Dr Totman: Apartment block stayed in and direction walked

[John]

So why did Redwood have such difficulty explaining why the witness was going in the wrong direction?

Did Totman wander about, back and forth, on the road outside blocks 4, 5 and 6 for instance?   If he did, it was an odd way to carry a small child.  And if he did then why not say so?  And how come he didn't eyeball everyone else that was supposedly loitering about block 5 that night?

I think a lot has been withheld from the public by SY so there's something to be said for the open system practised in Portugal.

[misty]

So why did Redwood have such difficulty explaining why the witness was going in the wrong direction?

Did Totman wander about, back and forth, on the road outside blocks 4, 5 and 6 for instance?   If he did, it was an odd way to carry a small child.  And if he did then why not say so?  And how come he didn't eyeball everyone else that was supposedly loitering about block 5 that night?

There is a scenario, previously mentioned on here, in which Dr Totman could have been heading back towards Block 6 from his apartment in Block 4. If he had been dining at the Millennium Restaurant with his wife, eldest child & another family who had their children with them, then he may have left the restaurant 5 mins or more before the others to collect his daughter from the creche. The rest of the group would have walked together, along Rua da Ramalhete then onto Rua Dr. Agostinho da Silva towards Block 4. It's entirely possible that Dr Totman arrived back at G4M well before his wife but she had the key. Instead of waiting by the door, he chose to walk back along the easiest route towards the Millennium, passing the junction where Jane saw Tannerman. If the rest of the group were dawdling Dr Totman may have had to walk some distance before meeting up with them.
However, I agree with SIL that there are too many discrepancies between the appearance of Dr. Totman & the description of Tannerman. Furthermore, I do not understand why anyone would carry a young child around, wearing only her pyjamas & no socks, on a night so cold the adults needed to wear coats. It would be really interesting to know just how big the blankets supplied by the creche were as the child Jane saw had no blanket covering her lower legs.
In Amaral's 2017 O Enigma documentary, he portrayed Jane's sighting as a man walking from right to left, rather than left to right, then combined it with the Smiths' sighting. Did he know in which direction Dr Totman was really walking?
https://youtu.be/tUHp85TyJ0Y?t=1071

Finally. DCI Redwood gave no description of the clothing Smithman was wearing in 2013 Crimewatch. If the appeal was intended to identify another person from 2 efits, why was there such a dearth of pertinent information?

[ShiningInLuz]

I think a lot has been withheld from the public by SY so there's something to be said for the open system practised in Portugal.

I concur.

Any regular poster on the forum can evaluate Crimewatch 2013.  It was a carefully orchestrated exercise intended to downplay certain parts - Tannerman - so the public would focus on other parts - including Smithman.  Don't look over there, look over here.

I've got an outstanding post on my blog re 10 questions for Kate and Gerry.  I'd guess there would be another 10 interesting questions for DCI Redwood.

I wonder what Andy is doing to fill his retirement days?

[sadie]

9.40 pm?

The crèche closed at 11 something.  I think it was 11.30 pm.

You are quite right.  It officially closed at 11.30 pm.  I guess if there were no children needing it after 10pm., it wouldn't stay open after the time that the last child left.


I distinctly remember a report on this forum saying that in the night of the 3rd. at coming up to 10pm. only one child was there and the parent was rather late picking up.  The parent who picked up IIRC said that a child was missing and people were walking around calling out a name that sounded like Madeleine

Now I think it was Amy Tierney who said this but I cant pick it up from her statements.  Who ever it was immediately the last child had gone, I gathered the creche was closed ... and Amy immediately went straight to the Mccann apartment

... and arrived there early enough to witness the window and shutter being open.  It was only about 250 yards, so would only take a couple of minutes.


I think that on that night they closed the creche at about 10pm

AIMO

[sadie]

This is what Heriberto said on 8 May 2018:

“In my opinion, she (Jane Tanner) did not leave the table at 21:15. He (Russell o’ Brien) saw their daugthers at 21:05, and then he went at 21:30, discovering that one of them had vomited. She went at 21:45-21:50.

After the abduction, not knowing Portuguese laws, they were worried about that half an hour, with their daughters alone, and one of them vomiting, and the police questioning.

So he decided to make timelines clearly showing he was at 21:00, she was at 21:15, he was at 21:30, she was at 21:45. And show them to the rest of the group, implanting false memories.

She did not see Gerry and Jez at 21:15, she heard Gerry saying "I met Jez".”

The two names in brackets were added by me. If this is not correct, I apologise to Heri.

That must be where I got the 9.50 from.   Thank you Anthro for finding that.


Heri, of course, is an absolute expert on the case having spent many weeks at Praia de Luz and qualified at University level in Criminology, Psychology and associated disciplines.  He is a member here and has his own website on the Madeleine case.

http://espacioexterior.blogspot.com/

[sadie]

Assuming that dr Totman is the person seen by Jane Tanner, does anyone know if he told police that he had seen Jane Tanner walking up the street, and/or Gerry and Jeremy chatting? To me, if he did not see one or the other at 21h15, it might indicate why mr Redwood referred to the ‘Tanner sighting’ without putting a time on that particular sighting?

UK members who know more about Colin Sutton than I do, can perhaps shed some light on his remark that ‘police might well be looking at another Tannerman’. (The Mystery of Madeleine McCann, ID channel, Netflix, 2019).

I dont think he would have noticed them enough to register in his memory anyhow.

The man with the litte girl was crossing the road and apart from a quick glance would be looking straight ahead.  They were at 90^ to his vision angle and way out of his periferal vision.

Additionally they were over 30 yards awy from him and the lighting was not of the strongest quality.




