Saturday, September 8, 2007

Somethings Rotten In Portugal



Last May, this little angel went missing in Portugal. Madeline Mccann has not been seen since. Her parents rented a home near where she went missing and have been living there for the last 4 months.

Police have just named the parents as suspects in her disappearance and have even offered the mother a deal to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. Though it seems incomprehensible to me that her parents would have had something to do with Madeline's disappearance, I am not so naive as to believe it to be impossible. There are however oddities on both sides of this that have me confused.

Why would it take over 4 months for authorities to decide that the parents were suspects? In the US, the parents are always looked at first. The parents seemed to be helpful and cooperative through most of this ordeal and seem to be saying and doing the right things. The police just found trace blood evidence in the family car ... well, if you look in my van, I can pretty much guarantee you that you would find trace blood of all my grand-kids (nose bleeds, scrapes, cuts etc), it's not as if the blood were even visible.

I found it hard to believe that the parents would leave their little girl sleeping in a hotel room while they went to dinner. Maybe it is a European custom, but it is not done here in the States (at least not by anyone with common sense). If they couldn't find a sitter, they should have either taken the child with them or not have gone at all. It also seems that the family has become enamored of the media attention that they had been getting.

Have Portuguese police gotten desperate for answers to this case? They have been under intense world-wide scrutiny for months. The lease on the home the Mccanns had been renting is up on Monday. Did they name them suspects to prevent them from leaving the country? Are the Mccanns becoming scape goats because Portuguese authorities botched the original investigation?

Were the parents responsible for the disappearance of their baby girl? Did they do this for the notoriety it is bringing them? They have met with the Pope, Sir Elton John and even American Idol's Simon Cowell. Over 2 million dollars has been raised to help in bringing Madeline home. Or was there a terrible accident and a simple cover-up has grown into a global media circus?

I don't know, and I won't pre-judge the parents. That is what courts and juries a for. If they did it, I hope the devil has a special place in hell picked out for them.

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14 comments:

snowelf said...

I agree. It's so hard to think about the parents doing something horrific to their child.

I wonder if this is going to another JonBenet(sp) Ramsey all over again...

--snow

Paul Champagne said...

snow ... if the parents are innocent, I now feel doubly sad for them.

cathouse teri said...

It's a sad story that we may not ever know all the answers to. :(

WomanHonorThyself said...

sigh yes I heard this too...sad and tragic no matter how u slice it....................

Anonymous said...

Not looking good, not feeling good

This case stinks. Not looking good. Not feeling good. I concur, this could become the JonBenet Ramsey Duce. Have a fine Texas evening.

cfs

Jackie said...

I commented on Mike M's blog about this. It brings back the case of Susan Smith who drove her two little boys off into a lake. At least she was finally caught!

How about 18 year old Natalie Holloway in Aruba? I've always felt her mother had something to do with her disappearance. I read (sorry I can't document it at the moment) that Jon-Benet's dad and Natalie's mom were dating. Nothing wrong with that...on the surface.

I have recently become the Queen of the Cynics.

Time will tell..

Anonymous said...

This is very strange. Yes they were wrong to leave three children unsupervised in a hotel room while they dined at a local restaurant. But...

This thing about finding the child's blood in a rental car weeks later doesn't ad up. Where was she all this time? The body would have been decaying and if the mother sedated the child and she died, there would be NO blood.

Of course there could be saliva or simply tissue from the body. I don't think they were specific. But where did they hide her???

soccer mom in denial said...

I heard on the radio last month that some residents of the vacation town in Portugal are getting frustrated with the constant media glare. I heard several folks translated in interviews saying, in effect, they wished the family would "go home". Folks were grumbling that tourism was down.

The cynic in me wonders if these charges are trumped to do make them go away.

Jenny! said...

I would assume that the police were looking at teh parents for a while but maybe keeping in on the down low as not to tip anybody off whilethey gather the evidence. It is so fucking sick that people could harm a child. So fucking sad!

Paul Champagne said...

cathouse teri ... we can just add it to the ever growing list of missing children. This kind of thing does make you glad capital punishment is an option in some states.

woman ... unfortunately this one is just one of many that happen every day around the world. Madeline just happens to be cute and white, so the media was all over it.

tlrb ... absolutely not feeling good.

inspired ... I am almost certain the mother didn't have anything to do with Natalie Holloway's disappearance. She was in the US when it happened. My money is on Juran Vandersloot ... but we probably will never know.

debbie ... the entire case is confusing. Sometimes I think it may be the parents, but it just doesn't feel right.

soccer mom ... It wouldn't be the first time that tourism triumphed over justice ... it makes me sick to my stomach to even think of it.

jenny ... it is very very sad. Sometimes I just sit and think of punishments for people who do these kinds of things ... but none of them seems harsh enough.

Mona said...

Its really terrible to imagine what might have happened...

In India there are ever so many abductions too...

David said...

This case is soo weird! Today they were saying the blood was in a trunk of a rental car from 25 days after they reported her missing. It just doesn't make ANY sense! I'm sure their defense lawyers could use the old maybe they happened to rent the same car as the kidnap;per/killer defense! How many rental places could there be near the hotel? I am going to wait and see what happens. It just seems horrible- no matter the truth. They could end up like the Ramseys here in the US.

Mama en Fuego said...

Snow and I are on the same thought track. I think that unfortunately we will NEVER know what happened to little Jon Bennet or precious Madeline.

These two beautiful young angels will forever be lost to us. The best we can do is pray that their killers are found and rest in the knowledge that they are free from any further pain.

Terri@SteelMagnolia said...

Ughhh....
it's awful awful....
the whole thing... awful...

I will never ever ever understand how anyone could ever hurt a living being...
especially an innocent little child.

It makes me ill.