Madeleine McCann: German prisoner identified as suspect - #26

[Lilly b]

Have I missed something or has MWT already published his documentary report?

I don't think he has yet

 

[worldwatcher]

Madeleine McCann’s parents say Cleo Smith story ‘gives them hope’

It must be another rollercoaster, hanging on between hope and fear,for the McCann family.

Jmo,but Australian LE investigated more professional and wasted no time,unlike PJ.

 

[Chiatos]

I'm sure that Sandra f person said the Russian was called jasper and ivan, could be totally wrong though

I don't recall Sandra having mentioned their names ... however, Ivan was mentioned in a PJ document regarding the disappearance of Lina.
Jasper is new to me?

 

[Lilly b]

I don't recall Sandra having mentioned their names ... however, Ivan was mentioned in a PJ document regarding the disappearance of Lina.
Jasper is new to me?

Think I meant casper

 

[Anxala]

Madeleine McCann’s parents say Cleo Smith story ‘gives them hope’

It must be another rollercoaster, hanging on between hope and fear,for the McCann family.

Jmo,but Australian LE investigated more professional and wasted no time,unlike PJ.

Respectfully, apart from there being 14 years separating the two cases (all the acquired knowledge, lessons learned and technology at their disposal), the Australian LE also didn't have the time-wasting Tapas9 to contend with.

I see no comparisons between this case (and its very thankfully happy ending) and that of MM, other than both were little girls of a similar age. Why the media went with the 'Australia's Madeleine' narrative is odd.

 

[Dlk79]

The Curious case of Raymond Hewlett

I've been looking back through the various news archives about the case, wondering if there may be any clues to link CB to MM's disappearance and upon coming across the RH stories again, a few things struck me.

Firstly, I would say that this man is not a reliable source (or human being for that matter). But rather than discount out of hand everything he has said, it's worth considering there 'might' be elements of truth in amongst his story.

RH first became a suspect in the case back in 2009 after the McCann's private investigators received information from a British couple who raised concerns that RH had appeared to imply he knew details of what had happened to MM upon meeting him in Morocco.

Mr Verran, 46, a former Scots Guardsman who runs an Internet business selling antiques from his home in Fowey, Cornwall, said: 'We got talking at the toilet block. He brought Madeleine up straight away.

'He said his three-year-old daughter looked like her.

'He was worried that because there had been reports that Madeleine may have been spirited away to Morocco, people might think his child was her. Then he suddenly said, "Madeleine's not in Morocco".

'I asked him what he meant and he said he knew Praia da Luz really well.

'He knew the Ocean Club complex where the McCanns had been staying.

'He said he'd been there many times and often parked his van close to the apartment.

'He said he knew the layout of the place, the flat and the restaurant where the McCanns and their friends had been eating.

'He had a lot of detail about the layout. He said there was no way that the child could be taken without the parents seeing. He said they were lying.'

Mr Verran claimed Hewlett had made wild an unfounded claims about the McCanns - both doctors, from Rothley, Leicestershire - and added: 'He said it was common knowledge among locals that Praia da Luz in general and the Ocean Club in particular was a magnet for Romanian gipsies who abduct and then traffic children.

'I asked him why he'd left and come to Morocco. He told me he'd had to leave Portugal in a hurry.

'He said he'd packed his family up in half an hour and just driven out of the area.

'That was just after Maddie was taken.'

RH denied any involvement but as a known paedophile, with several jail time convictions for raping minors, he remained a POI up until his death from throat cancer in Germany in 2010. Not least because he appeared to closesly match a photofit of a man seen casing the OC in the days before the the 3rd. He was allegedly given an alibi for the night in question though by a 15 year old girl.

There were many inconsistencies in his account. The man is most certainly a liar, but even liars tell the truth some of the time. Police intelligence in Germany stated that he had claimed to have set eyes on MM twice before her disappearance, yet he subsequently told reporters he had never set eyes on her. Then he claimed he did know what had happened to her but wanted money from the MM fund to tell them what he knew. The investigators refused.

