The disappearance of British girl Madeline McCann in 2007 captured the world's attention. Millions of people from different countries closely watched as well-funded private detective agencies try to figure out what happened and test the most incredible theories. Nearly ten years later, she studied Maddie's story and found out if the end was put in it.

disappearance

British doctors Jerry and Kate McCann did not plan to stay in Portugal for long. At the end of April 2007, they got to the resort town of Praia da Luz to spend a seven-day vacation on the beach. Atlantic Ocean. The McCanns' three-year-old daughter Madeline and two-year-old twins Amelie and Sean played with the other kids all day, while Kate and Jerry spent the evenings with their old friends who were also in Portugal.

On the evening of May 3, as always, they gathered in an open-air restaurant 50 meters from the hotel. The sleeping children stayed at the hotel, but the adults checked in from time to time to see how they were doing. At half past ten, a friend of Kate and Jerry, who lives next door, looked into their room. The sleeping twins could be seen through the open bedroom door. Not noticing anything suspicious, she returned to the restaurant.

Half an hour later, Kate herself decided to visit the children. The open door and the raised shutters frightened her: they had been closed the last time. She rushed into the bedroom. The twins were still sleeping peacefully, but Maddie's crib was empty, leaving only a plush cat, with whom the girl never parted. The woman quickly checked the other rooms - no one. A minute later, Kate ran to her husband in a restaurant and screamed: “Madeline is gone! Someone took her!" Soon the whole town was on its feet. Police, 60 hotel staff and other tourists unsuccessfully searched the streets of Praia da Luz until four in the morning without success.

In the morning, sister Jerry, who remained in Glasgow, contacted British television and sent them photos of Maddie. This is what determined the subsequent events. “This is not the first missing child, but no other case has attracted such close attention from the public,” the head of the Portuguese police, Alipio Ribeiro, later lamented.

Public relations

The reaction of the press was swift. Inconsolable, but at the same time photogenic and respectable parents, grieving for the loss of their little daughter - such a story will pity anyone. The next day, Maddie's parents were greeted by 150 journalists with cameras at the ready, and by the end of the week, hundreds of reporters from the UK, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal had gathered in Praia da Luz. The quiet Portuguese resort has never seen anything like it.

Kate and Jerry had serious doubts about the professionalism of the local police. The girl's father suggested that the unexpected interest of the media would not be superfluous at all. He guarantees that the case will not be put on the brakes. But how to keep the attention of journalists? Jerry decided to consult with experts and contacted the British PR firm Bell Pottinger.

Work with the press in the first days after the disappearance of the girl was taken over by an experienced PR man, Alex Woolfall. “He explained to me that either I would interact with the media or they would eat us,” Gerry McCann told Vanity Fair a year later. Woolfall advised Maddie's parents to plan news stories for each day and warn journalists about them. As long as they have something to write about, they will not be left behind.

Jerry and Kate did their best, especially since the hype opened up new opportunities for this. They flew to Italy and showed a photograph of their missing daughter to the Pope. Traveled to the United States and met with the US Attorney General. We went to Morocco (there were fears that the kidnapped girl would be transported there) and talked with the Minister of National Security of the country. Journalists followed on their heels and reported on every step.

Two weeks after their daughter's disappearance, Kate and Jerry set up the Madeline Foundation and started accepting donations. Within the first two days, the fund's website was opened 58 million times. By March of the following year, they had collected almost two million pounds sterling to search for the missing girl.

British and Portuguese newspapers wrote about Maddie McCann every day. Experts say that in the first weeks, the presence of her photo on the front page was able to increase sales by 30,000 copies. On television, the same thing happened, and interest did not wane even months later. When a BBC show aired a video from the McCann family archive in November 2007, its audience doubled.

The Portuguese police did not like the hype raised by the parents at all. “Now that the whole world has seen the photo of Madeline, it is much more likely that the girl is dead than alive,” said Portuguese Attorney General Fernando Pinto Monteiro.

Evidence and suspicion

The McCanns had every reason to distrust the local police. It is well known that the vast majority of missing child cases are resolved within the first 24 hours. The law enforcement agencies of the resort town were completely unprepared for the case that had fallen on them and missed the moment. Neither the border guards nor the Coast Guard were informed of the disappearance in time. learned about the incident only five days later. The police did not search the surrounding houses, did not interview many witnesses, and did not block the exits from Praia da Luz.

