A
SERIAL paedophile linked to the
Madeleine McCann
case was yesterday
jailed for life for murder.
Charles O'Neill
has repeatedly refused to be quizzed by detectives working for Maddie's
parents
Kate
and Gerry.
But
the private eyes will now try again. O'Neill, 47, is believed to have
been in
Portugal when Maddie, then three, vanished from an
apartment
in
Praia da Luz
on the Algarve in May 2007.
Yesterday he was sentenced for killing
mum-of-three
Allison McGarrigle
who threatened to reveal he and gay lover
William Lauchlan were abusing a child.
Ex-boxer O'Neill and Lauchlan, 33, strangled Allison 13 years ago in
Largs, Ayrshire.
They
dumped her body at sea and it has never been found.
The
High Court in Glasgow ordered O'Neill to serve a minimum of 30 years and
Lauchlan, a minimum of 26 years.
They
were handed a further 10 years each for abusing two boys aged six and
14.
The
pair had been jailed in 1988 over 31 charges of drugging and assaulting
young children but were freed in 2002.
They
fled to Spain and set up a cleaning business for holiday apartments.
They
travelled to Portugal several times.
In
April 2004 they abducted, drugged and abused a 15-year-old English boy
in Spain.
O'Neill was still there three years later when seven-year-old Spanish
Jeremy Vargus
vanished from Gran Canaria.
Two
months later Maddie went missing - and O'Neill was thought to be on the
Algarve at the time.
Jeremy's mother Ithaisa Suarez, 24, and Kate, 41, from Rothley, Leics,
have written to each other regularly.
Kate
and Gerry have also included information about the Jeremy case on their
website.
Last
night the McCanns' spokesman
Clarence Mitchell
confirmed: "Investigators
have been fully aware of O'Neill and his background but have not been
able to take him any further forward as an active line of
investigation."
a.lazzeri@the-sun.co.uk |
