So where was Smithman going to that night?

[pegasus]

Here is the view looking east from near the outside tables of the Bull.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Praia+da+Luz,+Portugal&hl=en&ll=37.085687,-8.730891&spn=0.00264,0.004935&channel=fs&oe=utf-8&gl=uk&geocode=FcXYNQIda716_w&hnear=Praia+da+Luz&t=m&z=18&layer=c&cbll=37.085696,-8.730795&panoid=3Y1oa5prZ8mhifBfghDjcQ&cbp=12,74.64,,0,11.74
From east end of Rua 25 Abril a person taking a straight line to the church would walk from left to right across this view, and potentially be seen by customers sitting at the outside tables of the Bull.

[misty]

All these possible burial sites are rubbishing the work the Portuguese search & rescue dogs did for 9 days after Madeleine went missing. Why believe that anyone could have walked the routes suggested without any scent being picked up?

[Mr Gray]

All these possible burial sites are rubbishing the work the Portuguese search & rescue dogs did for 9 days after Madeleine went missing. Why believe that anyone could have walked the routes suggested without any scent being picked up?

have they looked under the bed in the apartmnet

[Brietta]

All these possible burial sites are rubbishing the work the Portuguese search & rescue dogs did for 9 days after Madeleine went missing. Why believe that anyone could have walked the routes suggested without any scent being picked up?

Even if the Portuguese dogs did not actually manage to find a particular trail to follow they would have alerted to the scent of a decomposing body, and nine days gave them plenty of time to find one, unless smithman was one jump ahead all the time.

They did after all lead the GNR officers to apartment 5j ... a supposedly empty apartment ... but one with a fridge full of decomposing food.  Wonder who occupied that apartment to leave food behind?

They were also capable of following a live trail from Madeleine to the car park at the supermarket.  IMO their noses were every bit as sensitive as Eddie and Keela's and the trail they were tasked with following was fresher.

[misty]

Even if the Portuguese dogs did not actually manage to find a particular trail to follow they would have alerted to the scent of a decomposing body, and nine days gave them plenty of time to find one, unless smithman was one jump ahead all the time.

They did after all lead the GNR officers to apartment 5j ... a supposedly empty apartment ... but one with a fridge full of decomposing food.  Wonder who occupied that apartment to leave food behind?

They were also capable of following a live trail from Madeleine to the car park at the supermarket.  IMO their noses were every bit as sensitive as Eddie and Keela's and the trail they were tasked with following was fresher.

The issue I have with those dogs is that they didn't track her scent to the beach, where she had walked to earlier in the day with the creche group - that scent would surely have been stronger as she wasn't being carried. But then, maybe they weren't following her scent at all.
5J - the mystery apartment with apparently no spare key anywhere to be found. Quite easy to take a child up there without being seen, and smuggle her out at a later time in a laundry cart.

[pegasus]

5J - the mystery apartment with apparently no spare key anywhere to be found. Quite easy to take a child up there without being seen, and smuggle her out at a later time in a laundry cart.

A remarkable hypothesis, not that I think its correct, but in that it potentially drastically differs from the apparently universally assumed time period for transition from in building to not in building.
Back to "where did smithman go?" I still think its undetermined whether he went east along Rua 25 Abril, or south down the steps. I lean towards the steps. His course across the junction is illogical if he intends to go east. Look at the spot where he was when witness A.Smith saw him.  Although to be fair, east is still possible, because one might argue that his course across junction was altered simply by necessity to walk around and not collide with the people walking the other way?

[Silkywhiskers]

A remarkable hypothesis, not that I think its correct, but in that it potentially drastically differs from the apparently universally assumed time period for transition from in building to not in building.
Back to "where did smithman go?" I still think its undetermined whether he went east along Rua 25 Abril, or south down the steps. I lean towards the steps. His course across the junction is illogical if he intends to go east. Look at the spot where he was when witness A.Smith saw him.  Although to be fair, east is still possible, because one might argue that his course across junction was altered simply by necessity to walk around and not collide with the people walking the other way?

He could have been dodging and weaving.

His path may well make no sense, if he had to suddenly turn a corner to avoid being seen.