He was then said to have sent a letter to his estranged son (who hated him and denounced him as a monster) on his death bed saying that MM was stolen by a gipsy gang as part of an organised abduction-to-order effort orchestrated by a trafficking gang in Belgium. This actually ties in with a similar report in the PJ files about a Belgian paedophile ring.

P.J. POLICE FILES: INFORMATION RELATING TO SEX OFFENDERS

According to his son, he claimed to know this because:

"He said a very good gipsy friend he knew in Portugal had got drunk and “let it out” that he had stolen Maddie to order as part of a gang."

'I know who took Madeleine': Paedophile suspect claims abduction clue in deathbed letter

Sound familiar? Could it even be the same "drunken confession" that HB was party to? I don't know whether CB could be technically be described as a gipsy, but he was certainly living that roaming lifestyle and described himself as a "hippy". Could RH have been talking about CB?

Interestingly, in JC's book, HCW makes a rather curious admission at the end of his interview when JC brings up the possibility of MM being the victim of a some high-level paedophile network. HCW says:

‘Could be, could be. And one certainly starts to wonder about the people who are involved in these sorts of crimes – the crimes of child abuse and child . So I would never exclude the possibility that certain (high level) people were involved in this.’

When you consider their respective timelines, I think it's very possible that CB and RH knew one another. Both were living in the Algarve at the same time, for many years. Both were living out of their vehicles, moving from campsite to campsite along the Algrave coast. At the time of MM's disappearance, RH was living on a campsite in Tavira, about an hour drive from PDL. Both were cannabis users and living a 'hippy' lifestyle. Both were handymen/mechanics, making customised alterations to their camping vehicles. Like CB, RH's wife was a German national and the same age as CB (and about 30 years younger than RH). Both were convicted paedophiles prior to their stint in the Algarve.

According to the British couple who reported RH, police in Leicestershire asked them for RH's phone number in order to see if they could track his movements around the 3rd. Apparently Leicester police took note of 2 phone numbers RH was using as well as an email address. You would have assumed that enquiries had already taken place to see if one of these numbers matched the number that called CB for half an hour on the 3rd, but with the disjointed nature of a cross-agency investigation, I suppose it's possible that hasn't been checked.

Raymond Hewlett - A Person Of No Interest *

 

[worldwatcher]

Respectfully, apart from there being 14 years separating the two cases (all the acquired knowledge, lessons learned and technology at their disposal), the Australian LE also didn't have the time-wasting Tapas9 to contend with.

I see no comparisons between this case (and its very thankfully happy ending) and that of MM, other than both were little girls of a similar age. Why the media went with the 'Australia's Madeleine' narrative is odd.

Well,I got another view on that...(on some levels ,that is)

Why PJ wasted so much time,with the Tapas 9 is beyond me...it is not like,the T9 were going anywhere,and every second counts,when a child goes missing.

Easy to say...I know!..& idd,lessons learned,but the investigation wasnt professional from the start.No roadblocks of securing the CS.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080226053520/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/01/wmaddy101.xml
And GA?? Coordinating?? Really??

There were reported sexual assults ,before MM vanished:
-“In those crimes, committed between 2004 and 2010, they say a man broke into properties where British families were staying.”-

Madeleine McCann police seek lone sex attacker
^That should have raising red flags ^

After all,it is the media...IG is also called the ‘German MM.’


All imo,ofcourse.

 

[Dlk79]

So if it wasn't registered to him i.e. a pay as you go - or "burner" - then we have to assume that somehow other witnesses or call records tie it to him.

To be clear, while a "burner" and a "pay as you go" phone are often used as synonymous terms, there is a difference. A "burner" is a phone that is meant to be used for a short period before being discarded. In other words it is purchased specifically for deception and for the user to avoid it being traced back to them. HCW's comments seem to indicate that the phone was not being used with that specific intention, but rather it was a PAYG phone that was CB's personal (normal) number.

