The Pedras Brancas building and Smithman's route.

[pegasus]

I dont think I can take credit for the Sol article Pegasus.  My info came just from reading the 3A's.  There were a couple or so brilliant sleuths in there.  Were you one of them?

So childcare workers employed by Mark Warner lived here.  Any other groups that you know about?

That was I think only a very small proportion of the several dozen apartments in the building: from statements it can be worked out it was at least two apartments, I don't know if it was any more than that.
The rest - local residents of various nationalities, and tourist rentals, and a business.

[John]

I think this is it. 

http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/5064/iyf8.jpg



It is the Staff Quarters

Just about 50 metres from Peter Smith along the same road, Rua da Escola Primeira.  As I have several times pointed out, this is the building that according to the 3A's forum, a scream came from at a pertinent time.

It was on Smithmans route and I wonder if he had just come from there when he bumped into the Smiths.

We have to be careful here Sadie not to tread too far into the realms of speculation. An innocent Smithman could have emerged from just about anywhere along that road, we cannot even be sure he came from the north.

[sadie]

That was I think only a very small proportion of the several dozen apartments in the building: from statements it can be worked out it was at least two apartments, I don't know if it was any more than that.
The rest - local residents of various nationalities, and tourist rentals, and a business.

Thanks pegasus.

There is another route down to the Smiths sighting that I think we have ignored.  Maybe Heri showed it once?

I am unable to post GE images.  It would be good if someone could post this route giving a birds eye view, cos this description is rather long.  Much easier to follow with a marked map alongside the description [which took me hours to produce !]


The route is very quiet, starting at 5A in Rua Dr Agostinho de Silva.  That is the road that runs in front of 5A where Jane Tanner saw bundleman walking and then turn right down the first north-south running alleyway east of 5A.  It runs parallel with Rua Dr F Martin Gentils.

1.  Walk down that alleyway

2.  Turn right at the third turning, along another alleyway.   That passes Matt Fazackerleys back gate (No, 35) 

3.  Cross Rua Dr F Martin Gentils.   This brings you out on a long triangular grassed area.  [immediately at the northern edge of Baptista supermarket  - white square building on GE with an extension on the northern side ]

4.  This grassed area is ill lit, most especially its southern edge.  Also very quiet. 

5.  Walk west along its length, coming out on a car park.  This car park is lit, but is fronted by shops which will be closed after 8pm, so quiet again. 

However overlooked by the LuzTor building ...... but who would be sitting on the balcony on a cool breezy evening, especially as no sea view from that northern aspect of the building, just a view of a car park ? ****

6.  Walk west across that car par park being somewhat shielded from view by parked cars.  Come out at its SW corner.


7.  Cross the main road, Rua Primiero de Maio.  This would be free of traffick a lot of the time in early May.
Cross this road on to another car park opposite.  There appears to be a pathway all around the back of the car park, but Smithman was going SW so he would just take the short length of pathway at its southern end, going south along the back pathway, again somewhat hidden by parked cars.

8.  On GE map dated 6/22/2007, so virtually the correct date, there appears to be a gap thru the fence  and when looked at on street scene (much later version), it appears that the wasteland is fairly flat at this point with no shaley slopes.  Walk thru this gap and across the wasteland coming out at the south-western point of the wasteland.  [Corner of Rua Ema Vieira Alvernas)


9.  Straight across that minor road in a due west direction and it immediately brings you to a small building, [a toilet block?] and a gap thru into Rua Da Escola, less than 20 metres north of Peter Smith



You can see the ?toilet block? and gap through on the photo below.  ?Toilet block? is the small white building to the left of the Rua da Escola, with gap thru the wall adjacent.   

Did Smithman  come from the left of that image, thru that gap on to Rua da Escola, rather than all the way down Rua da Escola as we previously thought?

  http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/9058/zvk9.jpg






**** Ok, OK, someone claims to have been smoking on one of the balconies.  Have forgotten who.  and was he on that side of the building, or one of the other three?

To decide where the wall around the waste land was broken, or open, or very low, I have used shadows.  A wide shadow shows a tall wall and a narrow shadow shows a low wall.  No shadow a break in the wall.  The position that the wall is relative to the sun will alter the widths of shadows, so it is an imprecise measure, but a good indicator.  I use shadows often to rough guage building heights



These are only my thoughts and may be completely wrong, but they are plausible, I believe.



Sorry this is so long

[sadie]

The route I am suggesting above seems a darker, quieter, safer route to me than doubling back across the front of 5A, and following a closely fenced in road as Rua Da Escola is, with no escape if challenged

This is part of Rua da Escola higher up that he would have had to walk if he came that way. 

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/4242/gc9q.jpg


In the LH background is LuzTor building.  In the RH background is the building which houses the staff quarters. 
Behind the metal fencing is the large area of wasteland that I only viewed from one spot on its eastern side.  It was shaley and steep and i dismissed it.  Maybe I should have looked all around it, but 3 days wasn't long enough to do everything

And Porto interested me more


.... but if he took the new route I am suggesting, it implies a person who well knew his way around PdL via the dark routes


My thanks to Pathfinder for all the photos.

