Madeleine v Rocha Negra

http://www.cmjornal.pt/multimedia/videos/detalhe/jovem-de-16-anos-morre-apos-cair-de-uma-falesia-em-lagos

A boy of 16 years old fell to his death on Tuesday, 29 May 2018, from a height of 100m on the cliffs above Rocha Negra, between the beaches of Porto de Mós and Luz.

Multiple authorities were involved in attempts to try to rescue him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene of the incident. Due to the difficulty of the terrain, his body had to be retrieved by sea.

He was with a teenage girl at the time. Presumably she was the one who raised the alarm. It is unlikely that a passer-by would spot a body at the bottom of the cliffs, based on personal experience.

The beach at Porto de Mós is much quieter and less touristy than Luz. Heading west from the Porto de Mós beach is a wide, flat, baked earth track. It starts a sea level, but surprisingly quickly ascends to the top of the cliffs. The track itself is 100% safe, because it is around 3m away from the edge of the cliff. You have to deliberately go over to the lip of the cliff before you are in danger.

The track runs from the beach at Porto de Mós to the trigonometry point on the hills overlooking Luz. The track is busier than one might think, for all sorts of reasons.

One is that ramblers like to do the walk from Porto de Mós to the trig point. The path is flat and the incline is fairly gentle, so it is an easy walk. An amble that is pleasant all year round. Then you come to the trig point above Luz, south of Bela Vista, and an opportunity for a chocolate box photo over Luz. The media love this as a special viewpoint.

From the trig point you have choices. One is just to do an easy amble back to Porto de Mós. Many pick this, because it is the simplest option.

If you wish instead to get down from the trig point to Luz, you have 3 alternative routes. This same choice would have faced Kate and Gerry McCann when they went jogging from apartment 4G, where they had been rehoused by Mark Warner at the Ocean Club. There are 3 routes up and down the hill. One route is a nightmare, one route is not joggable, and the third looks bad but it turns out to be easy. Mountain bikes go up and down it regularly.

I have no idea which route Gerry and Kate took.

The details of the 16 year old boy who died in the cliff fall are at best sketchy. Most of what you have in this post is local knowledge of Luz and its environs.

Madeleine – jogging v Freud

According to his son Matthew, Sir Clement Freud was in the UK when Madeleine went missing. Unless the family avoided the news, it is reasonable to assume that they matched up the disappearance of Madeleine McCann with Luz, the place in which they had owned the villa Casa da Colina, and which they now rented for holidays.

Kate’s book “Madeleine” has the following. “ At the beginning of July we received the following letter. Dear McCanns. I have a house in P da L, been ashamed of the intrusion to your lives by our media … and if you would care to come to lunch/dinner at any time before Wednesday next, do ring and let me know. I cook decent meals. Sincerely, Clement Freud.”

‘Do ring’ requires a phone number and there is none in this extract, so presumably there was a bit more that Kate McCann chose not to publish.

This letter clarifies that Sir Clement was following the media. However, it is a bit vague of the date the letter was delivered.

Up until 2^nd July, the McCanns were in apartment 4G. Then they moved to 27 Rua das Flores.

Casa da Colina was owned in 2007 by Philip Wright. His phone number was 262 *** 879. Gerry McCanns phone records show 4 calls to the villa land-line, two when the first visit occurred in early July, and two around the time they visited when they had been made arguidos.

The first call was on 3 July 2007 at 21:19 and lasted 3 minutes and 31 seconds. Presumably this was when Gerry established the letter was not a hoax, and arranged a date and time for the visit. The second call was on 4 July 2007 at 10:01am and lasted 1 minute and 1 second. That could have been confirmation, or possibly asking if it was OK to bring 3 adult friends and the twins.

The date of the first call suggests the letter was delivered by hand to apartment 4G, or the Ocean Club reception. Since Kate’s book raised the possibility of a hoax, clearly the McCanns did not meet Freud when the letter arrived.

Turning to the jogging aspect, in the Sun story linking Freud to the McCanns a neighbour said the couple were in the vicinity several times, implying more was going on than just the two visits in Kate’s book. This ignores the fact that the logical route for a jog from apartment 4G to the top of the cliffs runs beside Casa da Colina, the villa used by Freud as a holiday home.

So when the McCanns used this route, each time they would pass the neighbour once on the way up, and once on they way back down.

