The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann

Missing Child

  

Madeleine McCann is a young British girl born on 12th of May 2003. Madeleine's parents are Kate and Gerry McCann and she also has younger twin siblings Sean and Amelie. They live in Leicester, England and both of Madeleines parents are doctors

In 2007 when Madeleine was just 3 years old she disappeared from a holiday apartment in Portugal. Her family and her parents friends took a half term break to Portugal on the 28th of April 2007 for a week long holiday in the Algarve area of Portugal. The large party which is named in the media as the Tapas 9 were staying in the Praia Da Luz resort

Timeline of events

May 3rd 2007

10.00 am  -  Kate and Gerry put Madeleine and the twins into the kids club.

12.30 pm  -  Kate and Gerry picked the kids up and took them to the apartment for lunch.

 1.30 pm  - The McCann's spent the afternoon at the ocean clubs swimming pool.

Missing Child UK

Last ever picture of Madeleine taken.

3.30 pm - The kids returned to the kids club.

5.30 pm -  The kids ate dinner at the kids club.

6.00 pm -  Kate took the children back to the apartment, while Gerry went on a tennis lesson.

8.30 pm The children were put to bed and Gerry and Kate then went to the tapas bar to have dinner with their friends.

From the image above you can see where the McCanns and their friends apartments where and how far they were away from the tapas bar. Every night the adults would go for dinner at 8.30 pm while all their children were left in the apartments. Each family would take turns to check up on all the children. The above image also tells us what time the children were checked on by who. At 9.15 Tanner, one of the McCanns friends walked to check on her child and sees a man carrying a child, who is wearing pink and white pyjamas, similar to what madeleine was wearing that night. However Gerry or Wilkines who were standing talking a few yards away apparently did not see Tanner or the man carrying the child.

The McCann's left the patio doors unlocked so they could go in and check on the children without waking them up. The last time Gerry checked on the children, he noticed the bedroom door was open wide, when they claim they left it only open slightly.

9.30 PM

Matthew Oldfield and Russel O'brian, two of the McCann's friends checked on the children. Oldfield noticed again the bedroom door was open wide but did not think too much of it. He cannot confirm if he saw Madeleine, due to the angle of her bed but he saw the twins.

10.00 PM

Kate goes to check on the children, when she enters the room the children's door is wide open as well as the shutters and the window. The twins are sleeping however Madeleine is nowhere to be found.

A huge search began throughout Portugal to try and find Madeleine. The case was a huge operation, the biggest media frenzy since the death of Diana. There were many flaws in the police work for this case, one of the main ones being the search for DNA in the apartment. As they initially believed it to be an abduction, the crime scene was tampered with.

Theories

Kate and Gerry

Madeleines parents were the first suspects in the investigation. There are many theories which involve Kate and Gerry, one of the main ones being that Madeleine died in the apartment accidentally, her parents gave her a sleeping pill to ensure she stayed sleeping while they were out at dinner, as she was known to wake up and cry. The sleeping pill somehow caused complications resulting in her death. The McCann's then covered up the death as a missing persons case.

The police brought in sniffer dogs, who detected the smell of blood and death in the apartment and in the McCann's hire car. Kate and Gerry's suspect title was lifted in July 2008 due to lack of evidence.

Abductor

Another theory is that someone was aware of the movements of the family throughout the holiday. It was reported that there were a few men lurking around the complex days prior to the disappearance. Due to the fact the McCann's left the patio door open this would then allow an intruder to enter. This theory would then corroborate Tanners story of seeing a man carrying a sleeping child. The McCanns and friends had the same routine every night so it would not have been hard for someone to notice there were sleeping children in each of their rooms. No DNA was found inside the apartment which linked to someone not in the holiday party. If Madeleine was abducted it would have either been a burglary gone wrong, she was sold to a couple who could not have children or she was smuggled over the Spanish border and sold as a child slave.

Killed by one of the tapas 9 

Each member of the tapas 9 took turns to check on each of the children. We know that Tanner only checked on her own child and thats when she saw the man carrying the chid, apparently. Oldfield was checking on the McCann children but somehow did not see Madeleine, when if he walked in the room he would have clearly seen her there. None of tapas 9 would cooperate with the Spanish police and refused interviews, until they were questioned.

Tapas 9

Madeleine left the apartment 

Another theory which may be possible is that Madeleine woke up and got scared, so she left the appartment to try find her mum and dad. She may have possibly went the wrong way as the back exit of the hotel led to a road. She may have got hit by a car or wondered into the near by contruction site and got injured, and someone covered it up.

