Madeleine McCann: German Prisoner Identified as Suspect, #33

[Mex]

RSBM

GA has a theory about what happened that night. He has made public statements about it. As the lead detective on the case he likely knows more about it than us.

Similarly, HCW has a theory about the case. He has also made statements about his theory. Again, he may know more about it than us.

Neither theory has ever been tested in court. These situations are very similar except GA has gone on the record to explain his theory.

What I find hard to understand is why GA is vilified and HCW blindly trusted in very similar scenarios, especially when we fully understand GA’s theory but are completely ignorant of HCW’s.

Only time will tell the outcome but it is feasible that HCW could end up in the same position as GA.

My opinion – GA put a lot of effort into trashing the German investigation into MM disappearance. I am sure he must have had his reasons for doing so although I cannot think of even one good reason why he should attempt do that.
He broke confidentiality of the investigation when he made sure the media knew what and who the German investigators were pursuing. He was so beside himself with destructive determination to destroy the confidentiality of the case it is almost palpable.

Former Madeleine McCann policeman says wrong paedophile linked with her disappearance​

Former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral previously claimed a German paedophile is the prime suspect - but says speculation he was referring to strangler Martin Ney is wrong
_____________________________________________________________
Now GA, the original lead investigator in the McCann case, has fuelled new speculation about his identity by telling a Spanish TV programme: “A paedophile who is German and serving life for killing children has been spoken about.
“What I know is that the suspect is not him, it’s another man. He’s also in prison in Germany. He’s also a paedophile.
______________________________________________________________
“Years later, many years later, it appears that in an Internet chatroom there is a conversation between that person and another person where they talk about Madeleine.”
He responded: “It can’t be him” when he was shown a photo of Ney.

Martin Ney’s name emerged after Mr Amaral told the podcast: “They are preparing the end of the investigation, with a German paedophile who is in prison right now.

“I don’t know how they will start it, but that will be the big ending, if it ends.”
______________________________________________________________
He did not identify the mystery German at the time, although Correio da Manha went on to claim Ney was not the suspect.
The 49-year-old was jailed for life in 2012 for abducting and murdering three children between 1992 and 2001.
_____________________________________________________________

Police in the UK and Portugal, who are leading separate investigations into Madeleine’s May 3 2007 disappearance from the Algarve holiday resort of Praia da Luz, declined to comment on Portuguese reports earlier this year that investigators had a “new lead and a new suspect.”

The Policia Judiciaria said in a statement released in May: “The investigation into the disappearance of an English child in Praia da Luz in 2007, remains open within the framework of an investigation supervised by Portimao’s Public Ministry.

Former Madeleine McCann cop says wrong paedophile linked with her disappearance

Former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral previously claimed a German paedophile is the prime suspect - but says speculation he was referring to strangler Martin Ney is wrong

www.mirror.co.uk

GA broke the story of CB with malice aforethought once the genie was out of the bottle it would stay out and the investigators were stuck with a situation not of their making but entirely at the instigation of GA.

 

[enquirer6]

RSBM

What we can say after 3 years is that it is increasingly hard to believe all these theories about why there are no charges yet. HB gives a very useful yard stick. A brand new break in a cold case came from the appeal. They build a case from scratch and charged it.

Especially the idea you have to wait for the results of the HB case to have a stronger case on MM doesn't seem credible to me. None of this suggests great competence right no

It took the PJ pretty much a year to realize they screwed up in declaring Kate and Gerry arguidos. I think they realized they screwed up with Robert Murat a little earlier than that, but I think, by the rules in those days, his arguido status could only be lifted once they had decided to lift the McCanns' arguido status as well.

The task of investigating the case properly has been made all the more difficult, both by the passage of time and by the ground lost in serious mistakes of the (first) investigation, not least in not sealing off the crime scene and not conducting a proper forensic examination of the holiday apartments.

 

[Malleux]

Did they bother checking the other 20 wells I wonder, and if not why not?

It appears not. Perhaps it got pointed out to them that CB wasn't actually staying in that area by then. What strikes me is what a massive missed opportunity this might have been by searching the wrong stretch of road. The fact the PJ carried out the searches is encouraging, but that they didn't consult the Germans on their plans seems really poor. It's almost like they saw an opportunity and wanted to be seen as the ones to "crack" the case.

I think what may have happened is that the PJ knew CB was staying at the Boca do Rio beach, but about 3 or 4 few weeks before MM disappeared. This was when the Salema beach assault took place, which is the beach that directly adjoins Boca do Rio. It was said the perpetrator scampered away back over the rocks towards Boca do Rio after he got caught. So, if CB was involved in this assault as claimed, it would probably make sense he would pack up and move on to a new location pretty quickly...Which would appear to be Barranco.

 

[Tekno]

Double posted so here is a tidbit of info, not saying that the murder. CB or van are related.