Scotland Yard sent its own investigation team to Portugal, but they were met with an extremely cold reception. The Portuguese colleagues immediately took a dislike to the investigators from the UK. They believed that the guests were too condescending towards them, and were in no hurry to help in the investigation.

Nevertheless, the first witnesses soon appeared. Someone remembered that a few days before Maddie's disappearance, suspicious types hung around in front of the hotel. It is possible that they were robbers looking for new victims. Since January, the number of robberies in Praia da Luz has quadrupled, so this version had a right to exist. Perhaps the girl scared off the thieves climbing out the window?

Maddie's mother remembered that at breakfast her daughter asked why no one answered when she called her parents at night. Perhaps the perpetrator was in the bedroom with the children the day before the abduction, but the girl could not really explain what happened. But the most promising lead came from a friend of Kate's who dined at that restaurant with Kate and Jerry. At about nine in the evening, she left to check on her own daughter, who had stayed at another hotel. On the way back, she met a man with a sleeping girl in his arms.

On May 15, investigators, on a tip from a journalist from the British tabloid Sunday Mirror, found a man who matched the description given by a friend of Kate's. 33-year-old British Robert Murat lived three minutes from the hotel in his mother's house. The police arranged for Kate and Jerry's friends to meet with Murat and they identified him. One of the women stated that she saw this man behind the hotel the night the girl went missing, and remembered his strange eye (the man suffers from retinal detachment).

Portuguese investigators named the Briton as the prime suspect, but no trace of Maddie could be found. Later, British police found a tourist who was vacationing in the neighborhood and that day was returning home with his sleeping daughter. Murat turned out to be beyond suspicion and even managed to sue 500 thousand pounds from the British tabloids, who called him a kidnapper for several months.

Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Who is guilty

Unlike journalists, the Internet immediately disliked the parents of the missing girl, and for the same reason that made them popular: Kate and Jerry were too beautiful and prosperous. Twitter and Facebook, which became popular shortly before the incident, gave the haters a platform to discuss the most fantastic versions.

From the point of view of a significant part of the public, there is no mystery in Maddie's disappearance. It's simple: her own parents killed her, and the body was hidden. The only question is how it happened. A hot-track poll showed that only 20 percent of Britons believed the couple was innocent.

“Yes, yes, I know what they say,” Jerry admitted in an interview. - Kate killed her in the heat of passion. We gave Madeline a sedative and she fell down the stairs (although in that case they should have found her body). I heard all this. There were a lot of theories."

Kate and Jerry were not only disliked online. The Portuguese police from the very beginning doubted the veracity of their version. In June, investigators leaked information to one of the local newspapers that the testimonies of witnesses do not agree, the story about a man with a sleeping girl in his arms is fictitious and everything points to the fact that her parents are to blame for the disappearance of the girl.

A pair of spaniels trained to search for corpses noticed a suspicious smell on the girl's mother's trousers, as well as in the trunk of the car the family rented at the end of May. After that, the investigators invited Kate to confess that she had found the body of the deceased girl, and then she hid it herself. In this case, the husband will be released, and she will only have two years in prison. The woman flatly refused.

Kate and Jerry did not remain suspects for long. A few months later, the Portuguese police were forced to admit that they could not find evidence of their involvement. As for the reaction of the dogs, it is most likely due to the fact that Kate works as a doctor.

last hope

The story of Maddie's search didn't end there. In addition to Portuguese and British police officers, several private sleuth companies paid for by the Madeline Foundation and well-wishers were involved. A team of Spanish professionals tried for six months to find traces of the girl in Europe and Morocco (to no avail). A private detective from the UK found evidence that shortly before the incident, a certain woman was negotiating in Barcelona for the “delivery of a new daughter” (it was not possible to prove the connection with Maddie), and specialists from the USA managed to find witnesses who saw three Portuguese with a little girl that night in pajamas (the information is still being verified).

A completely unexpected turn in the case of the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCain. 4 months after her disappearance in a hotel in a Portuguese resort, shocking news came: the girl’s mother fell under the suspicion of the police and her many hours of interrogation are already underway.

