are very important. Yeah, they are.
I mean, I'm assuming that kids have gone missing from the resort before, potentially not to this degree, but like they wandered off while they're like oh fool or something. Right.
Well, and that's why minimizing the risk, assessing the hazardous situations where it can happen, and making sure you have a procedure in place in the event of you can follow it exactly, not to mention that you're also going to do an investigation afterwards to ensure that you can follow up on any risks and hazards and minimize them even further.
So that would be probably making sure your patio door is locked and have not have your children alone.
Yeah, right, procedure for your house. Lock your doors, hide your kids, hide your wife. There you go, We started your procedure for you out post it.
We're just saying facts here. We're trying not to judge or not judging because like, no one ever in scenarios like you're on vacation, you're like with your friends, you're enjoying yourself. You're never going to be like especially in that situation when you're relaxed, thinking of probably about worst case scenarios. Right, So oh yeah, no, I'm I never wanted this to happen.
No, No, I'm being a little bit facetious here and just kind of going over the top. No one's ever going to be perfect. We don't expect everyone to lock everything in their house every single day. Half the time, our front door isn't locked.
Yeah, just say waited to stare that with everyone.
Okay, now we're going to be locking it.
Okay. So by ten ten the police have been called, and by ten thirty the hotel initiated it's Missing Children's protocol, putting every available staff member on searches throughout the entire hotel complex. And they continued searching until four thirty in the morning. And I think a lot of actual hotel guests also kind of joined the search, which is good, nice,
good for them. So the first two officers arrived at eleven ten, they did a brief search and called for backup at midnight, with those people arriving at one in the morning. The first person they tried to track down was that man that Jane Tanner had seen around nine fifteen, especially because Matthew Oldfield couldn't remember if he'd specifically seen Madeline when he checked in on the children around nine to thirty, which is shitty.
Yeah, but I can't blame them, no, because like half the time when people are checking on other kids will just like listen in to the door.
Because then you know, whe will accidentally wake.
Them exactly, So I can't blame them for that whatsoever.
Yeah, But I mean it kind of sucks that they didn't exactly know when the kids, Yeah, when Madeline.
And let gone r The time frame is much more than they could have been.
Yeah. So, but the man the police were searching for was one of many people witnesses saw around the apartment building. Some witnesses were called seeing an ugly blonde man in and around the hotel and days leading up to that night. Wow, that's description, shitty description to have for yourself.
Watch it's just some other dude just staying there on vacation. Oh yeah, there's this ugly blonde man that's been hanging around and he's just like around the corner listening to this Oh oh, sad ugly blonde man. Feel for him.
Several witnesses remember seeing a group of suspicious looking men pretending to actually be charity workers. Another couple reported seeing a man carrying a child wearing light colored pajamas. And I'm not certain if this is the same man. This is a different couple reporting it, so it could be a different individual. This one was approximately five hundred yards from the mccannsip apartment and was heading towards the beach, and that was around ten that night, So I think
it's a different man. But and who knows this could be the man that had Madeline.
Five hundred yard that's a long ways, yeah.
Because that the Jane person saw the kid at nine point fifteen, and that one was deemed to be a like also holiday person, Okay, and so I'm assuming that person probably wasn't five hundred yards away, So I'm thinking this is a different, different spotting. So some of these men were tracked down. Some of them were actually already on police's radar because the area was experienced a peak
of burglaries at the time. The block the McCanns were staying on had two break ins in the seventeen days before Madeleine's disappearance, but no one could find the man that Jane Tanner claimed to have seen at nine point fifteen, And there were more than a few reasons for it. In those I've already spilled the beans on that, and I'm just going to continue on the fucking fair enough.
Just go with your script for now.
So, in those very critical first hours of Madeline's disappearance, the police response was questionable, and I hate when we have to say that, but we're just giving facts here. So they arrived late, even though they were within close proximity. They didn't inform the Border or the Marine police right away of the situation or give them a description of Madeline's appearance.
Are you kidding? Yeah, on a fucking missing child. Yeah, where chances are if they have been kidnapped, the person is literally fleeing running away with them. Yeah.
So so those people who have been on alert for this, right.
Oh yeah, that's the first thing you want to do is make sure you inform everyone in the area to be on the lookout.