The tiny village of Monchique where the Pizza Parties are held is where the actual registered owner of the Blue Transit van at the time of CB/MT's arrest lived/lives.

HB’s blue Bedford?

 

[Sharkbite]

HB’s blue Bedford?

Yes, I have blue transit in my head for some reason, I meant blue Bedford van. Belonging to HB though? As far as I remember it was registered to a Portuguese citizen from Monchique

 

[Malleux]

Yes, I have blue transit in my head for some reason, I meant blue Bedford van. Belonging to HB though? As far as I remember it was registered to a Portuguese citizen from Monchique

I'm a bit confused. I thought the Police seized the blue Bedford van in lieu of CB's prison fine. How could they do that if it was registered to someone else?

 

[Denis R Tandib]

I'm a bit confused. I thought the Police seized the blue Bedford van in lieu of CB's prison fine. How could they do that if it was registered to someone else?

Yes, it was a Bedford CF, like a Ford Transit but rounder at the front. It would have been at least 30 years old in 2006 I would think. From memory, it was impounded when CB and MT were arrested.

 

[Sharkbite]

I'm a bit confused. I thought the Police seized the blue Bedford van in lieu of CB's prison fine. How could they do that if it was registered to someone else?

I think the ownership transfer registration documents were being processed at the time of their arrest as CB/MT had only just bought it from a Moldovan owned garage in Odiaxere, the same village that PJ were diverted to a burglary at a business on their way to the MM callout.

 

[Consider Dudley]

Resources perhaps. It all takes time and money.
Perhaps the Madeleine fund could be used to finance such searches.

Would the McCanns be allowed to privately search wells in Portugal during a live police investigation do you know?

 

[Malleux]

I think the ownership transfer registration documents were being processed at the time of their arrest as CB/MT had only just bought it.

But the seizure took place after they came out of prison. So how could the police have seized it from the person who bought it? Or do you mean this other guy had it before they bought it?

 

[Malleux]

Would the McCanns be allowed to privately search wells in Portugal during a live police investigation do you know?

No. Not without permission from the Portuguese authorities. To get searches done otherwise they would probably have to rely upon some private investigator company (like metodo3) to take on the risk of not asking permission. Can't see that happening personally.

 

[Sharkbite]

But the seizure took place after they came out of prison. So how could the police have seized it from the person who bought it? Or do you mean this other guy had it before they bought it?

They way I understand it is that Portuguese owner of the Bedford sold the van via the Moldovan garage/scrapyard and the paperwork was still being processed, by the time CB had finished his sentence the paperwork was in CB's name giving LE the ability to impound the Bedford from BP's scrapyard for non-payment of fines.

 

[frank-cole]

"Brit Press" is not the only one. Unfortunately you can say "Press".

IMO the primary motive may be a factor in how the body was hidden & where. If this was a preplanned abduction then he may have already had a place in mind. If the primary motive was robbery & it changed to an abduction inside 5a, then perhaps he was more rushed & the location he hid MM’s remains would be less planned & in a place close to where he parked or somewhere he knew. IMO he must have disposed of the body before making the call to his friend to re-register the car. I don’t think he’d be covering his crime if he hadn’t cleaned the scene & hadn’t hid the body.
That all said, if the remains were still accessible then he could have moved them in the days, weeks, months or years later.
Lots of places to hide a body in that region. Would take a lifetime to search them all.

Just MO

 

[Malleux]

They way I understand it is that Portuguese owner of the Bedford sold the van via the Moldovan garage/scrapyard and the paperwork was still being processed, by the time CB had finished his sentence the paperwork was in CB's name giving LE the ability to impound the Bedford from BP's scrapyard for non-payment of fines.

Hmm, something doesn't sound right about that.. The story from his mate was that he was already sleeping in the Bedford outside CB's house before CB went to prison. CB then went to prison for 8 to 9 months and the Bedford was seized some months after his release when CB failed to pay his fine. When do you believe the van was initially sold by the Portuguese owner?

 

[Malleux]

IMO the primary motive may be a factor in how the body was hidden & where. If this was a preplanned abduction then he may have already had a place in mind. If the primary motive was robbery & it changed to an abduction inside 5a, then perhaps he was more rushed & the location he hid MM’s remains would be less planned & in a place close to where he parked or somewhere he knew. IMO he must have disposed of the body before making the call to his friend to re-register the car. I don’t think he’d be covering his crime if he hadn’t cleaned the scene & hadn’t hid the body.
That all said, if the remains were still accessible then he could have moved them in the days, weeks, months or years later.
Lots of places to hide a body in that region. Would take a lifetime to search them all.

Just MO

IMO the biggest appeal of the burglary theory - over all others - is that it circumvents almost all of the opposing objections about how the perp(s) could have successfully orchestrated their plan in such tight timescales, or why they would do it in that manner, when there were other easier or more plausible options to achieve their goal.