Report by Yulia Vdovina.

The circle of suspects in the kidnapping of 4-year-old Madeleine is incredibly wide - the Portuguese police said almost 4 months ago. But even in a nightmare then no one could have imagined that the main suspect on this list would be the girl's mother. And even when Kate McCain, Madeleine's mother, left the police station after an 11-hour interrogation, someone shouted after her: "Kate, we believe you." She was interrogated for the first time separately from her husband, in the presence of a lawyer. "She is upset and depressed, Kate and Jerry still believe that their little daughter is alive and ask the kidnappers to return her to them," is the only official statement that a representative of the McCain family could make after interrogation. A few hours later, information appeared in the press: an official suspect arose in the case, Madeleine's mother was again summoned for interrogation.

On the evening of May 3, at the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz, the McCains went to dinner. In the room they left their three children to sleep - twin boys and Madeleine. When they returned, the girl was gone, that was the official version. For 2 months, several suspects in the kidnapping of a child. Russian, British, Spanish couple. All are soon released. For some, there is not enough evidence, others are just crooks who expected to earn extra money. The investigation is going too slowly - the European press published the statements of the parents and called on the whole world to support the couple who lost the child. Actions were organized for them in Spain, France, Morocco and the USA. Helped to meet with Pope Benedict XVI. He promised to pray for their daughter. Opened the Find Madeleine Foundation. For two weeks of SUCH searches, the reward for any information about the girl has grown from 10 thousand euros to 2 and a half million pounds sterling. Most of this money was allocated by the British writer JK Rowling. The McCains were reassured, you connected the whole world. It is impossible to find the culprit.

It is not yet known what Mrs. McCain told the Portuguese investigators in 11 hours. There is only 1 piece of evidence released, according to the British broadcaster Sky, in a car rented by the McCain family, 25 days after the disappearance of their daughter, the police found traces of Madeleine's blood. A number of Portuguese sources report that local police suspect that 4-year-old Maddy took sleeping pills before falling asleep. Or someone helped her do it.

The disappearance of Madeleine McCain from a hotel room in a resort in Portugal remains one of the most mysterious cases in the history of crime history.

It's been almost 11 years since Kate McCain discovered her daughter had disappeared from bed in their hotel room in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz.

After so much time, there are more and more theories about what really happened on that fateful night when the McCain couple left their daughter at the hotel and went to dinner at one of the restaurants nearby. The girl's family still does not stop hoping that they will see Maddie alive again.

Of course, there are also those who believe that the parents themselves, Kate and Jerry, are directly related to the disappearance of their daughter.

Recently, the woman who was Maddie's nanny in the days leading up to her disappearance broke a long silence and gave new details of what really happened the night the girl went missing.

Ten years after the mysterious disappearance of Madeleine, her nanny (name unknown), who several times looked after the three-year-old girl at the resort, told new details of what happened.

In an interview with The Daily Mirror, she spoke about the tragic night in detail.

According to reports, the woman worked as a nanny at the resort of Praia da Luz, the hotel where the McCain family stayed during their vacation.

Facebook / Official Find Madeleine Campaign

She vividly remembers the terrible moment when Kate and Jerry realized that Maddie was missing. Jerry was desperately trying to find his daughter, and Kate was crying.

“I remember Jerry trying to find his daughter, he looked under every car. I remember it for sure,” says the nanny.

According to the DailyMail, the woman is still having nightmares and is haunted by memories of that day. She can't forget Kate's reaction to what happened.

Facebook / Official Find Madeleine Campaign

“She was kidnapped,” Kate McCain screamed.

"She was crying, but she was in a state of shock, and Jerry could not find a place for himself."

Facebook / Official Find Madeleine Campaign

The investigation has suggested many times that the parents themselves probably had something to do with Madeleine's disappearance. One suggestion was that either Kate or Jerry may have accidentally killed the girl and then hid the body and tried to cover up the evidence by faking their daughter missing.

Press investigation

British newspapers have previously reported that Portuguese police suspected that the McCains had given their daughter a sleeping pill or painkiller before heading out to dinner. When they returned and found the girl already dead, they decided to dispose of her body.