Yeah, they didn't do house to house searches in the area and they didn't set up roadblocks until ten the following morning, but that, unfortunately wasn't all they did wrong.
What the fuck did they do?
They also didn't interview everyone staying and working at the hotel, and to top it all off, the crime scene didn't get secured properly. Samples taken from the room came back with DNA belonging to an identified person, but by the time the samples had been sent to the lab, about twenty people had been in and out of the apartment.
Holy shit.
Yeah wow, So that's like a lot of things that could have messed up this investigation.
No kidding. I mean unless you're able to identify and track exactly who's been in and out and why and everything, then you it would take a lot of time and resources, but you'd be able to weed them out then. But still, holy fuck, Okay.
I know, because I don't think they were really been tracking that, Like they probably know which twenty were in there, like which hotel staff.
Are in there, Like yeah, like it's Steve the bellhop who's been here for a week. He's up there for who knows what.
Well, everyone's frantic and I'm sure all the hotel stuff was like frantic and trying to help and.
Oh yeah, you know, don't get me wrong, I'm just.
Well, yeah, I'm not saying but it's just a shitty situation.
Yeah, who knows who's gone and if they haven't secured it properly, like someone just wandering in there for weird odds and ends reasons that probably people don't even know what they're being they're actually in there.
No, yeah, so they know.
Probably about twenty people. There's probably twenty.
Plus, Yeah, because lot of times you what's the word, But if you're like in the wrong, you Oh, I can't think of the word, but you lesser it, lesser the blow than it actually should be. Right, Oh, that's the word.
Oh, I know what you're trying to say, but I don't know if I know the word you're thinking about all.
I don't know.
You're trying to like say like oh, instead of being like I only did this.
I only or I spent five hundred bucks, but then you actually spend a thousand.
Yeah, so when you come home from a shopping spree, I didn't spend that much. She was only five hundred bucks. Look at the receipts. It was actually a thousand. Yeah, there you go. That's a good analogy.
Moving on, Jerry and Kate tried to take matters into their own hands, and they tried to keep the momentum building on Madeleine's case. Jerry's plan was to use the media to keep the public aware of his daughter's disappearance so the tips and leads could keep on coming. But what happened was something rarely seen before. Jerry hired a team of pr consultants from Britain and had them come
to Priya doll loose. Most said that wrong. The constant media attention worked in keeping the public talking about and searching for Madeline. That's good, but it created a lot of tension between the McCanns and the local police. The police argued that the constant media presence and the journalists in and around the area were getting in the way of the investigation. We're actually hurting Madeleine's case.
I have a counter argument for that.
What invest Oh you went there? Hey, you went there. The tension ended up rising so high that the British government ended up sending its own press officers to try to manage the situation. But the outporth support from the public was huge already. By May fifteenth, only twelve days after Madeline had gone missing, the mccans had created a fund named Madelin's Fund, Leaving No Stone unturned. The fund's website had over fifty eight million hits on the first two days it was live.
Holy shit.
And the fund created a place where people could go make donations and support the search. Wow, so that is pretty impressive, no kidding. The fund ended up paying for the McCanns to follow leads in other Portuguese cities, and even sent them to Halland Germany and Morocco. By May thirtieth, the McCanns were flown out to where they got to meet the pope. But this was was all of this getting them anywhere and finding Madeline.
Yeah, I was just wondering, Okay, what does that have to do with finding their kid?
I'm not really sure. But they were religious, so maybe they were thinking, like by going and meeting them and like in some sort of religious ceremony of.
Sorts like that could prayers and blessings or something. Yeah, okay, okay, fair enough.
So I don't think I had said in there that they were like had religious beliefs. The police believed they found the answers and it was all thanks to Jane Tanner's sighting. About one hundred and thirty seven meters east from five A lived thirty four year old Robert Marat, and he was a man that police knew well. Robert was a British property consulted and when he heard about what had happened just down the street from him, he
jumped at the opportunity to help. Robert translated for the police, doing everything he could to get them and the McCann's closer to finding their daughter. That was until he was named an official suspect in Madeleine's disappearance. All of this stemmed from him catching the description of the man Jane had seen heading east carrying a child that night, and because a journalist reported to the police that Robert had been asking about the investigation. So he basically kind of
matched that description and he was asking questions. Yeah, so, and he was known for police I guess right.
