Did the McCann"s sudden flight from Portugal engender suspicion?

[Carana]

@Jean-Pierre. Thanks. I thought not.

[pathfinder73]

Who did she report it to? Was it ever verified whose car it was... licence plate or anything?
Has anyone ever found this woman's statement in the files? I haven't.

40.30 – This is an interesting matter, when I left the Criminal Investigation Department in Portimão, in October 2007, nothing was known about this vehicle, about this issue of the open car boot. We knew that inside the vehicle cadaver odour and bodily fluids had been found, where Madeleine McCann's DNA profile was extracted from, with 15 alleles. Months later, there is a lawyer, who lives nearby, who came to report that after the McCanns arrived at this villa, they saw the car boot open from then on.

[ferryman]

Who did she report it to? Was it ever verified whose car it was... licence plate or anything?
Has anyone ever found this woman's statement in the files? I haven't.

Behave, Carana.

You are not supposed to ask probing and intelligent questions like that.

Doesn't help 'the cause' at all ...

[stephen25000]

Behave, Carana.

You are not supposed to ask probing and intelligent questions like that.

Doesn't help 'the cause' at all ...

Ah yes the rotting meat MYTH.

ENOUGH SAID.

[pathfinder73]

The witness is seen here from 41:05

Not in the files we know that!

[Carana]

40.30 – This is an interesting matter, when I left the Criminal Investigation Department in Portimão, in October 2007, nothing was known about this vehicle, about this issue of the open car boot. We knew that inside the vehicle cadaver odour and bodily fluids had been found, where Madeleine McCann's DNA profile was extracted from, with 15 alleles. Months later, there is a lawyer, who lives nearby, who came to report that after the McCanns arrived at this villa, they saw the car boot open from then on.

I thought Amaral's book was entirely based on the files? Seems not if he'd already left.

So she'd presumably read the PT rags with garbled PJ leaks of non-existent gooey stuff and tufts in the boot and went to report it in case it was potentially significant. Fair enough.

That doesn't really explain why a statement wasn't taken unless it was considered irrelevant as the forensics showed nothing sinister at all.

[pathfinder73]

I thought Amaral's book was entirely based on the files? Seems not if he'd already left.

So she'd presumably read the PT rags with garbled PJ leaks of non-existent gooey stuff and tufts in the boot and went to report it in case it was potentially significant. Fair enough.

That doesn't really explain why a statement wasn't taken unless it was considered irrelevant as the forensics showed nothing sinister at all.

We confidently wait for the evaluation reports from FSS. A few days after the samples are sent, we are informed that the DNA of the blood found in the boot of the McCanns’ car shows a significant match – 50% – with Gerald’s, which means that it is definitely the blood of one of his children. We telephone the public minister to pass on this initial result and wait for the follow-up to the analyses and definite conclusions But the laboratory takes its time.

In the first case, the laboratory considers that the result of the analysis is inconclusive because the samples gathered provide very little information when the DNA comes from more than one person. But all the confirmed DNA components match with the corresponding components in Madeleine’s DNA profile!.

As for the second case, after an explanation about the DNA components in Madeleine’s genetic profile, it concludes that 15 out of 19 markers in Madeleine’s profile are present in the sample examined. Only 4 short of 100% reliability. The FSS specialists qualify the results as, “complex,” and state that these 15 markers are not enough to conclude with certainty that it’s definitely Madeleine’s DNA profile, especially as Low Copy Number picked out a total of 37 in the sample. That means that at least three individuals contributed to this result.

But there was more in this first preliminary report. In the same report, the scientist went further and explained that in the profiles of many of the lab experts, elements from the DNA profile of Madeleine are present. This means that a major part of the DNA profile of any given person can be built by three donors. That is understandable. Two questions arose immediately. The first one: what good is a DNA profile in terms of criminal evidence, if it can be the combination of three or more donors? Another question was simple: why did the DNA profile from those three donors contribute to Madeleine’s DNA profile and not to that of any other person, like the scientist who carried out the test? But the surprises from the preliminary reports were not to end there.

On the very day that interrogation of the McCann couple starts, a second preliminary report reaches us. Contrary to the first report, it accords more importance to the DNA profile of the blood lifted from the floor of the apartment. In that sample, the DNA came from more than one donor, but the confirmed DNA components match the corresponding components of Madeleine’s DNA profile.

As for the samples lifted from the boot of the car, there is no further mention of the 15 markers, as if they had never existed.

