# Madeleine McCann's Mom Accused
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [September 7, 2007, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349 "2007-09-07T13:22:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/61 "2007-09-08T18:03:43Z")
[QUOTE=ticker]
Perhaps because the restaurant was just a couple hundred meters away and they trusted themselves to go check every 30mins rather than some resort employee to do more or less the same thing. Or perhaps because she was already chopped into little bits. Who knows?
[/QUOTE]
A couple of hundred meters? jeez man, kids have been snatched when their parents were much closer than that.
If it was my kid these are the options open to me..
1. Use the facilities offered
2. Take the kids with me to dinner
3. Buy food, take it back to the hotel room.
When all is said and done Maddys parents had all day to eat out, fuck the dinner with holiday pals, their kids are on holiday as well.
I wouldn’t have left her alone, never
Finallly, why do the McCanns want to get out of Portugal now, they said they’d stay…suspicious, you bet
---
### Author:  [@DudleyGarrett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DudleyGarrett)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/62 "2007-09-08T18:24:19Z")
Is there a kid who doesn’t leave blood in their parents’ car at some point in their lives?
I’m pretty sure that through the years, being a hyperactive, reckless kid, I’ve dropped at least a gallon in Mom’s cars.
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### Author:  [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/63 "2007-09-08T18:30:32Z")
[QUOTE=DudleyGarrett]
Is there a kid who doesn’t leave blood in their parents’ car at some point in their lives?
[/QUOTE]
But it wasn’t _their_ car, it was one they rented 25 days after she disappeared.
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### Author:  [@DudleyGarrett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DudleyGarrett)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/64 "2007-09-08T18:41:48Z")
[QUOTE=fessie]
But it wasn’t _their_ car, it was one they rented 25 days after she disappeared.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve dropped blood in rental cars too.
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### Author:  [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/65 "2007-09-08T18:50:28Z")
[QUOTE=DudleyGarrett]
I’ve dropped blood in rental cars too.
[/QUOTE]
the child’s blood was found in the car they didn’t have until AFTER she was missing.
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### Author:  [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/66 "2007-09-08T20:16:30Z")
[QUOTE=Flutterby]
IIRC in the previous thread on this, it was brought up that where they were staying has a program that you get the kids in PJs, drop them off to be surprivised while you have supper, and can pick them up afterwards.
It’s a perk of the resort.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks, **Flutterby** ; this fact, if true, would the sequence of events ever more incomprehensible.
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### Author:  [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/67 "2007-09-08T20:28:10Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting]
Thanks, **Flutterby** ; this fact, if true, would the sequence of events ever more incomprehensible.
[/QUOTE]
If???
see post #55
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### Author:  [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/68 "2007-09-08T20:42:07Z")
[QUOTE=wring]
If???
see post #55
[/QUOTE]
I was merely trying to thank Flutterby for the info as soon as I saw his/her post. I hadn’t read 55 until later and did not want to clutter up the thread with another post.
See what you made me do.
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### Author:  [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/69 "2007-09-08T21:32:28Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting]
I was merely trying to thank Flutterby for the info as soon as I saw his/her post. I hadn’t read 55 until later and did not want to clutter up the thread with another post.
See what you made me do.
[/QUOTE]
She, and you’re welcome.
That tidbit makes it incomprehensible to me too, as a parent of a young child who gets into everything I couldn’t imagine leaving him alone for me to go have supper in a seperate building, even if I was sure he was sleeping. He’s woken up or looked like he was sleeping but when I close the door and listen from the next room I hear him talking to his puppy in his bed.
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### Author:  [@Elenfair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elenfair)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2007, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/70 "2007-09-08T23:17:52Z")
[QUOTE=anyrose]
I guess L&O SVU is waiting until the whole thing blows over to write their version (or it’ll be the season premiere) and you can bet your last jar of bacon salt they’ll have the mom as the guilty party
[/QUOTE]
Good call, Anyrose! Question is – SVU, or Criminal Intent? So far, there’s no evidence that a sex crime actually took place, and it IS a high profile crime. Take the Ramsey case, for example – it was a sex crime, but the storyline ended up picked up by CI last season (when the twit claiming to be the guilty one came out of the woodwork). CI also handled the A.N. Smith fiasco. Not necessarily brilliantly.
But hey, your guess is right on the money, eyes have already been on this story at the Chelsea Piers since it all started…
😉
Back to the OP: It’s a freakin’ MESS. It really doesn’t look good for the parents right now. The fact that they are trying to figure out what their legal status is and trying to leave the country also does not augur terribly well for them.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. That little girl deserves her story to be heard – deserves some form of justice. The three ring circus has gone on long enough.
