On May 3, 2007, Kate and Gerry McCann put their three children down for bed: two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie and three-year-old Madeleine. The McCanns were on vacation from their home in Rothley, Leicester in England and spending the week in Praia da Luz in the country of Portugal with several family friends. Kate and Gerry left their three children in apartment 5A of the Ocean Club Resort, where the family was staying, and headed to the resort restaurant to meet their friends for dinner at about 8:30 PM. The restaurant was approximately 50 meters (about 55 yards) away from their apartment where their children slept.
Throughout the next hour and a half, the McCanns and their friends dined and took turns checking on each other’s children. At approximately 10 PM, Kate returned to apartment 5A to find Madeleine gone. Thirteen years later, Madeleine has never been found, and the slew of questions regarding her disappearance have only become more complicated. Was the young girl abducted by a stranger and thrust into the world of human trafficking? Do her mother and father know more than they’ve told investigators? Or was Madeleine a victim of opportunity for a burglar or pedophile?
Who was Madeleine McCann?
Madeleine Beth McCann, known to many as Maddie, was born on May 12, 2003 in Leicester, England to Kate and Gerry McCann. The couple tried for several years to get pregnant, and eventually tried IVF, which resulted in Kate’s pregnancy with Madeleine. Both Kate and Gerry are physicians, with Kate being a general practitioner and Gerry being a cardiologist consultant. The couple met in Glasgow in 1993 and got married 5 years later. Kate eventually quit her position to spend her time working for children’s charities. Gerry is now known as Professor McCann, and is a well known cardiologist and professor of cardiac imagery. Close friends described the couple as inseparable. On the official Find Madeleine web site, Madeleine is described as a happy and outgoing little girl. She loved dolls, dresses, and anything pink and sparkly. She had endless amounts of energy, and loved to run and swim. She was a bright girl, who was a wonderful big sister to her younger siblings, Sean and Amelie. At the time of her disappearance, Madeleine had blonde hair with blue-green eyes. Most noticeably, she had a distinctive dark strip on the iris of her right eye.
Events Leading Up to the Disappearance
(These events are compiled from witnesses and Gerry and Kate’s police statements)
We said that the case began on May 3, 2007, but what were the events leading up to Madeleine’s disappearance? We have compiled witness statements as well as Gerry and Kate’s police statements to establish some context around the trip and the schedules the families followed.
The group of travelers arrived at the Ocean Club Resort on Saturday, April 28th. It was the McCann’s first trip to Portugal. Praia da Luz, meaning ‘beach of light,’ is a small town in the Algarve region of Portugal. It was once primarily a city that profited from its significant fishing industry, however it grew quickly into a tourist and resort area. Praia da Luz was particularly popular with British tourists due to how family friendly it was. Journalists, tourists, and residents have said often how safe the city had always been. In the summertime, the amount of people in the area can triple from the amount of people vacationing in the city. Though it wasn’t known for violent crimes, the Algarve had a significant amount of drug trafficking due to its coast and close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean.
The McCanns reported that they spent their days at the resort following a very similar routine. The family would wake up and eat breakfast in their apartment. At around 9 or 9:30AM, the three children would be dropped off at the resort’s Kids Club. The Kid’s Club was a childcare facility that was on site at the Ocean Club. The children would be supervised by several adults, while they participated in different activities, like art, swimming, and sports.
Due to Madeleine being a different age from her younger siblings, they were in different groups. Another tourist who was staying at the Ocean Club remembered that his daughter, Jessica, who looked very similar to Madeleine, spent time with her at the Kid’s Club. Jessica said that when they went out sailing one day, her straw hat fell into the water. Madeleine was quick to jump into the water to help her friend out.
At around 12:30PM, the children were picked up from the Kid’s Club by one or both of their parents, and brought back to their apartment for lunch or to one of the on-resort restaurants. After lunch, the family would go to the pool at the resort for about 45 minutes to an hour and spend time swimming and enjoying the sun. Kate and Gerry would then take the children back to the Kid’s Club where they would stay until dinnertime.
After dinner, the children would return to the apartment for a bath, play-time, a few bedtime stories, and then bedtime. Some days, the family would venture to surrounding beaches. Both Kate and Gerry said that they noticed nothing or no one out of the ordinary throughout their stay.
