Gonçalo Amaral should never have been taken off the case!

[Alfred R Jones]

Pretty good these dogs. 

Except that sadly the dog didn't find the man on this occasion I believe.  They are excellent at finding bodies in the main though, you're right - no need to wink at me.

[Alfred R Jones]

The oven is on, so let me split this into 2 parts.

I have no reason to believe that, at the time Madeleine went missing, the police understood that all of the rubbish in Barlavento (the western half of the Algarve) went through a single site.  People discussing the case around 2007/2008 appear to think there were multiple landfill sites, and that even the councils were first fly-tipping before later transporting to one of several dumps.

The process of Luz to transfer station to Barlavento landfill took quite a while to emerge.  It is not an obvious concept, nor do I think the police track European Directives or inspect landfill sites.

The most likely scenario is that they hadn't a clue.

I can remember in the UK vaguely around that time getting recycling rolled out.  There was a small green wheelie bin for grass and tree cuttings.  Then came plastic crates, for plastic, metal, cardboard/paper, glass etc.  Batteries were not to be put in the rubbish, they were to be taken to a shop that sold batteries, which was now required by law to have a receptacle for used batteries.  Electronic components were not supposed to go into the general waste.  Shops selling electrical and electronic goods were required to handle these, whether one bought a new product or not.  I hope I do not need to go near fridges, freezers or materials like used engine oil, paint cleaner etc.

I had no idea of why at the time, and I didn't care.  Recycling seemed to me to be a good thing for the sake of our children and grandchildren, so I recycled.

As I have made clear, despite 30 years in one place, I have no idea where my landfill site is, nor do I know if it goes through an intermediate transfer station.

Bottom line is simple.  I cannot think why the PJ should have known about Barlavento landfill, UNLESS THEY HAD ALREADY INVESTIGATED IT.  Who knows, maybe they did in the Cipriano case, but it appears a different tack was taken on that one.  I am not familiar with the Cipriano case therefore I shall keep my comment short.  I believe the method of body disposal was dismemberment, into a fridge, into a car, and into a car crusher in Spain.  I have great difficulty with the fridge and the car crusher, but like I said my experience of the Cipriano case is minute.

I need to check the oven, so I will move on to the second element of your post.

Assuming they were ignorant of the system, what was to stop them thinking - ahhh, landfill!  Nothing.  Not a single thing.

The only element of importance is how long it would have taken them to establish that there is a single landfill site in the whole of the Algarve, fed by multiple transfer stations.

I have made clear earlier in the thread that if they got on with it as a matter of priority, they should have been able to crack this within a couple of days of deciding that the 188 bin check was insufficient.

By that time, the whole of the western Algarve had layered in lorryload after lorryload of rubbish.  It is NOT landfill unique to Luz, it is landfill for a large number of town and cities.

Re; the part I bolded above.  That's all you needed to say.  It says it all for me!  Haven't got time to read the rest of your post at this moment in time, but will come back to it later, it's bound to interesting...

[Carana]

I stand to be corrected.

But I think (the late) Eddie (RIP) might (have) react(ed) to a leg of pork (cooked or uncooked).

What he (or any other cadaver dog) would not react to is something like bacon, because of the way it is processed which kills the scent.

Have I got that wrong?

It has been been phrased in different ways and it isn't entirelly clear as to whether it's the processing that's key or simply the fact that no one is likely to eat a pork chop - cooked or raw - that has been in a rubbish bin for a week.

[Eleanor]

There would be no cadaver odour if the pig had been gutted and butchered.

[ShiningInLuz]

There would be no cadaver odour if the pig had been gutted and butchered.

I am still cooking and slowly catching up on the backlog in this thread.

May I ask you why a pork chop goes off if one does not cook and eat it in time.  I ask because 1) the pork chop is clearly dead 2) the process of decay has clearly set in to an extent that one does not feel that cooking will kill the bacteria involved in the decay process.

This is how a butchered dead body decomposes.  The smell of dead body decomposition is clear to the human nose, let alone Eddie.

[Eleanor]

I am still cooking and slowly catching up on the backlog in this thread.

