1. Why is it important?
2. What do we know?
3. What we can deduce?
4. How can The Intermediate House be found?
For every part of this case, we must completely ignore everything we are told in the media and every statement made by the McCanns and their friends; we must examine ONLY the evidence independently verified.
We know from the cadaver dogs, the blood found by forensic tests between the tiles, etc., that there was a death and that the blood between the floor tiles lifted by Forensics was most likely Madeleine’s so can be sure that she was dead for a while before she was removed from Apartment 5A.
The blood was corrupted with bleach but was still a good enough forensic match to be acceptable to British courts, but not for Portuguese courts. That means she was dead long enough for cadaver scent to develop AND for cover-up bleaching. It also means she was dead EITHER for less than a few hours OR longer than 24 hours so that rigor-mortis would be complete and she could be carried as limp.
We also know from the dogs, the body fluids found in the car (and related evidence) that the body was moved at some point, probably the day Gerry took the fridge (or freezer) to the dump.
We also know that the photos shown to the crèche staff when asked to identify Madeleine were about a year old so they could well have been identifying her younger sister or even one of the other children in the group. Staff’s description of Madeleine’s personality didn’t fit her personality either.
We all know from taking children to places like Wacky Warehouse that when we sign them in or out, the staff are concerned with looking after the children and rarely, if ever, check that signing in and out actually matches the children. Indeed, in places like holiday crèches, unlike schools, there is no compulsion to be there so there is even less reason for staff to check.
It seems not just possible the, but likely that during a normal week when staff were concentrating on looking after the children, they didn't notice an extra child being signed in and out. They wouldn't be expecting someone to be using them to set up a scenario in which they would be, unwittingly, being set up to identify a child from a year-old photograph. They wouldn't realise that, by the end of the week, their jobs would be on the line if they admitted to not having checked each signing-in against each child. Of course they couldn’t admit that mistake, yet it was a mistake, I suspect, deliberately set up for them.
The net result is that the crèche records showed Madeleine as being present. The staff tried to remember her but probably remembered other similar children – after all, there were children joining and leaving every day so it would be difficult. They naturally just confirmed the records shown to them.
As an aside, it is particularly interesting that the personality of 'Madeleine' claimed by the crèche records didn't match her personality suggested by her teachers back home in England.
Those records, combined with significant differences in the police statements about who left which children and at what times on which days comprise one of the many smoking guns in the confusion of the week.
Little details, apparently irrelevant at the time suddenly take on a massive significance, such as why Kate McCann signed as Kate Healy, except on the 3rd May when she signed as Kate McCann and with different handwriting. Who would expect parents to falsify signing-in records? It just doesn't happen, so why would they feel a need to check; in short, they didn't expect falsifying of the register, so they didn't check.
The children all spending so much time in the crèche or with their own parents and virtually no time with the group as a whole meant that even if none, or even only one or two of the group knew what was going on, it could easily be hidden from the others.
We know from Gerry’s “No comment” to the question of whether he knew Robert Murat prior to the holiday (the TV interview video is available on YouTube) that he probably did know him.
Apparently, various of Gerry's loose associates in the Rothley Park Golf Club in England also own properties in the same village where they holidayed, giving rise to speculation that there was involvement there. I have read no evidence to suggest that, but that, nevertheless, should clearly be another line of enquiry for Scotland Yard.
Ok, so we know that the group arrived for the holiday on Saturday 28th April 2007.
We know that the last absolutely confirmed sighting (by someone outside of the group) of Madeleine alive was by the cleaner on Sunday 29th April.
We know that there were various flurries of phone calls on Kate’s phone late at night on Tuesday 1st May and early morning on Wednesday 2nd May after the crying incident between 10.30 pm and 11.45 pm, witnessed by Mrs. Fenn. We also know that details of most phone calls were deleted from both the McCanns’ phones, clearly in an attempt to hide something.
From Tony Bennett’s research:
“The myriad puzzles relating to Robert Murat’s subsequent involvement in the Madeleine McCann case begin with trying to explain his apparently sudden decision to fly from Exeter to Faro Airport, on the Algarve, at 7.00am on Tuesday 1 May. Murat has explained this as a response to his partner Michaela Walczuk urgently demanding him to see his solicitor in Portugal to finalise his divorce so that she and Murat could go ahead and marry. He had previously, he said, been planning to fly back out to Portugal on 9 May.
The flight booking was apparently made between 12midnight and 2am on Monday 1 May. Murat’s sister appears to have driven him to Exeter Airport between 4am and 5am that morning, so he could catch his flight. Why did Murat leave this booking to the last possible moment? The later you leave it, the more the risk of not finding a seat, and the price triples or even more. We conclude that the booking was made in a hurry.
There has therefore been some speculation that Murat was summoned to Portugal by ’phone during 30 April because something untoward had already happened in Praia da Luz. The Portuguese Police have made available certain telephone records relating to Robert Murat and his friends which have added to that speculation.
These records suggest that there was quite intense telephone activity on 30 April between the landline of the home of Robert Murat and his mother in Praia da Luz and two Exeter telephone numbers, one of them being his sister’s ’phone, where Robert appeared to have been staying at that time.
One ’phone call, to a U.K. landline just after 9.00am, lasted over an hour. Some of these calls were to a U.K. mobile ’phone. It could perhaps have been either his mother, or his girlfriend Michaela Walczuk, who was talking to Murat. Other records show that Michaela Walczuk was also very busy that morning [30 April] on her two mobiles, making several long ’phone calls instead of her usual short ones.
