Was the crime scene contaminated?

[gilet]

The POINT is that evidence was compromised and the PT police get the blame for it, when obviously it was not them that compromised it as it had been before they even got there, any rational person would and shouldagree with this

You are simply wrong.
It is simply not true to state as you do that it was not the PT police who compromised the scene.
It was the GNR and the dogs who littered the apartment with hair and not the McCanns for example.

And maybe someone else can recollect but was there not some other specific contamination later identified as coming from a GNR officer?

[AnneGuedes]

• Failure of the PJ to remove the bedding for proper DNA examination,
  
  Failure of the PJ/GNR to secure the scene of crime
  
  Failure of the PJ to keep hold of the hairs found (many of which if the files are to be believed have simply vanished).

that I have missed and which you think makes me wrong?

What's missing here, Gilet, is simple :
- proof that the scientific police did or didn't remove the bedding, and if not why.
- proof the GNR officers didn't secure the crime scene when ordered to (see above that by Portuguese Law, as a witness on the crime scene before the arrival of the police, you have to secure it)
- proof whoever in the police lost the hairs before they were analised.

[gilet]

I got lost trying to catch up several pages ago.

The title of the thread is: Criticism of the Find Madeleine Fund and Review

And it's turned into whether bedding should have gone, or did not need to go, for forensic analysis.

And I posted a link to a different thread, to continue a discussion on that one, asking what happened to the missing hairs on her bed... and the silence is deafening.

I have made it very clear on a number of occasions that the incompetence of the PJ is probably a very, very important factor in why the Fund was pushed so strongly by the McCanns. They knew they needed help other than from the police force they believed were failing them.

So I believe fully exploring that incompetence is a perfectly valid subject especially as some posters were criticising the fund because the McCanns were suggesting it might be used for other professionals to be used in the search.

[DCI]

The POINT is that evidence was compromised and the PT police get the blame for it, when obviously it was not them that compromised it as it had been before they even got there, any rational person would and shouldagree with this

You are simply wrong.
It is simply not true to state as you do that it was not the PT police who compromised the scene.
It was the GNR and the dogs who littered the apartment with hair and not the McCanns for example.

And maybe someone else can recollect but was there not some other specific contamination later identified as coming from a GNR officer?

Processos Vol VI

Page 1520

Date: 2007/05/18

Service Information

To: The Coordinator of the Investigation, G. Amaral

From: Assistant Specialist Irene Trovao

Subject: Identification of finger print

I inform you that according to report nº 140/07 there is a single finger print with sufficient value for identification.

It was revealed with Dragon Blood and gathered from the side of the living room window/door of Ocean Club apartment 5 A on 4th May 2007 after the disappearance of the child.

This morning Officer Silva delivered various fingerprints belonging to his officers who were on duty at the apartment on the night of 3 – 4 May 2007.

These were compared to the finger print which was identified as being that of Nelson Filipe Pacheco da Costa of the Lagos GNR.

[gilet]

• Failure of the PJ to remove the bedding for proper DNA examination,
  
  Failure of the PJ/GNR to secure the scene of crime
  
  Failure of the PJ to keep hold of the hairs found (many of which if the files are to be believed have simply vanished).

that I have missed and which you think makes me wrong?

What's missing here, Gilet, is simple :
- proof that the scientific police did or didn't remove the bedding, and if not why.
- proof the GNR officers didn't secure the crime scene when ordered to (see above that by Portuguese Law, as a witness on the crime scene before the arrival of the police, you have to secure it)
- proof whoever in the police lost the hairs before they were analised.

The lack of any evidence in the files for these things to have happened is either

Proof in itself of the fact that they did not happen

or

Proof that the PJ were incompetent in compiling a proper record which fully included all the relevant evidence.

Either way, my case is made.

[sadie]

  

[AnneGuedes]

Are you bizarrely suggesting that there should have been nobody looking for Madeleine in that apartment prior to the Police being called and their subsequent arrival?

That would be madness?  You seem to be advocating madness.

An open window, lifted shutters and flying curtains are more than suggestive of an abduction, Gilet. Looking under beds or in cupboards would be time lost if not criminal madness, to use your terminology.

[gilet]

The POINT is that evidence was compromised and the PT police get all the blame for it, when obviously it was not them that compromised it as it had been before they even got there, any rational person would and shouldagree with this, similar to sayng the police were responsible for losing the golden hour after the abduction, poppycock at best, as no one knows when the alledged abduction occurred, even if it HAD ocurred at 9.15, police were not called till 22.41, and came within 10 mins or so, so, no golden hour

So by your logic, if the golden hour is missed by ten minutes or so then no urgency is required from then on.
Otherwise what on earth are you blathering about?

Why am I not surprised?

[sadie]

Are you bizarrely suggesting that there should have been nobody looking for Madeleine in that apartment prior to the Police being called and their subsequent arrival?

That would be madness?  You seem to be advocating madness.

An open window, lifted shutters and flying curtains are more than suggestive of an abduction, Gilet. Looking under beds or in cupboards would be time lost if not criminal madness, to use your terminology.

So your child goes missing Anne, and you dont even bother to look under the beds and in the cupboards

AWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

[Benice]

there were a lot of dog hairs though

Ah yes, those police dogs who were allowed to trample over the crime scene before forensics were able to deal with it.

Another example of the almost criminal incompetence of the PJ and GNR.

Thats rich

no different to the criminal incompetence of the mccanns allowing 20  or so people to trample through the flat before police ever got a chance to get there, all footprints in the kids room rendered null and void because of that, the  AGs final report confirms this destroying of the crime scene!

