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Scotland Yard is making a "reappreciation" of the Maddie Process. The
virtual reconstruction made by Portuguese scientists was disregarded.
The English want to make another...
by Hernani Carvalho
No one has reopened the process because there aren't new data regarding
the child's whereabouts. Underway there is a re-evaluation of the
process led by Scotland Yard, that has the cooperation of a unit from
the Regional Section for Criminal Investigation and Prevention of the PJ
of Oporto. It was recently divulged that 37 English police officers have
been, for the past year, reading translations and reassessing Maddie's
process, which was archived by the Portuguese Public Ministry in July
2008, 14 months after the girl's disappearance.
The English police, just in 2011, have already spent 2,2 million euros
in investigations and re-evaluations. During that time period, they have
been in Portugal on four different occasions and have established a
partnership with the Judiciary Police. The latter, in its turn created a
special team "with a more distanced look", wrote Jornal de Noticias,
quoting Pedro do Carmo, deputy director of the PJ. That is, another team
that had nothing to do with the first investigations.
New PJ Team
The new PJ team assigned to cooperate with the English, is coordinated
by Helena Monteiro, who has had a similar role in Carina case, the young
woman who disappeared in Lamego and was later found at the bottom of a
ravine in that same region. This is not the first time that Maddie Case
changed hands. Months before its archival, the process was pulled from
the PJ in Algarve and given to a team in Lisbon, at the time lead by
Paulo Rebelo - without bringing something new into the world or to the
process.
Four years since the archival and five since the disappearance of the
English girl, after the PJ of Portimao/Faro and Lisbon, now it's
Oporto's PJ turn to do the re-evaluation. At a forthcoming reassessment,
probably another PJ team from another region will have it's turn.
More Virtual Reconstructions
A reconstruction is one of the tools of criminal investigation more used
by the police, world wide, in the path towards the discovery of the
origin of a fact and of the truth. It is written in manuals. A
presential re-enactment of what took place in the night that Maddie
disappeared (May 3, 2007) was never done.
The McCanns and the friends who accompanied them at the dinner never
had the temporal availability to participate. The Public Ministry ended
up forgoing that step.
The only known virtual reconstruction was made by the professors Paulo
Sargento (Criminal psychology) and by Pedro Gamito (IT department) of
the Lusofona University, using as basis the statements of the McCanns
and their friends. By means of a specific software, the statements given
to the PJ were evaluated and cross-checked. Thus, one can now understand
better the possibilities of each one of them being at a certain place
and time, as stated by them.
This work by the Portuguese scientists was ignored, but now the Scotland
Yard divulged that they will also use a software program to reconstruct
those events. In English, that might be more enlightening.
Facts
On the night of May 3, 2007, the McCann couple left their three children
alone in the apartment (the twins of two years old, and Maddie with
almost four) and they went out to have dinner with their friends at a
restaurant of the tourist resort where they were staying. A few hours
later after the disappearance of one of the couple's children
(Madeleine), several media and press advisers were deployed to Aldeia da
Luz, Algarve, announcing to the world the abduction of the girl.
What took place inside the apartment from where she disappeared was
never established. It's a fact that no hairs nor traces pertaining to
someone outside the circle of family and friends was ever found. It's a
fact that no one knows what has happened to Madeleine.
Interruption of the Investigation
Since the launch of his book 'Maddie
- The Truth of the Lie'. the former PJ coordinator, Goncalo
Amaral has said: "There was no failure of the investigation, there was
an interruption of the investigation". The man who led the first
investigation into Madeleine's disappearance, was removed from the case
five months later, he acknowledged some errors in the investigation (the
lack of reconstruction, the absence of tests to the twins and also to
the couple and Madeleine's clothes). Failure or interruption, in fact,
what did take place was the archival.
McCann couple & Tapas 7 Virtual Reconstruction
Courtesy of Dr. Paulo Sargento
Made by Pedro Gamito and Paulo Sargento, with a team from Lusofona
University. Circa 2008. Permission was given for this upload. Music
added (still rendering) by the uploader, original is almost silent
except for some background human voice (sounds).
in TVmais, Police Cases, page 112 & page 113, paper edition, 16 to 22
March, 2012
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