Madeleine: Portuguese police missed blood on walls for three months

**Honey** · August 6th, 2007, 06:42 PM

British police have found traces of blood in Madeleine McCann's holiday bedroom.
DNA tests are being carried out to see if they came from the missing four-year-old.
The dramatic discovery came after UK detectives were finally allowed to review the three-month Portugese investigation.
If the blood is Madeleine's it would change the whole nature of the inquiry by introducing the possibility that she died there rather than being kidnapped.
Officers from the McCanns' home force in Leicestershire used specialised equipment and their own sniffer dogs to re-examine the two-bedroom apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.
Windows were blacked out with plastic sheeting and tape to let technicians use ultraviolet light to scan for fingerprints, fibres and minute specks of blood invisible to the naked eye.
They found blood on a wall in the bedroom where Madeleine had been sleeping with her younger brother and sister on May 3.
Police sources quoted in a Portuguese newspaper said there were signs someone had tried to clean the blood away.
A source close to the investigation said one of the sniffer dogs "stopped dead at the spot on the wall" and barked to indicate it had found something.
If the blood is found to be Madeleine's, one possibility is that it was shed in the course of her abduction.
But a Portuguese newspaper claimed yesterday that police now believe the little girl may have been killed or died in 'an accident' in the bedroom.
The national daily Jornal de Noticias reported: "This evidence locates Madeleine's death inside the apartment, but the investigators are still not certain it was murder, despite the fact that forensic experts have revealed that somebody did try to erase the blood traces.
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The garden of Robert Murat's villa has been combed by police

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"The theory most favoured by detectives to explain Maddy's death - now taken as almost certain - is that it involved an accident.
"The investigators are convinced that the blood belongs to Madeleine, but they are still holding back the detailed results of the tests until their suspicions are confirmed."
Police sources said Madeleine's parents, doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, and the nine friends who were on holiday with them would be questioned again.
Friends of the couple pointed out last night that the apartment at the Ocean Club has been let to scores of holidaymakers over the years - some since Madeleine's disappearance - and the blood could belong to any one of them.
The disclosure that someone tried to wipe it off the wall could simply be the result of a holidaymaker or resort staff cleaning up.
The McCanns have always maintained they checked on their sleeping children every 30 minutes while they ate dinner with their friends at a tapas restaurant 100 metres away.
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Missing: Madeleine McCann

They left the apartment's patio doors unlocked so that they could slip in and out without waking them.
The British officers had offered to help in the case from the beginning but it was only 90 days into the investigation that they were allowed to share their expertise. Mark Williams-Thomas, a former Surrey detective and now a leading child protection expert, said the blood should have been found and analysed earlier.
"I am staggered it has taken so long,' he said. 'It makes a mockery of the Portuguese investigation. This discovery should have been made on day one and if it proves to be significant it will show just how inept the Portuguese police were at carrying out the initial forensics tests.
"Just imagine the impact it will have on Gerry and Kate - to find that something so vital was missed right at the beginning. It is great that British police have finally carried out a review but you have to ask why has it taken three months for it to happen?
"I called for a review within the first month, especially because of the relative lack of experience of the Portuguese team who were handling the case."
Portuguese police have refused to make any official comment on the reported discovery of blood.
The development came as the mother of the only official suspect, estate agent Robert Murat, declared that her son is about to be cleared of any involvement.
Nothing was found in a search of 33-year-old Murat's home and garden over the weekend.
He also took his three cars and a vehicle belonging to a relative to police headquarters in Portimao to be examined.
His mother, Briton Jenni Murat, 71, said: "He is going to be cleared. He is innocent."
In a separate development, it emerged last night that Interpol is investigating links between the McCann case and the suicide of a suspected child abducter in Switzerland.
Urs Hans Von Aesch, 67, who shot himself in a forest near St Gallen, was the prime suspect in the disappearance last week of a five-year-old Swiss girl who looked very like Madeleine.
Swiss police say he was on holiday in the Algarve when Madeleine vanished. Von Aesch's DNA was on the missing Swiss girl's belongings, found neatly stacked in the same forest.

