Jenny Murat reported seeing a woman hanging around apartment 5a.

[pegasus]

"As I approached another junction a small, brown car, with just one English-looking man in it swung round and nearly hit mine" Probably like this? (junc R do Ramalhete / R Dr Agosthino)

[misty]

Thanks Misty.


So back then, she had different details of clothing.


The slim, Portuguese-looking woman in a plum-coloured top and white skirt with long, dark, swept-back hair acted furtively when she was spotted at 8pm on May 3 in 2007 near the Mark Warner Ocean Club complex.

I still can't get my head round her not reporting it to the PJ. In 2007. Was she scared, or didn't like talking to PJ's.

I don't think she deemed her sighting relevant to the case when she made her statement on 15th May.

[sadie]

"As I approached another junction a small, brown car, with just one English-looking man in it swung round and nearly hit mine" Probably like this? (junc R do Ramalhete / R Dr Agosthino)

Thanks Pegasus

Your image in post 1646 helps illustrate my long winded description in « Reply #1644 on: May 04, 2015, 09:35:30 PM.

The green arrow you show is Mrs Murats car travelling along Rua Agostinho da Silva having passed 5A about 100metres before.  The car has to pass the Murat gates that we know [unfortunately off image] and then as you show swing round the White pillars to return in a parallel path in the opposite direction until reaching the Murat gates.

If you look carefully you will see a small white mark in the middle of the green swing round.  That is one of the pillars .  After turning thru the pillars and Mrs Murats car moves towards the Murat gates it is crossing a wide mosaic ?pavement.

Peagasus
As the car that nearly hit her was coming so fast, do you think that it might have come from the opposite direction to your arrow, in a south westerly direction along Rua do Ramalhete and badly cut the corner as it swung around ?

[ShiningInLuz]

I dont think she said a speeding car, but a car going the wrong way

"As she turned into the driveway of her home, Casa Liliana, she was nearly hit by a car going the wrong way. “When I stopped to open the gates ...."


As you may have noticed Shining,
Unusually, driving in from the NW end of R. Dr Agostinho da Silva, there are a pair of fairly imposing white gate posts [no gates].  Most people on here are not aware of these. 

Then there is a stretch of mosaic paved ?pavement of some length leading to the gates [the Murat gates we are all familiar with] of the Murat villa.  This pavement has to be driven over to gain access to the Murats gates. 

This is "pavement is as wide as the adjacent roadway and runs close to it.  It is only seperated from R Dr A.de S. by a long narrow grassed area with a high mesh fencing like that around tennis courts and of a somewhat similar height. 

THis mosaic paved entrance before the Murat gates is some considerable length measuring approx 39 m to those gates on GE.  It runs in a SE direction from Rua do Ramalhete, which the main east to west thru route in PdL.  It is approx 6 metres wide.



It is almost private but does carry on to what I think might be OC Laundry..  Please correct me if I am wrong on the Laundry, Shining.

So I wonder, just where was this car that was going the wrong way?


I agree with you about Mrs Murat, who was quite elderly,  needing razor sharp eyes, but just maybe she had?  We just dont know for certain.  It seems a bit unlikely tho.
 

I cant post GE images.  It would be so much clearer if a well-zoomed-in GE image of the birds eye view of that mosaic pathway/driveway were shown along with the street scene image of the two white gate posts (without gates) taken from Rua do Ramalhete.  John does very good GE images.


Any chance please, John ?

Please let me give up on speeding car. I'd need to read the entire thread to see if I got it right or wrong.

Where does the cul-de-sac link to?  All the Palms apartments. Fuji Palms plus others.

No, the laundry for the OC is not down this road  I think this bit comes from seeing a laundry vehicle down a back street, but the OC laundry is in the OC proper.

By the way, my driveway is only about the size of the Murat cul de sac.  Not boastin nor nuffin.

[pegasus]

Yes that is also possible, that the brown car was driving west on R Ramalhete and turned left into R Agosthino.

[Brietta]

Madeleine: The missed clues at £1m villa Sunday Express
Sunday Express, 24 May 2009

EXCLUSIVE by James Murray and Ted Jeory
Sunday May 24, 2009

**snip
The Sunday Express has been conducting intensive inquiries in the resort town and asked scores of people if they saw anyone acting suspiciously.
 
One elderly British resident told us both she and a friend, a retired British woman detective, went to Portuguese police about a couple who rented the villa, which has its own swimming pool.
 
The resident told us: "I used to meet up with the retired detective to walk our dogs down by the seafront. Both of us became concerned about a couple aged about 30 who rented the villa.
 
"What struck us was that they drove a very tatty, British-registered small red saloon car. It was one those vehicles you would normally see on a gypsy camp, not going in and out of a very expensive villa.
 
"We only saw them coming and going in the car and not walking about, which is odd given the location of the villa. We both got the impression they were trying to keep a low profile."
 
Another source said that after Maddie disappeared, search teams combed the seafront, where luxury villas stand next to large areas of barren land.
 
Anglican priest Paul Luckman, owner and publisher of Portugal News, said: "The location and description of that villa mentioned by your source fits the one that a searcher told me about.
 
