The interview by journalist Alejandro Agostinelli, translated:
Source:
http://factorelblog.com/2016/03/31/caso-madeleine-1/The infamous disappearance of Madeleine McCann according to a criminal psychologist
By Alejandro Agostinelli (translated by John Spain)
"Madeleine McCann may have died on the day she was kidnapped", says Argentinian-Spanish investigator Heriberto Janosch González, about the case that terrified Europe .
The case of the missing English girl, almost 4 years old when she disappeared from the flat where her parents left her at a Portuguese resort, is a highly controversial mystery, rich with tales of false sightings and endless conspiracy theories. We speak to Janosch, who on his own initiative became a world expert in the case. One of the few to add useful information towards its eventual resolution.
On the 3rd of May 2007 the McCann family from Leicester UK were enjoying their vacations at Praia da Luz in the Portuguese Algarve. They had arrived Sat 28th on a direct flight to Faro airport. The family was comprised of Gerry and his wife Kate, their daughter Madeleine (4 years old on the 12th of May), and her two 2 year old twin siblings. They arrived along with 3 other families, Jane and Russel with their two daughters (1 and 3 years old), Matthew and Rachael with their one year old daughter; David and Fiona with their two daughters (2 years and 11 months old). Also with the group was Dianne, Fiona’s mother. At night the nine adults dined at the Tapas bar, less than a hundred meters away from the apartment block they resided at, while the eight children slept in their respective apartments. David and Fiona owned a wireless receiver to listen to babies, while the other three couples visited in intervals of 15 and 30 minutes to watch over their kids. At 22:00 of the 3rd of May, as Kate arrived in her apartment, she found the window to Madeleine and her brother’s room open, the blinds raised and no sign of Madeleine.
Heriberto Janosch Gonzaléz is a psychologist with a European Master in investigation and a postgraduate in Criminology. He has been researching the case since 2011 based on official published documentation and several trips to the location of events in the Algarve in Portugal.
- In your bilingual blog Espacio Exterior you analyze the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. What made you take an interest in the case?
Heriberto Janosch Gonzaléz (HJG) - Around 2011 I wanted to do a criminology postgraduate and a colleague told me: “Check out this case, the parents are involved”. I developed an interest and obtained all the official documents, thousands of pages. Just the main file from the Portuguese Judiciary police is 5500 pages. The event happened in Portugal, and the English girl, almost 4 years old, was on holiday with her parents.
- Yes, a lot has been said on the subject. So were the parents involved?
HGJ - Absolutely not. I realized this when I’d read the first 500 pages, it was physically impossible for them to be involved. It is true they made a serious mistake, they thought they were in a safe place and left the children alone, sleeping some tens of meters from the place they were dining at. Even though they checked every half hour it was not enough. Yes it was a mistake, but the crime was perpetrated by the kidnapper.
-Why did the Portuguese Judiciary police suspect the parents?
HJG - I don’t know. The key moment was in September, four months after the kidnapping, when they were charged. Until then they had only one suspect, an Englishman, Robert Murat, who lived near apartment 5A and turned out to be innocent. And since statistics say that in child disappearance cases usually a family member is involved... but every case is unique. You cannot apply a statistic drawn from a population level view of many independent crimes, to a specific case.
-This affair has been going on for almost nine years and has yet to be resolved. Did you reach any conclusion based on your research?
HJG - From all I’ve read and my trips on site at the Portuguese Algarve, it seemed important to know the physical and social environment where everything took place. So I went there four times, staying for about a week on each trip. Luz, Praia da Luz, is a village of white houses and sparse buildings, with a beach on the Atlantic, 4 star hotels and tourist apartments. Inhabited mostly by English and Portuguese and of course the tourists, who arrive from many countries, but mainly England, Holland and Germany.
-Knowledge of the environment is important...
HJG - Yes, also I was doing my criminology postgrad at that time and was very interested, and was influenced by Per-Olof Wikstron’s Theory of Situational action... it’s a criminal theory with two levels, individual and environmental, the criminal even takes place in the intersection of those two levels .
- Crime theory focuses on the individual or on society.
HJG - Not this one. It asserts that the crime takes place in the intersection. Individuals possess their own morality and self control. On the other hand the environment also has control factors, guards, cameras, etc. And also an “environmental morality”. If the individual’s morality makes them prone to crime and lacking in self control, and the environment lacks control factors, and the shared morality tolerates crime, the criminal event takes place.
-In this case, are there suspects?
HJG - With the information I have, I have found two suspects. There is surely new information in the hands of the Procuradoria-Geral da República and the Portuguese Judiciary police and Scotland Yard, who have a special group investigating this kidnapping, “Operation Grange”, which has invested almost 12 million pounds Sterling on the case. But the analysis of the information I have led me to two individuals
- How was that analysis?
HJG - As I mentioned earlier, getting to know the place I realized that the “environmental morality” tolerated theft in the apartments and small swindles like asking money for non existent charitable institutions. In the first case, tourist complexes, be they hotels or resorts prefer guests be compensated by insurance to alerting the police and so damage the area’s image. In the second case, men asking for donations for a nonexistent orphanage where known to operate in the area.
-But this was a child’s kidnapping, not a theft...
HJG - That’s where I’m going, I view the events not as a kidnapping but as a theft that escalated. Why? The thief did not anticipate meeting someone at apartment 5A, Madeleine awoke and confronted him. Perhaps she started to scream when she realized he was not a relative and the frightened criminal took her. Seventeen days before the kidnapping there was a theft at apartment 5L, and a week earlier an attempt in Mrs. Fenn’s 5G, both in the same apartment block. In both cases, as in Madeleine’s kidnapping, a window was opened from outside.