Yeah, fair enough. I mean it's reasonable suspicion at that point, so I can't argue that.
Yeah. So his home was searched, he and two of his friends were interviewed, but the police found nothing. Robert said that he'd offered to help because he had a daughter in England around the same age as Madeline, but the police and the public were still not convinced he was publicly slandered.
Oh fantastic.
His friend's car was torched and spray painted on the pavement next to it read FLA I believe it's pronounced, which says speak like it means speak yes. So the next thing anyone knew, the friends the McCanns had been on holiday with remembered feeling suspicious of Robert, and witnesses replacing him at the scene too. Years later, police confirmed the identity of the man Jane had seen that night. He was another British holiday maker. I don't know is that the right word, British holidaymaker?
That sounds like when of sand his little elves.
I don't know, on holiday. I don't know why I have that in there.
Okay, he was another British dude on holidays.
Yeah, who was on his way to his apartment after picking up his daughter from the hotel's night care. So there you go, called it. Robert and his friends were vindicated and managed to sue for like compensation. Good They collected hundreds of thousands of pounds, but only after and during years of abuse and suspicions from both the locals and the general public. But if Robert hadn't take hadn't taken Madeline, then what had happened to her? We're no closer again, right.
Yeah, exactly. But I do want to just say, like the police being like, oh, you're interfering with our investigation, and their investigation leads to just slandering someone who's completely innocent.
Well it's really shitty because that guy that he had, from what we know, he had the peers of intentions of just helping.
Yeah, exactly.
And sometimes, I mean, this is so bad, but just like the world we live in, sometimes you almost don't want to help.
Yeah, because then you're implicated, you're part of it, and you can get hurt or whatever to perform and you're in the limelight or line of fire.
Yeah, because he had that for years. Right, Yeah, this is like his name just being shit.
Oh, I'm sure, and I'm sure his reputation even after the fact, was still tarnished quite a bit. Yeah, because people don't generally turn around and bring the sunshine your way when you're proved innocent. Right, it seems to be like, oh, yeah, I know, he was like an outcast for a long time. We're just going to still continue to avoid him, especially because we feel bad because we were the one are
part of the whole like slandering group of people. Yeah, you know, so he's just still an outcast, still name tarnished, and trying to live a normal life.
From what I read, a lot of the reports did say he kind of from numerous means, got a lot of money because like articles from different new sources and stuff, right, Like he was able to kind of get some compensation from that. So hopefully he at least ended up with a chunk of change. I guess.
I just hope that he monetary value or whatever aside. I just hope he has a normal life. Yeah, I hope this did not affect him negatively mentally and all that sort of stuff. I hope that just today he's just doing good. That's what I hope.
Oh man, oh man, Okay, where are we here? So by then the police opinion of the McCanns had actually shifted, and they asked for British sniffer dogs to come be brought to the apartment to search. Sniffer dogs. That sounds funny, Hey, I think that's what they're called. The one dog was trained to give a reaction to the smell of human blood and the other to the scent of a human cadaver, and they came back with the results that blew this
case wide open. It's interesting. I can't remember which dog was witch, but one of them, oh man, I don't know which one, but one of them, when they got what they were supposed to be like like, barked and they only barked kind of when they.
Yeah, give their sign or whatever. But I don't know the cadaver one I'm sure. I mean, there's there's a distinct smell of death, but blood. I mean, what if someone was just like cutting an ingrown toenail and like drop of blood goes beside the bed or something.
You lose a lot of blood from that.
Cut your finger in the kitchen or stub your toe out in the bathroom hall or like.
Yeah, the cadaver would kind of maybe show a bit more.
I guess, yeah, that one I could see. But I'm I mean, I'm uneducated in sniffer dogs. Maybe it has to be a whole lot of amount for the dog to actually like pick up on it or something. I don't know.
The other dog that's reaction, I think would just like sit and stare at the spot. So they had like different trainings for that. But very interesting. I think that would be such an interesting job to work with one of those dogs.
Anything involving dogs, you're just like, sign me the fuck pretty much.
