Funnily enough I'd watched a YouTube video by the psychiatrist Dr Todd Grande on Maddie a few days ago, and he made me realise how categorical my thinking had become.
In fact, having been convinced that the parents were involved in what happened to Maddie, after many years I changed my view, and I suspect I might know what happened, and that yes, she was indeed abducted.
So seeing this new news is incredible timing indeed.
I think that for me the obvious lies of the parents and their changing stories were what convinced me of their guilt, and probably also convinced the Portugeuse Police too, and I think the failure of the investigation lies at their feet, but this is what I suspect *might* have happened, and why they lied.
They were unqestionably irresponsible, they left their children unattended while they went out to party, and worse than that in an unlocked apartment.
As I remember it first they insisted that the room was locked, and the intruder must have got in through the window, by forcing it from the outside.
When this possibility was disproven they remebered they had in fact not been entering through the front door, with keys, but through the unlocked patio doors, and the intruder must have opened the window "as a red herring" - quite what red herring that was always escaped me - Maddie was missing, what was the intruder doing to mislead the Police from the primary situation?
The only fingerprints on the window were Kates, it hadn't been tampered with from the outside.
So imagine this - you have been utterly irresponsible, your child is now missing and you know you're for the high jump - possible criminal charges, might have your kids taken from you, lose your jobs lose everything.
In the head of a narcissist for example, you might think that unfair, I mean it's not really your fault after all - if it hadn't been for that pesky peadophile - he's the real villian, not us.
So to protect yourself a bit you might think "well, Maddie has been taken, that's the main thing and the thing the Police need to look at - so how does it matter if the abducter got in through the door or the window? If we say the door was locked we need to show how he got in, so if we open the window it'll look like that's how he did it. And since we're so super smart and they're as think as 10 short planks and we're doctors and important, they'll just believe that. But the important thing is they'll be looking for maddie".
Unfortunately they over estimated their own intellect and under estimated the intellect of the Police.
So when the Police say"no, not possible" - they have to find another way to explain how the intuder enetered - so they "remember" that oh, no actually the door was unlocked.
But now they have to explain away why the window was opened - you know, so they don't look like totally self absorbed and selfish monsters.
The Police know they are lying, and can't understand why, the whole thing now looks fishy, so the investigation focuses on the McCann parents.
And vital resources, hours days and months are lost trying to unpick the lies they've told to protect themselves from the stupidity and wrecklessness they displayed that led to the whole sorry episode.
If they'd just have said - we were stupid, we made a mistake, and not tried to fabricate evidence then they'd never have been suspects in the first place.
And Maddie might have been found.
But to look after their own interests, because that's all that matters to them, they tried to create a lie to cover their own faults, and that led the whole thing down a rabbit hole that never even existed in the first place.
Maybe - might have - etc for legal reasons - hey they sue you if you look at them funny.
But to my mind now - i've gone from they did it, to they didn't do it, to they're still the problem and caused all kinds of unnecessary problems through their own selfishness.
End of might be, maybe theory.
