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NUIPC ' 201. 070.0 GALGS
Intercalary Information
With the aim of comprehending and linking the
circumstantialities found in the process files in a better way,
this intercalary report was elaborated.
The case refers to the disappearance of an English girl,
Madeleine Beth McCann, the daughter of Gerald Patrick McCann and
Kate Marie Healy, who would have been 4 years old on 12th May
2007.
With regard to place and time, the events occurred on 3rd May
2007 during the time period, according to witnesses, between
21.05 and 22.00 at the Ocean Club resort, in Luz, Lagos, where
the girl's family, together with seven other people, who were
friends of theirs, were spending their holiday.
The group's arrival in Portugal, via Faro airport, took place on
28th April, arriving from the UK. They travelled in two
different groups, given that they live in different areas of the
country. The journey from the airport to the resort in Luz was
made in a small vehicle provided by the Mark Warner company
which was responsible for the management of the resort.
During check in they were allocated different apartments, all of
them in block G5, close to each other and this had been an
imposition or at least a suggestion made by the whole group.
The McCann family occupied apartment G5A, located at the left
corner of the residential block, which can be said to be the
most accessible apartment and with visibility from the outside.
This was a group that was in certain way homogenous, given that
seven of the members were doctors, trained in various
specialities, added to which they all had young children with
them. The McCann family consisted of the parents as well as
Madeleine and the twins, Sean and Amelie, aged two years old.
This holiday trip was organised by the Payne family, namely by
David Payne who had previous experience of Mark Warner tourist
resorts.
This group shared, concomitantly, a friendship that dated from
before the holiday, based upon professional relations and other
leisure trips.
With regard to the disappearance, the intervention of this
police force occurred at about 00.10, by means of a
communication received from the Lagos GNR, informing of the
disappearance of a girl, which led to the immediate departure of
the police to the scene (folios 2 and ss). Jointly with various
diligences carried out to establish the facts, a photographic
report was made of the scene (folios 12 to 23) as well as the
diffusion of the disappearances, with photographs and a
description of the girl, both to the authorities and to the
press, after authorisation from the Public Ministry (folios 32 -
33B and 459).
During this night and the during the early morning intensive
searches were carried out by this police force, GNR officers
equipped with sniffer dogs and by local people organised in
groups and employees of the resort. These searches were extended
over the following days over a radius of 15 km2 by GNR officers
and tracker dogs, locals, marines (folio 821 marine control
Portimao), civil protection officers, the use of a helicopter as
is documented in the report on folios ''' (sic) In spite of
titanic efforts, time and methods used, the search for the girl
was fruitless.
As the investigation was oriented in two initial objectives, the
location of Madeleine and the discovery of the truth of the
facts, we proceeded to the questioning of the parents and the
whole group of friends (folio 34) as follows:
Gerald Patrick McCann - Apartment 5A
Kate Marie Healy - Apartment 5A
David Anthony Payne - Apartment 5H (1st floor)
Fiona Elaine Payne - Apartment 5H
Dianne Webster - Apartment 5H
Russell James O'Brien Apartment 5D
Jane Michelle Tanner - Apartment 5D
Matthew David Oldfield - Apartment 5B
Rachel Mariamma Jean Mampilly - Apartment 5B
In synopsis, from the witness accounts obtained, it is important
to emphasise the statements of Gerald and Kate as well as those
of Jane Tanner and Matthew Oldfield.
With regard to the former, their daily routine was marked by
normality, nothing strange or of any relevance was detected
during the days before the disappearance. After leaving the
children at the cr'he, the twins near to the Tapas restaurant
(inside the resort) and Madeleine at the main reception, they
dedicated themselves to ludical and sporting activities.
With the exception of the first day, all day time meals were
taken in the apartment.
At night the group would dine in the Tapas restaurant, leaving
the children asleep in their respective bedrooms, without an
effective control, although the Payne family had baby monitors.
The children's supper, described as high tea, took place as a
group, regardless of age, at a recreation area next to the Tapas
restaurant between 17.30 and 18.00. Once this meal was over,
they were taken to the apartments, where they were bathed and
prepared for bed, at about 19.30.
On 3rd May, the daily routine was followed as normal, the
McCanns returned to the apartment at about 17.30/18.00
accompanied by their children. After this time and until 19.00,
they bathed the children, fed them again, giving them light
products, they played a bit and then went to bed, the parents
stating that the three of them were asleep at 19.30. Gerald
remained at the tennis courts until about 19.00.
