Madeleine's last movements tracked by the GNR sniffer dogs.

[Martina]

Major Sequeira in his last and final report mentions the blanket in association with dogs Rex and Zarus which are two tracker dogs brought in and their handler is Fernandes,
In his report ( SEE FERNANDES STATEMENT) he says the Rex and Zarus went to the car park.

Sequeira's report was written in November. five months after the search during whith major hadn't been present at the scene. The individual statements of Antonio Freitas Silva and Pedro Miguel Fernandes, both mentioning the towel, described as turkish bath towel, were written 9th May. Five days after the search, by the people who personally saw and used the item they obtained from the McCanns.

[VIXTE]

Sequeira's report was written in November. five months after the search during whith major hadn't been present at the scene. The individual statements of Antonio Freitas Silva and Pedro Miguel Fernandes, both mentioning the towel, described as turkish bath towel, were written 9th May. Five days after the search, by the people who personally saw and used the item they obtained from the McCanns.

And who is to say that what they call 'towel' is actually a blanket?

[pegasus]

In the final official report the word 'blanket' is used associated with Fernandez- Rex and Zarus ...

Well-spotted Vixte and yes you are correct.
However both the handler Fernandes, and A.F.Silva (the Chief of the GNR Search and Rescue Team, who was supervising Fernandes) state that they used a towel IIRC.
I am wondering if the report was getting mixed up? My instinct is to go by the primary sources which are the statements of the two GNR themselves who were doing the tracking, but I might be wrong?

[Martina]

And who is to say that what they call 'towel' is actually a blanket?

Stretching the facts begins...

[valeria]

there is a confusion with the sniffer dogs. may iam wrong    but the  important thing is that they tried to reconstruct the route of the child using  the tracker dogs  namely zarus and rex. Dogs used the first day ( Numi and...i dont remember )were patrol dogs. They used them to find the child not to reconstrct her route. Both tracker dogs directed to the parkin area and it happened twice ( on 4/5 and 8/5)
what i find odd is that while the hadlers of tracker dogs both  silva and fernandes state that a towel was given to them in GNR sniffer dogs report  signed by operation commander Sequida ( iam not sure for his name) is reported the blanket ( 4/5) and clothes of the child for the search on 8/5

[pegasus]

That there were two different scent sources can be proven as follows IMO:
1. KM in her book states she gave police the small pink comfort blanket for use as a scent source
2. At least one handler report states that a turkish bath towel was used as a source.
So two scent sources IMO because it is impossible to mistake a very small pink blanket for a turkish bath towel.

IMO the comfort blanket was used by Lacao and Morais early hours of 4th.
IMO the turkish bath towel was used by Silva and Fernandes at end of 4th and again at end of 8th.

IMO it is likely that the comfort blanket was returned to KM after the Lacao/Morais tracking and taken to 4G on 4th and not used by the two Silva/Fernandes trackings.

[valeria]

ive just seen that brietta has already  sent the report of sequeira

[VIXTE]

Well-spotted Vixte and yes you are correct.
However both the handler Fernandes, and A.F.Silva (the Chief of the GNR Search and Rescue Team, who was supervising Fernandes) state that they used a towel IIRC.
I am wondering if the report was getting mixed up? My instinct is to go by the primary sources which are the statements of the two GNR themselves who were doing the tracking, but I might be wrong?

I think it is all the same thing. The blanket maybe looked like a towel. Maybe it was even a towel-like.

[Martina]

I think it is all the same thing. The blanket maybe looked like a towel. Maybe it was even a towel-like.

Yes, a comforter blanket looking like a bath towel. Totally probable. Like totally.

[pegasus]

This photo is taken in daylight 4th May.
So photois after the Morais/Lacao blanket tracking but before the Silva/Fernandes bath towel tracking.
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id121.html
scroll down to photo captioned "...move items to new apartment"
Colours get distorted in photos, is that a grey fleece, or the pink blanket?

[VIXTE]

This photo is taken in daylight 4th May.
So photois after the Morais/Lacao blanket tracking but before the Silva/Fernandes bath towel tracking.
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id121.html
scroll down to photo captioned "...move items to new apartment"
Colours get distorted in photos, is that a grey fleece, or the pink blanket?

This would be a speculaion

[Brietta]

This photo is taken in daylight 4th May.
So photois after the Morais/Lacao blanket tracking but before the Silva/Fernandes bath towel tracking.
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id121.html
scroll down to photo captioned "...move items to new apartment"
Colours get distorted in photos, is that a grey fleece, or the pink blanket?

