Madeleine Beth McCann: Born 5/12/2003- Disappeared 5/3/2007
A perfect family vacation from England to Portugal turned into a families worst nightmare. A three-year old child goes missing, but what happened to her? She was fine, perfectly asleep one minute, and then gone the next. Did somebody take her? Did she walk? Where is she now? Here are some theories on the case…
Theory 1: Her parents did it- Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate, were suspected by the Portuguese police from the very beginning. Police have said there is no way that somebody could have taken her from the bedroom window she was sleeping by because it would be physically impossible to open the window outwards. Also, there was no sign of forced entry, which leads police to suspect that the perpatrator had access to the room. Another possible lead is that police dogs came in to try and find traces of blood and they did, on the place where Madeleine was sleeping, and on her favorite sleeping animal. But why would they do this to their own child? Some people believe that they didn’t mean to, but somehow accidentally killed her and didn’t want people to know, so they covered it up as a missing person’s case. Whatever really happened, the parents have maintained innocence to this day.
Theory 2: She walked out herself- Madeleine was a small child, but she knew where they were. Some think that she wanted to go and find her parents who were at a “tapas bar” about 220 feet away from the apartment they were staying at. The thing that worries most is that Madeleine would have had to walk on a public road in order to get to her parents, which is where she may have gotten lost. This would also make it easier for someone to abduct her from here since she was all by herself in the middle of the night. Skeptics of this theory say that it would be close to impossible for a child of Madeleines size to slide open the heavy glass door to leave the apartment. This was the only way she would have been able to leave since the front door was locked and she was too short to reach the lock to turn it.
Theory 3: Burglery turned bad- A string of break in’s had been occuring right around the time that the McCann’s arrived in Portugal. These burglery’s also had the same way into the house, an open window. Also, all of these break in’s occured on the same block the McCann’s were staying on. Supporters of this theory state that the burglers either kidnapped or killed Madeleine when she woke up and saw what they were doing. At one point, police did have four suspects that were in the right location at the right time to blame. They all had prior records too, but they were waved off because there was little to no evidence to convict them. There have been reports that people have seen a child believed to be Madeleine in Morocco, which would mean that if she was abducted, that she was sold into child slavery. There is a big underground slave trade route through that area, so it is not impossible that it was actulally her.
The disappearance of Madeleine baffles people still to this day. How can a child simply disappear, without a trace? There are countless other theories as well, but there is one thing in common in all of them. That commonality is that Madeleine is gone. Will we ever know what really happened to her? Will her parents ever get closure? Ten years have gone by and still people wonder. Hopefully, we wont have to wonder forever.
Sources: https://www.google.com/search?q=madeleine+mccann&rlz=1CASMAE_enUS658US660&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL9qeawJ7YAhVk34MKHd-0DCIQ_AUICygC&biw=1366&bih=629&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=g02pejqh-GTp8M:
The Mystery Machine 