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RSS FeedThinking the unthinkable: Did Madeleine McCann's parents kill her?
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| No | 39% | 118 votes | Total: 299 votes | |
| Yes | 61% | 181 votes |
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Add to FavoritesThe bond between a parent and child is so sacred that even the possibility of murder is an outrage. To even think that Madeline's parents played a part in this whole monstrosity is enough to boggle the mind.
Because I have children and refuse to ever even entertain such thoughts, I have to believe that the McCann's are just a target for investigation because other leads are not panning out; that the investigators are just being completely thorough. And that the media has taken it out of proportion.
The family vehicle is the benchmark in question. DNA matching Madeline's was found in it. But, even so, there were many other people associated with that car, possibly 30. And the reasons for being in the car will surely prove entirely innocent with investigation.
If probed and investigated, I could remember why each item in my car is there. And murder is not one of them. The McCann's are being questioned about the events and items in the car that will reveal simply that they are a family of three small children.
DNA was found in a car that the McCann's rented 25 days after Madeline went missing, May 3rd. The innocent explanation was that while transferring to an apartment from the holiday trip that they were on when their daughter disappeared, items were hastily thrown into suitcases and plastic bags. The back seat was taken out so that all their belongings would fit.
Madeline has two year old twin siblings, Sean and Amelie. Their dirty nappies were thrown into the car in haste the day they moved. That explains how urine and excrement were found in the spare tire well. Their DNA closely matches Madeline's.
Gerry and Kate McCann's grief is overwhelming. And, while this emotion may be an act for a short while, true grief cannot be mimicked. One of the government officials, Clarence Mitchell, (of the Central Office of Information's Media Monitoring Unit in Whitehall) resigned himself from his role in order to speak out for the McCann's.
Mitchell said that he was with Madeline's parents for many hours a day (14 at times), and he never suspected them of being anything but victims. He emphasized that the media needs to get their attention away from Gerry and Kate Mcann and refocus on Madeline.
The investigation will continue and reveal the innocence of Gerry and Kate McCann. While it is true that everyone close to Madeline should be investigated, it is equally true that conclusions should not be drawn and exploited without all the facts.
That is what happened here. The media, as usual, saw a juicy story that would sell papers-and, well, they sold them.
Now, it is our turn, as the thought-filled public, to see through the hype. Let's send the best message to the McCann's that we can..
That message should be that we feel for you both and hope only for the safe return of your daughter.
Learn more about this author, K.C. Neal.
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Yes
YES: Is the DNA evidence of little Madeleine's death damning the McCann couple, or have the Portuguese police invented the parents' guilt to cover up their own ineptness in handling the case? The tragedy first became news when the four-year-old girl's parents reported Madeleine had disappeared on May 3 from the family's vacation apartment in Praia da Luz.
This started off a frenzy of official searches and zig-zag daily updates from news media, as Portuguese police and international agencies went looking for Madeleine and those who abducted her throughout the world. Rumors over the months reported sightings of Madeleine in other European and African countries.
The little girl's father Gerry, a physician, and mother KateMcCann, made highly-publicized TV appeals for the kidnappers to return the child. Thousands of other appeals in world media and the internet joined in on pleas and publicity. The names of several suspects appeared in news reports, but soon were declared innocent. Then the rumors abruptly stopped, and no trace of Madeleine ever surfaced.
The strange situation became stranger when the Portuguese authorities suddently announced that mother Kate was a suspect. Stranger still, they said her punishment would be only two years in prison if she would confess that she killed her daughter unintentionally by an accident or overdose of sleeping pills.
While the McCann family immediately denied everything, Portuguese authorities claim they have valid evidence, including Madeleine's DNA and blood in the McCann rented car. The police also are said to have found medications often used by families on vacation who want their children to sleep while the parents go out for the evening.
The McCann family is back in England, and plans to spend as much as $200,000 donated by family and sympathizers for media advertising. They continue to maintain they are totally innocent of any complicity in the child's disappearance, and won't give up their hope to find Madeleine.
Maybe no one will ever know the truth about what happened to Madeleine, except those who were actually involved in her disappearance. The questions persist. Was she kidnapped by international thieves who sell children in secret adoption deals? Was she taken by a murderous predator and killed?
All theories may still be considered, but as time goes by, just one unanswered question seems to damn the McCann's as guilty. If you were traveling in a foreign land, would you ever leave your four-year-old sleeping child unattended long enough for someone to come into her room and abduct her? Would the actions leave behind no evidence, no trace of a struggle, no outcry nor any other disturbance?
The most logical conclusion, and as the Portuguese police and their forensic evidence declare, Madeleine died from the simple, but horrific accident of being given an overdose of sleeping drugs by her parents. The tragedy was then compounded by the shocked, heartbroken and confused McCanns. Hoping to cover themselves legally, and to protect their other children from sharing in the guilt, they disposed of the body.
Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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