The other day, I think I told her friend. I was like, we should open a candle, Ben and I should open a candle And she was like, with all your free time, hey yeah, no, I was like, we'd be really good at it though, but no, so both dogs alerted since behind the sofa in the living room of the apartment. They also detected something on the car the McCanns had rented, But the McCanns had rented this car a few weeks after Madeline had disappeared, and it
was something was detected on Madeline's cuddle cat toy. So the very next day the Portuguese press began running stories about how Jerry and Kate had probably killed Madeleine and tried to cover it up. But that was at the end of July and they were already printing what was considered old news because by the beginning of June, the international press had turned on the mccans. Do you remember this? I feel like I remember this happening.
I don't, but I'm I'm kind of wavering on some of the stuff with the dogs. It seems like a I don't know, not a foolproof thing, almost like a polygraph. It's a quasi type science because you're telling me, okay, they had a positive response on a rental car. A rental car. How many other people use this car prior to them? What else happened in this car? As far as I'm concerned that one should be out the window.
Well I think they had even said like Madaline's scent of sorts could have been like on the or no, none on them. That must not have worked because the luggage, her luggage would probably not have been in there. This car was rented after so never mind take that out.
But this is and then the toy. So we're talking blood and deceased, right, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have a deceased child holding the toy. A blood maybe and kids scrape their knees who knows what, and they could get on there, no problem, totally a couch again blood, who knows and get on a couch easy enough. What if there's a dead mouse in the wall behind the couch or something.
Or someone could have passed away in that that apartment or something. We have done cases where the dogs have gotten it wrong.
Yeah, exactly, And I'm making up different possibilities and what the dogs are actually hitting on. What did they do just straight up get it wrong? Yeah, I don't know. I don't I'm not sold on that at all. Yeah, especially the rental car one.
That one's just like, it's far fetched.
There's way too many variables in that situation as far as I'm concerned.
Yeah. So, German, Portuguese, and British papers had been publishing stories suggesting that Jerry and Kate had had something to do with their daughter's disappearance. Some suggested that the whole group were a group of swingers and they all actively sedated their children so that they could party undisturbed.
Okay.
Some suggested that Madaline had died of a result of the sedation, and that was why the whole group was work working so hard to cover things up. These claims were somewhat backed up when the Portuguese police shared stories about the remaining McCann children. According to investigators, the twins had stayed asleep all through the night, even when the entire room had turned into a crime scene and people were in and out. Kids can sleep through like extensive things, though,
and they not. They can surprising things.
I feel like, yes, now, if kid falls asleep, they have a weird ability. It seems like some not all kids, not all kids, but they have a surprising ability to just sleep through anything.
Like sometimes I feel late, Okay, lately I've been having sleeping issues, which is a new thing, and I sometimes just think about how when you were a kid, like you just like literally get the best fucking sleeps ever, Like you just don't wake up and you just actually feel rested when you wake up in the morning, and.
Shit, yeah, and then you get older and you're just like, why does everything hurt? And why can't I fall asleep and get rested? Yeah, And even when you do fall asleep and get rested, you wake up with a new invigoration of tiredness still looming over you.
Adult life out. The police also publicly asked why Kate had discovered that one of her children had gone missing and then immediately left after or left her other two children in the room to go and alert the others. That was something she was questioned about, like why didn't she just shout out to them or phone them on their cellphone or something.
Because they were just right there across the street and she wanted to and get their help immediately, and she's panicking.
That's why she wasn't thinking clearly. So Jane, Matthew, and the two parents, so four of the nine adults were being questioned in regards to some of their behavior. Jane, who could have allegedly made up her observation altogether of spotting a man carrying a young child. Matthew could have volunteered to check on the children at nine point thirty because he had ulterior motives and actually handed Madeline out
to someone on the streets. Jerry for intentionally misdirecting police by giving contradictory statements and Kate's cries of they've taken her were intentional in order to point the investigator investigators towards a kidnapping rather than a murder.
No, on that one. I'm sorry. If an investigation is occurring, you should not assume that the parent knows exactly what happened, or anyone knows exactly what happens. You start from square one.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, that's solely on investigators, even if she was doing that or not, just say yeah.