For the last four nights prior to Madeleine’s disappearance, Kate and Gerry would put the three children to bed, and leave the apartment to enjoy dinner and drinks with their friends at the Tapas restaurant, approximately 50 meters from their apartment. Their friends also left their children in each of their apartments. The adults had developed a system, where an adult would go check on all of the children every so often. A waiter at the restaurant said that the group’s routine was “set in stone” and it seemed as though it wouldn’t be difficult for someone watching to realize this.
The Day of the Disappearance
So let’s get to the day of Madeleine’s disappearance. As with any case, there will be varying reports by different witnesses and we will do our best to let you know when there conflicting reports or timelines.
On Thursday, May 3, the McCann’s day began just like their other vacation days had. They awoke, had breakfast in their apartment, dropped the children off at the Kid’s Club around 10 AM, and Kate and Gerry went for a walk. During breakfast, the couple recalled Madeleine asking them why they didn’t come to her and Sean when they were crying last night. Kate and Gerry both said that they didn’t recall hearing either child crying. The two returned to pick up the children around 12:30PM and brought them back to their apartment for lunch, before heading to the resort pool. This is where the last photo of Madeleine was taken. Sitting on the edge of the pool beside her younger sister and father, Madeleine was wearing white shorts, a pink top and a white bucket hat. She has a small braid in her hair and is grinning from ear to ear.
The time on the photo reads 2:29PM, however the McCann’s advised that the clock on the camera was one hour ahead, and the photo was actually taken at 1:29PM.
At 3 PM, the children are taken back to the Kid’s Club. At about 5:20PM, after a jog, Kate met Gerry and the children at the Tapas restaurant, where the children were eating dinner. Kate recalled asking Madeleine if she was sad that the rest of the Kid’s Club children went to the beach without her that day. Madeleine said no, that she was just very tired. She even asked Kate to carry her back to the apartment. At 5:40, Kate and Gerry took them back to the apartment, then Gerry headed to his hour long tennis game.
At 6:30, Gerry asked one of his traveling companions, David Payne, to check on Kate at the apartment, to see if she needed any help getting the children to the small recreation area where they were planning to meet the other children for a short playtime before bed. Kate said that they decided against going to play due to how tired Madeleine was. At 7:00, Gerry returned to the apartment and helped Kate to put the children to bed. The children had been sleeping in one bedroom. The room had two twin beds, one against the wall by the door and one across the room against a wall with a window. There were two travel cribs set up in the middle of the room for the twins. Madeleine slept in the bed that was directly to the left once you entered the room. Kate knew that Madeleine sometimes woke up and got out of bed, but it never happened until 2-3AM. She also remembered that she and Gerry made sure to secure all of their medications out of the children’s reach.
Afterwards, the couple showered and shared a bottle of wine, before leaving around 8:35PM and heading to the Tapas restaurant, just 50 meters away from their apartment. They were the first of their group to arrive at the restaurant. At 8:55 PM, appetizers were ordered, and Matt Oldfield, another travel companion, went to check on his own children and hurry along another couple.
At 9:05, Gerry returned to his apartment to check on his children. Reports differ, as does Gerry’s police statements.
- In his first statement on the day following Madeleine’s disappearance, Gerry said that he entered the apartment through the front door, using a key.
- However, in his second statement, a week later, he said that he used the sliding back patio door, which had been left unlocked. It is believed that every night that the couple went to the Tapas restaurant, the patio door was left unlocked, so that their friends would be able to check on the children.
- Whichever way he entered the apartment, he saw that the door to the children’s bedroom was open slightly more than he remembered, however found that all three children were fast asleep. On his walk back to the restaurant, Gerry ran into another tourist that he knew, Jeremy Wilkins. He talked to him for a few minutes on the small road leading down from the apartment.
At this time, another traveling companion of the McCann’s, Jane Tanner, walked up the small road, unnoticed by Gerry and Wilkins, heading to check on her own child. Tanner saw a man walking across the top of the road, carrying a small child wearing pajamas. While she noticed the man, she didn’t think much of it, as many parents were picking their children up from the night time Kid’s Club. Both Tanner and Gerry returned to the Tapas restaurant.
At 9:30, Kate got up from the table to check the children, but Matt Oldfield offered to check on the McCann children while he checked on his own. Oldfield entered apartment 5A and noticed that the children’s bedroom door was open. He could see that the twins were both in their cots, but didn’t not visualize Madeleine from the angle where he stood. He checked on his own children and returned to the restaurant.