[misty]

A remarkable hypothesis, not that I think its correct, but in that it potentially drastically diferent from the apparently universally assumed time period for transition from in building to not in building.
Back to "where did smithman go?" I still think its undetermined whether he went east along Rua 25 Abril, or south down the steps. I lean towards the steps. His course across the junction is illogical if he intends to go east. Look at the spot where he was when witness A.Smith saw him.  Although to be fair, east is still possible, because one might argue that his course across junction was altered simply by necessity to walk around and not collide with the people walking the other way?

You are assuming Smithman actually exists, rather than being a fabrication following coercion.

[pegasus]

If the assumption the man they saw was a perp is correct, dodging and weaving to avoid being seen yet again by a 6th 7th and 8th witnesses is a possibility.

IMO he was most likely an innocent father carrying his own daughter, others think (and I did too previously)  that he was a perp, but either way certainly MS and PS and AS did see a man carrying a girl.

[pathfinder73]

You are assuming Smithman actually exists, rather than being a fabrication following coercion.

    What all nine  8-)(--)

[Brietta]

The issue I have with those dogs is that they didn't track her scent to the beach, where she had walked to earlier in the day with the creche group - that scent would surely have been stronger as she wasn't being carried. But then, maybe they weren't following her scent at all.
5J - the mystery apartment with apparently no spare key anywhere to be found. Quite easy to take a child up there without being seen, and smuggle her out at a later time in a laundry cart.

I can’t argue with that.  We don’t know what scent the dogs were following. 

The handlers were given Madeleine’s blanket for the dogs to smell, perhaps the perpetrator’s scent was transferred? 

That they followed a scent, is borne out by the fact they were recorded as losing it in the car park.   

The more I think about it, the more I think Madeleine may have been taken directly from 5a to 5j, left with an accomplice and the perpetrator left by the route followed by the dogs to a vehicle in the car park.
The rotting food and [I believe] open fridge door has always niggled.
Who does that, and why?
I am convinced NSY want to trace the occupiers through the owners to ask them just that. 

So is Smithman just another innocentman who had nothing to do with Madeleine’s abduction?

[misty]

The S&R dogs weren't given Madeleine's pink blanket to scent from, they were given a towel. The same towel was used on the 2nd occasion by those dogs.
03 Processos, volume III Pages 762 to 765
03_VOLUMEIIIa_Page_762
03_VOLUMEIIIa_Page_763
03_VOLUMEIIIa_Page_764
03_VOLUMEIIIa_Page_765

Witness Statement of Antonio Freitas Silva
Date: 2007.05.09
Location: DIC Portimao
Occupation: 1st Sergeant GNR
Location: GNR-Queluz

The deponent states that:
- He comes to the process in the role of Chief of the GNR Search and Rescue Team. He coordinated all the work carried out by the two sniffer dogs in the Luz zone and the immediate areas relating to the disappearance of the English minor Madeleine McCann from the Ocean Club.
- He remembers that on the 4th of May of the current year, around 23H00, they attempted to tentatively identify and thus reconstruct the path taken by the missing minor. They gave the dogs a Turkish bath towel which was supposedly used by the child.

Haven't posted the full statement, but bearing in mind the PJ couldn't find any definitive DNA samples from Madeleine in 5a.....

[Mr Gray]

So Mr Smith sees a man...who looks like Gerry... carrying  a child in pyjamas. The next day all hell breaks loose...Gerry is on Tv...Maddie is missing...but Mr Smith does not connect the two...why

[Silkywhiskers]

So Mr Smith sees a man...who looks like Gerry... carrying  a child in pyjamas. The next day all hell breaks loose...Gerry is on Tv...Maddie is missing...but Mr Smith does not connect the two...why

He did not "connect the two" until he saw the footage of Gerry carrying Sean.

Physicality is almost impossible to imitate.  It is as unique as a fingerprint.  The way someone walks, the tilt of their head when they don't think they're being watched, the stride, the speed - all unique and all as damning as if he'd have seen him in broad daylight 2 metres away.

[misty]

So Mr Smith sees a man...who looks like Gerry... carrying  a child in pyjamas. The next day all hell breaks loose...Gerry is on Tv...Maddie is missing...but Mr Smith does not connect the two...why

He hadn't received a call to provide a witness statement detailing a man very similar to Tannerman heading in the opposite direction?