But then there were so many reports to that basically, I mean, there was a lot of reports actually about the parents and a lot I think in a lot of interviews and stuff, they like they portrayed themselves pretty well, but they were also being like advised to as well because they didn't. They were kind of saying like, don't show like your fear, your emotion to the person that
has potentially kidnapped your kid, right, Yeah. And then also with them being doctors, like I don't know, I feel like doctors lots of times they are all like delivering bad news and dealing with like really bad shit often that they may have like a really good coping mechanism probably right to like not show stuff.
Yeah, they see death and sad people and like say, delivering these news all the time, so they probably have that kind of numbness to it a little bit already inherently built into them.
Like it's their own kid, so it's different. Yeah, sure, but they could have a coping mechanism different than just like say, you and I maybe definitely.
And I do want to preface this not to say it it isn't possible that the parents aren't responsible. Yeah, I just don't see it.
I know, I don't feel like I see it too. But sometimes in the back of my head, I'm like, oh, could they have?
But they could have, but what we've been presented with so far, everything seems too far fetched. Yeah, now it's possible that that is the truth. It's just like, if that is the truth, it's like, holy fuck, that's that's a very specific way and specific things, an odd, odd way for it to be happening. M h.
I think there's only question in my mind because I remember when the media had kind of turned on them, and so I think that's in my mind, like just hearing that and being holy crap, like could these parents have done this? Right?
Yeah? So, I mean, also, we have to look at the idea. And I'm not saying that investigators or authorities or are bad individuals, but say a certain individual in the investigation screw the so bad because clearly the investigation didn't go how it should have in the earlier stages. Right, what if to get back their own reputation or clear things up, they decided to, well, they were going to chase down what we all know to be the first people to look at the parents, the spouse, the husband,
the family members. Yeah, well I screwed the Poots so bad. I'm going to put the spotlight on the parents. Clearly it was them, and I'm going to get my career back on track by blaming them and painting them in the negative light.
Okay, that's so interesting that you say this. So after this episode's done, we're going to do another like mini episode, like a post episode that we're posting in Patreon. Yep, going over like nine different theories out there, and that's literally one of the theories.
Yeah, well, there we go.
So there you go. If you want to like divulge in the theories with us, then you can do that over on Patreon. Okay, So the poortraies Portuguese police announced that Jerry and Kate were suspects in the case, the leading theory being that they'd killed Madeline, either intentionally or by accident, hid her body, and then dumped it much later on when everyone was busy looking for a kidnapper.
Okay.
The McCanns ended up leaving Portugal under advice from their legal team, which I'm sure was not easy, being that their little girl had not been found. The Portuguese police continued to leak stories to the press, and the public opinion continued to divide. In October two thousand and seven, only a month after the McCanns were declared as suspects in the case by Chief Inspector Amriol, Amriol was removed
from his post as the Inquirer's coordinator. This was part due in his criticism of British police investigators, saying they only pursued leads in the McCann's favor and his involvement in a similar case. So the disappearance of Joanna Cypriana was who disappeared on August twelve, two thousand and four, at eight years old. So Amriel was accused of having covered up for other officers and convicted of having falsified police documents in the case. He received an eighteen month
suspended sentence. So Joanna went missing three years earlier and only seven miles from where Madeleine went missing.
Oh shit.
So like Madeleine, she is not yet to be found. But at one point her mother and her uncle were convicted of her murders. Who actually they were convicted of her murder. Her mother later retracted her confession, saying that she'd only confess because the police had beaten her during her interrogation. It was apparently like a forty eight hour interrogation or something.
Holy fuck, Oh thank you. I know that's like highly illegal shit going on with that.
Yeah, that's just like I can't even want Yes, there you go. So Amorel was not present during the alleged assault, but that is what I believe he was accused of covering up seems like a similar m to Madeleine's case too. Not the police assaulting the parents per se, but a young girl missing and the family being put to blame by the police. Yeah, Amorel did go on to write a book alleging that Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment, and then mccans went about covering it
up by faking a reduction. The McCanns did take legal action against him and his publisher.
Wow, just falsifying information. There's no facts on the shit, and he's just being like.
Really yeah, and in that book, I was like in and out of courts and stuff, but like tons of copies got sold, which is really fucked actually, no kidding. Yeah, But then like some of the in the case, so it was like, that's just freedom of speech and stuff, and I'm like, actually, I don't know if it is, because at the time of the investigation he was in a position that shouldn't be able to just like willy nilly push it out there.
