Image copyright PA Image caption Kate and Jerry Maccan remain hopeful that their daughter is alive and will be found

May 3 marks the 10th anniversary of the disappearance in Portugal of three-year-old Briton Madeleine Maccan, missing from an apartment in a seaside resort. Her disappearance has become one of the most resonant such cases, not only in Britain, but throughout the world.

British newspapers wrote in detail about the investigation and put forward their own versions of what happened. Despite regular reports of breakthroughs in the investigation, the girl has still not been found.

Madeleine Maccan's parents, in an interview with the BBC, said that they still hope that their daughter will be found and will not stop searching.

disappearance

Madeleine Maccan disappeared on the evening of May 3, 2007 from an apartment in the Portuguese resort town of Praia da Luz. She was three years old.

According to the girl's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, they left the sleeping children - Madeleine and twin babies - and went to dinner with friends at a restaurant near the house, but every half hour they came in turn to check on the children. During one of these checks, Madeleine's disappearance was discovered. Eyewitnesses said they allegedly saw a man carrying a child in pajamas towards the sea.

During the initial investigation, the parents themselves came under suspicion, but later, Portuguese law enforcement authorities denied the assumptions picked up by the media that the parents could be involved in the disappearance of the child.

The girl's parents believe that the police have done a great job of finding her, and that they should not lose hope.

• Home office donates another £85,000 to search for missing girl

Finding Madeleine

In Portugal, the case of Madeleine's disappearance was closed in the summer of 2008 due to lack of evidence. After the case was closed, Madeleine's parents - Kate and Jerry McCann - said they would conduct their own investigation. For several years, Madeleine's parents searched for their daughter with the help of private investigators. There were regular reports in the press that someone saw a girl who looked like Madeleine, but there were no real breakthroughs.

In 2011, Scotland Yard launched its own investigation called "Operation Grange" at the request of Theresa May, now the British Prime Minister, who at the time was the country's Home Secretary. The investigation team included 28 detectives who focused on the version of Madeleine's abduction by a stranger.

In 2012, five years after the kidnapping of the girl, the British police said that there was reason to believe that Madeleine was alive, and distributed her image, made taking into account possible age changes.

In November 2013, the British side managed to get the Portuguese police to resume the investigation, after which the investigators of the two countries joined forces.

Gerry McCann said the Metropolitan Police's decision to continue investigating their daughter's disappearance came as a great relief to their family. This means, he says, that hope remains.

"The main thing - and the most unfair thing - is that after the initial investigation in Portugal was completed, no one essentially did anything to find Madeleine," said Gerry McCann. "I think any parent could understand our desire to make sure that all lines of investigation have been brought to their logical conclusion."

Kate McCann said that the British police were able to analyze all the available information on this case, and now have only a few lines of investigation, and not tens and hundreds as before.

Funds spent and response to reproaches

Currently, four British investigators are investigating, and in total, 11 million pounds (13.5 million dollars) have already been spent from the British budget on the search for Madeleine Maccan.

In March of this year, the Ministry of the Interior extended the investigation for another six months,

Over the years, reproaches have been heard in Britain that disproportionate funds have been spent on the search for Madeleine, but Gerry McCann, in an interview with the BBC, said that he considers these reproaches unfair.

According to Kate McCann, she used to be embarrassed when people started discussing how much money had gone from the treasury to find her daughter. However, then she realized that other high-profile cases also take a lot of money.

Especially a lot of negative comments about how much the search for McCann's daughter is costing taxpayers sounded on social networks, which Kate and Jerry McCann simply stopped using.

Kate McCann said some of the criticisms of her family were shocking and showed her a side of human nature that she had never experienced before.

At the same time, the main thing over the years, according to Jerry and Kate McCann, was still the kindness and support that they saw and received from friends and sympathizers.

Life without Madeleine

The family had to get used to a new life without Madeleine.

According to the spouses, if immediately after the disappearance of their daughter, all their activities were focused around her search, then in the last five years they began to devote more time to the twins and their work.

“At some point, you begin to understand that life has not stood still, that we simply have to give our twins the full life they deserve,” said Jerry McCann.

Kate McCann said that she still buys gifts for Madeleine for her birthday and Christmas.

"I think about her age and what she might like ... but I just can't help it, she will always be our daughter," says Kate.

“We feel her absence especially acutely during family holidays or some important achievements. There is not a day when Madeleine would not be with us, if you know what I mean,” she adds.

