The two first attenders (GNR) to the scene in PDL, officers José Maria Batista Roque and Nelson Filipe Pacheco da Costa made six statements in total. One each on 7th May, one each on 16th May and one each on 17th October.
At no point in the their first two statements did either of the two GNR officers mention either Kate or Gerry kneeling and putting their heads to the floor crying. Yet both recall in detail this event when questioned five months later.
It is even stranger because in May Jose Maria Batista Roque was specifically, “Urged to reveal other details that may be considered relevant to the investigation”. And his answer was “that he has no other knowledge of any elements that may help contribute to that end”. So the PJ officer questioning him at the time was not using closed questions but giving him the chance to offer any other details.
Later in October Roque describes two separate occurrences of this crying and claims that the crying was “a situation that seemed unusual to him”. Costa, referring to the kneeling and praying says in October that he “found it notable”. I find it odd that such unusual events would not have been mentioned in May.
Neither officer so much as alluded to it in May but both recalled it in October as being notable or unusual.
And then we have another witness to these strange events who also fails completely in her first two statements to mention even one word about kneeling or praying yet later recalls it.
Silvia Batista was interviewed on the 7th and 15th of May but recalled nothing of the kneeling and praying. Only when further interviewed on 26th July did she happen to recall this odd event.
In fact she recalls it as the very first thing that she saw when she met up with the GNR officers at reception, “When she arrived at the officer's location she saw that behind them was Gerry, Madeleine's father, with another person but she does not remember who it was. At that time Gerry was on the ground on his knees, he hit the ground with both his hands, looking like an Arab at prayer, and emitted two screams of rage [fury, madness] but she could not understand what he said.”
So three witnesses all fail to recall such a strange (and in their words notable/unusual) part of the events of that night for months (each having undergone two separate police interviews in that period) and then each at their third interview manages to recall exactly the same thing happening.
Can anyone explain why it would only become so important to the story five months after the event, why it would have slipped their minds till then? Is it clear from this that memory can improve over a period? Would that be similar to Jane Tanner?
Or should we, as many do with Jane Tanner, simply presume that such memory improvement does not exist and therefore all three of these people are simply lying?
