I find lots of that transcript quite remarkable.
The first thing that strikes me is that Isabella Stilwell (never aware I've heard of her before reading this) comes across as someone who has an agenda and desperately wants to put across that message almost to the point of disregarding what question she has actually been asked to answer. The really spooky thing is that her words, almost verbatim at times, sound incredibly similar to many of the favourite mantras that the McCann supporters use all the time.
On googling a bit I came across the Destak article from May 2009: (
http://www.destak.pt/opiniao/28576-porque-deixa-a-pj-que-falem-por-ela)
Yesterday in the early hours I saw, on SIC, the interview that Oprah did with the McCann couple. I felt that by doing that broadcast, that television station was, for the first time in a long time, rebalancing the scales.
Over the last few months, part of the media seems to be completely conditioned by the theory that the parents murdered their daughter and simulated an abduction, no matter how absurd that is. Apart from a complete lack of evidence, what would lead someone who, according to this theory, committed the perfect crime, to keep calling attention upon themselves?
Even presuming that they are people without scruples, compulsive liars and other epithets that they have been called, without those who accuse them being able to sustain the accusations, we have to agree that even for criminals that would be taking things too far.
But beyond the anguish that any mother or father feels just by imagining themselves in a similar situation, that which continues to cause me the most perplexity is why so many people seem to prefer to believe that the parents are guilty, the most sick possibility of them all, especially after the most expensive investigation that was ever made in Portugal failed to point anything whatsoever against any of them, even forcing to lift the arguido status and to archive the case?
And no, please don’t mention again the serious mistake of leaving the children alone, which they have punished themselves over and over again, because it doesn’t equal making someone into a murderer, and certainly doesn’t deserve this kind of punishment.
There are only two explanations. The first one comes from sociologists and is called the Fair World Syndrome, which results from us finding it unbearable to believe that bad things can happen to good people. In other words, we prefer to abandon the victim, in the belief that she got what she deserved. Which means that us, who don’t leave our children alone, can sleep in peace and not think about it any further.
The second one is related to the role that former PJ investigator Gonçalo Amaral has been playing. It sincerely shocks me that both the Republic’s prosecutor and the PJ director keep their silence, while a former officer, who was removed from the case, makes absolute accusations, almost as if he was the Portuguese police’s spokesman.
Why and until when?
A lot of her court testimony seems to be lifted straight from this piece. Furthermore many of the pro-McCann arguments/complaints over the years seem to have been lifted straight from this piece! If, say, gilet had posted the exact piece above, or even parts of it, it would have been completely in keeping with their posting style - it's uncanny. Maybe we need to out gilet as Stilwell?
That aside... the point for me in all this is the proving of "damaged the search". This is such a woolly definition and I cannot see an easy way of proving it. Firstly they'd need to establish a definitive "search" (including dates and scope) in order to have something to be damaged. Then they'd have to explain away all those sightings that came in AFTER Amaral's book came out. Then they'd have to quantify the damage (this would be virtually impossible) and all they've done so far is have a few witnesses play the "emotions" card and state their opinions (without, it would appear, much hard evidence other than a few vague references to viewing figures).
They could get 100 people on that stand saying they were searching daily until Amaral's book came out, at which point they stopped and Amaral's team could find another 100 who would say the opposite. There's no way that I can see that the McCann team can prove this allegation of a "damaged search" as there are simply too many variables involved. I suppose the proof will be in the judgment. The portuguese system continues to baffle me so I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see the McCanns win their case because a friend's hairdresser's dog walker's cousin's wife's friend's mother said Amaral's eyes were too close together and she stopped looking for Madeleine as soon as she realised that.
If you do a google for "Isabel Stilwell amaral" (without the quotes) then you'll see some Destak articles. If you use google translate on these then it seems that a lot of Portuguese are really not very happy with Ms. Stilwell and her opinions. I daresay that the Madeleine Foundation or some forum or other will be accused of having stirred up a campaign to downvote/comment on her pieces (in Portuguese of course) and this in no way reflects the thoughts of most Portuguese...