May I ask you why a pork chop goes off if one does not cook and eat it in time.  I ask because 1) the pork chop is clearly dead 2) the process of decay has clearly set in to an extent that one does not feel that cooking will kill the bacteria involved in the decay process.

This is how a butchered dead body decomposes.  The smell of dead body decomposition is clear to the human nose, let alone Eddie.

There is a difference.

[Carana]

I am still cooking and slowly catching up on the backlog in this thread.

May I ask you why a pork chop goes off if one does not cook and eat it in time.  I ask because 1) the pork chop is clearly dead 2) the process of decay has clearly set in to an extent that one does not feel that cooking will kill the bacteria involved in the decay process.

This is how a butchered dead body decomposes.  The smell of dead body decomposition is clear to the human nose, let alone Eddie.

The issue is about fit for human consumption.

Forget about it for tonight and enjoy your dinner.

[Alfred R Jones]

High alert? Yes it would.

No, there is no evidence that they did.

There is also no evidence that they knew where landfill was processed in the Algarve.  A bit tricky to do something unless you know that something exists.

OK, let's see if we can work through this together  Police know that landfill sites exist, generally speaking, agreed? Police know that bins exist in PdL and could possibly have been used to hide a small body and that bins get emptied at landfill sites regularly, yes?  Police might be able to put two and two together and surmise that there was a possibility that bins emptied the morning after the disappearance were taken to a local rubbish tip and if they didn't know which one then they could take the highly novel approach of asking a few questions of the refuse collectors and actually find out, right?   So why doI need to provide cites and evidence of what knowledge the police did or didn't have at that time?  Surely it is incumbent on investigating policemen to find out answers to questions that may be relevant, not for us to make allowances for their lack of background knowledge on the whereabouts of landfill sites, or is this fanciful / crazy of me?

[Carana]

There would be no cadaver odour if the pig had been gutted and butchered.

I'm not sure about that as the substances end up decomposing either way. Using a whole dead piglet would help to find a whole human cadaver (because you've got the  bouquet of the whole body). But if the dog isn't able to react to a rotting pork chop, how would he be able to find a dismembered human?

If he wouldn't react to a rotting cooked pork chop, how would he react to a dismembered human whose home had then been set alight?

The problem I have with the various descriptions of the dog's training is that I find them ambiguous and inconsistent. I'm sure that there are one or two other descriptions lurking somewhere as well.

From the scientific papers I've read, the components of the bouquet vary according to substance (e.g. bone doesn't smell the same as gut) and they vary over time (the individual VOCs peak and fall in overlapping waves).


The training of a VRD provides an alert response using Ivan Pavlov's theory of producing a conditioned reflex, in this case barking, to the presence of detected decomposing human/pig flesh, bone, body fluid and blood.

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARK_HARRISON.htm


The U.K. has also approximately six Police dog teams that have been trained
exclusively on decomposing pig remains not for human consumption as
specialist dogs to work off the leash to locate human remains in a wider
variety of scenarios.
...


The importance of this is that the dog is
introduced to the scent of a decomposing body NOT FOODSTUFF. This
ensures that the dog disregards the 'bacon sandwich' and 'kebab' etc that is
ever present in the background environment. Therefore the dog would
remain efficient searching for a cadaver in a café where the clientele were sat
eating bacon sandwiches.

http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARTIN_GRIMES.htm#mg2473

Here's another one:


"False' positives are always a possibility; to date Eddie has not so indicated operationally or in training. In six years of operational deployment in over 200 criminal case searches the dog has never alerted to meat based and specifically pork foodstuffs designed for human consumption. Similarly the dog has never alerted to 'road kill', that is any other dead animal."


Whis is meant by "designed"? The process used by commercial slaughterhouses / the meat processing industry (e.g., bacon)? Or does it mean fit for human consumption?

[Carana]

Back to topic ish.

These passages read to me as if Amaral wasn't too keen on assistance. Did he hope to solve the case with just his usual small team? Did he feel that any credit would have been diluted? Hard to tell.

