Have we learnt anything from the Maddie case?

[G-Unit]

The sample did not have to be deposited there initially...a cloth could have been used to wile several surfaces and then used to wipe the boot....this is how sensitive LCDNA is
The DNAs could have collected and mixed on the cloth
The results are the results...the alleles found are the allies found... different interpretation s could in their be made re the results...as I understand no one has contradicted the FSS

A wet cloth was used at one point;

When we unloaded the shopping bags, we noticed that blood has run out of the bottom of the plastic bag. After this shopping trip and still in the month of July 2007, I began to notice a strange odour in the car. I did not give it much importance and assumed it was likely due to the leakage from the rubbish bags or from the blood which had escaped from the shopping bags. As a result, we removed the carpet from the boot (trunk) in order to clean it. I tossed (beat) the boot carpet to remove any particles and cleaned it with a wet cloth and left it to air out.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/A-J-CAMERON.htm

Of course the blood he refers to wouldn't have been alerted to by the CSI dog.

How could anyone contradict the FSS findings? Their findings were not, as far as I know, reviewed.

[Mr Gray]

A wet cloth was used at one point;

When we unloaded the shopping bags, we noticed that blood has run out of the bottom of the plastic bag. After this shopping trip and still in the month of July 2007, I began to notice a strange odour in the car. I did not give it much importance and assumed it was likely due to the leakage from the rubbish bags or from the blood which had escaped from the shopping bags. As a result, we removed the carpet from the boot (trunk) in order to clean it. I tossed (beat) the boot carpet to remove any particles and cleaned it with a wet cloth and left it to air out.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/A-J-CAMERON.htm

Of course the blood he refers to wouldn't have been alerted to by the CSI dog.

How could anyone contradict the FSS findings? Their findings were not, as far as I know, reviewed.

Anyone can contradict them...if they have a reasoned argument. It isn't the result that can be disputed but the interpretation of the results. The fact is the interpretation by the FSS makes perfect sense

[sadie]

I remember a time when I assumed he knew what he was talking about and that therefore that must have been true. It wasn't until I could read the files for myself that I realised what a load of BS that was. I expect that the majority of ladies who knit in front of Dear Julia's pink couch matinée TV show still believe that.

Dear Julia !

Well she is a Pinheiro, isn’t she?  She is an in-law of Goncalo de Souse Amaral.  Also an in-law (further removed, but close enough), of The Guedes do Amaral bloodline

 
Once again from Isabel , Duchess of Braganzas Wiki.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel,_Duchess_of_Braganza

 
Unfortunately the bloodline chart refuses to be copied or printed, so ....To find these connections:
    Go to:
1.     Genealogy
2     Ancestry  .
3.    click on show.
 
See boxes 3 and 5   The ‘Pinheiros’ are inlaws of the ‘de Sousas’  [Goncalo de Sousa Amaral]

 
Also see boxes 11 and 22, Guedes do Amaral.  Isabel is descended from all these illustrious bloodlines


Lots of names on this illustrious Ancestry list are related to Amaral and his side of the case..  Lots of interesting names there.

Do open it up and have a good look.

Oh, and i forgot to mention, most of them are Knights of St John (Malta).



And Isabel, Queen Pretender to a potential throne of Portugal is descended from all these interesting names.

[G-Unit]

So despite this, the conclusions reached are accepted in other cases.   Why single this case out to treat differently, with unecessary suspicion?

The FSS had a chequered history, you may recall. It's conclusions were not without controversy. It missed important evidence in the case of Damilola Taylor in 2000;
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/may/18/youthjustice.politics1


 It took another beating in 2007 in the case of Sean Hoey;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7154189.stm

I am discussing the McCann case for what I think are fairly obvious reasons.

[Mr Gray]

The FSS had a chequered history, you may recall. It's conclusions were not without controversy. It missed important evidence in the case of Damilola Taylor in 2000;
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2007/may/18/youthjustice.politics1


 It took another beating in 2007 in the case of Sean Hoey;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7154189.stm

I am discussing the McCann case for what I think are fairly obvious reasons.

