...initial investigators arrived at the conclusions they did?
- GM didn't make it clear up front the patio door was unsecured and that this was the door used for carrying out the checks whilst the children slept unsupervised over 5 consecutive nights whilst he and KM dined out at tapas for some 3 hours every evening.
- The emphasis was on KM's claims of the raised shutter and open window although no signs of forced entry at this window or elsewhere,
- JT claims she observed a man carrying a child away from 5A en route to her apartment. The route she claims to have taken meant she came within touching distance of GM chatting to JW although neither observed her.
- A Glasgow based friend of the MCCanns was telling the media, within hours of MM's disappearance, that the shutter had been jemmied despite the fact there was no evidence of forced entry.
The Washington Sniper hunt was sent down the totally wrong track for months, looking for a white box van, the most ubiquitous vehicle in the United States at the time, when it was actually a myth / hearsay / bias at play.
But they picked the ball up and ran with it on the back of flawed witness testimony. Did the State Police, FBI and DHS all get it so catastrophically wrong for so long due to incompetence?
(Incidentally, if you want contentious use of tracker dogs, this case is the benchmark. Clemente and Fitzgerald contend that the bloodhound was key in finding the evidence that helped them build the very accurate profile)