There appear to be some unusual aspects of some of the telephone records relating to the ‘Tapas 9’ prior to 3 May 2007. Jane Tanner appears to have received a call made at 4.12am on the previous day, Sunday 29 April. There is a strange patterns of mobile calls made at around 10.00pm on Tuesday 1 May. We also know that Dr Gerald McCann received either 12 or 14 voicemail messages on 2 May, while Dr Kate McCann began wiping calls from her mobile on the same day. These are matters we hope to explore more fully in another article.”
What else do we know? We know that Jane Tanner’s and Robert Murat’s DNA were found in Wojciech Krokowski’s apartment bathroom in Burgau, a few miles away. Wojciech Krokowski also arrived from Poland on 28th May and was suspected after he left because he was reported as having taken photographs of small children while holding his camera in a such a way that he was obviously pretending not to take the photos.
We know that Robert Murat initially claimed to be unemployed but later admitted to being a kind of Internet Estate Agent, other saying that he was involved in property maintenance – both activities that would give him access to empty properties locally. Why would he lie in his first police statement, unless to cover something he didn't want known?
We know that, despite attempts to remove and hide it with bleach, Forensic Science services found traces of human body fluids in the car that was rented several weeks later – a car that had its boot lid left open. The McCanns claimed that Sea Bass and rotting nappies left in the boot were to blame for a smell they couldn't remove. Really? The neighbours said the car boot was left open day and night for about a week.
We know that forensics couldn't find any of Madeleine’s DNA in the flat – no hairbrush, no toothbrush, cleaned clothes, not even in her bed, so Gerry had to be taken, with a police escort, back to their home in Rothley to get some hair from her pillowcase there – to provide a sample of her DNA. In short, the flat had been cleaned, bleached and sterilised. It was forensically clean as one might expect from highly forensically aware doctors trying to cover a crime.
I wonder how long it took to ensure Madeleine's DNA (possibly complete with drug traces, perhaps?) was completely removed from the apartment? Not an easy task, even for those familiar with the cleanliness of operating theatres.
Finally, we know from Gerry McCann’s own blog (although later edited out) that he replaced a fridge (a freezer?) from somewhere, not necessarily his own villa.
OK, so … put all those strands together. What conclusion can we reach?
Well, first that she did not disappear on Thursday 3rd as the parents claimed, but died perhaps as late as Wednesday 2nd, but more likely a lot earlier – probably as early as 29th or Monday 30th to make the true timeline fit the evidence)
All this makes The Intermediate House vital to the investigation. It doesn’t really matter when she died, but the evidence is clear that she did. What IS important is what happened to her – where she was taken – and who could have enabled access to it?
Could it have been that Robert Murat was called to Praia da Luz in order to facilitate that house?
So the most important question arising is WHERE was The Intermediate House? What do we know about it and what can we surmise? We know much less than the police, but what do WE know?
Well, whether Gerry took Maddie's body to it on the night of the 3rd or it was all over prior to then, we also know that it is likely to have been a house that Robert Murat was in some way connected with.
Whether Murat had a contract to look after it (maintain during its empty period) or whether he just had access to an empty house due to his rôle as an estate agent begins to have significance.
It MAY have been further away a car had been used to move Madeleine, but the fewer people who knew the better, so Kate and Gerry would not want to tell too many of the truth.
IF Gerry took the body on the evening of 3rd, then we know approximately WHERE The Intermediate House is located. Gerry was seen by the Smiths but was soon back at the complex. Despite the timeline written on the back of the sticker book claiming the alarm was raised at 9.55 or 10.00 pm., police weren't actually called for another 40 minutes at 10.40 pm (I believe their emergency call timestamp).
The Smith route would have taken Gerry past the backs of houses along a path where he was less likely to be spotted than along main roads. Extend that route, following his obvious criteria and you will find The Intermediate House, where there may still be some kind of forensic evidence, if only the fact of the new fridge/freezer that Gerry replaced, possibly with his or Murat's or Michael Wright’s fingerprints still on the back of it.
To find that new fridge would be a coup for Scotland Yard. So presumably they will have asked the PJ (Policia Judiciara in Portugal) to find any house connected even loosely to Robert Murat. They will locate the new fridge as prime evidence and possibly send the cadaver dogs into that house.
To locate it would be relatively easy as they should be able to find out where Gerry bought the replacement and the make and model. Possibly where it was delivered, if he didn’t collect it himself.
To search for and find the new fridge is vital. To search for and find The Intermediate House will provide the one piece of circumstantial evidence that tips the scales from Slight Doubt to No Doubt.
When criminals are so highly forensically aware as the McCanns and go to such lengths as to wash curtains (sorry, let’s use the police term, “tamper with” the curtains), bleach floors and car interiors, to invent timelines with compliant friends and ensure the body is impossible to locate, the police have to work extra hard to find every last piece of circumstantial evidence to ensure their case is proved beyond doubt.
When criminals go to great lengths to hide the truth even from most of their close friends on holiday that week (I believe that most weren’t aware they were being duped with claims that the child was elsewhere, etc.), they can get away with anything.
And that is another reason why I think Scotland Yard are taking so long. They MUST get it right. They MUST get it right first time. There will be no second chances. Failure is not an option. Scotland Yard can't afford a mistake, can't afford another scandal, can't afford another blown enquiry; Scotland Yard cannot afford or allow another cock-up.
Neither can the government, which is why Scotland Yard is being given the extra budget, being given diplomatic help and every facility.
So ... FIND The Intermediate House. FIND the new fridge or (more likely) freezer or fridge/freezer. FIND where Gerry was going that night (if it was him) – and perhaps more important, FIND the truth of the timelines for the remaining week, particularly the first couple of days. I don't think that working out it is that difficult for a police force employing one of the world's best crime computers and well over 1600 man-hours on this case every week.
Courtesy Of James