Suddenly, light was starting to be cast on the issue:either this LCN technique is not reliable or it’s simply much easier to explain the presence of Madeleine’s DNA in the apartment than in the boot of a car hired 24 days after her disappearance. (TOTL)

[Jean-Pierre]

Thank you for the clip of "shadow woman".  How convenient for Amaral.  And a jurist, to boot.   

Does that extract from Amaral's book strike anyone as having being written by someone with a firm grasp of forensics?  Or evidence? 

Is this really the sort of carp that convinces some people of the guilt of the McCanns? 

[Mr Gray]

Thank you for the clip of "shadow woman".  How convenient for Amaral.  And a jurist, to boot.   

Does that extract from Amaral's book strike anyone as having being written by someone with a firm grasp of forensics?  Or evidence? 

Is this really the sort of carp that convinces some people of the guilt of the McCanns?

I think it shows amaral hadn't  a clue re the forensics....

[ferryman]

Thank you for the clip of "shadow woman".  How convenient for Amaral.  And a jurist, to boot.   

Does that extract from Amaral's book strike anyone as having being written by someone with a firm grasp of forensics?  Or evidence? 

Is this really the sort of carp that convinces some people of the guilt of the McCanns?

The best bit is where Amaral, having contradicted and corrected Prior on interpretation of the forensic results, sends Prior away with a flea in his ear to berate the FSS on the PJ's powers of arrest.

Priceless ...

[Jean-Pierre]

While looking up the "documentary" quotes, I came across this.  It's Amarals proof as to why the front door could not have been used.  The bits that particularly struck me I have put in bold.

43.25 - Final Evidence
 
43.28 – With the help from one of the major experts from the Scientific Police, who worked for the Polícia Judiciária, Alexandre Simas, Gonçalo Amaral intends to prove, first, that it was impossible for the child to be abducted, starting by demonstrating that the indications prove that the apartment's window and door were not forced.
 
43.47 - How does one open a door like this, without the key?
 
43.51 – Alexandre Simas, Expert (Former Polícia Judiciária): "This type of apartment door, normally there are only three possibilities: to extract the lock's cannon, which didn't happen, or it would have been reported; a false key, a copy or one that was used without permission; or using a malleable material, as long as it's not locked, it's introduced, and it makes the lock go back inside. But when it goes in, even if it did, it would hit this screw. If it hits the screw, no matter how much I force it, it doesn't jump to open the lock for me.
 
44.33 – "If the door wasn't opened without a key, the window doesn't bear any traces of having been forced, either.
 
44.40 – "These windows have a very good characteristic to check if they were forced or not. Being made of lacquered aluminium, any screwdriver, any instrument that is used to make the lock jump, immediately leaves a mark. What we can see here, there is no break-in, the mark that is there belongs to the lock itself as it rotates, sometimes one does this with the lock in place, and it hits there. So, to open this window, all we have to do is this. To close it, it's impossible, because either one has a magnet on his fingers to pull the window…"
 
45.18 – Another important fact is revealed by the fingerprints that are left on the bedroom window, which the McCanns insist they left closed, and is supposedly found open when the mother notices her daughter is missing. The only fingerprints that are found belong to Kate McCann, and reveal that they were made by opening the window.
 
45.42 – These three indications mean that there was no abduction, and that is proved. No abductor entered apartment 5A, through the door or through the window.

_____________________


If this is the true standard of policing in Portugal, I feel a life of crime in the sun beckoning.......      

[Carana]

We confidently wait for the evaluation reports from FSS. A few days after the samples are sent, we are informed that the DNA of the blood found in the boot of the McCanns’ car shows a significant match – 50% – with Gerald’s, which means that it is definitely the blood of one of his children. We telephone the public minister to pass on this initial result and wait for the follow-up to the analyses and definite conclusions But the laboratory takes its time.

In the first case, the laboratory considers that the result of the analysis is inconclusive because the samples gathered provide very little information when the DNA comes from more than one person. But all the confirmed DNA components match with the corresponding components in Madeleine’s DNA profile!.

As for the second case, after an explanation about the DNA components in Madeleine’s genetic profile, it concludes that 15 out of 19 markers in Madeleine’s profile are present in the sample examined. Only 4 short of 100% reliability. The FSS specialists qualify the results as, “complex,” and state that these 15 markers are not enough to conclude with certainty that it’s definitely Madeleine’s DNA profile, especially as Low Copy Number picked out a total of 37 in the sample. That means that at least three individuals contributed to this result.