The FSS developed LCDNA.....that is a technique that is now used all round the world . Sean Hoey......I doubt I could give my opinion on that case here....his DNA was found at the scene of the bombing but it was LCDNA....so although a match for him was found his lawyers argued that it could have arrived their by transference....hardly fair to criticise the FSS for that
It seems once again an attempt at a smear campaign against the FSS because they did not give the result you would have liked...imo

[G-Unit]

The FSS developed LCDNA.....that is a technique that is now used all round the world . Sean Hoey......I doubt I could give my opinion on that case here....his DNA was found at the scene of the bombing but it was LCDNA....so although a match for him was found his lawyers argued that it could have arrived their by transference....hardly fair to criticise the FSS for that
It seems once again an attempt at a smear campaign against the FSS because they did not give the result you would have liked...imo

Do you have a cite for 'a technique that is now used all round the world'? 

I have no need to attempt to smear the FSS. Others have provided evidence that LCN DNA testing has problems associated with it. Acceptance of anything without question isn't how I operate.

The FSS may have carried out their tests perfectly and their results may be beyond reproach, but then again they may not.

[Angelo222]

Both SY and the Portuguese have made it clear the parents are not involved ...imo...and that's the conclusion I had already reached

Forgive me for doubting your enthusiasm for all things McCann but I prefer to wait for the case to be solved before making such pronounciations.

[Mr Gray]

Forgive me for doubting your enthusiasm for all things McCann but I prefer to wait for the case to be solved before making such pronounciations.

I made my pronouncement some years ago and gradually more and more has come to light to support it....with both investigations now saying the McCanns are not suspects...looks like I am being proven right.

A poster who doubts the McCanns has made a post this morning describing why she questions the forensics...I've been able to explain why I accept them and dare I say it....show where I think she is wrong..

My enthusiasm is based on the evidence....and several knowledgeable posters....posters who imo understand the evidence agree.

[Carana]

A wet cloth was used at one point;

When we unloaded the shopping bags, we noticed that blood has run out of the bottom of the plastic bag. After this shopping trip and still in the month of July 2007, I began to notice a strange odour in the car. I did not give it much importance and assumed it was likely due to the leakage from the rubbish bags or from the blood which had escaped from the shopping bags. As a result, we removed the carpet from the boot (trunk) in order to clean it. I tossed (beat) the boot carpet to remove any particles and cleaned it with a wet cloth and left it to air out.
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/A-J-CAMERON.htm

Of course the blood he refers to wouldn't have been alerted to by the CSI dog.

How could anyone contradict the FSS findings? Their findings were not, as far as I know, reviewed.

Why did Corte Real et al visit the FSS in November 07 if not to discuss the results?

He also made this statement in Amaral's "documentary":


33.09 – Dr Francisco Corte-Real, Vice President, National Forensics Institute: "When those 15 alleles are included in a mix, where beyond those 15 we can have another 30 or 40 alleles, that means that it includes biological material from several persons. And there it can be much more difficult, much more inconclusive, because we may have a mixture from several persons, including hypothetically, if that happens, we may have several persons from the same family, and that may even give us the idea, in a way, that a certain missing person may be included, and that is not conclusive."
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=1147.msg32352#msg32352

[Mr Gray]

Do you have a cite for 'a technique that is now used all round the world'? 

I have no need to attempt to smear the FSS. Others have provided evidence that LCN DNA testing has problems associated with it. Acceptance of anything without question isn't how I operate.

The FSS may have carried out their tests perfectly and their results may be beyond reproach, but then again they may not.

LCN DNA has been used in the US , Australia and Sweden a quick check reveals

LCN DNA is currently accepted as evidence in the UK so I think your ideas of problems is not accurate...

Your last line is pure speculation....what evidence do you have that they did not carry out their tests correctly...pure mudslinging

Would the same criticism apply to Grime

[Mr Gray]

Forgive me for doubting your enthusiasm for all things McCann but I prefer to wait for the case to be solved before making such pronounciations.