It's simplicity is that a burglar (and coincidentally a paedophile) just stumbled across an opportunity, took a risk and got lucky. CB fits very well with this scenario IMO.

When Christian Hoppe of the BKA went on Germam TV to make a public appeal back in June 2020, he suggested this may be the thinking of the investigation too:

When asked whether the attack was sexually motivated, Christian Hoppe, leading crime director at the Federal Crime Agency said: “We cannot rule that out.

“But it is also possible that the suspect, after an initial intention of burglary, spontaneously moved on to a sexual motive.”

Maddie McCann paedo suspect's ramshackle lair and squalid rental just miles from where she vanished

A GERMAN paedo feared to have snatched Madeleine McCann from her bed lived in two ramshackle houses just miles from the holiday apartment where she vanished. The suspect, 43, is now a “signif…

www.thesun.co.uk

There were burglaries in three other Ocean Club apartments in the weeks leading up to MM's disappearance, with no signs of forced entry except an open window (familiar?). One of them, two weeks before the McCanns arrived in PDL, a burglar broke into a flat in the same block (5L) while the guests had gone for dinner (familiar?) and made off with a "plasma display screen, credit cards and a mobile phone".

Doing that at dinner time, with guests coming and going, demonstrates a brazen risk taker (familiar?) but also suggests a level of confidence they believed they could easily get away with it in that environment. They probably thought that if things did go sour - they could just drop what they were doing and scarper (familiar?). This is exactly what the intruder did in the flat above 5A when Mrs Fenn heard them too, one week before MM disappeared.

Sadly, I believe the same logic could well have applied to MM as well, if CB found himself alone in 5A with her, having initially scoped out the place to burgle it. It fits quite well with CB's known behaviours with children, where he has carried out a risky, opportunist and brazen attack, albeit up to a point, before getting caught/running away. Of course, those are only the ones we know of.

The two child sex assaults he committed in Germany as a teen were both opportunist and brazenly carried out in public places where the risk was high. I know he hasn't been convicted yet but the two Portugal child sex assaults the Prosecutor's are trying to charge him now with are also very similar - public settings, opportunistic, high risk. In these other cases of course, the victims were awake and thankfully there were other people around so that things didn't escalate any further.

People have suggested the three rape charges may be an attempt by the Prosecutors to establish an MO, but I think the same logic could equally apply to the attacks on children too.

If this is what happened, there was no pre-plan so CB would be thinking on his feet. In that respect, I think the "disposal in a well" theory is very plausible. Take MM somewhere isolated, somewhere on the route back to where he was staying, do what he wanted with her, then dispose of her body in an easily accessible well on the roadside where nobody is likely to search. Harrowing as that sounds, it just seems totally logical if this was a spontaneous abduction. JMO.

 

[Sharkbite]

Hmm, something doesn't sound right about that.. The story from his mate was that he was already sleeping in the Bedford outside CB's house before CB went to prison. CB then went to prison for 8 to 9 months and the Bedford was seized some months after his release when CB failed to pay his fine. When do you believe the van was initially sold by the Portuguese owner?

I believe CB had only been using the Bedford a couple of weeks prior to getting busted for the fuel theft. How long it had been at the garage/scrapyard in Odiáxere I don't know.

 

[Denis R Tandib]

My opinion – GA put a lot of effort into trashing the German investigation into MM disappearance. I am sure he must have had his reasons for doing so although I cannot think of even one good reason why he should attempt do that.
He broke confidentiality of the investigation when he made sure the media knew what and who the German investigators were pursuing. He was so beside himself with destructive determination to destroy the confidentiality of the case it is almost palpable.

Former Madeleine McCann policeman says wrong paedophile linked with her disappearance​

Former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral previously claimed a German paedophile is the prime suspect - but says speculation he was referring to strangler Martin Ney is wrong
_____________________________________________________________
Now GA, the original lead investigator in the McCann case, has fuelled new speculation about his identity by telling a Spanish TV programme: “A paedophile who is German and serving life for killing children has been spoken about.
“What I know is that the suspect is not him, it’s another man. He’s also in prison in Germany. He’s also a paedophile.
______________________________________________________________
“Years later, many years later, it appears that in an Internet chatroom there is a conversation between that person and another person where they talk about Madeleine.”
He responded: “It can’t be him” when he was shown a photo of Ney.

Martin Ney’s name emerged after Mr Amaral told the podcast: “They are preparing the end of the investigation, with a German paedophile who is in prison right now.