But there was more in this first preliminary report. In the same report, the scientist went further and explained that in the profiles of many of the lab experts, elements from the DNA profile of Madeleine are present. This means that a major part of the DNA profile of any given person can be built by three donors. That is understandable. Two questions arose immediately. The first one: what good is a DNA profile in terms of criminal evidence, if it can be the combination of three or more donors? Another question was simple: why did the DNA profile from those three donors contribute to Madeleine’s DNA profile and not to that of any other person, like the scientist who carried out the test? But the surprises from the preliminary reports were not to end there.

On the very day that interrogation of the McCann couple starts, a second preliminary report reaches us. Contrary to the first report, it accords more importance to the DNA profile of the blood lifted from the floor of the apartment. In that sample, the DNA came from more than one donor, but the confirmed DNA components match the corresponding components of Madeleine’s DNA profile.

As for the samples lifted from the boot of the car, there is no further mention of the 15 markers, as if they had never existed.

Suddenly, light was starting to be cast on the issue:either this LCN technique is not reliable or it’s simply much easier to explain the presence of Madeleine’s DNA in the apartment than in the boot of a car hired 24 days after her disappearance. (TOTL)

Thanks Pathfinder. This is precisely the kind of garbled gobbledygook that I had in mind.

[Alice Purjorick]

We confidently wait for the evaluation reports from FSS. A few days after the samples are sent, we are informed that the DNA of the blood found in the boot of the McCanns’ car shows a significant match – 50% – with Gerald’s, which means that it is definitely the blood of one of his children. We telephone the public minister to pass on this initial result and wait for the follow-up to the analyses and definite conclusions But the laboratory takes its time.

In the first case, the laboratory considers that the result of the analysis is inconclusive because the samples gathered provide very little information when the DNA comes from more than one person. But all the confirmed DNA components match with the corresponding components in Madeleine’s DNA profile!.

As for the second case, after an explanation about the DNA components in Madeleine’s genetic profile, it concludes that 15 out of 19 markers in Madeleine’s profile are present in the sample examined. Only 4 short of 100% reliability. The FSS specialists qualify the results as, “complex,” and state that these 15 markers are not enough to conclude with certainty that it’s definitely Madeleine’s DNA profile, especially as Low Copy Number picked out a total of 37 in the sample. That means that at least three individuals contributed to this result.

But there was more in this first preliminary report. In the same report, the scientist went further and explained that in the profiles of many of the lab experts, elements from the DNA profile of Madeleine are present. This means that a major part of the DNA profile of any given person can be built by three donors. That is understandable. Two questions arose immediately. The first one: what good is a DNA profile in terms of criminal evidence, if it can be the combination of three or more donors? Another question was simple: why did the DNA profile from those three donors contribute to Madeleine’s DNA profile and not to that of any other person, like the scientist who carried out the test? But the surprises from the preliminary reports were not to end there.

On the very day that interrogation of the McCann couple starts, a second preliminary report reaches us. Contrary to the first report, it accords more importance to the DNA profile of the blood lifted from the floor of the apartment. In that sample, the DNA came from more than one donor, but the confirmed DNA components match the corresponding components of Madeleine’s DNA profile.

As for the samples lifted from the boot of the car, there is no further mention of the 15 markers, as if they had never existed.

Suddenly, light was starting to be cast on the issue:either this LCN technique is not reliable or it’s simply much easier to explain the presence of Madeleine’s DNA in the apartment than in the boot of a car hired 24 days after her disappearance. (TOTL)

There were many with that belief.
Read what Professor Dan Kane and Mr Justice Weir said at the trial of Sean Hoey in December 2007.
Also the comments on LCN techniques made by the procedures deviser Peter Gill, at the Hoey trial; his statement led to caustic comments about the reliability of the techniques by Mr Justice Weir.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7154189.stm

[Jean-Pierre]

There were many with that belief.
Read what Professor Dan Kane and Mr Justice Weir said at the trial of Sean Hoey in December 2007.
Also the comments on LCN techniques made by the procedures deviser Peter Gill, at the Hoey trial; his statement led to caustic comments about the reliability of the techniques by Mr Justice Weir.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7154189.stm

If you only have a small amount of material or it is degraded then I suppose LCN is better than nowt.


Provided one understands the limitations. 

[jassi]

One would expect the experts to do so and to explain it clearly to those who aren't experts