Nevertheless, the nanny does not believe these speculations. She believes that neither Kate nor Jerry are involved in Madeleine's disappearance.

She followed the initial stages of the Portuguese police investigation and believes they made several blunders in the critical first hours of the investigation.

Facebook / Official Find Madeleine Campaign

According to her, the police arrived at the scene only an hour and a half later.

The nanny's story sheds light on new details of what really could have happened on that fateful night almost 11 years ago.

She says the area around Praia da Luz is considered extremely dangerous, so all the nannies working at the hotel have been repeatedly warned about the danger of rape.

Facebook / Official Find Madeleine Campaign

New lead?

The Portuguese media recently announced that the police have new evidence that could help track down the perpetrator.

According to the source: “The police have the name of the person they want to question. According to police, the man was near where Madeleine went missing that night. An international manhunt is underway to apprehend this man.”

Facebook / Official Find Madeleine Campaign

Today, Madeleine McCain could have been almost 15 years old. Her parents still haven't given up hope of finding her.

We hope that the case will be solved and those responsible will be punished.

What do you think really happened that night with Maddie? Share your guesses in the comments on Facebook.

In the case of the disappearance of an English girl who went missing in May at a resort in Portugal, there was a new unexpected twist. Now law enforcement officers are one hundred percent sure that four-year-old Madeleine crashed by falling down the stairs. This is written in a police report published the other day.

Investigators believe the child died as a result of a fall down the stairs that led to the patio door. The McCann family lived in this summer house during their holidays. The new theory is based on information obtained with the help of two service dogs brought specifically for this purpose were from Britain. In addition, it allows you to explain the origin of other findings - Madeleine's blood stains found on the floor in the room and on the clothes of her mother, Kate McCann. But the main evidence is the hair found on the back of the sofa. Their careful study helped to restore the picture of what happened.

The parents of a girl who hit her head as a result of a fall, apparently, were afraid that an examination of her body would reveal traces of the beatings to which they subjected their children, and decided to get rid of the dangerous evidence. It is possible that the neighbors helped them in this. The theory looks very convincing, now it remains to find the last, most important piece of evidence - the girl's body. So far this has not been possible despite all efforts. Recently there was a report that the remains of Madeleine could be burned in a nearby crematorium for pets, but this assumption was not confirmed.

Note that there was also an alternative version previously. According to her, the child was kidnapped by a maid who left the hotel a few days before the disappearance of the girl. Perhaps in this way the woman took revenge on her former employers. So it says in an anonymous letter sent to the website of the Prince of Wales Charles - one of those who stood up for the spouses accused of murdering their daughter and began an unprecedented. Now it becomes clear that this was nothing more than an attempt to lead the investigation astray.

Recall that a four-year-old girl disappeared from a hotel in Praia de Luz on May 3, 2007. Parents, in their own words, left her sleeping in the room, went to dinner themselves, and when they returned, the room was already empty. Initially, it was assumed that the child was kidnapped. The McCann family organized a large-scale search for their daughter, and the incident was widely publicized in the media. In August, detectives made the case public, stating that there was no kidnapping: in their opinion, the child was killed, most likely by his own parents. The basis for such a shocking statement was the significant contradictions revealed in the testimony of Jerry and Kate McCann. In addition, in the room where the children of the British couple slept, and in the car rented by the parents, the police found traces of blood.

Madeleine's parents continued to insist that they were not involved in the disappearance of their daughter, and the story becomes more and more complicated. The investigation repeatedly went on a false trail: for example, at the end of September, it was reported that the baby was allegedly six weeks after her disappearance. Alas, the story turned out to be an ordinary misunderstanding: it was another girl, really very similar to Madeleine.

Image copyright PA Image caption Kate and Jerry Maccan remain hopeful that their daughter is alive and will be found

May 3 marks the 10th anniversary of the disappearance in Portugal of three-year-old Briton Madeleine Maccan, missing from an apartment in a seaside resort. Her disappearance has become one of the most resonant cases of this kind, not only in Britain, but throughout the world.

British newspapers wrote in detail about the investigation and put forward their own versions of what happened. Despite regular reports of breakthroughs in the investigation, the girl has still not been found.

