Wandering Off Topic

[slartibartfast]

It is ridiculous to base a whole multi-million pound investigation on a hypothesis which is so implausible that you have to search the whole world, tens of thousands of cases, in an attempt to find just one proven example.

The "it's never happened before so it didn't happen this time" is never a convincing argument.

[Alfie]

It is ridiculous to base a whole multi-million pound investigation on a hypothesis which is so implausible that you have to search the whole world, tens of thousands of cases, in an attempt to find just one proven example.

Do you really believe that is what the Met have done?

[Alice Purjorick]

The "it's never happened before so it didn't happen this time" is never a convincing argument.

Especially when applied to "the trail blazers".
I don't believe Magellan's crew were the first to circumnavigate the world because it had never been done before so............
I don't believe Wilbur and Orville Wright were the first to use powered controlled flight because it had never been done before so...........................
Think of of all trail blazing stuff we were taught at school that must be wrong because it had never been done before. The list is endless..............

[Brietta]

It is ridiculous to base a whole multi-million pound investigation on a hypothesis which is so implausible that you have to search the whole world, tens of thousands of cases, in an attempt to find just one proven example.

It is ridiculous and incompetent to ignore and fail to follow through on evidence ... particularly eye witness evidence ... because dogs untrained for that job have not followed a scent.

Similarly, individuals like child serial killer Robert Black are able to practice for periods of up to and over twenty years by being peripatetic, making each crime and missing child seem unique despite using the same modus operandi.

**snip
Black goes into horrific detail about how he would abduct youngsters in his delivery van as he travelled round the country.

Detectives think Black was talking about actual crimes in the interviews but avoided incriminating himself by claiming to be describing a fantasy, ...

//////

He was able to evade justice for over 20 years as his job as a driver enabled him to criss-cross police boundaries and stay one step ahead of authorities.
But his luck ran out when a policeman spotted him bundling a little girl into his van in the Borders.

//////

He was jailed in 1990 but told police practically nothing.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/child-killer-robert-black-reveals-7430373



The Portuguese police had a head start on police dealing with widespread apparently unrelated disappearances of children.

Joana Cipriano disappeared from Figueira which is only seven miles from Praia da Luz.

**snip
A child protection specialist, Mark Williams-Thomas, who believes that Joana's and Madeleine's disappearances are related, said that the disappearance of two children unknown to each other, within a period of four years in a seven-mile radius, would be a huge coincidence, especially considering that Portugal is a small country with few abductions.[11] Before Joana's disappearance, the previous first-degree murder of a child in the Algarve region was in November 1990 and involved a British girl, nine-year-old Rachel Charles, who was abducted and murdered in Albufeira. Her body was found three days later; a British mechanic, Michael Cook, a friend of the family, was arrested and convicted.[12] Leandro Silva, the common-law husband of Leonor Cipriano, said in 2007 that "the only difference between the McCanns and us is that we don't have money."[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Joana_Cipriano


The problem there being that having 'solved' Joana's case with a conviction for murder but no evidence indicating what happened to Joana ... the same team was involved in investigating Madeleine's disappearance.

Would it have been possible for them to have thought outside the box and linked both cases without denting their 'honour' for the expeditious solving one.

Might it not have been very much a case of ~ every size fits all?


In my opinion the man seen leaving the scene of the crime carrying a child on the 3rd May 2007 was an abductor and the barefoot child being carried was Madeleine McCann.
If Robert Black had not been spotted bundling a little girl into his van and later stopped before the child's demise ... there would have been yet another missing child to add to the statistics.

Who knows in this day and age of untraceable children crossing what amount to open borders if Joana and Madeleine were the last or only two of many.
 

[Robittybob1]

It is ridiculous and incompetent to ignore and fail to follow through on evidence ... particularly eye witness evidence ... because dogs untrained for that job have not followed a scent.

Similarly, individuals like child serial killer Robert Black are able to practice for periods of up to and over twenty years by being peripatetic, making each crime and missing child seem unique despite using the same modus operandi.

**snip
Black goes into horrific detail about how he would abduct youngsters in his delivery van as he travelled round the country.

Detectives think Black was talking about actual crimes in the interviews but avoided incriminating himself by claiming to be describing a fantasy, ...

//////

He was able to evade justice for over 20 years as his job as a driver enabled him to criss-cross police boundaries and stay one step ahead of authorities.
But his luck ran out when a policeman spotted him bundling a little girl into his van in the Borders.

//////

He was jailed in 1990 but told police practically nothing.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/child-killer-robert-black-reveals-7430373



The Portuguese police had a head start on police dealing with widespread apparently unrelated disappearances of children.

