Thinking the unthinkable: Did Madeleine McCann's parents kill her?

No

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by R Marie Taylor

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Madeleine 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.

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