Madeleine McCann vanished over seven years ago, but the investigation surrounding what happened to her is an ongoing endeavor that has cost British taxpayers at least £10 Million (which is more than $15.6 Million in USD). Over the course of the past several years, Scotland Yard detectives have interrogated a seemingly countless number of suspects, and the number just keeps growing. The Sunday Express reports that a British gardener is among the expats that detectives have recently quizzed , but he has “strongly denied” any presumed connection to the missing child’s disappearance. The Daily Mail also confirms that the self employed gardener has been questioned by police, but his identity isn’t being revealed through any media reports.
The gardener is one of at least five new potential suspects Scotland Yard has intended to question in regards to Madeleine’s 2007 disappearance. However, he was already questioned in the past, and even cooperated with being DNA swabbed the same year the child vanished. The only DNA ever found in the Algarve apartment where Madeleine disappeared belonged to her and her family members. With SY detectives focusing on so many potential suspects — including a high number of British expats — could they suspect that multiple people are involved with the kidnapping of Madeleine McCann? If multiple people orchestrated and executed the abduction of the little girl, then how have they managed to do so without leaving behind any forensic evidence at the scene of the alleged crime, or anywhere else? It seems that officials believe that forensic evidence has been left behind, but up until recently the technology needed to detect it did not exist.
The Mirror reported earlier in October that there are renewed hopes that a presumed captor’s DNA will be found at the source of Madeleine’s disappearance. Forensic experts with Scotland Yard want to use a “new technique” to look for DNA in the curtains that were hanging in the room where the McCann children slept. The curtains have been in sterile storage for the past few years, and agents believe that they are preserved well enough to extract any forensic evidence. They hope that at least traces of a captor’s DNA will be found, but the window itself never showed evidence of an intrusion — just Kate McCann’s fingerprints. This fact was once widely reported by the mainstream media, but is documented on the McCann Files website.
The disappearance of Madeleine McCann has drawn mixed feelings from the public, which can be clearly seen by taking a look on social media. The hashtag #McCann on Twitter is active 24 hours a day , seven days a week, with conversation and debate about the case — some of which gets extremely heated. In fact, social media has played a huge role in showing the polarity between those who believe a stranger kidnapped the child versus those who believe that there is evidence against the parents. There are also people who simply believe that Kate and Gerry McCann were negligent in leaving the little girl alone, and they believe this facilitated the final outcome, whether a stranger kidnapped the girl or not.
While members of the public debate the case, Scotland Yard has apparently cut back on the number of detectives used in Operation Grange. This was announced at the same time that agents declared that they would be interviewing more potential suspects. If the latest developments are connected, what is the strategy? Perhaps investigators believe they are getting closer to the right suspects in the search for Madeleine McCann.
[Photo Credit: The Mirror ]