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### Author:  [@SpaceDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpaceDog)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2007, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/71 "2007-09-09T10:14:42Z")
Yeah, thanks **Flutterby** , I’d missed that point in the coverage. I’m not a parent so I’m not in a place to gauge how strange the parents behaviour is. But I will say that everyone does stupid things from time to time, 99.99% of the time nothing bad happens. Maybe they just decided, last minute, to go for a quick bite and just opted to do what they did without fully considering it.
Whilst I agree with **ticker** , I do think there’s going to be some speculation. At least our speculation here is punctuated with facts, informed opinion and isn’t really jumping to conclusions. As opposed to the coverage in the press which is going to take one side or another because that makes a far better story.
Further all of this is important because of the massive coverage of missing kids stories, and how they’re handled. The outcome of all of this will define how the next “kid disappears on holiday” story is covered. I worry that, next time, it’ll not get nearly as much coverage. And maybe that time will be the time it would have helped.
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### Author:  [@PorcelainBarbie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PorcelainBarbie)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2007, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/72 "2007-09-09T11:17:19Z")
This story would have never happened if the parents just got the strollers out and took their damn kids to dinner with them. I don’t care that they wanted a quiet evening alone. The either get room service or take all the kids with them to dinner. If I was on vacation I wouldn’t be able to trust some babysitter in a foreign country to watch my kids.
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### Author:  [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2007, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/73 "2007-09-09T14:21:10Z")
[QUOTE=PorcelainBarbie]
This story would have never happened if the parents just got the strollers out and took their damn kids to dinner with them. I don’t care that they wanted a quiet evening alone. The either get room service or take all the kids with them to dinner. If I was on vacation I wouldn’t be able to trust some babysitter in a foreign country to watch my kids.
[/QUOTE]
Seconded. I have never left my children in the care of a resort’s staff, ever. And I won’t be.
:dubious:
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### Author:  [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/74 "2007-09-09T15:29:28Z")
What I want to know is, since the McCann’s parents are evidently back in England, who’s been watching the twins while they’re running around looking for Madeline? And meeting with the Pope? I can’t see taking a couple of 2-yr-olds to meet the Pope.
Can you imagine the threads – “Keep Your Brats Out of the Holy Water, Fercryinoutloud!”?
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### Author:  [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2007, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/75 "2007-09-09T19:07:27Z")
[QUOTE=EJsGirl]
Seconded. I have never left my children in the care of a resort’s staff, ever. And I won’t be.
:dubious:
[/QUOTE]
This was the point I was trying to make earlier. They had several options that evening. If the young’uns were sleeping, they could have ordered food brought in or something else. I would not have been comfortable leaving the kids unattended for any amount of time, expensive resort be damned.
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### Author:  [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2007, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/76 "2007-09-10T10:04:45Z")
[QUOTE=Words on the Interweb]
And where would police have gotten a sample of Madeleine’s blood to plant, 25 days after she’s been missing?
[/QUOTE]
From the traces supposedly found in the room. But it seems it was ‘genetic material’ and that could easily have come from the child’s toy the mother carries all the time.
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### Author:  [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2007, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/77 "2007-09-10T10:11:14Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
I’m with you. ‘Traces of blood’…Billie-Jo Jenkins?
[/QUOTE]
Right. The Birmingham 5, the Guilford 4, the poor woman imprisoned for years for cot death. The guy doing time for the Dando murder. etc etc.
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### Author:  [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2007, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/78 "2007-09-10T10:19:11Z")
The more I read about the case (in the quality Sunday’s rather than the tabloids) the more I’m coming around to the view that there was some horrible tragic accident (maybe with medication) and the parents have thrown up a smokescreen.
The genetic ‘evidence’ is held by UK experts not to be substantive enough to build a case on though and they point out it’s extremely odd police practice not to have impounded the car.
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### Author:  [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2007, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/79 "2007-09-10T10:26:55Z")
[QUOTE=tagos]
The more I read about the case (in the quality Sunday’s rather than the tabloids) the more I’m coming around to the view that there was some horrible tragic accident (maybe with medication) and the parents have thrown up a smokescreen.
[/QUOTE]
Mmmmm. Think perhaps they dosed her with Benadryl or something to make her sleep, and it was unintentionally fatal?
I feel a GQ coming on…
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### Author:  [@Layla01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Layla01)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2007, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/madeleine-mccanns-mom-accused/418349/80 "2007-09-10T10:33:19Z")
This is looking more like [the Azaria Chamberlain case](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azaria_Chamberlain_disappearance) all the time, down to the bloodstain in the car and charging the mother with the murder. Two of the children were also sleeping with the child when she disappeared. The parents were wrongfully charged and imprisoned for murder, and later released and exonerated. The police really don’t want to go down that road…
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