Kate McCann, who worked as a primary care physician before Madeleine disappeared, says she has returned to medicine, but she works in a slightly different field than before.

The current level of technology development sometimes creates the illusion that new mysteries cannot arise in the world, and everything secret becomes clear in the shortest possible time.

In reality, things are somewhat different. For example, the mystery of the disappearance of the Malaysian Boeing on March 8, 2014 with 239 passengers and crew members has not yet been solved.

On May 3, 2007, a three-year-old Englishwoman disappeared. Madeline McCann. The best detectives, criminologists and psychologists of the world are fighting over this case, but it is still unknown what happened to the baby.

Madeline Beth McCann was born on May 12, 2003 in Leicester, England. In Rothley, Leicestershire, she lived with her parents, brother Sean and sister Amelie.

Those who have ever been interested in this case remember her signs by heart: straight blond hair, blue-green eyes, a small mole on the ankle of her left leg and a coloboma on the iris of her right eye.

6th day of family vacation

Madeline's mother Kate Mary McCann worked as a general practitioner. Father, Gerald Patrick Maccan, worked as a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester. The family did not have serious financial problems.

In the spring, the McCanns with the whole family went on vacation to Portugal, to Praia da Luz, located in the Algarve resort region. Together with them went seven more of their friends and five of their children.

The hotel where the McCanns stayed. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

The McCanns settled in an apartment on the first floor of the 5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva high-rise building, which was part of the Praia da Luz resort.

In the morning, Kate and Gerald took the kids to the kids club and then went for a walk. Then the family had lunch and decided to spend time by the pool. Here, Kate took a photo of Madeline with her father and sister, not knowing that this photo would be the last.

Then the children again went to the club, where they stayed until 18:00. Kate picked up the kids and put them to bed around 7pm.

At 8:30 pm, the McCanns and their friends had a restaurant reservation. The restaurant was located 50 meters from the apartment, and the McCanns secured a table for the rest of the rest, because of which the windows of their dwelling were visible.

The bedroom overlooked the car park and garden and was next to the back door. It had one shuttered window that looked out onto the parking lot. Madeline's bed was at the other end of the room. The twins slept in playpens, Madeline in a single bed with a pink stuffed cat toy. She was wearing short-sleeved white and pink pajamas.

disappearance

At half past eight, Kate and Gerald went to a restaurant. They left the patio sliding doors closed, but didn't lock them. During dinner, parents periodically went to check if everything was in order with the children. So did the friends with whom they dined.

At 21:05, the father came into the children's bedroom. According to him, everything was calm, and Madeline slept in her bed. The only thing that wasn't right was that Jerry was sure he'd left the bedroom door closed, and now it was wide open. Without attaching any importance to this, he returned it to its previous position and went back to the restaurant.

Kate was going to check on the kids around 9:30 p.m., but the McCanns' pal Matthew Oldfield offered to check their children too when he went to check on his own in the neighboring apartment. Kate agreed.

Oldfield made sure everything was quiet in the McCanns' quarters and left. He later admitted that he did not see if Madeline was in her crib at that moment.

Kate went to check on the kids at 10:00 pm. She entered the apartment through the patio doors and noticed that the bedroom door was open wider than usual, but when she went to close it, the door slammed shut as if in a draft. Then she saw that the window was open from the outside.

The twins were asleep, Madeline's soft toy was in the crib, but the girl herself was not there. After inspecting the apartment and not finding the child, Kate McCann rushed to the restaurant, screaming that her daughter had been kidnapped.

Madeline! Madeline!

The police were notified ten minutes later, and half an hour later, a large-scale search for the girl began.

Several dozen people participated in them: the staff and guests of the resort. At about six o'clock, shouts were heard in the neighborhood: “Madeline! Madeline! There was hope that the girl, interested in something, just went for a walk and was about to be found. However, by morning it became obvious: there was a big trouble.

The Portuguese police interrogated parents, restaurant employees, family friends, searched the surrounding area, and the British media had already reported on the disappearance of the child. The news was relayed to journalists by friends of the McCanns, who believed that this would create a public outcry and force the Portuguese police to work better.

From this point on, a certain distrust gradually begins to arise between the McCanns and the Portuguese investigators. At the suggestion of parents, the Portuguese are beginning to be accused of unprofessionalism. The police did not remain in debt and began to develop a version of the involvement in the disappearance of Madeline's father and mother.

