Spam has asserted in his earlier post today that the Portuguese came to the conclusion that Madeleine died and an abduction staged. That was their working premise while Amaral was in charge, but after he left they took a more broad minded approach and their actual conclusion was they hadn't got a scooby do what happened to her and that there was a lack of any evidence against the McCanns (and that's despite the buttons, the sleeves, the dogs, the blood splatter, the frozen cadaver fluids, etc). That's not an appeal to authority btw, it's just a fact.
Also, there are explanations for Smithman within an abduction theory - 1) he was the abductor 2) he was an innocent father like Dr Totman. Descriptions of his appearance by the Smiths were vague and likely to be inaccurate considering the long period of time between sighting and reporting and/or influenced media reports. Anyone who dismisses this as possible or likely isn't thinking straight or being honest with themselves.
VS. Would you concede that it's
possible the Smith family doing the best they could to remember the small details of the man & child they saw & that it's
possible the child did indeed have long sleeves & that the man
was wearing possibly with buttons trousers?
Do you accept that that is possible explanation for the details?
Me, I accept their memories could be influenced, but surely you can see they might also have simply been correct about all this?
There was something unusual about the sighting of the man & child for the family. Smith describing how he did not look comfortable carrying her & also from Mrs Smith in media reports ...
"The one thing we noted afterwards was that he gave us no greeting.
"My wife Mary remembered afterwards that she asked him, 'Oh, is she asleep?' But he never acknowledged her one way or another.
"He just put his head down and averted his eyes. This is very unusual in a tourist town at such a quiet time of the year."................
For me there was something unusual about the sighting to the family that caused them to notice some things about him, but then they got on with the rest of their lives & gave it no further real thought, until Peter questioning whether he had dreamt it all. Then, they were able to recall parts of this unusual occurrence.