Joana Cipriano disappeared from Figueira which is only seven miles from Praia da Luz.

**snip
A child protection specialist, Mark Williams-Thomas, who believes that Joana's and Madeleine's disappearances are related, said that the disappearance of two children unknown to each other, within a period of four years in a seven-mile radius, would be a huge coincidence, especially considering that Portugal is a small country with few abductions.[11] Before Joana's disappearance, the previous first-degree murder of a child in the Algarve region was in November 1990 and involved a British girl, nine-year-old Rachel Charles, who was abducted and murdered in Albufeira. Her body was found three days later; a British mechanic, Michael Cook, a friend of the family, was arrested and convicted.[12] Leandro Silva, the common-law husband of Leonor Cipriano, said in 2007 that "the only difference between the McCanns and us is that we don't have money."[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Joana_Cipriano


The problem there being that having 'solved' Joana's case with a conviction for murder but no evidence indicating what happened to Joana ... the same team was involved in investigating Madeleine's disappearance.

Would it have been possible for them to have thought outside the box and linked both cases without denting their 'honour' for the expeditious solving one.

Might it not have been very much a case of ~ every size fits all?


In my opinion the man seen leaving the scene of the crime carrying a child on the 3rd May 2007 was an abductor and the barefoot child being carried was Madeleine McCann.
If Robert Black had not been spotted bundling a little girl into his van and later stopped before the child's demise ... there would have been yet another missing child to add to the statistics.

Who knows in this day and age of untraceable children crossing what amount to open borders if Joana and Madeleine were the last or only two of many.

There is no evidence that Smithman went into the McCann's apartment. He needs to be offered an amnesty to encourage him to come forward.

[pegasus]

Do you really believe that is what the Met have done?

What they publically stated in Crimewatch gave the impression they were concentrating a a huge part of the investigation on the assumption that a perp would carry someone or something visibly in arms for a quarter of a mile or more through populated streets.

[pegasus]

There is no evidence that Smithman went into the McCann's apartment. He needs to be offered an amnesty to encourage him to come forward.

The man's destination was not to the clinic for treatment, nor to the chinese restaurant a few doors away for a meal, because both destinations are easily disproven by observing the man's course across the junction. Look at the map in the files which marks exactly where witness AS saw him.

IMO he was simply walking at normal speed, carrying his own daughter, most probably towards his home or holiday accommodation. And no degree in rocket propulsion is needed to deduce he was a non-english-speaker.

[pegasus]

I never actually hypothesised "hiding" during the search. But IMO it is probable that the child hid within the property immediately when someone outside was attempting entry. So this is talking about sometime before 10pm. It is certainly not preposterous. It is the most frequent response of home-alone children when someone outside attempts entry, and I can back that up with many cases where exactly that happened.

[Alfie]

I never actually hypothesised "hiding" during the search. But IMO it is probable that the child hid within the property immediately when someone outside was attempting entry. So this is talking about sometime before 10pm. It is certainly not preposterous. It is the most frequent response of home-alone children when someone outside attempts entry, and I can back that up with many cases where exactly that happened.

Have you not suggested that Madeleine was missed when the apartment was searched after the alarm was raised?  The fact that you think this is likely seems utterly bizarre to me. 

[pegasus]

Have you not suggested that Madeleine was missed when the apartment was searched after the alarm was raised?  The fact that you think this is likely seems utterly bizarre to me.

It would be bizarre to discard the science of studying and learning from other cases. Fact is there are many missing child cases where relatives and police "completely searched" the property yet missed the child.

[misty]

It would be bizarre to discard the science of studying and learning from other cases. Fact is there are many missing child cases where relatives and police "completely searched" the property yet missed the child.

In how many of those cases was the child never located?

[Brietta]

What they publically stated in Crimewatch gave the impression they were concentrating a a huge part of the investigation on the assumption that a perp would carry someone or something visibly in arms for a quarter of a mile or more through populated streets.

Do you really suppose SY outlined exactly their strategy for the consumption of interested viewers some of whom might be perpetrators?

[pegasus]

In how many of those cases was the child never located?

Obviously 0% Misty because all the dozens of cases I am citing are solved cases where the missing person was eventually located by LE in the already supposedly "completely" searched location.

[misty]

Obviously 0% Misty because all the dozens of cases I am citing are solved cases where the missing person was eventually located by LE in the already supposedly "completely" searched location.

Does that statistic therefore lead you to conclude that missing Madeleine was not in the "searched" location?

[pegasus]

Does that statistic therefore lead you to conclude that missing Madeleine was not in the "searched" location?

It's just an observation, proven by many solved cases, that even when people including relatives and police truly believe they have completely searched a location, in fact they often haven't.