Did the moving door have any relevance to Madeleine's disappearance?

[C.Edwards]

it just requires a gap, crack, an air brick or something that allows the air to move through the property.

I still disagree. Windy here today, I just opened the patio door with the front room door 5 metres away and one that is easy to move. It hasn't done anything other than twitch a millimetre or two each way.  I opened the front door and "bang!" it slammed shut.

Hardly conclusive, but not inconclusive either....

[Lyall]

Absolutely.

We do not know the truth about the doors, and have no way of working it out. It is what we make of it.

What seems significant to me is the fact that there would be a focus on things that seemed to relate to the 9.15 abduction scenario, when - officially at least - this seems to have been ruled out.

I am normally hesitant to resort to labels, but here I think I have to make the following point. (I have been very busy the past few days and have not been able to keep up with everything that is written here, so please forgive me if this observation is not new).

It seems to me that a lot of '[ censored word]', dismissive hitherto about the Tanner sighting - Jane's accuracy or lack of; her motive for claiming to have sighted this man; the idea that the sighting constituted any kind of evidence of abduction - are now questioning how much sense the case makes taking the Tanner sighting out of the equation:

'How can SY can be sure that they have good enough grounds to rule this man out?'

'What do you mean he was coming from the night creche - he was coming from the front door of the apartment! Isn't that a bit  of a coincidence!'

All this about a man who was supposed to be a figment of Jane's imagination - or a concoction of the McCanns'.

And now we are talking about a door relating to the 9.15 scenario...

The door angle was still mentioned in Crimewatch, SH. In a case so lacking in evidence everything mentioned by the people involved had and still has significance. The concentration on 9.15 was the deliberate strategy of the McCanns and their allies themselves. You can't just forget all that history.

[AnneGuedes]

Did he even go into 5A ? Were his fingerprints found on the patio door, as they should have been, if that had been his mode of entry.

According to many clues he never was in that flat. He couldn't just listen without seeing the shutters (smashed by the abductor around 9h15),  this is why he had to enter..

[icabodcrane]

Absolutely.

We do not know the truth about the doors, and have no way of working it out. It is what we make of it.

What seems significant to me is the fact that there would be a focus on things that seemed to relate to the 9.15 abduction scenario, when - officially at least - this seems to have been ruled out.

I am normally hesitant to resort to labels, but here I think I have to make the following point. (I have been very busy the past few days and have not been able to keep up with everything that is written here, so please forgive me if this observation is not new).

It seems to me that a lot of '[ censored word]', dismissive hitherto about the Tanner sighting - Jane's accuracy or lack of; her motive for claiming to have sighted this man; the idea that the sighting constituted any kind of evidence of abduction - are now questioning how much sense the case makes taking the Tanner sighting out of the equation:

'How can SY can be sure that they have good enough grounds to rule this man out?'

'What do you mean he was coming from the night creche - he was coming from the front door of the apartment! Isn't that a bit  of a coincidence!'

All this about a man who was supposed to be a figment of Jane's imagination - or a concoction of the McCanns'.

And now we are talking about a door relating to the 9.15 scenario...

If Scotland Yard are correct and the man Jane saw was an innocent parent,  and if they are further correct in their belief that the man the Smiths saw  could  have been the abductor  (  given the remarkable similarity between  the child they saw being carried and Madeleine )   it is fair to assume that the abductor did not enter the apartment until after Mathew Oldfield made his 9.30pm check

Therefore there is no explantion for the claims that someone  other  than the McCanns or  Oldfied having opened that door wider

So why were the claims made  ? 

I think they may have been made,  untruthfully,  in order to reinforce the Jane Tanner abduction theory  ...  I think there is a possibility that the  door never  WAS  found to be 'half open' by Gerry at 9.05pm

What is significant,  if that were the case,  is that it would indicate that the McCanns gave false information to the police in order to convince them that the man Jane Tanner saw had abducted their daughter   ...  and that the  opened bedroom door was evidence of his presence in the apartment

That would be questionable behaviour,  don't you think  ? 

[AnneGuedes]

It seems to me that a lot of '[ censored word]', dismissive hitherto about the Tanner sighting - Jane's accuracy or lack of; her motive for claiming to have sighted this man; the idea that the sighting constituted any kind of evidence of abduction - are now questioning how much sense the case makes taking the Tanner sighting out of the equation:

You might like to be called a "pro" (it looks nice), but I find this "anti" (it looks mean) abusive. I don't believe the McCann truth (the more one tries to impose a doxa, the more sceptic I am), but I have nothing "against" these people.

[AnneGuedes]

Not unless the window was open really I'd have thought.

This is a point already highlighted. Since it was windy, if the window was open when Mrs McCann entered the flat, the bedroom door should have slammed (in her first statement, the curtains were drawn apart).
When I saw, in the German reconstruction, Mrs McCann closing the sliding door-window after entering (as she stated she did), I wondered why, since she said she wouldn't have looked inside without the "door more open than we left it".
Absurdly she closes totally this door-window after leaving to launch the alarm.