 

[Dlk79]

I see no comparisons between this case (and its very thankfully happy ending) and that of MM, other than both were little girls of a similar age. Why the media went with the 'Australia's Madeleine' narrative is odd

It makes me cringe when they call a missing child the 'insert nationality' Maddie. They did it with IG too. The sad truth is it's a way for the tabloids to generate interest in their articles by drawing inferences from a case that the public already knows a lot about. X is the new Y, so to speak. It's not right or fair or respectful to anyone involved in either of the cases.

 

[peanutJelly]

@Dlk79
I had forgotten about RH but you make some good points here. CB could well be described as a gypsy living as he did from his van.
I’m also still unsure whether MN and NF involved somewhere. If CB took a child and wanted to keep her for a while, it would be easier to take her to a female to comfort and look after her. I do feel she knows far more than we do, and may even have traded knowledge to avoid a sentence of her own.

 

[katydid23]

48 Hours
The Puzzle: Solving the Madeleine McCann Case
Season 34
Maureen Maher, Erin Moriarty, Richard Schlesinger

News Magazine
60 mins, TV14, Repeat, HD, Captioned

• 
  Fri 5 Nov, 22:00 ID‑P (Ch. 67)
  

The disappearance of a 3-year-old girl while vacationing with her family in 2007 captured the world's attention. Now, more than 13 years later, there is a suspect in Germany who may have answers.

 

[mrjitty]

Respectfully, apart from there being 14 years separating the two cases (all the acquired knowledge, lessons learned and technology at their disposal), the Australian LE also didn't have the time-wasting Tapas9 to contend with.

I see no comparisons between this case (and its very thankfully happy ending) and that of MM, other than both were little girls of a similar age. Why the media went with the 'Australia's Madeleine' narrative is odd.

Also we know in the Australian case that mobile data and CCTV have been critical - back in 2007 the first iphone and only just been invented, so the ability to "track" people etc was a lot lower.

I do think one key lesson learned, which we have seen in UK cases since, it is critical for the police to get liason in with the family (who also closely observe them ) and eliminate the family (as far as possible) from inquiries.

IMO this was the main mistake on the MM case. So much focus went into the abductor thanks to the JT sighting, which led to the RM fiasco, instead of clearing multiple theories at once. The parent involvement investigation which took place following the case review in the summer, could have happened in the first week.

 

[mrjitty]

One similarity in the case is the difficulty with a transient community at the crime scene. At the end of their holiday, many of the witnesses went home.

Similar in this case. Around 100+ at the campground or close by for the weekend.

 

[SuperdadV8]

The Curious case of Raymond Hewlett

I've been looking back through the various news archives about the case, wondering if there may be any clues to link CB to MM's disappearance and upon coming across the RH stories again, a few things struck me.

Firstly, I would say that this man is not a reliable source (or human being for that matter). But rather than discount out of hand everything he has said, it's worth considering there 'might' be elements of truth in amongst his story.

RH first became a suspect in the case back in 2009 after the McCann's private investigators received information from a British couple who raised concerns that RH had appeared to imply he knew details of what had happened to MM upon meeting him in Morocco.

Mr Verran, 46, a former Scots Guardsman who runs an Internet business selling antiques from his home in Fowey, Cornwall, said: 'We got talking at the toilet block. He brought Madeleine up straight away.

'He said his three-year-old daughter looked like her.

'He was worried that because there had been reports that Madeleine may have been spirited away to Morocco, people might think his child was her. Then he suddenly said, "Madeleine's not in Morocco".

'I asked him what he meant and he said he knew Praia da Luz really well.

'He knew the Ocean Club complex where the McCanns had been staying.

'He said he'd been there many times and often parked his van close to the apartment.

'He said he knew the layout of the place, the flat and the restaurant where the McCanns and their friends had been eating.

'He had a lot of detail about the layout. He said there was no way that the child could be taken without the parents seeing. He said they were lying.'