Yeah, And there's a difference between freedom of speech and slander. Yeah, if you are out there publishing information in a book as fact that certain people are murderers, that's going to have implications on their lives. That is slandering them. Yeah, so you have complete legal action to course or sorry, legal course to take action against that one hundred percent. If he publishes a book and he says I feel they're not good people, that's different. That's a personal opinion
as opposed to they are murderers. Here are the facts? What facts? It did not go to court.
I just feel like the McCanns, the parents just were like drug through the mud. Hey, it sounds like like it's so if I mean and just so, I mean they had enough stress of their child being missing and now all this additional stress just I don't know, it's almost how would you even survive? Really?
Yeah, that's that's a good question actually.
So moving on. About a year later, in the summer of two thousand and eight, the Portuguese Attorney General announced that there was no evidence to tie the mckens to Madeleine's disappearance and close the case. What followed in the years after were a lot more theories, a lot more investigations, but ultimately no answers. To this day, no one can positively say, without a shadow of adult what happened to Madeline and who did it. Though The case has been in the news recently for two reasons.
M M wait two, I know oneas oh snap.
So first being with Christian Brucker, who was a German national who has emerged recently as the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine. He was identified as a suspect in twenty seventeen, and in June twenty twenty, German authorities announced that they had evidence suspecting he was responsible or sorry suggesting that he was responsible for Madeline's disappearance and
her presumed death. So they're basically saying this guy killed her. However, he is yet to be convicted in connection with the case, and the investigation remains ongoing. But it's very like recent. He's like the most recent suspect I guess out there. And it's basically just being that he was kind of in the area at the time, and that he had like a past record kind of of like sexually assaulting tourists and like.
Gotcha, shit, is he by any chance really ugly and blonde?
Maybe? Actually is he? I don't know. I did actually see a photo of him. I can't remember if he was blonde or not.
But he was ugly.
Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah, let's say. Yeah, I can't like I can picture his face, but I can't like picture his face, But that makes sense.
I'm still just picturing some really ugly blonde dude out there, just really sad.
I know, they're so sad that they just have been reported so many times as being ugly.
Yeah, he's just got no friends. He's just trying to enjoy his life on vacation, and he's just people just said, yeah, I saw is an ugly blonde guy.
Now he also has no friends.
Yeah, or ugly blonde man? Oh shit, I feel so bad for him.
Oh so what if he is a complete asshole? Though?
What if he is the sweetest man alive?
Anyway? Moving on, the second reason that this has been in the news recently is the recent claim from Julia Wendell claiming to be Madeline McCann. So is that the one you know of?
Yes, I know of this one, though I didn't read many articles on it because I was not wanting to get emotionally attached. I was waiting for results.
Yeah. I did go down quite a bit of a rabbit hole, actually, but I didn't really put all of that in here because I just I don't know, for many reasons. Maybe I'll talk about it more. We'll see, we'll see what I did. I actually choose to put in here. So she drummed up a huge Instagram following after creating account called I Am Madeleine MCCAINN. When I first came across this account, I actually took a screenshot I don't know if you remember, and I posted it
in Patreon. The count at that time had one million followers. I do believe that it's been since like taken down and the whole time, the whole thing has ultimately turned into a disappointing mess. The DNA results revealed that Julia is not Madeline. She claims now that she never said she was Madeline McCain and used the sentence to create a nickname for an old Instagram account, which was a mistake,
and now she appalledgizes for that. But ultimately I cannot even imagine the old wounds that this opened up for the McCanns. No shit, Julia's parents are hoping they can get their daughter the help she needs. She has a new Instagragram account where there are new issues being brought up, like with the self professed psychic called doctor Fia Johanson who involved herself in Julia's case kind of as her spokesperson, and I kind of seemed like it was being done
for potential fame herself. But all in all, I think that she needs to just get out of the headlines at this point, because I'm not even putting her new Instagram in here. I did, like check it out, and I don't know, I don't know. That's just all I'm going to say about that. Fair enough, So older cases being brought to attention can definitely be helpful at times, I do think so, right, like, because it maybe people remember something or trigger something, right.
