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RSS FeedThinking the unthinkable: Did Madeleine McCann's parents kill her?
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| No | 38% | 119 votes | Total: 311 votes | |
| Yes | 62% | 192 votes |
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Add to FavoritesMadeleine McCann, the latest poster child in a long line of media mystery sweethearts. The disappearance of the 3-year-old child, who happened to be the oldest of three children left alone in a hotel room in a foreign country, while her parents had dinner and drinks with several friends in a nearby restaurant which was out of sight of the room that the children were in.
This story of senseless loss provides the general public with the real-life thrill of scandal and controversy. There are few things more interesting than human suffering, except perhaps outright scandal and an unsolved riddle or mystery.
The disappearance of Madeleine McCann has all these attributes plus, as the story unfolds we have the ability to firmly take sides on the issue, and form our own conclusions as there's no resolution in sight. Madeleine's story is one for the history books, up there with Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, Jon Benet Ramsey... Most of us will never know what really happened.
Actually, for many of us, this is just another story, something to talk about for a few minutes as we analyze the things that we feel are wrong with the world.
I heard about Madeleine on the radio. It's funny how you recall exactly where you were when something traumatic or very odd comes at you unexpectedly. I was sitting at my desk and the silver boom box in the corner of our communal office was blaring away, when the news was suddenly announced. "A three-year-old child left alone in a hotel room with her two younger siblings is missing..."
I thought "What? Who would leave little kids alone in a hotel room to go out and have supper... Why didn't they have a babysitter?" As a mother of four children, my first thought was the practicalities involved in getting away from the kids, I couldn't quite get my head around the idea of two employed, well-educated people leaving a toddler and two infants alone for any significant amount of time.
So, while I personally don't think the McCann's actually killed their daughter, I do think that they were responsible for her safety and welfare. I also think that they were guilty of child neglect and endangerment because the children were much too young to be left for any period of time without an adult or at least an older child present to call for help in case of an emergency. Even a cordless Fisher Price handset monitor that would have allowed them to at least hear what was happening in the room, just in case a child started to cry or there was a sudden crash or something...
Because they weren't supervising their children and failed to make any arrangements for their care and well-being, Madeleine is probably dead or suffering on-going physical and/or sexual abuse. That's the harsh reality of her probable fate and it's so unfair because her parents surely had the money to pay a baby-sitter.
I wonder why the article title asks if we can think the unthinkable, because in our time, anything is possible. I recall a young mother who drowned her 5 children in a bathtub in Texas, then there was the woman who left her two young boys strapped in their
car seats before sinking the car in a pond and she did that to avoid giving them to their dad, yet to still have the freedom to date a guy who didn't want kids, in other words she was utterly selfish.
The McCanns live in Britain and in the time that I've lived in this Country, I've come to understand that many of the well-to-do people over here are in the habit of allowing other people to raise their kids, in fact, it's common to send children away to live at school as young as 8-years-old. I think this practice, which has a long history in Britain, goes a long way to explaining the emotional coolness and detachment that seems to exist between parents and youth in this Country.
A selfish desire to seek and find self-gratification despite the needs of anyone else, including one's children could explain how and why the McCann's just walked away from 2 infants and a 3-year-old to have a good time with their friends. It's not to say that wealthy British people don't love or care about their children, because that would be an unfair and inaccurate assessment, it's just that there seems that the well-to-do have too many other Things To Do, then look after their children properly, especially when the needs of their children conflict with their personal desires.
Maybe Americans are more intense about this because it's always been more dangerous in the States than it has been in Britan as a whole. Especially for the weak and defenseless. I saw the McCann's in an interview once and for some reason, I felt that they were holding some information back, but I couldn't quite place my finger on what was missing, but something wasn't quite right about that interview...
Whatever the reason, I don't think they murdered their daughter nor do I believe they had a chance to recover Madeleine's body and get rid of it after the fact, because they were under intense media scrutiny and someone, somewhere would have seen something. So, the McCann's didn't actually kill their child, they just made it much too easy for someone else to do it.
Learn more about this author, R Marie Taylor.
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Yes
Back in May a little blond girl went missing. She has not been seen since, and the world has waited with breathless anticipation for an answer, some sort of close to the case.
At first we watched with hearts pounding as her mother jumped onto our television screen, making a much too calm plea to the persons responsible for her daughter's disappearance. We clutched our own children as she told of how her daughter was special, and begged an unknown abductor not to hurt her.
But what of the oddness of this entire case? Did we think it was okay for this mother and doctor to leave three very small children all alone in a hotel room, in a foreign country? Did we really think about what it would mean if someone went into their room and took only the oldest of the three children? How strange was it that neither of the babies, (who were on either side of little Madeleine by the way) were disturbed in any sense of the word?
We were told neither of the little twins awoke. We were told that she was the only one taken, even though she had been laying in between her sleeping siblings.
We watched in horrified fascination as the media told us the McCanns were suspects, and we listened with wide eyes and hands clutched to our throats when they told us that the rental car had DNA from a dead body, which they believed was Madeleine's DNA. Her hair, was also in the car. The McCanns tried to claim that it must have been rub off from a blanket or clothing, but the hair had changed chemically and it was from a body, not from a live child. We were told how the cadaver dogs reacted to Madeleine's mother, how they could smell death on her. And we laughed when some lady called into Nancy Grace and said, "Um my question is couldn't that car have been used by someone else to transport the daughter's body before the McCanns rented it?". We all knew the odds of that were to slim to even contemplate.
But somewhere deep down none of us wants to believe that little Maddie was murdered by her parents. So we sit here and say, "There has to be some other explanation. How could a parent do such a thing, and launch a campaign like that?"
I agree it is hard to comprehend. But you have to realize the McCanns may have done this by accident, or they may have lost their temper for a short time. They still love their child, and they certainly don't want to be caught, and to never again see their twins. So they had to do it to play it out, to make them not be suspects. The problem is that with lying, you have to make another lie, and another and another. And soon it isn't believable any longer. Soon everyone can see something is fishy.
I also believe that they needed to do something to make the world remember their little girl. They loved her so much, and now she is gone, and they want the entire world to mourn her loss, not just them. So this campaign has two purposes, the first to try and keep them in the clear, and the second to ensure that the entire world remembers their baby girl.
They killed her either by accident or on purpose, either way they are the ones who are at fault. I won't change my stance unless the child is found alive, and I am quite positive it will never happen.
Learn more about this author, Catsy Jones.
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