Madeleine: Portuguese police missed blood on walls for three months | the Daily Mail

**sweetrebel** · August 7th, 2007, 09:52 AM

I can see that they may not have the experience to handle things like this, but why wouldn't they step aside in the beginning and ask someone to come in with experience. Pride is a foolish thing when it stands in the way of finding a child...

**Charmed Hour** · August 7th, 2007, 10:01 AM

So they've found blood that has the appearance of someone trying to clean it up? This makes me even more suspicious of the parents.

If they were checking on the kids as frequently as they said, how could someone come in and abduct/injure/possibly kill Madeline without disturbing the other 2 babies, and then have time to clean up the blood?

**sweetrebel** · August 7th, 2007, 10:03 AM

I wonder if it could have been from normal cleaning...I really didn't read the article...

**Laurent** · August 7th, 2007, 10:05 AM

Well, if they really think the child is dead through an "accident," then frankly, I'd start taking a nice, hard, long look at dear old dad. Something has always seemed off about him to me.

**Charmed Hour** · August 7th, 2007, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by Laurent

Well, if they really think the child is dead through an "accident," then frankly, I'd start taking a nice, hard, long look at dear old dad. Something has always seemed off about him to me.

Exactly. He's totally under emotional about his missing child, imo. I saw him on one of the morning shows and he gave me the heebies. Something "dead" about him.

**HWBL** · August 7th, 2007, 10:18 AM

I read that the parents are at least considered to be charged with
negligence leading to abduction, and perhaps even negligence
leading to unlawful death.....

**KrisNine** · August 7th, 2007, 10:29 AM

Originally Posted by sweetrebel

I can see that they may not have the experience to handle things like this, but why wouldn't they step aside in the beginning and ask someone to come in with experience. Pride is a foolish thing when it stands in the way of finding a child...

That's what I think....other countries have done it. They've stepped aside and asked for help. Remember when Natalie Holloway disappeared? The police in Aruba couldn't begin to handle the investigation.

Something tells me this poor girl didn't make it out of the room alive that night.

**silver024** · August 7th, 2007, 10:36 AM

isn't it possible that the blood isn't even hers??? that it could have been there before she was even in the room and it was cleaned then?

**Charmed Hour** · August 7th, 2007, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by silver024

isn't it possible that the blood isn't even hers??? that it could have been there before she was even in the room and it was cleaned then?

It does say they are conducting DNA tests still. I would imagine in a hotel, there are all kinds of bodily fluids on walls, floors, etc. So the odds of it being someone else's blood is pretty good.

I just think her parents seems suspicious, if for nothing other than using poor judgement by leaving 3 toddlers alone while they went out to dinner.

**silver024** · August 7th, 2007, 10:55 AM

I don't know if anyone ever checks out Yahoo's answers spot, but someone asked a while ago about hotels and how clean they are...I was so grossed out, I had to stop reading the answers. We stayed over in Philly for the night last thursday, I took my own sheets, comforter and pillow. I get the creeps just thinking about a hotel room.

The dad always gave me a weird feeling...like someone else said, he has a "dead" look to him.

**KrisNine** · August 7th, 2007, 11:08 AM

^^So gross, but very true. I think we have a thread for it around here somewhere.

**Laxmobster** · August 8th, 2007, 02:12 PM

I too found the father to be quite off as well. I hope it wasn't them, but somehow it always turns out to the parents that did something.

And yes in a hotel it could have been anyone's blood. Ewww and I just stayed in a hotel a week ago. Gross...

**VenusInFauxFurs** · August 8th, 2007, 02:28 PM

The father creeps me out.

Yes, hotel rooms are not the most hygienic places ever. The cleaning done is so freaking minimal.

**Gen X EJC** · August 8th, 2007, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by Charmed Hour

So they've found blood that has the appearance of someone trying to clean it up? This makes me even more suspicious of the parents.

If they were checking on the kids as frequently as they said, how could someone come in and abduct/injure/possibly kill Madeline without disturbing the other 2 babies, and then have time to clean up the blood?

Exactly. It sounds like what might have happened is that the parents (or dad) came back and realized Maddy had accidentally died in the night from their complete neglect, and rather than face it he/they made it look like an abduction so they could try to get off scot free and with everyone's pity. I would still like to hope they didn't kill the poor girl on purpose...