When the McCanns moved to 27 Rua das Flores, this route makes little or no sense. To get to the very bottom of the road leading up to the cliffs, the option is jog or take a car. The jog from 27 Rua das Flores to the start of ascent point involves some of the busiest roads in Luz, thus unpleasant and dangerous. Driving in a car seems highly unlikely, as the McCanns then had a new hill route on their doorstep, up Rua dos Hibiscos, past the water tower at the top, and out towards Espiche, if they wished. This route is fairly quiet and quite pleasant. We lived close to the water tower for a couple of months, and Rua dos Hibiscos was my preferred dog-walking route.

In summary, from apartment 4G the jog past Casa da Colina is logical, while from 27 Rua das Flores it is not.

Then there are the jogging photos. These are from Pamalam at http://www.mccannfiles.com/id9.html

“Saturday, 19 May 2007. Kate and Gerry go jogging at 7.00am in the morning, to the monument at the top of the steep cliff that overlooks Praia da Luz. They reach it in 19 minutes.”

I had only seen one jogging photo, and I was laboriously trying to pinpoint the precise location by lining up the church with the buildings behind. When I clapped eyes on the second, everything became much easier. They are at the position in the street where the surface changes from cobbles (calcadas) to packed earth.

That happens to be very near the top of the road, where it comes to an end at a large plateau underneath the cliffs. The plateau is a favoured haunt for dog walkers, who drive up and park at the top end of the road, and then let their dogs off the leash.

If you look at the map again, the entrance gate to Casa da Colina is where there is a little offshoot to the top & left and then the street runs up alongside the villa, while the jogging photos were taken nearly at the point where the road bends to a halt. Due to a bend in the road, I can’t see anything of Casa da Colina in the photos. There is a villa that is further up the hill, and ones in the background that are not on this route.

These are not the first jogging photos at Pamalam. Those appear on Wednesday, 16 May 2007. The jogging outfits are very similar, but not identical. There is no information as to the route taken by the pair on that occasion.

From memory, Kate’s book ‘Madeleine’ describes her first jog as being solo, which would date it to prior to 16 May 2007. And she describes the route as being to the top of the cliffs, which would mean she had taken this route before.

Quite possibly, the two pictures from Saturday, 19^th May, are from a pre-arranged photo shoot, presumably for feeding the media snippets to keep them on-side. It seems an odd time to do it, given that the news focus at this time was Robert Murat as an arguido, but who know what ‘deal’ was struck with the media. It could be along the lines of ‘we’ve done our bit so give us a bit of private time.’

Certainly, there wasn’t a photographer at the top of the road by chance at 7am simply hoping. The spot and the framing have been carefully chosen to capture Kate and Gerry, to get enough background to scream Luz, and to carefully frame the photographs to drop distracting surroundings. And whoever took the photographs was not jogging up the hill ahead of Gerry and Kate. These two photos were taken by someone standing in the same spot and using a decent zoom lens.

If it was not an agreed and authorised photo shoot, the alternative is that the photographer knew that Kate and Gerry had an early morning jog routinely going to the top of the cliffs, watched Kate and Gerry set off at 7am, then drove to the plateau and simply waited in the right spot to capture the images.

There isn’t enough information in the photo from 16^th May to locate where and when Kate and Gerry were jogging. The fact that Gerry has his t-shirt off suggests it was not early morning, but if they were coming back from the cliff top, it is possible that the hard ascent up from the plateau to the top was enough for him to want to cool down and remove his shirt.

This wander through the jogging photos has reminded me of some interesting points related to the plateau, but as this post is already long I will return to those to another time.

But to finish off, consider the time the run took. 19 minutes from apartment 4G, past Casa da Colina, across the plateau and up to the cliff tops sounds about right for a couple of experienced joggers. Anyone suggesting the McCanns used this for body disposal or body concealment has to factor in the time required to carry a fairly heavy weight to either the plateau or to the cliff top. It is totally inconsistent with the timings of 3 May 2007, so some interim storage point has to be built in.

Neil Berry – the good, the bad and the ugly

On the stats page on my blog I get what I would call ‘washed’ information. That is, I get some details of where readers come from and some vague details of why they have arrived at my blog.

Neil Berry has been on top of the pile for the reasons for visitors for about 2 to 3 weeks. I don’t get enough information to be sure why this is the case.

For the last few days the uppermost reason for people finding my blog has been ‘neil berry sex offender liverpool’. Since I don’t think I have ever mentioned Liverpool, and since I don’t recall talking about paedophiles other than as one line to be investigated in the Madeleine McCann case, and since I have never portrayed Neil Berry as implicated in the Madeleine McCann case, I think we are talking about the ugly.

