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For the first time the News of the
World takes you right INSIDE the holiday flat where
Madeleine McCann was snatched one year ago. |
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There was room for the
kidnapper to hide inside Maddie's fitted
wardrobe. Outside t
he room, bloody
footprints were found |
We are the ONLY media organisation in the world to
be invited in to take these exclusive pictures which
reveal startling new evidence and insights into the
crime mystery that has shocked millions.
Click here for first video from inside the kidnap
apartment
Our detailed survey of the flat
reveals a host of places Maddie’s abductor could
have hidden when it’s most likely he was almost
caught in the act by dad Gerry as he checked on her
and twins, Sean and Amelie, at 9.05pm on May 3 last
year.
MORE: McCann patio NOT visible from
tapas bar
But our on-site reconstruction proves
that if the kidnapper was already in the flat, as
the McCanns fear, he had
a full TEN SECONDS to conceal himself after hearing
Gerry open the patio doors and enter the apartment.
And he had no fewer than FOUR
boltholes to choose from—behind Madeleine’s BEDROOM
DOOR, inside her roomy WARDROBE, in her parents’
nearby BEDROOM or in the family BATHROOM.
Our poignant picture at the top of the page also
reveals the view into Madeleine’s bedroom that must
haunt family friend Matthew Oldfield.
It highlights the tragic but innocent error he made
when he checked on the children at 9.30pm while the
McCanns were at the
nearby tapas bar with the other adults in the party.
From the hall, where he looked into
the room, our pictures show that Matthew could only
see the bottom corner of Madeleine’s bed.
The twins’ travel cots were beyond on the floor in
full view. Seeing them sleeping, he assumed—most
probably wrongly—that all was well.
The telltale sign that the kidnapper could already
have struck was the open bedroom door—for Gerry had
closed it just 25 minutes earlier.
Culprit
Our photos heartbreakingly spell out that if Matthew
had only walked a few feet further into the room he
could have raised the alarm 35 minutes earlier,
giving the police a real chance of catching the
culprit.
And our photograph of the room, above right, shows
the scene that confronted mum Kate when she arrived
at 10pm—her three-year-old daughter Madeleine gone
and the rolldown window
shutter OPEN.
Tellingly, she had found the bedroom door now
closed, blown shut by the draught from the open
window looking out on to the road below.
Standing on the very spot, it was not hard to
imagine Kate’s shock as the horrible truth sank in
after three seconds of disbelief.
The view of the wardrobe in Maddie’s
room, right, shows the spot where controversial
forensic “evidence” was found——a bloody footprint
which was visible to the naked eye.
Inconclusive lab tests found there was a “moderate”
chance the blood was Madeleine’s.
There was a report that this footprint matched
another in the McCanns’
hire car—although there has never been any
confirmation of this.
As we were led through the front door to apartment 5A at the Mark Warner Ocean Club
in Praia da Luz on
Portugal’s
Algarve
coast it was like turning back the clock.
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Fiend's bolthole? The
McCanns'
bedroom |
Holiday
kitchen: Where Kate cooked for the kids
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Lounge: Where Maddie and
the twins played |
The rooms are now eerily silent but it is easy to
imagine the excited chatter and kiddies’ laughter
that filled the flat right up until the night Maddie
vanished last year.
If one year on, the News of the World found clues,
surely the detectives could have established more AT
THE TIME? Crucial DNA evidence could have been lost
during those early hours.
The abductor must have touched
windows, doors, shutters, particularly if he was
disturbed and had to stay longer than he planned.
It is hard to accept that absolutely no telltale
fibres or hairs were left behind.
The stillness and silence of the apartment now is
just as it would have been after the
McCanns left the
children asleep in bed that fateful night.
And our team heard for themselves how much noise an
intruder would have made— reinforcing the theory
that this was not an opportunistic snatch but
carefully planned.
When the bedroom shutter is opened by
a pull-cord it makes a loud piercing creak that
could easily have woken the youngsters or alerted
Pam- ela
Fenn, the woman living
upstairs.
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LITTLE Maddie’s bed,
where she slept on holiday, is on the
left in this photo—covered with a simple
blue-check sheet. Only one bottom corner
of it could be seen by the
McCanns’
friend Matthew Oldfield as he glanced
through the door. Next to Maddie, on the
floor, the twins’ travel cots were
placed in the empty space between the
single beds. The bed below the window
was empty. This window was originally
thought to be the point of access where
the abductor broke into the room while
the three children were sleeping. Our
evidence shows this was unlikely. |
This is crucial evidence as it shows the difficulty
of entering the property by the window and suggests
the likelihood that the kidnapper gained access by
the front door or even the rear patio doors.
It also underlines theories that the abductor
probably had crucial inside knowledge of the
apartment’s interior. Even walking across the
ceramic tiled floors in the wrong sort of footwear
could have raised the alarm.
After the police finished their investigations
inside the bedroom,
the walls were painted white.
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ERROR: Matthew Oldfield
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They were said to have been spattered with small
traces of blood, but police investigations into
that,
as into so much else, came to nothing.
Now the rest of the flat has been redecorated and is
ready to welcome more holidaying families to
Portugal.
But it will take more than a lick of emulsion to
remove the terrible images seared into every
parent’s mind just one year ago.
Help
Someone, somewhere has
information about Madeleine that could be the
breakthrough the
family have been waiting for.
Anyone with information is urged to
contact:
The
family investigation hotline on +44 845 8384699
or email
investigation@findmadeleine.com.
PORTUGESE POLICE -
0035 1282 405 400
CRIMESTOPPERS - 0044 1883 731 336
NEWS OF THE WORLD - 0044 207 782 1001 or
Newsdesk@notw.co.uk
Click here for more information about
the reward |