I find it hard to imagine that at least one of the various UK agencies hadn't suggested specialist dogs... whether Grime's or any of the others.


A team from the Central Crime Fighting Directorate (DCCB) arrives from Lisbon, accompanied by their director. I wasn't informed of this decision, but I agree with it. The reinforcements are welcomed, because we must get on very quickly. The experience of these police officers in the field of abductions and the taking of hostages is a plus for the investigation and the ways they operate are largely superior to ours. In addition, their experts are the most qualified of the police judiciaire. From now on, two deputy national directors, assisted by the coordinator of the Portimão Department of Criminal Investigation, will direct the investigations. A few months later, chief inspector Tavares de Almeida was to share one of his convictions with me: if we had remained solely responsible for the investigation, we would have advanced more quickly.

In reality, I don't know. I don't think we can rewrite history with "if." At that time the directorate of the police judiciaire had decided on it, and we had favourably welcomed the arrival of that team. It was about doing our best with these new participants and taking advantage of their ways of working. The motivations behind that decision, whatever they are don't interest us in the slightest.


---

On Monday May 7th, we start to welcome our English colleagues from Leicestershire, the county where Madeleine and her parents live.

When we requested the collaboration of the English police, our request was passed on, according to practice, via the liaison officer of SOCA* We thought that a case of abduction was within the jurisdiction of Scotland Yard, who are much more experienced than others in the fight against violent crime. We learned that in Great Britain, investigations are consigned to the sector where the victim resides. Nevertheless, Scotland Yard will intervene later on.

(...)


Two days later, English colleagues begin to arrive. The main idea was for the English police to place at our disposal two specialists in family supervision and support to be the link between the Portuguese investigators and the McCanns. The National Directorate of the PJ had authorised the arrival of these police officers in the context of international collaboration. Bob Small, an officer from the Leicestershire police, and one of his colleagues meet us to take stock of the situation and evaluate the needs of the investigation before making contact with the couple.

We insist on knowing what our English counterparts have come to Portugal to do. I assign one of my investigators to follow the English superintendent like a shadow and to keep me informed about his actions. I want to be informed of everything he learns, the names of the people he meets and the places he goes to.

[Carana]

The situation seems complicated.

The GNR took charge of the searches for the child. The priority was to search for a living child (who could have wandered off, or been abducted and dumped somewhere). They got additional help from various search and rescue teams in order to do so. Whether or not they checked the top of bins along their way isn't clear.

At the same time, the small PJ team was in charge of the criminal investigation, headed by Amaral, albeit with assistance whisked down from Lisbon after a few days. Amaral's experience of "investigating" missing children cases was limited to one.

I agree with Alfie that there were numerous missed opportunities, and Gamble described the approach as "haphazard".

However, I also agree with SIL that at the time they didn't have a CSI manual, a sex offender's register, a DNA database... the resources and training at the time were somewhat limited. There were hardly any functioning cctvs to consult, and they somehow managed to miss a potentially key one that was.

[jassi]

The situation seems complicated.

The GNR took charge of the searches for the child. The priority was to search for a living child (who could have wandered off, or been abducted and dumped somewhere). They got additional help from various search and rescue teams in order to do so. Whether or not they checked the top of bins along their way isn't clear.

At the same time, the small PJ team was in charge of the criminal investigation, headed by Amaral, albeit with assistance whisked down from Lisbon after a few days. Amaral's experience of "investigating" missing children cases was limited to one.

I agree with Alfie that there were numerous missed opportunities, and Gamble described the approach as "haphazard".

However, I also agree with SIL that at the time they didn't have a CSI manual, a sex offender's register, a DNA database... the resources and training at the time were somewhat limited. There were hardly any functioning cctvs to consult, and they somehow managed to miss a potentially key one that was.

All in all the perfect place to carry out such a crime, then.

[Brietta]

All in all the perfect place to carry out such a crime, then.

A fact which someone familiar with the resort would have been aware of.  The knowledge of the movement of police patrols might also have been a factor and how an alert in Odiaxere would have been handled and the window of opportunity that might give for nefarious business to take place elsewhere.