Just my opinion:
After all, the main thing right now is to find out who did what to this missing little girl.
But if the parents were not really involved with the little girl's disappearance by hiring her kidnapper/s to take her or by killing her and stashing the body or by selling her to someone and then claiming kidnap . . . If none of those things were done by the parents then for purposes of this case I only care about information that might lead to finding the little girl.
I usually start from the parents and work outward if the facts permit.
I guess that in such cases I usually ask myself if the parents had any corroboration of their story.
For instance, who (other than the parents) saw this little girl was still alive that day when her parents went to dinner that day?
So do the parents have witnesses to back up their story? And can they pass a poly?
Another thought- (not sure I can explain it well):
When a little person is missing and no body is found that in itself says something to us about the possibilities of crime involved and the possible reasons for such a crime.
Anyway thats just my opinion on things.
Thanks for your opinions Docwho3. Some of the questions you are asking seem to be the ones hardest to get answers to. It does not appear that it has ever been published who the last person to see Maddie, besides her parents was. Very frustrating. All these different parents running from apartment to apartment listening for a restless child, and not one of them actually looked in the room. Or if one of them did, they are not saying who or what time. Is that to keep suspicion away from that person? Keep them from being talked about in the media? And then, given the contradictory reports from the staff, you have to ask.... were these parents even, at a very minimum, going door to door to see if any of the children were crying? A classic he said/she said with neither story coming out on top. Again, very frustrating.
Yes we do have a little information, although, as was said, not much. We know:
1. The children were left alone, on more than one occassion.
2. The apartment had a window directly alongside the parking lot.
3. The parent's lied about the jimmied window/door.
4. The apartment was left unlocked.
5. The parents downplayed the distance from the restuarant to the apt.
6. Maddie is missing.
What else do we know as fact versus speculation/rumor?
I'm not sure I agree that if someone had already hurt her we would know by now, because her body would have been found. Sometimes it takes several weeks/months and even years before the body is discovered. And if the lastest search is any indication of how Portugal conducts all its searches, I think it would be reasonable to believe we would never find Maddie.
Salem
