Clearly members are divided between guilty and not so guilty when it comes to the Ciprianos, I could be wrong but I dont think anyone has suggested Leonor or Joao are completely innocent. That said, the discussion around the case has invoked much derision and caused a lot of conflict and disruption over the last few days. This cannot be allowed to continue.
A lot of emphasis has been placed on the evidence which may or may not exist in the case. Some refer to it as circumstantial evidence while others refer to an absence of real evidence. Reading over the various articles on the case I was reminded of the timeline in which the investigation developed.
The first police to respond were the GNR from Portimão. GNR police officer Fernando Ferreira later stated, "We received notice via the radio and went to the Aldeia da Figueira … attending Joana's mother and her boyfriend, Leandro Silva. The objective was to try to obtain the maximum amount of information which could help identify the girl: name, age, height and what she was wearing at the time she disappeared. From there, having this information, we searched the village."
The Portimão GNR continued with searches over the following days around the Aldeia da Figueira. Posters about the disappearance were put up. But there were no traces of Joana.
Four days later, the case of the missing 8-year-old girl was transferred to the PJ in Portimão. Another four days later, it is transferred to the PJ Directory in Faro. The inspectors had no idea they now had in their hands one of the most complex cases ever confronted.
In my opinion eight days were lost, days in which crucial evidence was tampered with or destroyed. Ironically, there was no such delay in the McCann case, the PJ were alerted within hours of Madeleine's disappearance and the PJ arrived on site early the next morning. Could it be that the Portuguese learned much from the Cipriano case?