If you look at Neil Berry in the PJ files, from a point of view about finding out about the man, you get very little information. Married, 2 kids, visited Luz in April/May 2007, got in the company of Rajinder Balu, was in England when interviewed by Leicestershire Police on 23 Apr 2008. Oh, and he drinks and he watches football. His home address was in Sutton in Greater London, therefore not connected to Liverpool.

There is a Dr Neil Berry in the Chemistry department of the University of Liverpool. He looks vaguely like the Neil Berry of Madeleine fame, except for a significant amount of hair recession, a larger nose and a much larger chin.

So, cut to the chase. Neil Berry as interviewed in Luz re Madeleine McCann. Neil Berry, University of Liverpool. Neil Berry, sex offender in Michigan, USA. Three photos, three quite different Neil Berry’s.

Neil Berry in Luz

Neil Berry, chemistry department, University of Liverpool

Neil Berry, United States.

Moving on to the bad, I have already written about whether laundryman Mario Marreiros saw anything significant or not. On 8^th May 2007 he gave a statement that he had not. Sometime after that it appears the media has him saying there was a suspicious person lurking in the stairwell of block 5 on 2^nd May 2007 around 8pm, despite the fact that Mario worked until 6pm. The PJ rogatory questions to Neil Berry concern a laundryman inside the stairwell of block 5 at 6pm on 3^rd May. Quite how Mario came to ID Neil Berry as the person he claims to have seen is a mystery. However, Neil stated that he had not been in the stairwell of block 5, had not been in a stairwell with a lift and had not bumped into a laundryman. Neil was in block 6 and block 6 does not have lifts.

Here is the good in the good, the bad and the ugly. If you cross-reference Neil Berry’s PJ statement against other statements and other entries in the PJ files, the match works out pretty well.

If you have checked out earlier posts on planned abductions, you will be able to work out why Neil Berry and Rajinder Balu were bit players on whatever happened on 3^rd May 2007. They were close by, just not involved. Their sole ‘crime’ was being in Luz when Madeleine disappeared.

Here is a comparison between the Neil Berry statement , dated 23 Apr 2008, and other relevant statements. Warning! It is very dry, and a simple summary is along the lines that I have written above. These are statements that have a reasonably good fit, with Neil Berry and Rajinder Balu simply being on holiday in Luz.

Neil made two previous statements, the first on 7 May 2007, the second on 8 Jan 2008. The PJ files have one statement only, and Neil was allowed to read a single statement on 23 Apr 2008. Therefore the 7 May 2007 one is possibly an informal statement given while he was in Portugal, though he was supposed to have returned to the UK before then. Why the 8^th Jan 2008 statement does not appear in the files is unclear.

3^rd May 2007

Neil was with wife and two children at the Tapas Bar around 4pm, when they had drinks with Raj Balu, Jayne Jensen and Anne Wiltshire. {Jayne Jensen and Annie Wiltshire are sisters, were in their mid-50s, were in Luz for a fortnight’s holiday and rose to prominence around Dec 2007 when newspapers said they claimed they had seen Robert Murat near 5A on the night Madeleine went missing. Neither seem to have given statements, though media reports said they had an exhaustive interview with British police. They are also the source of the report that two men were seen around 5C.}

Neil’s wife and children went back to their apartment around 5pm. {Balu – Neil, Neil’s wife and Raj’s wife were having a drink around 5:30, complete with children. Then the wives/children went back.} The four others stayed on. {Balu – Jayne, Anne, Neil and Raj stayed on.}

Neil left around 5:30. Jayne and Anne remained at the bar. Neil cannot remember if Raj remained at the bar. {Balu puts Berry and himself at the bar until after 6pm. He cannot remember if they went back together or separately.}

Neil tried to book dinner at the Tapas restaurant, could not, so he and Raj obtained a meal from the restaurant and dined together. {Balu – decided to get a takeaway and eat with Neil’s family.}

Neil is not sure where he was at 6pm. {Balu thinks it was after 6 when they left the bar.}

To get back to his apartment, Neil crossed the stairs of block 4. {He was actually in 606 and block 6 has 2 stairwells. He had to pass the first stairs to get to the second, the one that led to 606.}

Neil does not remember a lift in any block. {Block 4 and block 5 both both have lifts in a single, central stairwell. Block 6 has two stairwells, neither of which has a lift.}

He was not in block 5, but had to pass it to get back. {He had to use the hill that runs from block 5 to the Tapas reception to get to block 6.}