The parents then consumed some drinks and got ready for dinner,
leaving at about 20.30 in the direction of the Tapas restaurant
(a journey on foot of a little more than one minute). Upon
leaving, as usual, they left by the patio doors, which could not
be locked from the outside and which was just pushed to, the
reason being that it was the shortest route to go to the
restaurant and for consequent return, whether to check on the
children or for definite return. The checking of the children by
that route was a daily practice and which seems to us to have
been carried out daily, carried out at half hourly intervals,
although as the case files show, in truth these were extended to
periods that were superior to one hour.
The McCann couple was the first to arrive at the restaurant
table and engaged in a casual conversation with a couple who
were not part of the group, but who were also British, whose
surname was Carpenter. As time passed, all of the other members
of the group arrived.
At about 21.00 Matthew and Russell went to check on the
children, having first listened outside the window of
Madeleine's bedroom, located at the front of the residential
block on the ground floor. Upon his return, Matthew did not
report having noticed anything unusual. Russell stayed in the
apartment as his daughter was ill.
At 21.05, given that Matthew's check did not involve him
entering, Gerald went to the apartment. He left through the
second reception area, headed up the road for twenty, thirty
metre and entered through the metal gate, next to the bedroom,
which leads to the garden/patio. He entered the apartment
through the sliding patio door, which according to what was
mentioned earlier, was not locked. He walked through the living
room and headed for the children's bedroom, noticing that the
bedroom door was wider open than normal, as it was normally left
pushed to. He presumed that Madeleine had got up for some
physiological need. He entered the bedroom and saw his three
children sleeping calmly. He went to the WC and left by the same
means. Upon coming out of the gate he met Jeremy Wilkins, known
to him from tennis practice, also British, who was pushing his
son in a push chair and who was also on holiday at the OC. He
conversed with him for a few instants and returned to the Tapas
restaurant at about 21.15.
At about 21.10 Jane Tanner, Russell's wife, given his absence
went to check on the state of her daughter. She left by the
reception and went up the road that runs along the entrance to
the block. She was not seen either by Gerald or Jeremy although
she did see them, she saw Gerald from the side, however Wilkins
was facing the place that Tanner passed.
At the exact moment that she passed them, she perceived, at the
top of the street, an individual on foot who was carrying a
prostrate child, barefoot and in pyjamas, heading in the
opposite direction to the entrance to the apartments. She
thought it was a father carrying his child.
She only told of this situation sometime after the discovery of
the disappearance and made the association, saying it was
Madeleine, as the pyjamas were identical. A photo fit was made
without facial features, the description and clothes of the
individual were also spread by the media, to see if anyone could
clarify what was happening there (folio 1592) ' no response was
obtained.
Coming back to the narrative, at about 21.35, half an hour
having passed, Kate decided to go and check on the children, but
Matthew volunteered to this as he was also going to his own
apartment to do the same. He took the normal route and entered
by the patio door of the McCann's apartment which was open. When
he was in the middle of the living room, which had a slight
light, he saw the twins in their respective cots, given that the
door was ajar, however he did not enter the bedroom and
therefore could not confirm whether Madeleine was sleeping in
her bed.
Upon his return he said that everything was fine. When he was
questioned at police HQ he added that the children's bedroom had
more light than would be probable if the windows were closed and
the lights off. He cannot clarify the state of the window nor
the existing luminosity.
Half an hour later (22.00) according to their reports, Kate went
to the apartment to check on the children. She entered by the
patio door which she closed upon entering and she saw that the
door to the children's bedroom was open wider than the way she
had left it when she went to dinner. Upon closing the bedroom
door, she felt a current of air which led her to observe the
bedroom with greater care and this is when she noticed that her
daughter Madeleine was missing. The bedroom window was wide open
as were the curtains. The bed was practically intact, her
daughter's soft toy was at the head of the bed.
In a state of alert and with waves of panic, she searched the
entire apartment, not managing to find the girl, which led her
to go, in an upset state, to the Tapas restaurant, saying that
her daughter had been taken. Clear allusion to an abduction,
justified by the fact that the window was open, they said.
During this time, the twins were in the bedroom, alone and
sleeping. Furthermore, they never woke up during this night, in
spite of all the commotion.
Informed about the disappearance, the whole group went to the
McCann's apartment, accompanied by OC employees, who searched
the apartment and the adjacent area several times, without
results. The call to the GNR took place at 22.41, according to
the list in folio 3051.
With the arrival of the GNR, the officers of that force again
searched the whole apartment including the electro domestic
appliances, no useful results were found inside or outside the
apartment. On that night the commander of the Lagos GNR
received, supposedly from Gerald, four photographs of the girl,
folio 2294, poster type, 10 x 15, in two different poses,
identical to folio 30, their printing/developing must have been
done at a moment before the events.
Diligences were carried out to establish the origin of these
images, folios 2295 and 2296.