“I don’t know how they will start it, but that will be the big ending, if it ends.”
______________________________________________________________
He did not identify the mystery German at the time, although Correio da Manha went on to claim Ney was not the suspect.
The 49-year-old was jailed for life in 2012 for abducting and murdering three children between 1992 and 2001.
_____________________________________________________________

Police in the UK and Portugal, who are leading separate investigations into Madeleine’s May 3 2007 disappearance from the Algarve holiday resort of Praia da Luz, declined to comment on Portuguese reports earlier this year that investigators had a “new lead and a new suspect.”

The Policia Judiciaria said in a statement released in May: “The investigation into the disappearance of an English child in Praia da Luz in 2007, remains open within the framework of an investigation supervised by Portimao’s Public Ministry.

Former Madeleine McCann cop says wrong paedophile linked with her disappearance

Former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral previously claimed a German paedophile is the prime suspect - but says speculation he was referring to strangler Martin Ney is wrong

www.mirror.co.uk

GA broke the story of CB with malice aforethought once the genie was out of the bottle it would stay out and the investigators were stuck with a situation not of their making but entirely at the instigation of GA.

HCW gives information to JC at The Olive Press and he is a prosecutor in an active investigation.

GA is a pivotal figure in this case and he has a theory which he wants to defend.He is free to that - even the courts agree with his right to do it.

Like I said before, GA and HCW both have a theory. Neither has been proven to be correct so both remain possible. There is a lot of information online to support GA’s theory, not so much to support HCW’s but there are lots of people giving their descriptive and emotive opinions to try and persuade people.

I’ll wait for something firm from HCW but I’m concerned it will never come.

 

[Denis R Tandib]

People have suggested the three rape charges may be an attempt by the Prosecutors to establish an MO, but I think the same logic could equally apply to the attacks on children too.

I broadly agree with most of the post that this quote is from, CB has been impulsive in past crimes which makes the opportunist/burglary theory possible. I would argue though, that in his more serious crimes, he has planned them quite meticulously - abduction and murder of a minor would be, by far, his most serious offence.

Regarding the quote, I just don’t see the logic. He already has a criminal record which proves he is capable of opportunistic child molestation. What do these two attacks prove that is missing in his record? Certainly not that he has committed abduction and murder of a child.

 

[Malleux]

I broadly agree with most of the post that this quote is from, CB has been impulsive in past crimes which makes the opportunist/burglary theory possible. I would argue though, that in his more serious crimes, he has planned them quite meticulously - abduction and murder or a minor would be, by far, his most serious offence.

Regarding the quote, I just don’t see the logic. He already has a criminal record which proves he is capable of opportunistic child molestation. What do these two attacks prove that is missing in his record? Certainly not that he has committed abduction and murder of a child.

Yes, he has committed serious crimes which have been meticulously planned out as well but the point he has deliberately designed them in such a way where he won't be recognised, so that he doesn't then need to kill the victim to avoid capture and he can just leave them in situ. However, if he'd committed a spontaneous abduction of a child, on a spur of the moment impulse, then once he's followed through with his perversions, he really has no choice but to kill in order to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison.

On the second point, I wasn't suggesting these new cases prove something new. I agree, it's the same kind of MO as the previous ones. The point is it just reinforces proof of that ongoing behaviour. Especially as the Salema assualt was just a few weeks before MM. What CB has tried to claim in his letters to his fans is that those incidents as a teen were just him being young and stupid, and not a reflection of what he "really is" now. These cases would prove that claim to be nonsense and that there is an ongoing pattern of impulsive behaviour when it comes to children. JMO.

 

[Denis R Tandib]

Yes, he has committed serious crimes which have been meticulously planned out as well but the point he has deliberately designed them in such a way where he won't be recognised, so that he doesn't then need to kill the victim to avoid capture and he can just leave them in situ. However, if he'd committed a spontaneous abduction of a child, on a spur of the moment impulse, then once he's followed through with his perversions, he really has no choice but to kill in order to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison.

On the second point, I wasn't suggesting these new cases prove something new. I agree, it's the same kind of MO as the previous ones. The point is it just reinforces proof of that ongoing behaviour. Especially as the Salema assualt was just a few weeks before MM. What CB has tried to claim in his letters to his fans is that those incidents as a teen were just him being young and stupid, and not a reflection of what he "really is" now. These cases would prove that claim to be nonsense and that there is an ongoing pattern of impulsive behaviour when it comes to children. JMO.

It’s very difficult to apply a specific MO to CB.

He has acted impulsively and shown is face publicly while committing child abuse offences as an 18 year old and as a 37 year old.

In the HB and DM offences, he covered his face. In at least one of the videoed rapes at the farm house he showed his face to camera. In the case with his girlfriend’s daughter, he took photos of himself committing abuse.

Let’s say for example he has some distinctive S&M fetish that played out in the DM and HB offences. This is unlikely to fit with an opportunistic abduction of MM.

The MO piece is all over the place IMO because the defence can point to examples where the MO is different in similar offences.