Moreover, one of the witnesses testified that Kate, running to the restaurant, shouted: “He took her! The child has been kidnapped!" Investigators were alarmed that the mother was so convinced that it was the abduction and not something else. Kate herself would later state that she only screamed about Madeline's disappearance, and not about her kidnapping.

Search and PR

There were witnesses who claimed to have seen a man carrying a sleeping girl. Suspicion fell on the 33-year-old Briton Robert Murata who lived three minutes from the apartment in his mother's house. For several months, he was considered the prime suspect, but evidence against him could not be found. And then another tourist showed up, who said that that evening he was returning to his room with his daughter in his arms. After additional verification, it became clear that it was his witnesses who took him for the kidnapper. All charges were dropped from Robert Murat, and he even managed to sue compensation from the British tabloids, which actually declared the man a criminal.

The McCanns contacted the British public relations firm Bell Pottinger and subsequently collaborated with her, trying to keep interest in the search unabated. The inconsolable parents met with the US Attorney General, with the Pope, participated in numerous talk shows, founded the Madeline Foundation, which received 2 million pounds in less than a year.

The Portuguese law enforcement officers believed that all this only harmed the cause. The kidnapper, if the girl is still alive, in the face of daily hype, it is easier to get rid of the child than to negotiate for his release.

Parents under suspicion

Social networks were in full swing: users were divided into those who believed and sympathized with Kate and Jerry, and those who believed that they themselves were involved in the disappearance of the child. Some believed that the man who carried the girl could be her own father. According to one version, Madeline could have died as a result of an accident or domestic violence. Parents, fearing the consequences, came up with a story about the kidnapping.

Detective dogs trained to search for corpses responded to Kate's pants and the trunk of the family's rental car. Clinging to this circumstance, the Portuguese police began to work out the version of the McCanns' guilt, declaring them suspects.

Looking for Madeline. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

British investigators worked in parallel with the Portuguese, examining evidence and questioning witnesses.

The official investigation in Portugal was effectively halted in 2008. No new evidence was found, and no suspects have been identified. The situation was no better with the British police, as well as with private investigators hired by parents with money from the Madeline Foundation. They talked about a certain lady who ordered the abduction of a child, about a group of Portuguese who were seen with a child in pajamas on the night of the abduction, but all these versions could not be documented.

"Operation Grunge"

In 2011, the then head of the British Home Office, and now Prime Minister Theresa May initiated an investigation called "Operation Grange". In its course, a group of the best British detectives had to solve the mystery of the disappearance of Madeline McCann. A large amount of money was allocated to the investigation, and British detectives again interviewed dozens of people in Portugal and the UK. group leader, Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, expressed confidence that the possibility of finding the child alive remains.

They checked pedophiles, restaurant employees, people who were vacationing at the resort. However, neither version has been confirmed.

In Praia da Luz, in 2007 there was a surge in thefts from tourists' apartments. There was speculation that the thieves had broken into the McCanns, at which point Madeline woke up. The attackers, fearing exposure, took the child with them. It was not possible to prove this version.

The assumption that the girl was kidnapped by order of some rich family also looks doubtful. Madeline disappeared just nine days before her fourth birthday: at this age, the child remembers family and friends well and is unlikely to easily accept someone else as a new dad and mom.

In 2009, several images were published showing what Madeline might look like at 6 years old, and in 2012 at 9 years old. On May 12, 2017, she was supposed to turn 14 years old, but today only the most desperate optimists believe that Madeline will be found alive.

Photo: www.globallookpress.com

The case has been filed

For ten years, 16 million pounds have been spent on the investigation into the disappearance of Madeline McCann, the mystery has not yet been solved. Now information about this case appears most often in the form of sensational reports, which, as a rule, do not receive further confirmation.

In the summer of 2015, Australian police said they found a suitcase in the Wynark area that contained the remains of a child, and suggested that these were the remains of Madeline McCann.

In June 2016, The Daily Telegraph stated that Madeline's kidnapping and murder was orchestrated by a TV presenter. Clement Freud, grandson Sigmund Freud. Accusations of pedophilia appeared after Clement Freud died in 2009. Allegedly, the man communicated with the girl's parents, and then imbued with an unhealthy passion for the child. Judging by the testimony of Freud's relatives, accusations of pedophilia are indeed justified. But evidence that Clement Freud is related to the disappearance of Madeline McCann has not been presented.