After 00.00 a team from this police force arrived at the scene
and immediately began diligencies, namely fingerprint inspection
which only revealed the collection of prints from people who had
legitimate access to the apartment. The bedroom was also
examined by Scientific Police Laboratory, which collected
numerous vestiges for continuous examinations, which up until
now have not contributed to a full clarification of the facts.
During the course of the collection of elements, on the next day
a mobile GNR post was placed in front of the residential block
with the aim of receiving/treating and channelling information
related to the disappearance, all investigated by this police
force in a methodical and strict manner, some were added to the
inquiry, others were placed in annexes so that it was possible
to visualise what was done.
Apart from the information collected by the mobile post,
hundreds of other pieces of information from civil society and
from the authorities were received by email or telephone and
were treated in the same manner.
None of this information to date had attained the required
result of locating the girl and clarifying the facts under
investigation.
The British media were alerted to the disappearance, on the
night of 3rd May, Sky news opened its news report at 07.00 on
4th May with news about this case. A huge media presence without
precedence was mobilised, accompanying all the police work,
speculating and imagining scenarios, some of them possible, some
of them fantasy.
Given this introspective picture, we can be sure that as well as
the abduction situation, all other possibilities were open, as
they are now.
This thesis - abduction - was exhaustively investigated, all
information leading to this in every sense, was examined. No
ransom was ever demanded.
We clarified two situations, with the valuable help of the Dutch
and Spanish authorities which led to the detention of three
persons who were trying to extort money from the family in
exchange for false information about the girl and who were
proven to be fraudulent. These facts can be found in two Apenso
volumes annexed to the files.
We proceeded to question all the OC employees, folios 848 and
856 whose statements did not reveal anything of any relevance in
spite of the parsimonious attention used.
We carried out diligencies in 443 rooms in P da L, folio 198,
nothing useful was found.
For the rest, we heard witness accounts relating to incidents
with children, which were not possible to link to Madeleine, in
particular the case of a Polish couple who were on holiday in
Portugal and who were seen taking photographs of a girl who
looked like Madeleine. But once again nothing of relevance was
found with relation to them as can be seen in folios 213 to 216.
Photo fits were elaborated based on the indications of witnesses
who reported situations that they characterised as being
'strange', most concretely of individuals who were seen in the
proximity of the apartment during the day, but again, nothing
that could be related to Madeleine.
Particular attention was paid to individuals connected to the
criminal underworld, those connected to crimes against children,
diligences, which to date have not enabled the collection of any
relevant data.
In order to perceive the Babel of information, we can say that
some of the incidences about the disappearance, in particular
with relation to sightings, placed the girl at the same time and
date in different locations in our country (folios 524 and ss)
as well as in places around the world separated by thousands of
kilometres, from Japan to the States, passing through Indonesia,
Singapore and the African continent. As regards the latter, a
sighting was transmitted from Morocco, near to Marrakesh, at a
petrol station, by a Norwegian woman. In spite of efforts the
images were never obtained, therefore it was partially
dismissed.
We has reports of sightings in public transport and on motorways
all over Europe, in some of these cases it was possible to
confirm that these were girls accompanied by their parents and
in some cases, girls with physical similarities.
The images from petrol stations along the main roads of the
Algarve were seen, the result was negative, Gerald and Kate were
shown stills from these images, such as those in folios 129 '
133, showing a similar looking girl but who did not correspond
to the missing girl.
At a determined moment, and because as is known in these cases,
it is necessary to have a perfect knowledge of the scene, in
order to facilitate procedures and plan actions duly, suspicions
fell on an individual who lived metres away from apartment 5 A,
Robert Queriol Murat. The suspicions referred to are found in
folios 308, 328, 442, 461, 957, 960, 961, and 968-1000.
During the initial phase, before the deepening of the
investigation, this individual fulfilled the conditions to be
made a suspect. The intrinsic elements of his condition as
suspect can be analysed in the previously mentioned pages.
In order to confirm or discard the suspicions about Robert
Murat, searches were carried out and telephone interceptions
were made, folios 995-1013 of the suspect and of individuals
who interacted directly or indirectly with him, namely those who
had daily contact with him or with whom he maintained telephone
contact. In spite of an exhaustive and methodological
investigation of Murat and the persons close to him, no elements
were collected that could connect him to the crime being
investigated. Apart from the analyses of communications and
forensic examinations of their computers which did not reveal
anything useful, various searches of his home were made with the
use of sniffer dogs, the subsoil was examined, physically and
using detection methodologies, again with no useful results.
The cars of those connected to him were examined, no results
were obtained.
The homes and vehicles were minutely inspected by the Police
Scientific Laboratory, no relevant vestiges were found.