[Benice]

Remember that it was gusty in the Luz area on 3 May 2007.  The minute someone opened the patio door there would be an increase in pressure within the apartment which very well could account for a door opening slightly.

A very interesting point Admin - especially as you say -  there was a gusty breeze blowing that night.  Opening the patio doors for both of them to leave the apartment at 8.30 could have taken long enough for an inwards breeze to cause the bedroom door to move slightly.    Am I right in thinking that none of the other interior doors in the apartment were at the same angle to the patio door as the children's bedroom door?

I think this 'theory' is definitely worth considering. 

[Jarred Lancaster]

A very interesting point Admin - especially as you say -  there was a gusty breeze blowing that night.  Opening the patio doors for both of them to leave the apartment at 8.30 could have taken long enough for an inwards breeze to cause the bedroom door to move slightly.    Am I right in thinking that none of the other interior doors in the apartment were at the same angle to the patio door as the children's bedroom door?

I think this 'theory' is definitely worth considering.

Indeed.  What, if anything, do we know about the positions of the other windows and shutters in the apartment that night?  Was there an air conditioning system?

Secondly, could the children's bedroom door just have been hung incorrectly, swinging open by itself?

[sadie]

You might like to be called a "pro" (it looks nice), but I find this "anti" (it looks mean) abusive. I don't believe the McCann truth (the more one tries to impose a doxa, the more sceptic I am), but I have nothing "against" these people.

Erm

Are you sure ?

Past posts and all that !

[Sherlock Holmes]

The door angle was still mentioned in Crimewatch, SH. In a case so lacking in evidence everything mentioned by the people involved had and still has significance. The concentration on 9.15 was the deliberate strategy of the McCanns and their allies themselves. You can't just forget all that history.

You can't forget history but the doors are not history, not anything. There is absolutely nothing to say what position the doors were or weren't in, and if that changed or not. If the 9.15 sighting was part of a strategy of the McCanns, so was Gerry's suggestion that the door at 9.00 was further open.

One way or another, we had no way of knowing what the status of the doors were on the night, no matter who was giving the account and why, and we have no way of knowing now.

[Sherlock Holmes]

If Scotland Yard are correct and the man Jane saw was an innocent parent,  and if they are further correct in their belief that the man the Smiths saw  could  have been the abductor  (  given the remarkable similarity between  the child they saw being carried and Madeleine )   it is fair to assume that the abductor did not enter the apartment until after Mathew Oldfield made his 9.30pm check

Therefore there is no explantion for the claims that someone  other  than the McCanns or  Oldfied having opened that door wider

So why were the claims made  ? 

I think they may have been made,  untruthfully,  in order to reinforce the Jane Tanner abduction theory  ...  I think there is a possibility that the  door never  WAS  found to be 'half open' by Gerry at 9.05pm

What is significant,  if that were the case,  is that it would indicate that the McCanns gave false information to the police in order to convince them that the man Jane Tanner saw had abducted their daughter   ...  and that the  opened bedroom door was evidence of his presence in the apartment

That would be questionable behaviour,  don't you think  ?

That would indeed be questionable.

But without knowing what position the doors were in, it's pure speculation.

[sadie]

That would indeed be questionable.

But without knowing what position the doors were in, it's pure speculation.

Wise words, Sherlock

[jassi]

That would indeed be questionable.

But without knowing what position the doors were in, it's pure speculation.

Aren't most things in this case ?

[AnneGuedes]

A very interesting point Admin - especially as you say -  there was a gusty breeze blowing that night.  Opening the patio doors for both of them to leave the apartment at 8.30 could have taken long enough for an inwards breeze to cause the bedroom door to move slightly.    Am I right in thinking that none of the other interior doors in the apartment were at the same angle to the patio door as the children's bedroom door?

I think this 'theory' is definitely worth considering.

It was windy the nights before
http://www.geodata.us/weather/show.php?usaf=085540&uban=99999&m=5&c=Portugal&y=2007#

[Lyall]

You can't forget history but the doors are not history, not anything. There is absolutely nothing to say what position the doors were or weren't in, and if that changed or not. If the 9.15 sighting was part of a strategy of the McCanns, so was Gerry's suggestion that the door at 9.00 was further open.

One way or another, we had no way of knowing what the status of the doors were on the night, no matter who was giving the account and why, and we have no way of knowing now.

That's true, and it could now be said that draughts or Madeleine herself moved the door, but the Emma Loach films, and the book, are a record of the apparent wish to suggest the door had been moved by person or persons unknown. There was no suggestion in those sources that the two phenomena may have been unconnected. The films, book, and police statements are the history that cannot be changed now.