Mr Verran claimed Hewlett had made wild an unfounded claims about the McCanns - both doctors, from Rothley, Leicestershire - and added: 'He said it was common knowledge among locals that Praia da Luz in general and the Ocean Club in particular was a magnet for Romanian gipsies who abduct and then traffic children.

'I asked him why he'd left and come to Morocco. He told me he'd had to leave Portugal in a hurry.

'He said he'd packed his family up in half an hour and just driven out of the area.

'That was just after Maddie was taken.'

RH denied any involvement but as a known paedophile, with several jail time convictions for raping minors, he remained a POI up until his death from throat cancer in Germany in 2010. Not least because he appeared to closesly match a photofit of a man seen casing the OC in the days before the the 3rd. He was allegedly given an alibi for the night in question though by a 15 year old girl.

There were many inconsistencies in his account. The man is most certainly a liar, but even liars tell the truth some of the time. Police intelligence in Germany stated that he had claimed to have set eyes on MM twice before her disappearance, yet he subsequently told reporters he had never set eyes on her. Then he claimed he did know what had happened to her but wanted money from the MM fund to tell them what he knew. The investigators refused.

He was then said to have sent a letter to his estranged son (who hated him and denounced him as a monster) on his death bed saying that MM was stolen by a gipsy gang as part of an organised abduction-to-order effort orchestrated by a trafficking gang in Belgium. This actually ties in with a similar report in the PJ files about a Belgian paedophile ring.

P.J. POLICE FILES: INFORMATION RELATING TO SEX OFFENDERS

According to his son, he claimed to know this because:

"He said a very good gipsy friend he knew in Portugal had got drunk and “let it out” that he had stolen Maddie to order as part of a gang."

'I know who took Madeleine': Paedophile suspect claims abduction clue in deathbed letter

Sound familiar? Could it even be the same "drunken confession" that HB was party to? I don't know whether CB could be technically be described as a gipsy, but he was certainly living that roaming lifestyle and described himself as a "hippy". Could RH have been talking about CB?

Interestingly, in JC's book, HCW makes a rather curious admission at the end of his interview when JC brings up the possibility of MM being the victim of a some high-level paedophile network. HCW says:

‘Could be, could be. And one certainly starts to wonder about the people who are involved in these sorts of crimes – the crimes of child abuse and child . So I would never exclude the possibility that certain (high level) people were involved in this.’

When you consider their respective timelines, I think it's very possible that CB and RH knew one another. Both were living in the Algarve at the same time, for many years. Both were living out of their vehicles, moving from campsite to campsite along the Algrave coast. At the time of MM's disappearance, RH was living on a campsite in Tavira, about an hour drive from PDL. Both were cannabis users and living a 'hippy' lifestyle. Both were handymen/mechanics, making customised alterations to their camping vehicles. Like CB, RH's wife was a German national and the same age as CB (and about 30 years younger than RH). Both were convicted paedophiles prior to their stint in the Algarve.

According to the British couple who reported RH, police in Leicestershire asked them for RH's phone number in order to see if they could track his movements around the 3rd. Apparently Leicester police took note of 2 phone numbers RH was using as well as an email address. You would have assumed that enquiries had already taken place to see if one of these numbers matched the number that called CB for half an hour on the 3rd, but with the disjointed nature of a cross-agency investigation, I suppose it's possible that hasn't been checked.

Raymond Hewlett - A Person Of No Interest *

Augsburg witness Alexander B. said that CB told him, that he misses his or "a girlfriend" or just friend called "Maria". RH's german wife carries the name "Marianna S.".

Is it known, in which year RH lost a small daughter who felt out of his campervan? Was it before 2007?

 

[mrjitty]

Well,I got another view on that...(on some levels ,that is)

Why PJ wasted so much time,with the Tapas 9 is beyond me...it is not like,the T9 were going anywhere,and every second counts,when a child goes missing.

I think they didn't waste enough time on them. And in fact they were going somewhere - back to the UK. Getting follow interviews took over 1 year IIRC.