He thinks he might have been on the opposite side of the road from block 5. {Block 6 is on the opposite side of the road from block 5.}

He does not remember seeing anyone collecting laundry around this time. {He was asked if he was in the stairwell of block 5 when the laundry worker was picking up laundry.}

His children were in bed when Raj and his family arrived around 7pm. {Balu – he and his family arrived around 7pm.}

Raj had a travel cot for his child, which they could not put up. {Balu – A travel cot had been arranged, and Neil was having trouble putting it up.}

Neil went to get an Ocean Club employee, whose name he cannot remember, but she went with them and the cot was assembled. {Balu – Neil and Raj went to get someone from Mark Warner.}

About 8pm, he and Raj went to the Tapas restaurant to place an order, and waited around half an hour for it. {Balu. Between 7:45 and 8pm, he and Neil went for a takeaway, at the Tapas restaurant. It took about half an hour to get served and return.} {Carpenter – a man, or men, were on the esplanade waiting for a takeaway. Stephen Carpenter would meet Neil and Raj on 4^th May. His statement says he did not know their names at that point. It stops short of naming them as Neil and Raj.}

They may have had a drink while they waited. {Balu. They had a drink while they waited.} {Carpenter – the man/men had a drink while waiting.}

He cannot remember the meal other than it had red cabbage. {Braised red cabbage seems to be associated with roasts, but perhaps it was a salad.} {Balu is asked what he had, and can remember his food and drink. He is not asked what anyone else ate.}

When they left the Tapas area they took the same route back to his apartment, crossing the road. {To get to block 4 you do not cross any road. To get to block 6, you have to cross the road between block 5 and block 6.}

He thinks his apartment was 4G. {It was 606. Apartment 4G became famous as the McCanns resided there from 4 May 2007 to 2 or 3 Jul 2007.}

The McCanns were not yet in the Tapas restaurant when he and Raj left.

Once back at his apartment, they had dinner and remained there. From 10pm, everything that he did is in his 7 May 2007 statement, and he has nothing to add to that. {Balu. They were still on the balcony after 10. They heard a din below them. They asked what was going on and were told a child had gone missing.}

Stephen Carpenter’s wife Carolyn gave a statement in Britain. It is not in the PJ files. It appears to be very short, as the entry is noted as being two pages long.

In summary, Neil Berry got a takeaway that night and ate it on the balcony of 606 with Rajinder Balu and their families. His only significant connection to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is that he helped in the searches. He is not the Neil Berry from the University of Liverpool. Neither of these is the Neil Berry on record as a sex offender in the US.

Madeleine – planned abduction – method (part 2)

If the facts around Madeleine and apartment 5A were known to an abductor, the method becomes unbelievably easy.

Around 9:15pm the level of light fell from sufficient for colour vision to enough for black and white vision. It is around this time that Gerry McCann chatted to Jeremy Wilkins, Jane Tanner walked past the pair and saw a man carrying a child at the top of the street.

If the chance of success of an abduction was to be maximised it would happen after this reduction in light. If a pattern had been discerned in the T9 checks, maximisation occurred somewhat later. Another check could be anticipated shortly, whether it was on a half-hourly schedule, or whether it was triggered by the gap between starters and mains.

The anticipated 9:30 check turned into reality, with a couple of flies in the ointment. Russell O’Brien would remain with his sick child. And if Matthew Oldfield is to be believed, he checked in 5B, then took the long, unlit, anti-clockwise route around block 5 to the passageway at the rear, something that makes no sense. Then he checked inside 5A for the first time in the holiday.

The second fly is actually irrelevant. Madeleine had either been successfully abducted and the abductor had escaped, or Madeleine was still in 5A and would disappear later. If the latter, no crime had occurred and there was no reason for an abductor in the passageway behind block 4 to be alarmed by Matthew Oldfield. Perhaps the Matthew Oldfield check happened, perhaps it did not, but it makes very little difference in this planned abduction scenario.

However, the Russell O’Brien action raised the risk profile for anyone abducting Madeleine via the patio doors, as he might have walked down the hill and past the garden gate to 5A at any point. Ditto Jane Tanner eating her meal quickly in order to replace Russell.

It was therefore time for the abductor to swing into action, starting at the green dot in the graphic above. A walk east along the passageway would have allowed an abductor to monitor the Tapas restaurant, establishing there was little risk from there. Turning to the north at the end, an abductor could see that Russell O’Brien was not heading down the hill.