"The searcher told me the villa was empty and somehow they got inside some weeks after Madeleine disappeared.
 
"The search dog handler said the villa had a room with a kind of amateur studio with video equipment and cameras with children's toys and pictures of children on the wall.
 
"He felt it was something to do with paedophiles. He told the police and they seemed to know something about it, but we don't think they took it any further."
 
The Sunday Express took him to the villa and he confirmed that it fits the description and location of the one he was told about.
 
Although we know where it is, we are not naming the villa for legal reasons as we have been unable to locate the owner.
 
The British woman resident said: "I know the owner was contacted after we raised our concerns with the police.
 
"The person was angry because she said she did not know the people who rented it and was annoyed about being contacted by detectives.
 
"We heard nothing more about it. The day after Maddie disappeared the couple moved out and we didn't see them again.
 
"There was an older woman in a very expensive car who visited them during their stay."
 
The McCanns' private investigators have been conducting surveillance on several properties for some time. Retired det­ective inspector Dave Edgar returned from Portugal on Friday night and is pursuing a number of leads he is not prepared to discuss.
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id238.html


There seems to have been a plethora of information coming in from an 'elderly British resident' on a variety of themes, although I don't recall coming across any of it in the files.

Odd comment here from Paul Luckman.
Who would have the authority to enter private property with a search dog? who later 'told the police'?

[ShiningInLuz]

She reported this to the press back in 2009 but she wanted to remain anonymous back then.


http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/100071/EXCLUSIVE-Who-was-the-woman-outside-Maddie-s-flat
EXCLUSIVE: Who was the woman outside Maddie's flat?

A WOMAN was seen acting suspiciously outside Kate and Gerry McCann’s apartment just an hour before their daughter Madeleine was abducted.

By JAMES MURRAY
PUBLISHED: 00:00, Sun, May 10, 2009
   
   
   
   
   
   
MYSTERY The slim Portuguese looking woman was seen outside the McCann s apartment

The slim, Portuguese-looking woman in a plum-coloured top and white skirt with long, dark, swept-back hair acted furtively when she was spotted at 8pm on May 3 in 2007 near the Mark Warner Ocean Club complex.

She was standing under a streetlight at a crossroads only 40 feet from where Madeleine was sleeping with her brother Sean and his twin sister Amelie.

Investigators are being urged to find her to see if she was in any way connected to a pockmarked prowler seen several times outside the apartment in the day leading up to the kidnap.

Details of the mystery woman have only just become known after a Sunday Express investigation into the baffling case was alerted by an elderly British woman who has lived in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve for more than 30 years.

Speaking from her villa near the Ocean Club, the woman, who has asked not to be named, recalled: “On that night I went to the supermarket at the bottom of the road just before it closed at 8pm.

“As I drove past the entrance to the Ocean Club I saw a woman standing opposite Apartment 5A the McCanns were staying in.

“Even at that time of night the streets were deserted, so I was surprised to see someone there. I remember thinking it was unusual because it is just not the sort of place you would hang around.

“As I drove up to the junction she stepped around to the other side of the street lamp as though she didn’t want me to look at her. She was not carrying a bag or a mobile phone. I thought she might have been waiting for a lift but no car came along while I was there.

“I turned right and could see quite clearly she was looking at Apartment 5A.

“As I approached another junction a small, brown car, with just one English-looking man in it swung round and nearly hit mine.”

When she heard that Madeleine had vanished she asked a relative to inform the police about her sightings.

More than 30 people have so far phoned in about the artist’s impression shown on a Channel 4 documentary last Thursday of a scar-faced man seen loitering outside the McCanns’ apartment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The MP she contacted also made a point of raising a question on the case 17/3/2008  to the then-Home Secretary.
http://gerrymccan-abuseofpower-humanrights.blogspot.co.uk

At least this variant does not contain impossibilities.

She is now sighting the woman as she drives up the hill from Baptista, goes past the Tapas reception, goes past block 6 car park entrance, and sees the woman close up by the street light.  (She is taking the correct route, which is always a good thing.)

She travels east then north on Agostinho, then has an incident near the junction.  She then heads down the cul-de-sac to her drive.  (All of this is better as she does not need to be eagle eyed while dodging a car.)

Now it gets a bit more iffy.  She says she asked a relative to inform the police.  The obvious relative is Robert, who was working with the police in the early days.  I doubt she asked Robert to pass this info on after he was made an arguido.  Then she gave a statement on 15 May 2007, after he was made an arguido, and did not mention a sighting which would have weighed in his favour.

In this tale, we also have a woman at a lamppost who was possibly waiting for a car, but none was coming, except for the one Mrs Murat nearly had a collision with.

I don't know if this is the first media report on this incident, therefore I may be being cynical.  Did this information really first circulate around the second anniversary of the disappearance, when a fresh Maddie angle would have been gold dust?

One which comes from a source who does not wish to be identified, yet sticks out like a sore thumb from the PJ files.