All of this stuff needed to be investigated in depth in the first 1-2 weeks, while all witnesses were local.

 

[mrjitty]

The Curious case of Raymond Hewlett

I've been looking back through the various news archives about the case, wondering if there may be any clues to link CB to MM's disappearance and upon coming across the RH stories again, a few things struck me.

Firstly, I would say that this man is not a reliable source (or human being for that matter). But rather than discount out of hand everything he has said, it's worth considering there 'might' be elements of truth in amongst his story.

RH first became a suspect in the case back in 2009 after the McCann's private investigators received information from a British couple who raised concerns that RH had appeared to imply he knew details of what had happened to MM upon meeting him in Morocco.

Mr Verran, 46, a former Scots Guardsman who runs an Internet business selling antiques from his home in Fowey, Cornwall, said: 'We got talking at the toilet block. He brought Madeleine up straight away.

'He said his three-year-old daughter looked like her.

'He was worried that because there had been reports that Madeleine may have been spirited away to Morocco, people might think his child was her. Then he suddenly said, "Madeleine's not in Morocco".

'I asked him what he meant and he said he knew Praia da Luz really well.

'He knew the Ocean Club complex where the McCanns had been staying.

'He said he'd been there many times and often parked his van close to the apartment.

'He said he knew the layout of the place, the flat and the restaurant where the McCanns and their friends had been eating.

'He had a lot of detail about the layout. He said there was no way that the child could be taken without the parents seeing. He said they were lying.'

Mr Verran claimed Hewlett had made wild an unfounded claims about the McCanns - both doctors, from Rothley, Leicestershire - and added: 'He said it was common knowledge among locals that Praia da Luz in general and the Ocean Club in particular was a magnet for Romanian gipsies who abduct and then traffic children.

'I asked him why he'd left and come to Morocco. He told me he'd had to leave Portugal in a hurry.

'He said he'd packed his family up in half an hour and just driven out of the area.

'That was just after Maddie was taken.'

RH denied any involvement but as a known paedophile, with several jail time convictions for raping minors, he remained a POI up until his death from throat cancer in Germany in 2010. Not least because he appeared to closesly match a photofit of a man seen casing the OC in the days before the the 3rd. He was allegedly given an alibi for the night in question though by a 15 year old girl.

There were many inconsistencies in his account. The man is most certainly a liar, but even liars tell the truth some of the time. Police intelligence in Germany stated that he had claimed to have set eyes on MM twice before her disappearance, yet he subsequently told reporters he had never set eyes on her. Then he claimed he did know what had happened to her but wanted money from the MM fund to tell them what he knew. The investigators refused.

He was then said to have sent a letter to his estranged son (who hated him and denounced him as a monster) on his death bed saying that MM was stolen by a gipsy gang as part of an organised abduction-to-order effort orchestrated by a trafficking gang in Belgium. This actually ties in with a similar report in the PJ files about a Belgian paedophile ring.

P.J. POLICE FILES: INFORMATION RELATING TO SEX OFFENDERS

According to his son, he claimed to know this because:

"He said a very good gipsy friend he knew in Portugal had got drunk and “let it out” that he had stolen Maddie to order as part of a gang."

'I know who took Madeleine': Paedophile suspect claims abduction clue in deathbed letter

Sound familiar? Could it even be the same "drunken confession" that HB was party to? I don't know whether CB could be technically be described as a gipsy, but he was certainly living that roaming lifestyle and described himself as a "hippy". Could RH have been talking about CB?

Interestingly, in JC's book, HCW makes a rather curious admission at the end of his interview when JC brings up the possibility of MM being the victim of a some high-level paedophile network. HCW says:

‘Could be, could be. And one certainly starts to wonder about the people who are involved in these sorts of crimes – the crimes of child abuse and child . So I would never exclude the possibility that certain (high level) people were involved in this.’