In just the same way, Jez and Gerry would not have seen Tannerman.   Too far aftar dark in a rather poorly lit steet .. and their fields of vision too were at right angles to Tannerman.  No way would they have seen him.

[sadie]

Jane Tanner described the bottoms in her rog. They were different.

I could really think was, erm, a turn-up of some description.  And I don’t know whether this made it into my statement, but there was, and this is the thing that convinces me it was her, there was, erm, sort of the pyjamas were, there was some sort of, I thought it was a turn-up, but some sort of design on the bottom of the pyjamas.
I thought I saw pink pyjamas and I thought I could see colours but I don’t know, it was fairly orange so I don’t know.
https://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/JANE_TANNER_RIGATORY.htm

The bottom bits are orange.

Yep, and the sodium lighting gave an orange sickly glow to everything it illuminated, too.

[sadie]

I care little if it was Totman or not.

The core point is that Tannerman was going the wrong way!

Even Jane Tanner said that in her rogatory.

Redwood got a lot of things wrong on his shift.  It wasn't his finest hour.  I hope!

Tannerman was going the wrong way ???

What do you mean?   How do you know where Tannerman was heading ?



Now if you were meaning to say that Totman was going the wrong way to be Janes sighting, then I would agree with you

[sadie]

I would not have thought so because she would not have entered their apartment at night that week. I don't think Jane would have entered apartment 5A until after the disappearance. We know David entered hours before the disappearance which was different from the norm.

Everybody would have been saying to Jane that must have been Maddy so she started believing that was the truth so of course she is going to think they were Maddy's pyjamas and so things can change to fit that view. She did know that the bottom bits of the pyjamas were different in some way and Totman's pyjamas have different coloured bottom bits and they were orange.

My understanding is that the Tapas group chldren played in their jamies together, on the climbing frame etc., each evening before bed.

But it may well have been that the men generally took the little ones there giving the women time to make up etc before dinner.  Dunno

[sadie]

Tannerman was allegedly coming from the night crèche, so he was going the wrong way.

Jane Tanner knew it was the wrong way.  Ask her if you want more.

I watched Redwood and co dig up central Luz in June 2014.  God only knows what they thought they were doing.

I have mentioned on here several times that there was no creche in the direction Tannerman was coming from, but it is news to me that Jane had mentioned that in the early days.

[sadie]

But wasn’t it Heri to give impetus to this?

Yes it was.  I confirm that.

[Vertigo Swirl]

I concur.

Any regular poster on the forum can evaluate Crimewatch 2013.  It was a carefully orchestrated exercise intended to downplay certain parts - Tannerman - so the public would focus on other parts - including Smithman.  Don't look over there, look over here.

I've got an outstanding post on my blog re 10 questions for Kate and Gerry.  I'd guess there would be another 10 interesting questions for DCI Redwood.

I wonder what Andy is doing to fill his retirement days?

Modest.

[Holly Goodhead]

Point 3.  So you are relying on speculation.  Thanks for that clarification.

No it is not speculation about night crèche records when we know MW operated such a system during the day.  We know PJ did not pursue this since there's no evidence in the PJ files of the register or witness statement from the 8 families with 11 children in the night crèche on 3rd May.  Conversely we know PJ contacted former holiday makers who stayed in 5A as evidenced by their statements in the PJ files. 

Point 2.  Jane Tanner was there.  OG wasn't.

JT was a witness who gave an account of what she said she saw.  JT has never had any investigatory powers.

Point 1.  Goalpost shifting.  3 DCIs, who may or may not be of 1 mind.

There has never been a time in the history of OG whereby 3 DCI's have worked the case simultaneously.  OG was initially headed up by DCI Andy Redwood who subsequently retired and handed over to DCI Nicola Wall. 

[barrier]

I concur.

Any regular poster on the forum can evaluate Crimewatch 2013.  It was a carefully orchestrated exercise intended to downplay certain parts - Tannerman - so the public would focus on other parts - including Smithman.  Don't look over there, look over here.

I've got an outstanding post on my blog re 10 questions for Kate and Gerry.  I'd guess there would be another 10 interesting questions for DCI Redwood.

I wonder what Andy is doing to fill his retirement days?

Of course it was orchestrated if you're shifting focus to a particular time and person.Tannerman is of no interest
Smithman was described carrying a child with "A description very close to that of Madeleine McCann" Tannerman wasn't,obvious who to check out,considering OG identified the person believed to have been seen by Tanner.

[Holly Goodhead]

I think it does matter. It was valid information which had to be investigated.

This is what he investigated:

I have found, in June 2013, in the first volumes of the Polícia Judiciária Files, that a man is referenced, J.C., who: (a) was living near the 5A apartment the day Madeleine was abducted, (b) was also living near the location where the Smith family saw the suspect, (c) had a previous record for theft, (d) was an Ocean Club employee, (e) was not working between 09:00 pm and 11:00 pm on May 3rd. 2007 (then it was said he did not go to work that day), (f) might know well the Ocean Club apartments, (g) was in the zone at 11:00 pm on May 3rd. 2007, and (h) was in the zone at the time Madeleine was abducted (confirmed by his mobile phone records). The records include phone communications via voice or by SMS with his friend R. at 17:26, 21:25, 21:38 and 21:51 (the last confirmed by PJ files). The block 5 (where the 5A apartment is) had a theft on 5L on April 17th. 2007, and an intent of theft on G5 (5G) on approximately April 26th. 2007. That is, 17 and 7 days before the abduction of Madeleine.

Impressive analysis of info but ultimately it was not supported by any evidence these individuals were involved.