The risk would begin when the abductor entered the plot of 5A via its garden gate, but at that stage it is very low-risk. Closing the gate would have made sense, as any checkers passing would see that as normal.

At the top of the rear steps of 5A another swift check could be made on the Tapas restaurant showing all was well. It would make sense to have left the baby gate unlocked for a swift get-away. A quick slide of the patio doors would have given entrance. Perhaps an abductor would risk a further check on the Tapas restaurant, perhaps not. It would make sense to have left the patio doors wide open for a fast exit, as from the Tapas restaurant it would have been extremely difficult to tell whether they were open or closed.

The first bedroom checked might well have been the parents’ bedroom. As the abductor had been standing in darkness for a considerable time, it would have taken just a glance to see Madeleine was not there. A swift movement to the front bedroom would have located Madeleine.

From here, the risk profile increases considerably.

Madeleine could have been gently extracted from her bed in order to keep her asleep.

There is no reason in this scenario to suppose that an abductor raised the shutter. That is a noisy operation to carry out in a quiet street, representing unnecessary risk.

There are two potential exit routes in a planned abduction scenario.

The first is via the front door, but anyone who had done any research would have realised that the front door takes you to the central stairwell exit of block 5, where every person living in the block would pass into and out of the building. There was also a fair risk of crossing paths with anyone checking block 5 at the front, and with Russell O’Brien when he left 5D.

The second route, via the patio doors, makes more sense. An abductor using that would run the risk of being seen with a child at the top of the steps, but would gain the advantage of once more checking on activity in the Tapas restaurant. Plus, he would have a head start if spotted.

It would make sense to leave the patio door wide open, and the baby gate at the top of the steps wide open. It would make sense to close the street gate, so anyone doing a check only at the front of block 5 would not detect anything amiss as they passed the gate.

At the garden gate, a quick glance up the hill would allow a final check on whether Russell O’Brien was coming down. After turning south down the hill, the danger of being on the street between apartment 5A and the Tapas reception was minimal. The distance back to the passageway is very small compared to the route taken by anyone leaving the Tapas restaurant, while if Russell O’Brien now rounded the corner at the top of the hill, all he would see was the back of a person with a blocked view of a child being carried, with no reason to suspect it was Madeleine.

So after a few relatively safe steps down the hill, the abductor could have turned into the passageway, once again being hard to spot from the Tapas restaurant while having the advantage of seeing if someone from there was in pursuit.

The danger in the passageway behind block 5 is not someone from block 4 coming the other way, using it as a short cut. That person would not know a crime had been committed, but rather would have seen simply another child being carried in the night, much akin to the Tanner sighting and the Smith sighting.

The danger in the passageway is that Russell O’Brien could have carried out the same strange behaviour that Matthew Oldfield claimed, and gone the anti-clockwise route around block 5. Potentially, Russell could have bumped into an abductor, but at that point simply dumping Madeleine and fleeing would have left Russell having to take care of Madeleine as the priority.

Once beyond the passageway that goes uphill between the blocks and connects to the car parks of both block 4 and block 5 there is virtually zero risk. The abductor would would then be back at the green dot, heading east, with a head start before the alarm was raised.

One source, Textusa makes the passageway behind block 4 a dead end and technically, it is.

However, on 10^th May, Gerry McCann gave a second statement. Judging by the answer, he was being asked as to why the Portuguese sniffer dogs had circled blocks 4 and 5 and entered the passageway behind those two blocks. Gerry’s answer was curious. He said that one time between Monday 30^th April and Wednesday 2nd May, as they went out through the front door, Madeleine scooted off left as far she could go re the blocks, then went down the side of whichever block was on the very end, and they found themselves in someone’s garden. Presumably as block 4 is laid out very much like block 5, that was the rear garden for apartment 4D. Then Gerry went out a gate into the passageway behind block 4 which led to the hill running from 5A to the Tapas area.

This was curious because on May 4^th, the McCanns moved into 4G, so you would expect Gerry to realise by May 10^th that block 4 was the end block.

Whatever the reason, the police and Madeleine and Gerry McCann could go anti-clockwise around block 4.

Therefore it was possible to use the gate to the garden of the last apartment to gain access to the garden. At that time of night, the chances of someone monitoring their garden gate is minuscule.

A quick walk up the side of block 4 would take an abductor only a few seconds. Unlike the Tanner sighting or the Smith sighting, someone carrying out a planned abduction had no need to carry Madeleine through Luz on foot. An innocuous car or van parked in the car park of block 4 would have drawn no attention. Further, it could have been parked at the end away from block 5, reducing the chances of anyone recognising Madeleine to near zero. (Jeremy Wilkins was in block 4. Whether he could have recognised Madeleine is not relevant, since was already inside and several stories up in apartment 4O.)

