I have been doing a bit of research into child abduction from bed and I must admit that the only examples I can find are American ones - thought there are a good few examples nonetheless:
Elizabeth Smart, 2002. This is a very famous case, in the US as at least, and an interesting and involved one. An abductor entered the home in the middle of the night and took Elizabeth, then aged 14, from a bedroom she shared with her 9 year old sister. The sister witnessed the abductor at length, but did not call out to alert anyone as she was afraid he would kill her and her sister.
Elizabeth was admittedly much older than Madeleine - and therefore, one would think, harder to subdue and exit with undetected.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Smart_kidnappingRosie Tapia, abducted from her bed in 1995, age 6, and murdered.
http://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2007/03/13/rosie-tapia-murder-81395-salt-lake-city-ut-unsolved-murder/Both girls were from Salt Lake City, Utah.
And a more recent example, from Los Angeles:
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/29/local/la-me-kidnapped-20130329And another case, from Georgia, that involved a burglary:
http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/09/17/ayvani-hope-perez-missing-georgia-home-invasionNo sign of gypsies, though it's a completely different demographic.
I did find a related piece on the topic of abduction from bed, however:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865558906/Child-abductions-from-homes-exceptionally-rare-expert-says.htmlThe piece contains an interesting insight:
''And while such brazen abductions are a parent's worst fear, they don't happen often, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
"We do see them from time to time, but they are exceptionally rare," said Bob Lowery, executive director of the Virginia-based center's missing child division.
"We have the expectation that when we are at home, we are safe," he said. "This is a different kind of predator that will engage in something that high-risk because of the motivation for what he wants to do with that child."Sherlock's question from this article is:
Does that statement, if true, suggest that someone willing to enter a child's bedroom at night, with all the risks that that entails, would be unlikely to be a person merely in the employ of higher-up or group who wanted a child to sell or pass on, or use for their own purposes?
For him to have been prepared to make such a brazen move, would he be a man operation alone, driven by his own nefarious drives?
