Spotlight on local link to Madeleine abduction
STILL FINDABLE: A computer-generated image of how Madeleine may look at age six, and Gerry McCann returning to the family's holiday apartment for a new TV documentary
Sunday May 03 2009
SOMEONE living in or near Praia da Luz -- the Algarve resort in which Madeleine McCann vanished -- knows what happened to the little girl, claim private detectives investigating her disappearance.
The two former British police detectives investigating the unsolved disappearance of Madeleine McCann are hoping for new leads relating to the toddler mystery in the wake of a documentary to be aired on Thursday.
In the TV programme which will be broadcast five days before the youngster's sixth birthday, detectives attempt to piece together what eyewitnesses say happened in the run-up to that fateful day in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.
When the Portuguese police shelved the case last summer, they released 30,000 case files. Now translated into English, at a cost of £100,000, the files have provided some help for the British investigating team.
"There's someone local, lives locally has the answer to this, and not, you know, much wider than 10, 15 kilometres away from Praia de Luz. This offence happened in Praia da Luz, it's a very self-contained resort, and that's where we've started and that's where I think the answer is," said retired detective inspector Dave Edgar, who leads the search team.
Viewers will see actors playing out what witnesses claim happened on the night of May 3, 2007 -- two years ago today -- with witness statements being read out and footsteps being retraced to the then three-year-old's bed.
Gerry McCann also returns for the first time to apartment 5a of the Ocean Club complex, the place he last saw his daughter but her heartbroken mother Kate McCann believed it would be too upsetting for her to be involved.
"We are a family and we're a happy family but we're not a complete family," Gerry says in the film. "There's still a scar, a deep, deep scar that's kind of knitted at the minute, but you still think it might break or come loose, the stitches of it."
The only solid lead seems to have come from the McCanns' friend Jane Tanner, with whom they had been dining at the resort's tapas bar on the night of the abduction. She remembered seeing a man cradling a child wearing pink and white pyjamas on the road near the McCanns' apartment at 9.20pm that night.
Shortly afterwards on the same night, another family had also seen a man carrying a small blonde child nearby. Their descriptions of the man and of the child were very similar to Jane Tanner's.
Statements from the files seem to suggest that the McCanns may have been watched in the days before Madeleine was abducted.
Now the investigators hope that the documentary and reconstruction may jog the memories of others who may know, or have seen, something significant. The reconstruction is based on statements taken by the Portuguese police.
The documentary shows the McCanns at home in advance of the second anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.
"I think we're far from normality. We need to get out there she's alive, she's out there, she's findable . . . she might look different, she could be speaking a different language, she might have her hair different, she might have different interests but you know she's still our daughter," says Kate McCann.
The very purpose of the McCanns' continuing campaign is to keep their daughter's name and picture in the news by any means possible. Their appearance on Oprah, the world's most consistently popular chat show, will bring the spotlight on the McCanns back into sharp focus. Hi-tech age progression photos of Madeleine, showing her as she would appear today, have been published in the world's press, tugging at our heartstrings, reminding us of the McCanns' agony.
The couple's representatives have already met producers to discuss turning the eight-month investigation into the disappearance into a film. Up to another £1m could be made from selling the film and book rights.
Cutting Edge: Madeleine Was Here will be shown on Channel 4 this Thursday at 9pm
- Alison O'Riordan