[sadie]

We have to be careful here Sadie not to tread too far into the realms of speculation. An innocent Smithman could have emerged from just about anywhere along that road, we cannot even be sure he came from the north.

Are you a mind reader, or something?   

I found a gap in the wall that I had never noticed before making another route viable.  Prior to that, no other route other than down the length of Rua da Escola was really sensible

I know it is a nuisance, but could you please post an image of the area from the top of the alleyway immedaitely to the east of Rua F Martin Gentils.  Covering t Thru to Aoifies sighting. 

With both the previously accepted route and the possible new route marked?  I would be ever so grateful.  My description is complex, needs to be, but also difficult to follow with no map to refer to.  Would be good to compare the routes.

Thanks in anticipation

[John]

[John]

Is this the gap in the wall you are referring to Sadie which if used would have brought Smithman out onto Rua da Escola Primária ahead of the Smith family?

[Eleanor]

I have always thought that Madeleine was abducted earlier, and then hidden somewhere for a short while, waiting for contact with others.

[slartibartfast]

I have always thought that Madeleine was abducted earlier, and then hidden somewhere for a short while, waiting for contact with others.

Seems a fairly common theory on both sides.

[Eleanor]

Seems a fairly common theory on both sides.

My theories are always common.  Common Sense, that is.

[Brietta]

I have always thought that Madeleine was abducted earlier, and then hidden somewhere for a short while, waiting for contact with others.

Perhaps in the empty apartment in block 5? they could have been out of sight in a matter of seconds and I am not sure the GNR dogs' interest was fully checked out at the time.
A high risk strategy, although Misty is of the opinion no-one would have looked twice at laundry bags being taken out and removed in the laundry van.

I'm still of the opinion that the man Jane Tanner saw is a more likely candidate to be the abductor than the man seen by the Smith family.

It can bee seen from the pyjamas the child was wearing on the night in question that they have long sleeves; that would correspond with Aoife Smith's description of the child being carried perhaps by the father who has been eliminated from the inquiry.

[Eleanor]

Perhaps in the empty apartment in block 5? they could have been out of sight in a matter of seconds and I am not sure the GNR dogs' interest was fully checked out at the time.
A high risk strategy, although Misty is of the opinion no-one would have looked twice at laundry bags being taken out and removed in the laundry van.

I'm still of the opinion that the man Jane Tanner saw is a more likely candidate to be the abductor than the man seen by the Smith family.

It can bee seen from the pyjamas the child was wearing on the night in question that they have long sleeves; that would correspond with Aoife Smith's description of the child being carried perhaps by the father who has been eliminated from the inquiry.

I think the man Jane Tanner saw was the abductor, Brietta.  Who got away from 5A and then hid somewhere before meeting up with someone else.

[Anna]

 After some recent research, I am even more unsure as to her fate, however if it was an abduction, I believe it would have been carried out by people who were paid by someone, they dare not cross.

[sadie]

Thank you John, I appreciate you going to the trouble to produce that GE map.  It is slow work, I know that.



A couple of slight ammendments if you dont mind

1)  Any chance that you could swing the image thru 90* please, cos most people will expect the top of the image to be the north ... and this isn't.  You and I can understand it,  becos of our engineering drawing experiences, but some may not be able to recognise things on their sides !

2)  Your route is slightly different from the route I describe

As you probably know, the large white square in the upper middle of this present image is Baptistas supermarket, BUT Baptistas also has an extension to the north of it. and it looks rather like car park when viewed from above, (LH side of Baptistas in this present image).  Like you, I originally thought that it was car park but it is the extension roof that we were looking at.  You will see it in Google Earth strteet scene. ... So he coulkdn't walk that way

Because of that I decided the most hidden, safest, most likely route from the alleyway behind Fazackerlys was across to the long triangle of green (grass), walk along its length coming out at the NE corner of the car park in front of a few shops.

Diagonally across that car park, across the main road to the southern end of the big car park on the west of the main road.  I felt that as he was not wanting to be seen he would go to the back of that car park and walk through what appears to be a gap on to the waste land

Tell you what, John, I will email you an image.  It is difficult to describe, it is so detailed.



BTW, thanks for starting a new thread.  I was worrying that I had posted it in the wrong thread.

[sadie]

Is this the gap in the wall you are referring to Sadie which if used would have brought Smithman out onto Rua da Escola Primária ahead of the Smith family?

Yep, that is exactly where I mean.  Great image, thanks.

Peter Smith was between the lady in red and the ?lady in pink when they met Smithman. 

Martin was at the bottom, on the RHS, when Smithman walked down ... and Aiofie apeared from up the steps on to the piece of pavement that sticks into the road [both close to the house at the end].    Most probably neither had appeared as Smithman started down Rua d'Escola