In February 2017, the Supreme Court of Portugal decided to transfer the high-profile case to the archive.

British investigators intend to check the version that the remains of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in a Portuguese resort in 2007, were found in Australia, writes The Daily Mail. So far, it is only known that the deceased blonde girl, whose skeletonized remains lay in a suitcase, was about the same age as Madeleine. However, Australian detectives claim that they still have no reason to believe that the found skeleton belongs to the British McCann.

The remains of a child up to 95 cm tall, who was between two and four years old at the time of death, were discovered on July 15 in a suitcase abandoned near the highway near the city of Wynark, a few dozen kilometers east of Adelaide (South Australia). A curious motorist drew attention to the tourist luggage, who opened the suitcase and saw human bones.

So far, the appearance of the deceased can only be judged by the preserved blond hair, according to The Herald Sun. Criminologists also believe that the girl was killed in 2007 or a little later. In the same year, Madeleine Macken, who was vacationing with her parents in Europe, also disappeared.

It was also found that the suitcase lay on the side of the highway for about four months. Where the girl's corpse was hidden before that remains a mystery.

The outward resemblance was enough for the press to speculate about the discovery of the remains of Madeleine McCann, who became the most wanted child in the world. But the police do not rush to such conclusions.

"At the moment there is no reason to believe that the child found is Madeleine McCann," Australian Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said.

At the same time, the police representative assured that all versions would be considered in the process of identifying the identity of the deceased. So it's too early to draw final conclusions.

The police also stressed that the girl was killed in a very cruel way, but did not give details.

A clue for investigators may be a homemade quilt found in a suitcase with human remains. It has been established that it was made in New York about seven years ago (the part of the fabric with the notes depicted on it was produced in 2008). Polyester was used as the lining. Detectives believe this is a sign that the blanket was made specifically for the child (polyester is durable and stain resistant).

How this quilted bedding made its way to the Green Continent remains to be seen.

After the publication of a picture of a quilt asking for identification of this thing, the police began to receive hundreds of calls from Australians. Perhaps they will help track down the killer or identify the victim.

A black tutu dress was also found at the scene.

In search of Madeleine McCann

British Madeleine McCann disappeared at the Praia de Luz resort in Portugal on May 3, 2007, when the parents of a three-year-old girl - Kate and Jerry - put her to sleep in a room with her two-year-old brother and sister Sean and Emily, and they themselves went to dinner with their friends . Having discovered the disappearance of their daughter, the parents first tried to find her on their own, but, having failed, they turned to the local police for help.

As a result, several people who fell under suspicion were arrested, but the police were never able to bring substantiated charges against them.

The British and local press repeatedly criticized the Portuguese interrogators. Journalists were especially indignant that the hotel room where the McCann family lived was allowed to make cosmetic repairs even before the end of the investigation in July. As criminologists later admit, from the very beginning the investigation made a number of gross errors, due to which the main evidence may have been lost forever.

On September 7, 2007, the McCanns themselves were declared suspects in the manslaughter of their daughter and hiding her body. However, for more than two months, the police failed to collect the necessary amount of evidence to take the case to court. At the same time, all this time, the investigation put pressure on the parents, trying to get them to confess their guilt.

In early October 2007, the head of the investigation team, Gonzalo Amaral, lost his post, who, along with other police officers, was accused of abuse of power, falsification and even torture. Instead, one of the best detectives in the country, Paolo Rebelo, was appointed, who began to more actively work out versions of the girl's abduction.

In parallel with the official investigation, the McCanns also began their own investigation, hiring a private detective agency Metodo 3 in Spain for this purpose. The detectives were inclined to think that Madeleine was alive, but private detectives did not find any obvious traces of the girl for more than four months of work.

Even the involvement of specialists from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in the investigation, who first drew a silhouette, and then an identikit of the alleged pedophile kidnapper, did not allow the criminals to be traced.

The FBI also modeled the appearance of Madeleine after the alleged months of being held hostage by a gang of pedophiles. However, this did not help the search.

On July 21, 2008, the General Prosecutor's Office of Portugal officially acknowledged that in the current situation, the investigation has no prospects. The status of suspects was removed from the McCann spouses, and the investigators closed the case and transferred it to the archive. At the same time, all materials were declassified, as required by law.

Private detectives continued their investigation, working out even those versions that were rejected by the official investigation. Among other things, the declassified materials contain unverified information that Madeleine was allegedly kidnapped by order of a gang of Belgian pedophiles. However, it was not possible to get on the trail of the girl.

