TRACES of Madeleine McCann's blood have been discovered in the bedroom
of the holiday flat where she was last seen, according to reports in a
Portuguese newspaper.
It was also reported that attempts had been made to wipe away any sign of the
blood.
There is now a growing belief among Portuguese police that Madeleine will not
be found alive and may have died at the flat, possibly while being abducted.
The discovery of potentially vital forensic evidence comes more than three
months after four-year-old Madeleine was snatched from her holiday apartment
while her parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, dined nearby with friends.
Last week, British sniffer dogs and their handlers were called in to search the
apartment in Praia de Luz. The dogs specialise in searching for blood or
bodies.
The newspaper, Jornal De Noticias, reported: "This evidence locates
Madeleine's death inside the apartment, but the investigators are still not
certain it was murder, despite the fact that forensic experts have revealed
that somebody did try to erase the blood traces.
"The theory most favoured by detectives to explain Maddy's death - now
taken as almost certain - is that it involved an accident. The investigators
are convinced that the blood belongs to Madeleine, but they are still holding
back the detailed results of the tests until their suspicions are
confirmed."
The discovery has refocused the investigation on the McCanns' apartment and the
group of friends with whom they were holidaying.
Yesterday, forensic science experts returned to the room to carry out extensive
tests using ultraviolet lights.
Portuguese police called in the specialist help after admitting they lacked the
resources.
The development came as Interpol alerted Portuguese police to a potential link
to Urs Hans von Aesch, 67, a Swiss child abductor, who was on holiday in the
Praia da Luz area when Madeleine went missing. Von Aesch, who killed himself
last week, is the prime suspect in the disappearance of five-year-old Ylenia
Lenhard in north-east Switzerland
last week.
Swiss police have reopened files on five other girls who disappeared in the
area before von Aesch moved to Benimantell on the Spanish coast.
Portuguese police are also keeping another man under surveillance, it was
claimed yesterday. He is believed to match the description of a man seen
carrying a child wrapped in a blanket shortly after Madeleine disappeared.
The development came as a two-day search of official suspect Robert Murat's
garden was called off after officers failed to find any fresh evidence.
Detectives have asked Professor Joao Alveirinho Dias, an oceanographer at the University of Algarve, to use details of currents and
tides off Praia da Luz to assess where a body thrown into the sea on the night
Madeleine was taken could be washed up. |