- How did the suspects names emerge?
HJG - Reading and rereading I arrived at one person, at that time employed by the Ocean Club, the tourist resort where Madeleine stayed. Jose Carlos Fernandes da Silva, 30 years old, who transported tourists from reception to the apartments in a minibus. The apartments could be hundreds of meters away from reception. José Carlos lived 200 meters away from Madeleine’s apartment, and a similar distance from the place where a family saw a man carrying a blond girl like Madeleine in his arms, at around 22:05 hours approximately.
- There must be something else, surely?
HJG- Of course. On the day of the kidnapping Jose Carlos did not go to work, but was in the area. He made three phone calls to Ricardo Rodrigues, the other suspect I located, at 17:26, 21:38 and 21:51. As well as a SMS message at 21:25. I should point out that, according to the testimonies I have read, I believe Madeleine was abducted around 21:50. But getting back to José Carlos, at 23:00 he was “Taking some fresh air” in a balcony of his building, despite the night being quite chilly. And it is right in that street, by that building, that one person, a witness known to Scotland Yard noticed two men arguing, when they noticed they were observed they departed speaking in whispers. But the definitive fact to consider José Carlos a suspect was found in the Portuguese file... he had a criminal record for theft!
- And the other suspect, Ricardo?
HJG - Ricardo was 16 years old around that time. He was a kid who did not like to study, whose main aspiration was to have a fast car that could reach 200km/hr along the Algarve roads. Also, I have indications that on the day of the abduction at 16:00 hours he was involved in collecting money for a non existent orphanage, at a house located less than 100 meters from Madeleine’s apartment, along with another man who may have been José Carlos, where he obtained 10 Euro. I of course have no hard evidence, all my theory is based on circumstantial evidence from the judicial file and my observations on site.
-These people must have been investigated.
HJG - I thought the same when I considered this situation, in June 2013, and so I informed Scotland Yard and the Portuguese authorities. More than a year later, in July 2014, Scotland Yard managed to have them interrogated as suspects in Faro, Portugal. The judicial term there is “arguidos”. They also interrogated one Paulo Ribeiro, described as a mentally ill drug addict, who was about 50 years old around that time, and who was in contact with Ricardo on the previous day.
- A very peculiar trio...
HJG - Indeed.
- José Carlos and Ricardo’s interview was on July 2014. Almost two years have passed, what do we know?
HJG - There is a clampdown. At this time there are two active investigations, English and Portuguese. But leadership is maintained by the Portuguese Procaduria Geral da República. It was revealed that the English sent a letter rogatory to continue the interrogation of José Carlos, Ricardo and Paulo, but the Portuguese saw no justification to cite them again.
- What do you think happened to Madeleine? Might she be alive?
HJG - I have no proof of that, or even circumstantial evidence. There are no “probabilities” here, she is either 100% alive or 100% dead. But I don’t dismiss the idea that Madeleine McCann may have died on the day she was kidnapped, strangled, for example, by the thief turned kidnapper, and that her body was well hidden near the coast of the village, between the beach known as A Prainha and the water treatment plant at Mata Porcas. Or perhaps thrown into the sea in that same area. I hope that when they capture the criminal, whoever it may be, we will find out what happened with little Madeleine.
- Recently another investigator reported that Madeleine was in Paraguay. Is this possible?
HJG - There have been thousands of sightings of Madeleine all over the world. None has the slightest shred of credibility. I believe Madeleine, dead or alive, is still in Portugal, and not far from Praia de Luz.
- It’s a very media heavy case. Many people are interested on the Internet, from various perspectives. What do you think about this online war over different theories?
HJG - Yes, there are factions “pro” and “con”. The “con” think the parents, at the very least, found her dead after falling off a sofa when they left her alone at the apartment. And then they simulated a kidnapping to hide the body... or worse things, all ridiculous. They are very fanatical. The “pro” group are also quite fanatical about defending the parents, and will not even admit they made a mistake leaving her alone sleeping with her two year old siblings. A mistake they will carry their whole lives. But the only criminal here, I never tire of repeating it, is whoever abducted her.
IMAGE:
Notes for a possible chronology: 16:00 two men (Ricardo and José Carlos?) request donations for a nonexistent orphanage (“1” on the google map image). 17:26 Cell phone call between Jose Carlos and Ricardo. 21:05 Gerry, Madeleine’s father, leaves her sleeping with her 2 year old brothers in Apartment 5A (“2”) to continue dining with his wife and their group of friends at the Tapas Bar (“3”) 21:25 SMS message between José Carlos and Ricardo’s cellphones. 21:35. Matthew Oldfield, who was dining with Madeleine’s parents goes by apartment 5A and sees nothing unusual. 21:38 Cell phone call between José Carlos and Ricardo. 21:50 Approximate hour of Madeleine’s abduction? 21:51 José Carlos makes a one minute long phone call on his mobile, to Ricardo. 22:00 Kate, Madeleine’s mother, arrives at apartment 5A to check on the kids. The window of the room is open and the blinds are raised, Madeleine is gone. 22:05 Members of the Smith family see a man carrying a girl matching Madeleine’s description in his arms. The girl is wearing pajamas and is barefoot, despite the cold night (“4”) 23:00 José Carlos “gets some air” on the balcony of the building where he lives (“5”). In the street, almost on the same spot and time a person sees two men talking, who leave whispering when they notice they are being observed.