Despite the willingness of the McCanns to spend millions of dollars searching for their daughter, in August 2009 they nevertheless terminated the contract with the American detective bureau. As it turned out, the prestigious detective agency, in which former intelligence officers worked (in particular the FBI and the CIA), simply squandered the funds allocated to search for Madeleine.

The sluggish course of the official investigation led the McCanns to seek international support by visiting Spain, France, Morocco and the United States. Sympathy to the parents of the girl at a personal audience was expressed by the Pope.

The disappearance of British girl Madeline McCann in 2007 captured the world's attention. Millions of people from around the world have been watching closely as well-funded private detective agencies try to figure out what happened and test the most incredible theories. Nearly ten years later, I studied Maddie's story and found out if the end was put in it.

disappearance

British doctors Jerry and Kate McCann did not plan to stay in Portugal for long. At the end of April 2007, they got to the resort town of Praia da Luz to spend a seven-day vacation on the Atlantic coast. The McCanns' three-year-old daughter Madeline and two-year-old twins Amelie and Sean played with the other kids all day, while Kate and Jerry spent the evenings with their old friends who were also in Portugal.

On the evening of May 3, as always, they gathered in an open-air restaurant 50 meters from the hotel. The sleeping children stayed at the hotel, but the adults checked in from time to time to see how they were doing. At half past ten, a friend of Kate and Jerry, who lives next door, looked into their room. The dozing twins could be seen through the open bedroom door. Not noticing anything suspicious, she returned to the restaurant.

Half an hour later, Kate herself decided to visit the children. The open door and the raised shutters frightened her: they had been closed the last time. She rushed into the bedroom. The twins were still sleeping peacefully, but Maddie's crib was empty, leaving only a plush cat, with whom the girl never parted. The woman quickly checked the other rooms - no one. A minute later, Kate ran to her husband in a restaurant and screamed: “Madeline is gone! Someone took her!" Soon the whole town was on its feet. Police, 60 hotel staff and other tourists unsuccessfully searched the streets of Praia da Luz until four in the morning without success.

In the morning, sister Jerry, who remained in Glasgow, contacted British television and sent them photos of Maddie. This is what determined the subsequent events. “This is not the first missing child, but no other case has attracted such close attention from the public,” the head of the Portuguese police, Alipio Ribeiro, later lamented.

Public relations

The reaction of the press was swift. Inconsolable, but at the same time photogenic and respectable parents, grieving for the loss of their little daughter - such a story will pity anyone. The next day, Maddie's parents were greeted by 150 journalists with cameras at the ready, and by the end of the week, hundreds of reporters from the UK, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal had gathered in Praia da Luz. The quiet Portuguese resort has never seen anything like it.

Kate and Jerry had serious doubts about the professionalism of the local police. The girl's father suggested that the unexpected interest of the media would not be superfluous at all. He guarantees that the case will not be put on the brakes. But how to keep the attention of journalists? Jerry decided to consult with experts and contacted the British PR firm Bell Pottinger.

Work with the press in the first days after the disappearance of the girl was taken over by an experienced PR man, Alex Woolfall. “He explained to me that either I would interact with the media or they would eat us,” Gerry McCann told Vanity Fair a year later. Woolfall advised Maddie's parents to plan news stories for each day and warn journalists about them. As long as they have something to write about, they will not be left behind.

Jerry and Kate did everything they could, especially since the hype opened up new opportunities for this. They flew to Italy and showed a photograph of their missing daughter to the Pope. Traveled to the United States and met with the US Attorney General. We went to Morocco (there were fears that the kidnapped girl would be transported there) and talked with the country's minister of national security. Journalists followed on their heels and reported on every step.

Two weeks after their daughter's disappearance, Kate and Jerry set up the Madeline Foundation and started accepting donations. Within the first two days, the fund's website was opened 58 million times. By March of the following year, they had collected almost two million pounds sterling to search for the missing girl.

British and Portuguese newspapers wrote about Maddie McCann every day. Experts say that in the first weeks, the presence of her photo on the front page was able to increase sales by 30,000 copies. On television, the same thing happened, and interest did not wane even months later. When a BBC show aired a video from the McCann family archive in November 2007, its audience doubled.

The Portuguese police did not like the hype raised by the parents at all. “Now that the whole world has seen the photo of Madeline, it is much more likely that the girl is dead than alive,” said Portuguese Attorney General Fernando Pinto Monteiro.

