MADELEINE: POLICE TO SEARCH SHRINE FOR BODY

POLICE in Portugal believe Madeleine McCann may be buried at one of the holiest sites of the Catholic Church

Officers were last night planning to launch a search at Fatima in central Portugal.

Devout Kate and Gerry McCann made a pilgrimage there three weeks after their daughter vanished from their holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.

Just four days later they rented a car which police believe the couple used to return to the shrine and dispose of Madeleine’s body.

The search in Fatima is said to be one of a series to be carried out over the next few days. It comes as it was claimed yesterday that Kate could be charged with her daughter’s murder.

In just five weeks the McCanns clocked up 1,709 miles in the car and police want to question them about every journey they made. The couple claim they ran up the mileage making

They were picking up and dropping off family and friends who stayed with them as they mounted their campaign to find Madeleine, who vanished on May 3.

But a police source told the Daily Express yesterday that officers were not satisfied with the explanation the McCanns gave them.

They now believe the couple made the 500-mile return trip to Fatima to dispose of their daughter’s body.

It is one of the few places in Portugal outside the Algarve that the McCanns are known to have visited in the days after Madeleine disappeared.

Officers want to examine a pasture called the Cova da Iria near the village of Aljustrel a mile from Fatima – where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three children in 1917.

Police believe Madeleine died as a result of an accident and her body was hidden before being moved in the McCanns’ hire car.

They are convinced Gerry and Kate McCann’s devotion to their faith played a key role in how they supposedly disposed of the body.

The McCanns’ visit to Fatima on May 23 was the first of a series of organised trips to raise awareness for their campaign to find their missing daughter.

By the time they signed a rental agreement on a Renault with Budget Rentacar at Faro Airport on May 27, Fatima was one of the few places in Portugal they had been to. Detectives are said to be “very concerned” about the high mileage of the hire car and believe the couple may have travelled a long distance to dispose of Madeleine’s body.

A source close to the investigation said: “We are looking for a final resting place for the little girl.

“We now believe the movements of the car in the days after it was hired are the key to solving the mystery.

“Everywhere they have been will be thoroughly examined. They did not know Portugal well. The only familiar places will be the ones they visited.

“They have said the only places they drove to were around the resort and to and from the airport but that does not account for the mileage they did in the car.”

Body fluids with an 88 per cent DNA match to Madeleine were found in the spare tyre well under the carpet in the boot of the Renault along with clumps of the youngster’s hair.

During police interviews the McCanns were shown a video of a sniffer dog “going crazy’’ when it approached their hire car.

Police had previously been working on the theory that Madeleine’s body was dumped in the sea near the beach in Praia da Luz.

The British dogs brought in by South Yorkshire Police allegedly detected a trail of death from the family’s Ocean Club apartment down to the sea front.

Experts in tidal movements were called in to try to establish scientifically where a body may have been washed up. Another theory was that Madeleine’s body was placed in a sack and weighed down with rocks.

Fatima is so full of tourist wandering around, it would have been like getting rid of the body in Time Square.

In the immediate vicinity of the shrine, yes.

If one walks fifteen minutes from Times Square (which is so packed with people shoulder to shoulder it is hard to stay on the sidewalk) one can find oneself all alone in Manhattan by an empty pier on the Hudson.

I'm going to guess that if one strays somwhat outside the tiny village of Fatima, there are secluded places there as well.

“As a mom I would NEVER have left babies for 1/2 hr or whatever they said. That fact alone makes me a bit suspicious. Anyone else?”

They were in a resort that they thought was safe and that they had been to before. Where they were eating was 100 yards from their villa where the children were. That’s about the distance of a medium sized backyard. They were close. Two of the dinner attendees in their party (mostly other doctors) went to check on the kids. One of the dinner guests thought she saw a man carrying a small child. Could have been the real perpetrator that she saw.

How many of you have gone out in your backyards while your children were asleep in your homes, hmmmm? I would bet plenty of you. You can be sleeping in another room and someone can come in a window and swipe your kid. That’s what happened to the little girl that was buried alive down in Florida, Mark’s little girl Jessica Lunsford. Her grandparents were asleep and the perp came in through a window and led Jessica out through the front door without the grandparents waking up. It can happen to anyone. No parent is tatooed to their children’s side every single minute of the day. Give these parents a break. They must feel terrible and their punishment, if you must have one, is that their child is gone, and who knows what has happened to her if she is still alive.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese police are a joke, and are vicious to boot by trying (with a new ridiculous theory a day) to pin this on the parents to cover up their own incompetence. They wanted the McCann’s out of their country and they have succeeded. So the McCann’s get it in the jugular twice, now by being falsely accused by a bunch of Inspector Clousseau’s. And to think there are those out there who can’t figure this out. What is that old phrase, a sucker is born every day.

I thought I heard/read that the McCanns admitted to having giving some kind of sleeping drug. Perhaps it was on Greta’s show. Anyway, she did have a ‘timeline’ of sorts. Interestingly, I recall that the dinner party was with other vacationing UK doctors, some of whom also left their children to go to dinner. AND, one of the them, a male doctor and I can’t remember his name, was either sent or volunteered to go and check on the McCann children. It is unknown whether or not he entered the room or just listened at the door.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.