In the drama of the moment, nobody - parents, friends of the parents, resort management and personnel - was cold and lucid enough to preserve the crime scene, preventing that rummaging and the consequent contamination of traces from happening, while it is common knowledge that it is any person's responsibility to preserve crime scenes - apart from a legal demand: article 171 number 2 of the Penal Process Code - thus avoiding that traces can be erased or altered, therefore the collectable evidence had already lost much of its indicative value. Hence the lack of evidential elements that were collected during that initial phase, so much so that the only latent fingerprints that were collected, with the number of elements that are necessary to perform a positive identification, were individualised as belonging to the missing child's mother and to a GNR officer (pages 885 and 1520), thus immediately rendering the collection of important data for the investigation inviable.

The AG gives a valid reason why the parents etc. did not treat the scene as a crime scene -  and actually it was not a crime scene until AFTER people had searched everywhere and established that Madeleine was not there.   Obviously the first thing anyone would do in those circumstances is to search the whole place.   

However, they were not policemen and policeman ARE supposed to be 'cold and lucid' enough to view the scene differently.   But even one of the policemen who arrived searched the whole apartment in the same way as the parents and others did -  and there was no need for the dogs to be inside the apartment at any time.

What the McCanns and others did was natural and understandable.  What the police did was unprofessional and incompetent.  IMO

The POINT is that evidence was compromised and the PT police get all the blame for it, when obviously it was not them that compromised it as it had been before they even got there, any rational person would and shouldagree with this, similar to sayng the police were responsible for losing the golden hour after the abduction, poppycock at best, as no one knows when the alledged abduction occurred, even if it HAD ocurred at 9.15, police were not called till 22.41, and came within 10 mins or so, so, no golden hour

IMO the point is that the first searches of the apartment by the McCanns and others were completely normal in those circumstances.   It would be the natural reaction of ANYONE - and I repeat until they established that Madeleine was not there - it would not be regarded as a crime scene - what if she had been found hiding away somewhere?   And yes I agree that evidence may have been contaminated or destroyed, but that was inevitable - how could anyone search the place without touching anything?   

However that was not the situation when the police arrived - by then it was a crime scene and regardless of what had happened prior to their arrival they should have cordoned it off immediately and treated is as one.

The further contamination and possible destruction of evidence caused by the police and their dogs should not have happened and was NOT inevitable.   It was purely down to their unprofessionalism and incompetence that it did happen.  Full stop.








 

[DCI]

The POINT is that evidence was compromised and the PT police get all the blame for it, when obviously it was not them that compromised it as it had been before they even got there, any rational person would and shouldagree with this, similar to sayng the police were responsible for losing the golden hour after the abduction, poppycock at best, as no one knows when the alledged abduction occurred, even if it HAD ocurred at 9.15, police were not called till 22.41, and came within 10 mins or so, so, no golden hour

So by your logic, if the golden hour is missed by ten minutes or so then no urgency is required from then on.
Otherwise what on earth are you blathering about?

Why am I not surprised?

Exactly, Gilet.
And how many hours are in 3 wasted months?

[gilet]

Are you bizarrely suggesting that there should have been nobody looking for Madeleine in that apartment prior to the Police being called and their subsequent arrival?

That would be madness?  You seem to be advocating madness.

An open window, lifted shutters and flying curtains are more than suggestive of an abduction, Gilet. Looking under beds or in cupboards would be time lost if not criminal madness, to use your terminology.

I have rarely read such a ludicrous post anywhere on any subject ever.

You really expect us to believe that a parent who finds their child is missing from the bed would NOT look under the bed or in cupboards and would NOT get friends or others to assist them in the search?

I am truly astounded that you could post such a statement.

This has gone beyond what I would have expected.

It is sheer madness being used to try to defend the PJ when the reality is that any normal parent would be frantic and searching high and low throughout the apartment and getting others to do the same.

And in a previous post I noticed you referred to the Penal Code or some other such rule saying that in PT the onus is on everyone to secure crime scenes. Firstly, I doubt the McCanns or their mates (or even the OC staff really were aware of that specific law) but even if they were it wasn't, as Benice, pointed out, a crime scene till they were certain (HAVING CHECKED ALL POSSIBLE HIDING PLACES FOR EXAMPLE) that there had been a crime.

[AnneGuedes]

The further contamination and possible destruction of evidence caused by the police and their dogs should not have happened and was NOT inevitable.   It was purely down to their unprofessionalism and incompetence that it did happen.  Full stop.

Sniffer dogs start the trail at the exact point (if known) where the missing person was seen for the last time.
Are you suggesting Mr McCann wasn't saying the truth when he said he saw his daughter in her bedroom at 21:10 ?

[Redblossom]

why would anyone look under a divan bed that sits on the floor, as if a nearlyy 4 yr old could be under it, not even a cat could be

[Carana]

The POINT is that evidence was compromised and the PT police get the blame for it, when obviously it was not them that compromised it as it had been before they even got there, any rational person would and shouldagree with this

You are simply wrong.
It is simply not true to state as you do that it was not the PT police who compromised the scene.
It was the GNR and the dogs who littered the apartment with hair and not the McCanns for example.

And maybe someone else can recollect but was there not some other specific contamination later identified as coming from a GNR officer?

Fag ash?

To be fair, I have never seen anything in the forensic reports concerning fag ash in the apartment.

The only reference to cigarettes was that butts were not picked up within an area that could have been important.