At 10PM, Kate walked to the apartment to check her children. When she entered, she noticed that the children’s bedroom door was completely open. A draft seemed to blow the door shut, which she found odd. She opened the bedroom door back up and found both of the twins to be in their cots, however Madeleine’s bed was empty, her soft pink cuddle-cat toy still in the bed. The window and shutters were wide open, as well as the curtains, of which Kate was positive that she had closed. Kate stated that she quickly searched the entire apartment, before running down towards the Tapas restaurant yelling, “Madeleine’s gone! They’ve taken her!”
Very soon after Kate discovered that Madeleine was missing, staff, other tourists, and residents around the Ocean Club Resort began searching the surrounding area for the little girl. Gerry went with a friend to the reception area of the resort to urge them to call the police again. Several officers heard the radio traffic and diverted to the resort to assist in the search. The GNR, the National Republican Guard of Portugal was the first on scene. Initial assumptions by police were that Madeleine likely wandered off and had fallen asleep. The searches continued along the beach area, the pool, the children’s play area, and throughout the resort area. At midnight, the head of the GNR alerted the PJ, a higher group of investigators in Portugal, similar to the FBI.
Goncalo Amaral, the chief investigator assigned to the case, sent out an inspector and investigator to the apartment. They found a messy apartment, with people walking in and out of Madeleine’s bedroom and the McCann’s apartment. Doors and cupboards were opened, and belongings were thrown around. Nothing had been preserved. Regarding the initial approach to the disappearance and the scene, Amaral said “I won’t say it was done badly, but inadequate.” Kate was insistent that Madeleine had not wandered off. At this point, police had concluded that this had become a criminal investigation and that it was very unlikely that Madeleine had just walked off.
One of Amaral’s first priorities was to speak to the others that had traveled with the McCanns. The rest of the adults that had traveled with the McCanns became known as the Tapas Seven: Jane Tanner and Russell O’Brian, Matthew and Rachael Oldfield, David and Fiona Payne, and Fiona’s mother, Diane Webster. Each of these couples had brought their children on vacation with them, and had also left them in their respective apartments during dinner that evening. Jane Tanner was quick to tell investigators of the man that she’d seen, terrified that she’d seen Madeleine’s abduction take place. I read that the questioning of the other couples did not take place until the following day, at which time Jane brought up the guy she saw, but it was not mentioned the night of the abduction.
The apartment was sealed off and forensics was sent in to investigate. They lifted fingerprints from the patio doors, the shutter and the window in the children’s room. The only prints found on the window belonged to Kate. Contrary to her previous statement, upon police arrival, they found the shutters to the window in the children’s room to be open only about a hand’s width. They saw no signs of forced entry. There was no obvious evidence of a crime in the children’s room, and police saw nothing that pointed to a kidnapping.
The McCanns were frustrated from the beginning. Not only was their daughter missing, but they felt as though things were moving very slowly, not to mention there was a language barrier between themselves and the investigators. Gerry called several family members in England, who contacted every news outlet that they could think of. Within 9 and a half hours of Madeleine having been found missing, her face was on national news. The McCanns were doing everything that he felt they could to help find their daughter. Countless journalists were sent from across the world to Portugal to cover the story of Madeleine’s disappearance. The public quickly became obsessed with the young girl who had seemingly vanished without a trace.
Amaral urged his team of the necessity to stick to protocol. They questioned neighbors and searched in houses around the resort, and looked through surrounding surveillance footage, but found nothing. 24 hours had passed, and absolutely no sign of Madeleine had been found. Kate, still frustrated with the investigation and lack of progress, told a friend over the phone that she felt like the police were searching as though they were simply searching for a lost dog. She sent a text to another friend saying, “I have no faith in the Portugese police, please help.”
As the PJ continued their search, they remained tight-lipped. Though frustrating for the McCanns, this was the law for their investigations. On May 4, Gerry and Kate made their first plea on national television for the return of their daughter.
“…Words cannot describe the anguish and despair that we are feeling as the parents of our beautiful daughter Madeleine…Please, if you have Madeleine, let her come home to her mommy, daddy, brother, and sister.”
The parents vowed to remain in Praia da Luz until their daughter was found.
“Madeleine is a beautiful, bright, funny, and caring little girl. She is so special. Please, please do not hurt her. Please do not scare her. Please tell us where to find her. We need our Madeleine. Sean and Amelie need Madeleine, and Madeleine needs us. Please give our little girl back,” said Kate.
For part two, click here.