Oh, definitely, No, it's it's better to keep.
Stories alive, yes, but in the right way.
In the right way, yeah. Not for personal gain or emotional gain or anything. It's I mean, it's not a story for yourself. It's not something for you to gain from, to be fair, I mean, yeah, of course, news media podcasts, there is monetary gain from it in certain aspects. However, to sit here and say I'm going to claim to be a potentially missing child or deceased individual and gain Instagram fame for it, and that is your motive, Like what the buck?
And see, i'mon't even like you never know what is going on in person's mind, like like she maybe did help need help, she maybe did believe that she actually was. I know she was trying to figure out some of her past stuff and I know she did have some trauma in her past. So but still like that is I mean, that's just oh, like something you can't just be like apologized for later because just amount of oh shit that it just brought up, probably for so many people, is really really gross.
I honestly think that that should be going into something like identity thefter fraud as far as I'm concerned.
Yeah, So there's no shorts of information out there in regards to this case, so if you're interested in a more In March of twenty nineteen, Netflix released an eight part docu series that's titled The Disappearance of Madeleine McCain. It did renew a lot of interest in the case, but as I've said, there's unfortunately still no clear answers of what happened to Madeline.
That's unfortunate.
Yeah, I mean the fact that she's just a three year old little girl, well she's basically almost four, but still huh, that is too young.
Hopefully she's much older now. Yeah, hopefully she's still around and she's she's older than that.
M h. And yeah, so we're about to do a post show on Patreon and there's a there's a list of just the theories and some of them do potentially involve her still being around. So yeah, we're going to dive into those.
Yeah, we usually do a pre show where we're talking a little bit of stuff, and so a post show is a little bit different for us. We're gonna given a shot see how it works out. So head on over check it out if you want to take a look. Link is down in the description below. You can follow that link, hit us up on Patreon. Could check out all the social media's if you want, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, you name it, and they're all about to start getting a lot more content putting up here pretty quick.
A little more traction.
Yeah, that was a good episode though, I mean, I really do feel for Madeline, and I also feel for the ugly blonde man.
Too, oh my gosh, and the parents and the parents. The parents for some reason just like break my heart a little because I just I mean, we don't have kids, but just the thought, like I mean they say, like what when you have a kid, it's like your heart's almost living outside your body, right, and then that's just being taken away, Like how do you survive?
Yeah, let me think of it like that movie dragon Heart, Remember that old movie back in the day, dragon Heart. The dude needed like to survive, so he went to the dragon, the king or something like that, got a piece of his the dragon's heart, to put in his son to let him survive. And then yeah, they shared a heart, so the only way to kill one was
to kill the other. So in the movie, he's like getting stabbed in the heart and as he's the son's getting stabbed later on, like the dragon's feeling the pain.
And yeah, well I lost Honey today for about five minutes, and I lost was losing my ship.
So our dog, Honey, our dog. Yeah no, she wasn't raging over the pantry.
Because yeah, if you're new here, we have a dog named Ripley and Honey and Honey is an asshole that wow, she kind of is. I'm actually a little pissed at her today. She he gets out of the yard occasionally does which is a husky thing.
She doesn't though.
She gets out of the art only when Ben's not here, so it's just all me. And usually, like I notice right away and then I call her and she comes back. And today she didn't come back right away, and I kind of lost my shit a little.
Actually she came back, it was just a little longer. She was a little bit farther away this time.
Yeah, she's a brat.
She is a brat, but she's cute, so it's okay. She makes up for it.
My apologies for calling her dog an asshole.
You're not sorry at all. She also abuses our animals.
Oh my gosh, and you one that would know me, like what abused them with? Like too many cugs and kisses.
Yeah, you hug them too tight and you strangle them.
Oh my gosh. I'm just obsessed with them. I can't love them enough. No, they're so cute.
Look at them right now.
I know they're perfect, well not perfect from like ninety nine percent.
Yeah, Kiwi's perfect. The cat, the dogs, I don't know. Their life is a little rough.
Holy eck. Okay, on that note, thank you so much for being here and listening, and until next Tuesday.
Until next Tuesday, when I'm finally getting the case that had been working on for a little while. Oh yeah, until
Then, stay wicked.