Madeleine Maccan's parents, in an interview with the BBC, said that they still hope that their daughter will be found and will not stop searching.

disappearance

Madeleine Maccan disappeared on the evening of May 3, 2007 from an apartment in the Portuguese resort town of Praia da Luz. She was three years old.

According to the girl's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, they left the sleeping children - Madeleine and twin babies - and went to dinner with friends at a restaurant near the house, but every half hour they came in turn to check on the children. During one of these checks, Madeleine's disappearance was discovered. Eyewitnesses said they allegedly saw a man carrying a child in pajamas towards the sea.

During the initial investigation, the parents themselves came under suspicion, but later, Portuguese law enforcement authorities denied the assumptions picked up by the media that the parents could be involved in the disappearance of the child.

The girl's parents believe that the police have done a great job of finding her, and that they should not lose hope.

• Home office donates another £85,000 to search for missing girl

Finding Madeleine

Image caption Madeleine Maccan was three years old when she went missing.

In Portugal, the case of Madeleine's disappearance was closed in the summer of 2008 due to lack of evidence. After the case was closed, Madeleine's parents - Kate and Jerry McCann - said they would conduct their own investigation. For several years, Madeleine's parents searched for their daughter with the help of private investigators. There were regular reports in the press that someone saw a girl who looked like Madeleine, but there were no real breakthroughs.

In 2011, Scotland Yard launched its own investigation called "Operation Grange" at the request of Theresa May, now the British Prime Minister, who at the time was the country's Home Secretary. The investigation team included 28 detectives who focused on the version of Madeleine's abduction by a stranger.

In 2012, five years after the kidnapping of the girl, the British police said that there was reason to believe that Madeleine was alive, and distributed her image, made taking into account possible age changes.

In November 2013, the British side managed to get the Portuguese police to resume the investigation, after which the investigators of the two countries joined forces.

Gerry McCann said the Metropolitan Police's decision to continue investigating their daughter's disappearance came as a great relief to their family. This means, he says, that hope remains.

"The main thing - and the most unfair thing - is that after the initial investigation in Portugal was completed, no one essentially did anything to find Madeleine," said Gerry McCann. "I think any parent could understand our desire to make sure that all lines of investigation have been brought to their logical conclusion."

Kate McCann said that the British police were able to analyze all the available information on this case, and now have only a few lines of investigation, and not tens and hundreds, as before.

Funds spent and response to reproaches

Currently, four British investigators are investigating, and in total, 11 million pounds (13.5 million dollars) have already been spent from the British budget on the search for Madeleine Maccan.

In March of this year, the Ministry of the Interior extended the investigation for another six months,

Image copyright PA Image caption Portuguese police combed the area on the coast near the apartment where the Maccan family lived

Over the years, reproaches have been heard in Britain that disproportionate funds have been spent on the search for Madeleine, but Gerry McCann, in an interview with the BBC, said that he considers these reproaches unfair.

According to Kate McCann, she used to be embarrassed when people started discussing how much money had gone from the treasury to find her daughter. However, then she realized that other high-profile cases also take a lot of money.

Especially a lot of negative comments about how much the search for McCan's daughter is costing taxpayers sounded on social networks, which Kate and Jerry McCan simply stopped using.

Kate McCann said some of the criticisms of her family were shocking and showed her a side of human nature that she had never experienced before.

At the same time, the main thing over the years, according to Jerry and Kate McCann, was still the kindness and support that they saw and received from friends and sympathizers.

Image copyright PA Image caption Madeleine Maccan disappeared from this building.

Life without Madeleine

The family had to get used to a new life without Madeleine.

According to the spouses, if immediately after the disappearance of their daughter, all their activities were focused around her search, then in the last five years they began to devote more time to the twins and their work.

“At some point, you begin to understand that life has not stood still, that we simply have to give our twins the full life they deserve,” said Jerry McCann.

Kate McCann said that she still buys gifts for Madeleine for her birthday and Christmas.

"I think about her age and what she might like ... but I just can't help it, she will always be our daughter," says Kate.

“We feel her absence especially acutely during family holidays or some important achievements. There is not a day when Madeleine would not be with us, if you know what I mean,” she adds.

Kate McCann, who worked as a primary care physician before Madeleine disappeared, says she has returned to medicine, but she works in a slightly different field than before.