But she’s blonde. We have to care.
EddyTeddyFreddy
My God think of the irony of that. The parents rented the same car three weeks after the kidnappers/murderers rented it. :eek:
I think there’s only one person who can help us now. Send in Nancy Grace!
seriously, who leaves a four year old alone while they go to dinner?!?!?
re the blood’s age, who’s to say she’s been dead the whole time?
She was three years old at the time she disappeared. A three-year-old’s body, folded up and enveloped by plastic, will fit very nicely into an average-sized suitcase. Find a little-used closet to stash it in, wait three weeks, haul it out and toss it off a bridge into the nearest river, and bob’s yer uncle.
And if some blood happened to leak out of the suitcase while it was in storage, and then got in the rental car, well…
Just sayin’ how they could have done it, not taking sides here one way or t’other.
Nancy Grace is a slacker/amateur.
Send in Nancy Drew!
And if necessary, the Hardy Boys!
Damn the expense!
A note for the humor-impaired: the loss of the child is a tragedy, but the media circus, a black comedy. That needs mocking.
Right! My Corolla is absolutely festooned with blood from my (still very much alive) 15-year-old son. This happens all the time.
Geez-oh-Pete. Either this new “fact” is false, or one or both of the parents did it. It wasn’t the cops, and it wasn’t OJ.
I’m just entertained my one of the relatives being named “Philomena”… what a Harry-Potter-Esque name.
re-read Bosda’s disclaimer if you need to, but I was shocked most by this:
Apparently, Dick may have had something there. I never knew the legalese was so deadly.
I’ve wondered about the leaving a 4-year-old and 2-year-old twins ALONE while they went to dinner. How could they trust that the children would stay asleep? Could Madeleine have been given something to ensure that she stay asleep?
Lots of questions.
Even if the parents are cleared of all suspicion in the Madeleine case, doctors or not, they should be forced to attend parenting classes, and child services should monitor those twins carefully.
Actually, this was my not totally kidding mental process when I read the news.
Not always. Ask the parents of Megan Kanka, Polly Klaas, or Adam Walsh, just to name a few.
:rolleyes:
And the actual meaning of Occam’s Razor (rather than the casual, paraphrased definition used by most people) doesn’t seem to fit here. There don’t appear to be multiple competing theories that are equal in other respects.
My concern and interest in this case is not quite negative. I read the occaisional story about it, and when I saw the news banner talking about how the media is getting ready to label the mother as the suspect, I did read the story.
The blood finding, if it can be borne out by the light of day, is disturbing. I am not of the school of thoughts that parents are usually to blame for disappearing children. As someone else pointed out upthread, we’ve got enough counter-examples of media circus cases where the parents were accused in the court of public opinion, only to have true culprits come out later.
I am going to head over to Paul in Saudi’s corner, myself. Even if this theory ends up being proved in court I still don’t care enough to want to be bombarded by the details every time I get hit by mainstream media.
I wish I could come up with some black humor to go with this post, Bosda’s right - the death of a child is a tragedy, but the media circus needs mocking. I can’t manage that, so I’m going to ignore it.
I’ve not really followed this case, but haven’t the Portuguese police question them at the start of this entire event?
Why bring someone in 5 months into this event? If he/she/they did it, they would have plenty of time to rehearse a story from any angle.
It’s sadly true though, in a vast majority of cases involving children, the parents or other family member had something to do with it. Anyone got the numbers? It’s gotta be something like 85% or higher.
When we talked about this in criminal justice classes in college, I didn’t know whether to find this fact comforting (cause my daughter has good relatives) or disturbing (that so many people can be so horrible to their children).
Your second point is actually quite a good one, IME. I have three little boys, and the 2-year-old tends to wander and disappear, so I’ve sort of lost track of him a few times. I never start assuming that “they” took him, but I start yelling around the house that I can’t find him. He’s usually under the kitchen sink, or in the basement, or the linen closet. We always find him within a minute or two, but kidnapping is certainly not our first guess.
It’s my (extremely limited) understanding from what I’ve read in the news is that under Portuguese law, there are certain questions they cannot ask a witness. So, in order to be able to ask her these more detailed “22” questions, they have to label her a suspect. Is this some sort of legal technicality, or have I completely misunderstood the situation?
I’ve heard that it’s common in some places (though I don’t think the UK is one of them) to leave kids in strollers outside a cafe window while the parent goes inside to have a cup of coffee or such. Not such a great idea, IMHO, nor does it fly well if they try to do it here.
However, I too would like to know where on earth it’s acceptable, if anywhere, to leave small kids in an apartment while the folks go out to eat.
They could have hired a sitter or nanny.
Just saying.
vivalostwages, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the story, but the family was on vacation, and though I don’t approve of their leaving the kids alone, this means (a) they left the kids in a hotel room, which was nearby and (2) hiring a babysitter would have been harder (though not impossible).
I think you are correct. I also read something this morning that “suspects” are afforded certain rights under Portuguese law that others are not, such as the right to remain silent and other important ones. So there may actually be some advantage to her current status (not that being suspected of a crime is ever a good thing).