Madeleine McCann suspects kept regular phone contact, police sayThree suspects were in phone contact with each other during Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, police say.
By Jerry Lawton/Published 3rd July 2014
Madeleine McCann, missing, Portugal, disappearance, child, baby, holiday, police, suspects MISSING: Madeleine McCann has been missing since May 2007 [PA]
Detectives believe they were targeting the family until the moment the alarm was raised about Madeleine vanishing.
They have uncovered a series of eight calls and texts suggesting they were monitoring her parents, Kate and Gerry, before a raid on their apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May, 2007.
Detectives are trying to discover if they intended to carry out a burglary or if they had a more sinister motive for watching the McCanns.
The first call was placed by Suspect A, a 51-year-old heroin addict, to Suspect B, a beggar then aged just 16, at 12.08pm the day before Madeleine vanished.
B then swapped four phone calls and texts with Suspect C, a 33-year-old ex-Ocean Club driver with convictions for theft, on May 3.
The first was at 5.26pm, at the precise time when Madeleine was leaving the resort’s crčche.
A text message was exchanged at 9.25pm when two of the McCanns’ holiday pals left their dinner in a tapas bar to check on the group’s children who were asleep in the nearby apartments.
The two suspects were in contact again at 9.38pm when one of the McCanns’ pals Jane Tanner left the restaurant to check on her children.
They were in touch again at 9.51pm as Madeleine’s GP mum walked to her apartment to find her then three-year-old daughter missing.
“According to a Portuguese newspaper, thefts had tripled at the Ocean Club at the time Madeleine vanished”
Later that evening, A made three calls from a public phone box in the resort to B.
Police have still not traced a man seen carrying a sleeping blonde girl in pyjamas towards the resort’s beach at 10pm.
Yesterday Scotland Yard officers including Det Chief Insp Andy Redwood joined Portuguese detectives continuing to investigate the three men linked by the calls.
Sources said suspicious hair had also been found that did not match Madeleine’s DNA. According to Portuguese newspapers a request to obtain DNA and fingerprints from the three men was refused.
They deny any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance and have answered more than 250 police questions.
Yesterday Brit police sniffer dogs were brought in to examine the cars of suspects A and C.
According to a Portuguese newspaper, thefts had tripled at the Ocean Club at the time Madeleine vanished.
None of the men commented as they left a police station in Faro.
A friend of Suspect A, whom a private detective hired by the McCanns said would “do anything for his next fix”, insisted he was innocent.
“He was indoors the night Madeleine disappeared,’’ his pal said.
“It’s inhuman a sick man like him has been dragged before the police.’’
A fourth suspect, a Russian, was also questioned. Yesterday police officers were quizzing eight people as witnesses.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/386992/Madeleine-McCann-suspects-kept-regular-phone-contact