When you consider their respective timelines, I think it's very possible that CB and RH knew one another. Both were living in the Algarve at the same time, for many years. Both were living out of their vehicles, moving from campsite to campsite along the Algrave coast. At the time of MM's disappearance, RH was living on a campsite in Tavira, about an hour drive from PDL. Both were cannabis users and living a 'hippy' lifestyle. Both were handymen/mechanics, making customised alterations to their camping vehicles. Like CB, RH's wife was a German national and the same age as CB (and about 30 years younger than RH). Both were convicted paedophiles prior to their stint in the Algarve.

According to the British couple who reported RH, police in Leicestershire asked them for RH's phone number in order to see if they could track his movements around the 3rd. Apparently Leicester police took note of 2 phone numbers RH was using as well as an email address. You would have assumed that enquiries had already taken place to see if one of these numbers matched the number that called CB for half an hour on the 3rd, but with the disjointed nature of a cross-agency investigation, I suppose it's possible that hasn't been checked.

Raymond Hewlett - A Person Of No Interest *

I guess the other interpretation is it shows how these sickos/losers like to associate themselves with a huge crime as part of their own fantasies?

 

[SuperdadV8]

Interesting new netflix documentary about south corean serial killer Yoo Young-chul, a.k.a. the "Raincoat Killer". He murdered at least 26 people between 2003 and 2004.

He is artistically gifted in drawing sketches and states in the documentary, that drawing uses to calm him down a lot. Some other circumstances about the investigations were similar to the MM case IMO.

Maybe CB's aim by drawing sketches isn't just about mocking and complaining but being in some kind of rage as well, because he feels like being in a very uncomfortable situation. But he still doesn't talk to give the prosecutors the chance to rule him out finally?!

Very suspicious behavior to me and i've got the verdict, that the possible MM connection could just be the tip of the iceberg....

 

[mrjitty]

To be clear, while a "burner" and a "pay as you go" phone are often used as synonymous terms, there is a difference. A "burner" is a phone that is meant to be used for a short period before being discarded. In other words it is purchased specifically for deception and for the user to avoid it being traced back to them. HCW's comments seem to indicate that the phone was not being used with that specific intention, but rather it was a PAYG phone that was CB's personal (normal) number.

I take your point but I don't see much of a distinction as we don't know his intentions

It's quite possible, as a burglar/drug dealer, he wanted a anonymous number not connected to his name, but not being a "Wire" level dealer, he wasn't changing up every few days.

Or, it never was a "burner" as you say - he's just a guy got a PAYG like many other people who don't get contract phones. Many opt for this despite it being more expensive, because they aren't able to get a contract.

I suspect both factors personally.

 

[Anxala]

It makes me cringe when they call a missing child the 'insert nationality' Maddie. They did it with IG too. The sad truth is it's a way for the tabloids to generate interest in their articles by drawing inferences from a case that the public already knows a lot about. X is the new Y, so to speak. It's not right or fair or respectful to anyone involved in either of the cases.

It really is disrespectful and insensitive and so particularly unhelpful to frantic parents wanting and needing the focus to be solely on their missing child.

Fair enough for comparisons to be made down the line (solved and unsolved cases) if similarities exist, but not when a child suddenly disappears off the face of the earth. No parent/family in that situation wants bleak reminders of or comparisons with other 'lost' children.

I think they didn't waste enough time on them. And in fact they were going somewhere - back to the UK. Getting follow interviews took over 1 year IIRC.

All of this stuff needed to be investigated in depth in the first 1-2 weeks, while all witnesses were local.

It absolutely did. And that's not even to mention how the McCanns themselves led the 'abduction' narrative with their (since consigned to the dustbin of untruths) 'jimmied windows/broken blinds/doors wide open' phone calls to the UK media via their various relatives on the night of the 3rd, putting immediate huge international pressure on the PJ the morning after to follow through on.

Lord, I'm so tired of the PJ-as-idiots narrative, now 14 years on, as if they were operating in isolation and were free from external pressures.

 

[SuperdadV8]

Is it known to our british companions, which year RH went to germany for his cancer treatment?