Forgive me for doubting your enthusiasm for the alleged attempt to pervert the course of justice....there isn't even an investigation into that because...imo...it never happened

[G-Unit]

LCN DNA has been used in the US , Australia and Sweden a quick check reveals

LCN DNA is currently accepted as evidence in the UK so I think your ideas of problems is not accurate...

Your last line is pure speculation....what evidence do you have that they did not carry out their tests correctly...pure mudslinging

Would the same criticism apply to Grime

US; the medical examiner’s office in New York City......is the only public lab in the United States that uses low copy number DNA to develop profiles for use in criminal cases.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/science/dna-under-the-scope-and-a-forensic-tool-under-a-cloud.html

[Alice Purjorick]

I made my pronouncement some years ago and gradually more and more has come to light to support it....with both investigations now saying the McCanns are not suspects...looks like I am being proven right.

A poster who doubts the McCanns has made a post this morning describing why she questions the forensics...I've been able to explain why I accept them and dare I say it....show where I think she is wrong..

My enthusiasm is based on the evidence....and several knowledgeable posters....posters who imo understand the evidence agree.

The gist of The FSS stuff by Mr Lowe was "It doesn't rule anything in nor does it rule anything out"
Anything beyond that is speculation.

[Carana]

I have used the word blood because that's what the CSI dog was trained to find.

I have often wondered why the sample contained DNA from more than one person. I can understand that happening in a case of gang-rape, for example, but not quite how it happened in this case. If the CSI dog was as good as Grime said, there was at least some blood in the boot. Then what? Two other people bled or dribbled on exactly the same spot?

The other problem is that DNA analysis is seen as an exact science but it isn't. Different analysts can reach different conclusions about the same sample, particularly when it is from more than one person.

A man was convicted in a gang-rape case in the US because the experts said his DNA couldn't be excluded from a mixed sample. The same sample was later given to 17 analysts for retesting. Only one agreed with the original finding; that he couldn't be excluded. 4 said the evidence was inconclusive and 12 said he could be excluded.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727733.500-fallible-dna-evidence-can-mean-prison-or-freedom/

The 'inconclusive' conclusion reached by the FSS may have been correct, but a different conclusion could have been reached by a different analyst in my opinion.

Good article, thank you.

In this case, we have Keela's uncorroborated report and a total of 37 alleles from 3, possibly up to 5, different donors. If there had been sufficient material, they wouldn't have needed to resort to LCN.

The sample was mixed because there were too many peaks for them all to have come from just one person.

If one person, whether a family member or anyone else who'd used the car at some point in the past, had deposited a speck of blood, and assuming some of the alleles came from that, the other alleles could be the result of any kind of DNA transfer. Someone with dry skin (back of the hand or whatever) could easily shed cells while brushing against a surface.

Although in its infancy in the US at the time of the article below, the UK had been extracting DNA from even fingerprints at the time.
http://www.forensicdnacenter.com/resources/dna-fingerprint.html

In the rape case, they were comparing various suspects' profiles against the sample on the victim.

In the McCann case, I presume they were simply tasked with trying to determine if Madeleiene's DNA was present or not. 15 were compatible with those in her profile, but a number of the same alleles would be shared with others, even more so in a family car. The others, which did not coincide with hers, could have been those present in the other donor's profiles (family or not), but simply not in hers.

I'm trying to see what you're wondering about? Are you wondering if her missing alleles could have been subjectively discounted as "noise"? If so, I doubt it, as the "up to 5" would seem to cover a degree of uncertainty.

And Corte Real went to the FSS, so presumably the results were peer-reviewed.

[Angelo222]

Forgive me for doubting your enthusiasm for the alleged attempt to pervert the course of justice....there isn't even an investigation into that because...imo...it never happened

Unfortunately for some like yourself, much of it is now public knowledge thanks to several Portuguese lawyers, one of whom couldn't help himself, and of-course the men from Delmonte whom the McCanns and their fellow funders tried to gag. 

Now why would the parents of a missinig child want to gag anyone?