Evidence and suspicion

The McCanns had every reason to distrust the local police. It is well known that the vast majority of missing child cases are resolved within the first 24 hours. The law enforcement agencies of the resort town were completely unprepared for the case that had fallen on them and missed the moment. Neither the border guards nor the Coast Guard were informed of the disappearance in time. learned about the incident only five days later. The police did not search the surrounding houses, did not interview many witnesses, and did not block the exits from Praia da Luz.

Scotland Yard sent its own investigation team to Portugal, but they were met with an extremely cold reception. The Portuguese colleagues immediately took a dislike to the investigators from the UK. They believed that the guests were too condescending towards them, and were in no hurry to help in the investigation.

Nevertheless, the first witnesses soon appeared. Someone remembered that a few days before Maddie's disappearance, suspicious types hung around in front of the hotel. It is possible that they were robbers looking for new victims. Since January, the number of robberies in Praia da Luz has quadrupled, so this version had a right to exist. Perhaps the girl scared off the thieves climbing out the window?

Maddie's mother remembered that at breakfast her daughter asked why no one answered when she called her parents at night. Perhaps the perpetrator was in the bedroom with the children the day before the abduction, but the girl could not really explain what happened. But the most promising lead came from a friend of Kate's who dined at that restaurant with Kate and Jerry. At about nine in the evening, she left to check on her own daughter, who had stayed at another hotel. On the way back, she met a man with a sleeping girl in his arms.

On May 15, investigators, on a tip from a journalist from the British tabloid Sunday Mirror, found a man who matched the description given by a friend of Kate's. 33-year-old British Robert Murat lived three minutes from the hotel in his mother's house. The police arranged for Kate and Jerry's friends to meet with Murat and they identified him. One of the women stated that she saw this man behind the hotel the night the girl went missing, and remembered his strange eye (the man suffers from retinal detachment).

Portuguese investigators named the Briton as the prime suspect, but no trace of Maddie could be found. Later, British police found a tourist who was vacationing in the neighborhood and that day was returning home with his sleeping daughter. Murat turned out to be beyond suspicion and even managed to sue 500 thousand pounds from the British tabloids, who called him a kidnapper for several months.

Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Who is guilty

Unlike journalists, the Internet immediately disliked the parents of the missing girl, and for the same reason that made them popular: Kate and Jerry were too beautiful and prosperous. Twitter and Facebook, which became popular shortly before the incident, gave the haters a platform to discuss the most fantastic versions.

From the point of view of a significant part of the public, there is no mystery in Maddie's disappearance. It's simple: her own parents killed her, and the body was hidden. The only question is how it happened. A hot-track poll showed that only 20 percent of Britons believed the couple was innocent.

“Yes, yes, I know what they say,” Jerry admitted in an interview. - Kate killed her in the heat of passion. We gave Madeline a sedative and she fell down the stairs (although in that case they should have found her body). I heard all this. There were a lot of theories."

Kate and Jerry were not only disliked online. The Portuguese police from the very beginning doubted the veracity of their version. In June, investigators leaked information to one of the local newspapers that the testimony of witnesses did not agree, the story about a man with a sleeping girl in his arms was invented, and everything indicates that her parents were to blame for the disappearance of the girl.

A pair of spaniels trained to search for corpses noticed a suspicious smell on the girl's mother's trousers, as well as in the trunk of the car the family rented at the end of May. After that, the investigators invited Kate to confess that she had found the body of the deceased girl, and then she hid it herself. In this case, the husband will be released, and she will only have two years in prison. The woman flatly refused.

Kate and Jerry did not remain suspects for long. A few months later, the Portuguese police were forced to admit that they could not find evidence of their involvement. As for the reaction of the dogs, it is most likely due to the fact that Kate works as a doctor.

last hope

The story of Maddie's search didn't end there. In addition to Portuguese and British police officers, several private sleuth companies paid for by the Madeline Foundation and well-wishers were involved. A team of Spanish professionals tried for six months to find traces of the girl in Europe and Morocco (to no avail). A private detective from the UK found evidence that shortly before the incident, a certain woman was negotiating in Barcelona for the “delivery of a new daughter” (it was not possible to prove the connection with Maddie), and specialists from the USA managed to find witnesses who saw three Portuguese with a little girl that night in pajamas (the information is still being verified).