The analyses of the telephone and electronic communications
(attached in annex) and the resulting correlation, gave no
results.
At the police HQ the suspect denied any involvement in the
events. The inquiries made in relation to the other individuals
who had personal or professional relations with Murat did not
bring up any data worthy of investigation.
In truth, during the searches various objects were taken for
analysis without any incriminating result having been found yet.
As reported on folio 1606 and following pages, a new element
appeared, brought by an Irish family, who told of a sighting on
3rd May 2007 at about 21.55 of a man carrying a child who was
walking down a road that leads to a zone near to P da L. They
did not manage to recognise the man, however Martin Smith, in
subsequent information, folio 2871, said that judging by the
bearing it could have been Gerald McCann, which upon initial
analysis did not seem very viable to us given the time period
indicated. However, new questioning of Martin Smith by the Irish
authorities was requested in order to check the reliability of
his information. A reply is awaited.
Concerning the theme of searches referring to the construction
work underway in P da L, folio 1650 and ss we collected the
statements of the workers, employees and the engineer in charge
who did not detect anything unusual and who focussed on the
impossibility of hiding a body, even a child's body.
**
Meanwhile, I come to the knowledge of this police force about
the information relating to the use of the dogs, folio 1989 and
following pages, specialised in the marking of human blood
remains and human cadaver odour, from the UK.
This is an inspection technique commonly used in the UK,
sometimes with positive results, consisting in the use of two
specially trained dogs.
One of the dogs is trained to detect cadaver odour and the other
to detect human blood traces.
Opting to use this resource, a large number of objects and
places were examined, where, in some cases, the dogs were seen
to show the behaviour of identification and signalling, as
follows:
1. Apartment 5A, OC resort from which the girl
disappeared
- Cadaver odour dog
* in the couple's bedroom on the floor next to the wardrobe.
* In the living room, behind the sofa, next to the lateral
window of the apartment.
2. Patio area, in front of apartment 5 A
- Cadaver odour dog
* in one of the flower beds, the dog handler commented upon the
weakness (lightness) of the odour detected.
3. Apartments where the rest of the group was staying
* Nothing was found by either dog.
4. Residence of the McCann couple at the time of the
date of inspection
* Nothing was found by either dog in the villa.
5. In the locality of P da L
* Nothing was found by either dog.
6. The clothes and belongings of the McCann family
- Cadaver odour dog
* on two pieces of clothing belonging to Kate Healy.
* On a piece of clothing belonging to Madeleine.
* Possibly, on a soft toy belonging to Madeleine (cadaver odour
was detected when the toy was still in the residence (on the
date it was occupied by the family)).
* Signalling was confirmed in a scenario outside the villa.
7. In the vehicle used by the McCann family
- cadaver odour dog
* signalled the car key
- blood dog
* signalled the vehicle's key.
* signalled inside the vehicle's luggage boot.
8. In a vehicle used by a friend of the family who was
staying at the same resort, coinciding for a few days.
* Nothing was found by either dog.
9. In all the cars used by Robert Murat and people close
to him
* Nothing was found by either dog.
(Of a total of 10 vehicles the cadaver odour dog and the blood
dog only signalled the vehicle hired by the McCann family on
27th May).
The places and objects signalled by the blood dog were tested
forensically by the reputed British Laboratory (FSS) whose final
results are not yet available. However, there are indications
that would show that these will be inconclusive, in other words
they do not corroborate the dogs signalling without leaving any
doubt.
Based upon the action of the sniffer dog team which reveals the
eventual existence of a cadaver in the apartment and in the car
used by the McCann family and with the aim of enabling Gerald
and Kate to safeguard their position in the process they were
constituted arguidos, in the face of the mere
possibility of their involvement with the eventual cadaver.
During the course off their interrogation as arguidos they
denied any responsibility in the disappearance of their
daughter.
**
During the process phase we are in, according to the results of
the information already in the case files, we proceeded to
elaborate the thematic annexes (apensos) that contain all the
information relating to sightings, suspects or suspicious
situations, temporary analysis reports and reports on
communications and examinations as well as information subject
to international cooperation.
The investigation continues in the sense of checking all
credible information received in the meantime on a daily basis,
with particular relevance to information with regard to
paedophiles and the authors of sexual crimes which has already
exceeded 150 individuals.
Reports and diligences will always be carried out in a
methodical manner, taking into account the investigation actions
and conclusions already carried out in the irrenounceable and
unforgettable hope of discovering the truth of the facts.
In the wake of what has been mentioned, a proposal was made for
the elaboration of a Letter of Request to the British
authorities, enunciating the diligences, which are pertinent in
our opinion and which could be fruitful for the case.
For your consideration.
Portimao, 31st January 2008
Inspector Joao Carlos
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