The only thing I have learned, or at least I think I can rely on, is that Baptista shut at 8, which is what I thought.  Mind you, if Mrs Murat first came up with this tale two years on, then I'm relying on her recollection of what Baptista's hours were, rather than what they actually were.

@Sadie.  The cul-de-sac is cobbled, but it is a street.  The cobbles are used to slow traffic down.  Rua Direita (etc.) is surfaced with them, so you can see them clearly in Google street view.

[pegasus]

... I'm relying on her recollection of what Baptista's hours were, rather than what they actually were....

Supermarket webpage with opening hours, captured on 02 May 2007
http://web.archive.org/web/20070502014641/http://supermercado-baptista.com/

[John]

I dont think she said a speeding car, but a car going the wrong way

"As she turned into the driveway of her home, Casa Liliana, she was nearly hit by a car going the wrong way. “When I stopped to open the gates ...."


As you may have noticed Shining,
Unusually, driving in from the NW end of R. Dr Agostinho da Silva, there are a pair of fairly imposing white gate posts [no gates].  Most people on here are not aware of these. 

Then there is a stretch of mosaic paved ?pavement of some length leading to the gates [the Murat gates we are all familiar with] of the Murat villa.  This pavement has to be driven over to gain access to the Murats gates. 

This is "pavement is as wide as the adjacent roadway and runs close to it.  It is only seperated from R Dr A.de S. by a long narrow grassed area with a high mesh fencing like that around tennis courts and of a somewhat similar height. 

THis mosaic paved entrance before the Murat gates is some considerable length measuring approx 39 m to those gates on GE.  It runs in a SE direction from Rua do Ramalhete, which the main east to west thru route in PdL.  It is approx 6 metres wide.



It is almost private but does carry on to what I think might be OC Laundry..  Please correct me if I am wrong on the Laundry, Shining.

So I wonder, just where was this car that was going the wrong way?


I agree with you about Mrs Murat, who was quite elderly,  needing razor sharp eyes, but just maybe she had?  We just dont know for certain.  It seems a bit unlikely tho.
 

I cant post GE images.  It would be so much clearer if a well-zoomed-in GE image of the birds eye view of that mosaic pathway/driveway were shown along with the street scene image of the two white gate posts (without gates) taken from Rua do Ramalhete.  John does very good GE images.


Any chance please, John ?

[ShiningInLuz]

Supermarket webpage with opening hours, captured on 02 May 2007
http://web.archive.org/web/20070502014641/http://supermercado-baptista.com/

Thank you.  One more loose end tied up!

[Brietta]

Thanks for the images, John.

I can see where she may have almost collided with a vehicle exiting the car park behind the apartments as it is in effect a shared entrance with the paved Murat drive branching off, but I don't see why she has said the vehicle was going the wrong way.

It would have to have been in the Murat drive?? is that possible?

[sadie]

Thank you John.  You have gone to a lot of trouble there.   I appreciate that.

I hope that people can now understand my long description


Unfortunately, I am not able to come in much to discuss things atm .... as we, my little family, have suffereed as many major problems in our life during just the past 4-5 months as most people encounter in 10 + years.    All very worrying, tiring and time consuming.

A number of problems are hopefully going to improve but others are on going, so goodness knows when some normality will come back and I can post in a less sporadic manner.


PS I wonder if I am remembering the very high "tennis Court" Mesh properly?  It seems lower than I remember it.

[pegasus]

JM has to swing out to start that 360 turn. Someone comes round the corner from R Ramalhete much too fast, almost collides. Nothing unusual there. Drivers going round corners too fast happens every day. So the brown car is of little interest IMO (even if it was the car which picked up the woman).

More interesting is the woman who is standing on the corner, looking straight at 5A, at about 8pm. Here are some possibilities:
1. She is waiting for a lift. Possibly works at the same supermarket that JM went to (Do any shifts there finish at 8pm? Yes certainly. That is a no-brainer!). Or works in tapas restaurant or laundry which is same location as tapas (Do any shifts there finish at 8pm? I don't know). She walks up to corner because that's easier for friend/relative who gives her lift home. When someone is standing waiting for a lift obviously they look at whatever buildings are nearby. So this is the most likely, and completely innocuous explanation. (Other possibilities to follow ...) 

[G-Unit]

Jeremy Wilkins saw Jane Tanner there between 8.15 and 8.30. also in purple.

Relative to whether I know Jane Tanner;
Now I know her name, description of the clothes and photos which I have seen in the press. At that time I knew of her as a member of the group but did not know her name. I do not remember having seen her when I spoke with Gerry, but I believe I saw her when I first ventured out. She was stopped on the street in front of one of the group's apartments when I passed her down towards the exit to my apartment. I do not know if it was her apartment or not. I remember that she was wearing the colour purple.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/JEREMY-WILKINS-ROGATORY.htm

[pegasus]

JT was IMO wearing a dark blue fleece, and cropped dark trousers.
The woman seen by JM was wearing a plum-coloured jacket and white skirt.

The woman seen by JW was wearing something purple.
Maybe JW saw the same woman that JM saw? And he mistakenly thought it was JT ???