Making comparison with the photograph above entitled 'Gerry and Kate make their way to the police station on the morning of 04 May 2007', it can be noted that the bag being carried by Dr G McCann appears to be the same bag now carried by his wife who is still wearing the hooded top worn in the 'move items' photograph.

Dr G McCann is wearing a fleece zipped up to his neck in the photograph 'Gerry and Kate make their way to the police station on the morning of 04 May 2007'.  In the 'move items' photograph he is wearing a green polo shirt and appears to be carrying that jacket.

Cuddle Cat cannot be seen in the 'Gerry and Kate make their way to the police station on the morning of 04 May 2007' but it is known that in the early days Dr McCann carried her everywhere so it can be safely assumed that she was carrying CC then as she is in the 'move items' photo.

The Drs McCann appear to be carrying only what they had when they left to go to the police station. 

IMO that makes the balance of probability that Dr G McCann is carrying his jacket as neither are carrying anything they weren't in the morning and the probability is that they did not return to 5A but went immediately to the other apartment on their return.

[pegasus]

Thanks Brietta, I was not sure if that is pink blanket or grey fleece.
IMO the blanket was a precious personal item, and I am guessing it would have been returned after Morais and Laçao showed it to their dogs at about 2AM or 2:30AM.

[Carana]

Well-spotted Vixte and yes you are correct.
However both the handler Fernandes, and A.F.Silva (the Chief of the GNR Search and Rescue Team, who was supervising Fernandes) state that they used a towel IIRC.
I am wondering if the report was getting mixed up? My instinct is to go by the primary sources which are the statements of the two GNR themselves who were doing the tracking, but I might be wrong?

They wanted clothes or something else with her smell on it. Unless she had a towel that she used exclusively, a towel would have had confusing smells, I would have thought. They could presumably have thought that a soft fleece blanket was a child's towel or simply remembered that they were given a square / oblong-shaped article that wasn't clothing when they were writing up the report. What it actually was wasn't of importance to them.

[Carana]

I'm aware that some described being given a towel, but others refer to the blanket. The legal summary calls it a "blanket/towel".

At 08.00 the GNR Search and Rescue sniffer dog team came into action, searches were begun from the resort in the direction of the beach, covering a 2 km area; in Praia da Luz 300m radius searches were made as well searches of abandoned houses, wells and waste land, the radius subsequently being expanded to 600m including the verges of the EN 125 motorway.
Subsequently an attempt was made to reconstruct the route taken by Madeleine by giving the dogs a blanket/towel used by her, but the results were not significant, given that the dogs are more trained for use in rural areas rather than urban or populated areas, the existence of more odours in the air making it impossible for the tracker dog to identify/locate the “target smell”.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/LEGAL_SUMMARY.htm

05-Processos Vol V Pages 1335-1337
05_VOLUME_Va_Page_1335
05_VOLUME_Va_Page_1336
05_VOLUME_Va_Page_1337
Witness Statement

Date: 2007-05-16

Carlos Manuel Carvalho Lacão

Occupation: GNR Officer


He has been a GNR officer since 1988. He holds the post of soldier and currently works in the Portimao Territorial Group, working within the forensics service.

On 4th May he was called at about 01.15 when he was asleep at home, requesting him to appear at the Lagos GNR post as a small girl had disappeared. After arriving at the GNR post with his colleagues Morais and two dogs (Numi and Kit), German Shepherd dogs, which made up the search team, they immediately left for P da L. They arrived at about 02.30.

When they arrived at the scene, they entered the McCann's apartment by the front door, and entered the living room, where there were some PJ officers as well as the MCCann couple. The just talked to some colleagues from the PJ and asked for a piece of clothing that Madeleine had worn or used recently. They were given a pink/orange blanket that the child had been covered with in her bed.

They began searching with the dogs from the main entrance to the apartment, having given the blanket to his dog Numi to smell and begin to search.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/CARLOS-LACAO.htm

At about 23.00 the extra teams that had been requested for reinforcement arrived (Officer Rosa with Oscar and Officer Martins with Fusco, both from the search and rescue unit and Officer Fernandes with Rex and Zarus from the tracking team).
After the officers had been updated about facts relating to the disappearance, they tried to reconstruct the route the girl might have taken with the two tracker dogs. For this purpose the dogs were given a blanket to sniff, provided by the parents, which had been used by Madeleine.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/GNR_SNIFFER.htm