Search areas: who searched where, when and how

[Brietta]

On Saturday 21.07.2007 I met with Major Luis Seqeuira, GNR Portimao who was the search coordinator for all search activity that was under taken in the physical search for Madeleine McCann.
Major Seqeuira has not benefited from any formal training or accreditation in the management of searching for missing persons. The search officers with the exception of the search and rescue team dispatched from Lisbon had not benefited from any formal training in search procedures. The teams available and deployed by Major Seqeuira were drawn from unit of the GNR, Civil Protection, Fire Brigade, Red Cross and Urban Police. Each team numbered
around 10 and between 80 to 100 personnel were involved in search activity.

The searches were based on a strategy of searching in "rescue and recovery mode? to locate the missing girl alive or if dead, not as a victim of crime. This search phase lasted for 7 days from the date M McCann went missing.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARK_HARRISON.htm

Were the police still searching on the assumption that Madeleine McCann had wakened and wandered seven days after her disappearance?

[pegasus]

The search area appears to have been extremely large for a three-year-old who might have got out on her own and got lost.  The thinking must therefore have been something along the lines of she was taken, transported and then abandoned or she was found wandering, taken and abandoned or even she was run over whilst wandering and hidden outside the village.

I cannot see why anyone would take the risk of abducting a youngster from her bed only to discard her outside the village, it has no logic.

The search radius to include the woke wandered got lost possibility must = estimated walking speed x maximum walk time =  several kilometre?
 

[Brietta]

The search radius to include the woke wandered got lost possibility must = estimated walking speed x maximum walk time =  several kilometre?
 

Was the theory that the child had been abducted running alongside the wakened and walked theory, with the allocation of resources and appropriate protocols for that being put in place?

No point in searching every inch of the maximum radius a child was capable of walking if the child had been bundled into a vehicle and removed from the scene before she was missed and the alarm raised.

[John]

Were the police still searching on the assumption that Madeleine McCann had wakened and wandered seven days after her disappearance?

By the looks of it several possibilities were being actively pursued including abduction.

[G-Unit]

If a thorough search of the area hadn't been carried out they would have looked very silly had a body appeared in following days/weeks. The woke and wandered theory had to be explored as the abduction theory was proposed only by the parents with no supporting evidence. The unlocked door allowed the possibility of woke and wandered.

[pathfinder73]

If a thorough search of the area hadn't been carried out they would have looked very silly had a body appeared in following days/weeks. The woke and wandered theory had to be explored as the abduction theory was proposed only by the parents with no supporting evidence. The unlocked door allowed the possibility of woke and wandered.

But the open window ruled that theory out for the McCanns. If you enter through an unlocked door you don't open a window that can be seen by anybody in that car park. And if there was no evidence of entering via the window then you take a closer look at the people who lived there and their story.

[pegasus]

But the open window ruled that theory out for the McCanns. If you enter through an unlocked door you don't open a window that can be seen by anybody in that car park. And if there was no evidence of entering via the window then you take a closer look at the people who lived there and their story.

Searches that night by the many volunteers in PDL were completely based on the wandered possibility.
BTW is there anywhere anyone was told to not search?

[Brietta]

If a thorough search of the area hadn't been carried out they would have looked very silly had a body appeared in following days/weeks. The woke and wandered theory had to be explored as the abduction theory was proposed only by the parents with no supporting evidence. The unlocked door allowed the possibility of woke and wandered.

                                                         For seven days?

The searches were based on a strategy of searching in "rescue and recovery mode? to locate the missing girl alive or if dead, not as a victim of crime. This search phase lasted for 7 days from the date M McCann went missing.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARK_HARRISON.htm

[G-Unit]

                                                         For seven days?

The searches were based on a strategy of searching in "rescue and recovery mode? to locate the missing girl alive or if dead, not as a victim of crime. This search phase lasted for 7 days from the date M McCann went missing.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARK_HARRISON.htm

You have to remember the GNR carried out the searches, helped by others. The PJ were carrying out other diligences.

Seven days is nothing. They spent much longer searching for April Jones;

It ended on 19 April, 28 weeks and four days after it began.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22642989

[Brietta]

You have to remember the GNR carried out the searches, helped by others. The PJ were carrying out other diligences.

Seven days is nothing. They spent much longer searching for April Jones;

It ended on 19 April, 28 weeks and four days after it began.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22642989

Different searches.  April was seen to enter a vehicle so the abduction theory was to the fore right from the outset.

[pegasus]

Is there anywhere anyone decided to search but was told to not?

[ShiningInLuz]

The search area appears to have been extremely large for a three-year-old who might have got out on her own and got lost.  The thinking must therefore have been something along the lines of she was taken, transported and then abandoned or she was found wandering, taken and abandoned or even she was run over whilst wandering and hidden outside the village.

I cannot see why anyone would take the risk of abducting a youngster from her bed only to discard her outside the village, it has no logic.

You may be overthinking this.

Try role playing police chief (not Amaral - a lot higher up).  After other child disappearances in Portugal, this one is suddenly unique in world history.  The media circus turns its spotlight on you.  Do you 1) do what you normally do, and search within maybe 2km, or 2) get the GNR to search 15km so that no-one can say you didn't search enough?

It wasn't just the McCanns who went into territory never explored before.

If there was an abductor, I'd guess the media attention did not figure in the reckoning.  Lots of winging it and hoping.

[ShiningInLuz]

But the open window ruled that theory out for the McCanns. If you enter through an unlocked door you don't open a window that can be seen by anybody in that car park. And if there was no evidence of entering via the window then you take a closer look at the people who lived there and their story.

If you have a key to the front door, don't know that the patio door is open, then opening the window/shutter is a way to distract people from the fact that you have a key.

[ShiningInLuz]

Is there anywhere anyone decided to search but was told to not?

I am not aware of this happening.

Of course, there were legal constraints, much along UK lines.  No breaking and entering just because you felt like it.  Permission of the owner to search, or reasonable cause + warrant.

Given the number of dead/absent owners, there would have been many properties not searched within Luz, let alone the larger search zone.

From memory, it was 400+ properties visited in Luz.  That's visited, not searched, and there's a lot more than 400 properties in Luz.

[pathfinder73]

If you have a key to the front door, don't know that the patio door is open, then opening the window/shutter is a way to distract people from the fact that you have a key.

More importantly it's a good way of getting caught and those were tampered with after the fact.