Search results

Jeb, I checked and the Washington Post reported that she was found unharmed a week later. There were no details about where she'd been.

Jeb, do you know whether there has been any further information about this missing little girl? This news really depressess me. I have been thinking about the Lyon sisters a lot lately and my own childhood in Kensington.

I have to agree with Thrasher on this. I've read the book and, while I wish Lippman could have changed a few more minor details to deflect comparisons, the plot of the book bears almost no resemblence to the Lyon family's story. It uses the basic idea of two girls disappearing from a mall as a...

I think a child abductor would walk casually, particularly if the child had been effectively subdued -- i.e., drugged, knocked unconcious. He would want to look like a father carrying his sleeping child. That would be the best way to get the child out of there without raising any suspicions.

Exactly. Scientific studies have shown polygraph tests to be only slightly better than a coin flip. They are not reliable at indicating when someone is lying. The McCanns have everything to lose by taking one and being told they lied when they didn't. The fact that some law enforcement use...

Polograph tests are inherently unreliable because they have a very high rate of false positives. That means the machine often indicates that people are lying when they're not. For this reason, even people who are telling the truth don't want take them because they face a substantial risk having...

Lie detector tests are not the way to clear yourself. In fact, they are not admissible in most courts in the US. They are what's called "junk science."

I think the fact that the wait staff at the tapas restaurant observed the McCanns acting "normally" is just another piece of information to add to the picture. I don't think you have to be an expert in human behavior to evaluate whether someone is acting normally. We all know what "normal" looks...

I really haven't paid close attention to the timelines because most of this stuff is just rumor reported in scandal rags, but, I thought she claimed to have seen the bundleman at 9:15 ish and that Kate raised the alarm at 10:00. That's a 45 minute window in which Tanner could have left the table...

Tanner's interview will be airing on a UK tv show as well: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7098390.stm

This part at the bottom intrigues me: "In addition to these explosive revelations, 48 Hours has acquired information from a highly placed source in the investigation who discloses that Portuguese police are now not investigating homicide by Kate and Gerry McCann as a possibility. 48 Hours has...

It would not necessarily be an offense in the US. Child abandonment laws are creatures of state. Thus each state has its own law on the books (or has no law). You can't make any blanket statements about what the law is in the US on this subject. The UK child abandonment law that Rino posted is...

When you're doing a television documentary, you really want to use moving pictures if you can. So, they would want to use any footage they have of Madeleine, which this may be all there is. I don't think the McCanns have released any videotape of their daughter.

I also wonder if the "They've taken her" quote might be a bit garbled in translation. A Portuguese-speaker who isn't fluent in English might hear it as "they've taken her" or might be paraphrasing what she said or, in being translated from Portuguese to English, it might get reported as "they've...

If the 14 figure includes both sent and received messages, it may not have taken much time. Perhaps he only sent 7 and then received 7 replies. And what if he was replying to messages he had received and was only answering yes and no questions. This wouldn't take much time at all. And, if the 14...

I agree that this is best practices, but you would be surprised how many police departments in the US don't follow this procedure either. It's not uncommon for police department policy to be that the witness/suspect is interviewed and then either the witness or the investigator prepares a...

There are often inconsistencies in eye witness stories -- I would argue more often than not. That doesn't necessarily mean that anyone is lying. People can be, and often are, mistaken about things, particularly when things happened and what precisely they saw. Innocent bystanders of crimes often...

At this stage, I think it would be unethical for one lawyer to represent two of the Tapas 9. There is just too much potential for conflicts of interest to arise, particularly if one starts implicating the other. I would assume the UK would have ethical rules similar to those we have in the US...

Don't get your hopes up too high, colomom. It could just be people drilling down times or giving more detail. It could even be "clarifying" earlier statements in a way that makes all of the Tapas 9's statements more consistent -- explaining away earlier inconsistencies. That said, if other...

I truly am not trying to be argumentative, but what do you mean no evidence of abduction? There is evidence -- the statements of the parents and the other Tapas 9 members. It's just a question of whether you find their statements credible. Whether there is evidence and whether it is credible...