Due to the huge media frenzy which followed Madeleines disappearance there are many theories out there and many different documentaries which give a more in-depth look into all the evidence and leads which the case encountered. Due to this blog being created for assessment purposes I was not able to included as much information as I would have liked. Please feel free to comment any theories you may have.
Below is a documentary , which I found very insightful.

Missing girl

Missing people

The Disappearance of Corrie McKeague

Disclaimer -  This blog is for educational and awareness purposes. I mean no disrespect to anyone spoken about in this blog. 

Corrie McKeague (born 16th September 1993)  was a Scottish man who went missing in the early hours of the 24th of September 2016 in the Bury St Edmunds area of Suffolk, England. Corrie was born in Perth, Scotland and was raised in Dunfermline. Corrie was a Royal Air Force Regiment Gunner.  He was 23 when he went missing.

Prior to his disappearance, Corrie was dating a girl named April. April was actually pregnant with Corrie's baby but sadly, she did not find out until he was missing.

Corrie was described as a friendly, confident and a kind person by his mum, she said he loved life and always strived to live it to the fullest.

Friday 23^rd of September

Corrie had plans to meet up with some of his RF colleagues as they had the weekend off. Around 10 pm he drove his BMW into town, where he left it and went to have drinks with his friends. Between 10 PM and 12.30 am Corrie and his friends went to a few different bars.

Saturday 24^th of September

12.30 am Corrie and his friends went to a nightclub called Flex. The boys where drunk at this point. At around 1 am the security guard insisted Corrie leave the club as he was quite intoxicated. Corrie agreed and left. None of his friends left with him.

Corrie then went to a local takeaway shop which was just down the street and ordered a burger and a kebab.  

At around 1.30 am Corrie walked to a store front and ate his food, he then fell asleep outside this shop and woke up around 3am.

See CCTV footage below.

At 3 am Corrie sent a few text messages to some friends and then began walking again.

Corrie walked into a dead-end street, into a part called the ‘horseshoe’

The horseshoe was basically like a cul-de-sac that consisted of all the back doors of some shops. It also had many bins for all the businesses dotted about the area.

CCTV caught Corrie entering into this ‘horseshoe’ at 3.23 am. This was the last sighting of Corrie.

The CCTV does not pick Corrie up again however, in order to get out of the horseshoe he would have had to go out the way he came and the CCTV footage would have seen him or he would have had to go through one of the back doors of the stores. However, there was CCTV at the front of the stores which also did not pick up Corrie leaving this horseshoe area.

Further CCTV footage is shown below

Monday 26^th of September 2016

Corrie is reported missing to the police. He was due to be back to work on the Monday however failed to show up, which was so out of character for Corrie. A huge search operation began to try and find Corrie, the police and volunteers searched for miles but no evidence was found.

The police then started to look into the CCTV footage in the town and this is where they see Corries whereabouts that night.

The police then began investigating Corries phone records which showed his phone pinged at a cell tower near the horseshoe and then 30 minutes later pinged at a cell tower 13 miles away. He could not have walked this far in 30 minutes, which means he must have been in some sort of vehicle. Corries phone stopped connecting to that cell at around 8 am and was not traceable after that. Which means it as either turned off, destroyed or the battery had died.

At around the time Corrie went missing a bin lorry was around the horseshoe area and travelled to a landfill up near the cell tower which last picked up Corries phone signal.

The theory which follows this is that Corrie fell asleep either on one of the bins or inside the bin and the bin lorry emptied the bins with Corrie inside which crushed him and dumped him at the landfill. The bin lorry which picked up the rubbish on the 24^th of September weighed each bin that was emptied. On the day Corrie went missing the bin was a lot heavier than normal. It should be mentioned that the weighing of the bins had many times been inaccurate and the first weighing of that bin lorry was actually a normal weight however, once weighed again it somehow then showed X8 heavier.

Corries younger brother took to social media to say the police were intentionally leaving details of his brothers case out. The most important fact being that the bin lorry driver actually witnessed Corrie sleeping on the ground near some of the bins. There was also no DNA of Corrie found inside the bin either.

Another possible theory is that Corrie was taken into one of the vehicles that entered the horseshoe. There were five cars which entered the horseshoe area at the time Corrie was apparently still inside.

In February 2017, the police finally searched the landfill which the bin lorry went to that night. They searched through all the rubbish for months but did not find a single piece of evidence of Corrie. The police however, did find receipts from the horseshoe area from the night Corrie went missing but not one single fragment of Corrie.

As of 2019 Corries disappearance is a cold case. There are no further leads to corroborate either of these theories. If you think you have any information regarding this case please call 101