Putting this act of placing Madeleine in a car or van around 9:40 to 9:45 would give an abductor a head start of 15 to 20 minutes before Kate McCann raised the alarm. That is off into the night with no chance of capture.

This leaves only a couple of very minor points to iron out.

First, why would an abductor not take other things beyond Madeleine, such as valuables or Cuddle Cat? The answer to that one is easy. If you are conducting a kidnapping, stealing trinkets that may be traced back to you, or taking a soft toy that stands out to 3^rd parties is dumb. If an abduction occurred, possibly the abductor was dismayed to find that Madeleine was wearing distinctive Eeyore pyjamas. Those would have to be replaced as soon after the abduction as possible.

Second, why not take a blanket from 5A for Madeleine? The scenario described above hinges on minimising the time spent inside apartment 5A not taking time to wrap a child. If a blanket was thought necessary, it could have been in the waiting vehicle. Further, taking a blanket that can be described increases the possibility of a chance sighter remembering that he saw a person with a child in that type of blanket.

Finally, having managed to make a planned abduction fly, any critical brain should be able to spot major weaknesses in it. As this is already a very long post, I will play the role of devil’s advocate and try to shoot down the probability of a planned abduction elsewhere.

Textusa v Neil Berry and Raj Balu continued

{This is continued as WordPress seems to have a length limit on posts.  The first part is in ‘Textusa v Neil Berry and Raj Balu.}

So, more speculation. The friends decided to spend the evening together, to get a take-away, to eat at the Berry’s, and to look after their children, who would all be in block 6. That is because Rajinder Balu was in 603 and Neil Berry was in 606. Simple.

Let us return to the statements of Mario Marreiros, Neil Berry and Rajinder Balu.

Mario Marreiros made a statement on 8 May 2007, around 5 days after Madeleine disappeared, in which he saw nothing suspicious.

Neil Berry made a statement in April 2008, in which he cannot recall details that a year after the event he should not. However, he denies an encounter with a laundry worker in the stairwell of block 5 at 6pm on 3^rd May 2008.

Rajpinder Balu made a statement, also in April 2008, in which he too cannot recall details that a year after the event he should not. His story generally supports Neil’s, that the 4 adults were on the balcony of 606 from around 8pm to when the alarm went off.

Neil Berry is the lynch-pin of Textusa’s post. To summarise, Neil says he was in 4G, Textusa has shown 606.

The interesting thing about 4G is that block 4 is roughly a copy of block 5. There are four flats on the ground floor, with the rest above. 4G should be up the stairs on block 4.

But Textusa has shown that Neil Berry was in 606. Block 6, not block 4, and I have strong reasons to believe that Textusa is correct on this point.

How do you get between the Tapas restaurant and block 4? The shortest pedestrian route is into the passage between 4 and 5. The long route is out of the Tapas reception and around block 5 anticlockwise. The crux is that you do not cross a street in either case.

How do you get between the Tapas restaurant and block 6? You come out of the reception area, you turn left, you walk up the hill, you walk over the road, then you enter the front of block 6. (Please note. It looks like the bottom level of block 6 had rear entrances/exits. The upper levels need to use the two stairwells.)

Neil Berry’s statement said he crossed the street to return home after picking up his meals, which lines up with Rajinder Balu and Textusa. The error that Neil made was, a year after the event, he could not remember his apartment number.

The activity we are talking about is in 606. Block 6 has 4 apartments on the ground floor, so 606 should be one storey up. Raj Balu’s statement is that they were on the balcony when they were alerted by shouts from below, which fits one storey up.

This is the only genuine problem with Neil’s memory. He says he cannot remember an elevator. Block 6 is only 3 floors tall, but I cannot believe that a block of luxury flats does not have an elevator. Further as Neil Berry was taking his wife and two children, plus luggage to and from 606, he must have used the elevator at least twice. Since Neil and Rajinder were carrying take-away meals for 4 people plus 4 bottles of wine, I would suggest they used the lift, not the stairs.

Picking the bones out of all that, what have we got?

The Mirror is flip-flopping over the story as usual. According to the Mirror, the stairwell sighting was on 2^nd May at 7:30 to 8pm. Whilst the PJ questions were about 3^rd May at 6pm. And laundry man Mario’s statement says he clocked off about 6pm and saw nothing unusual.

Then we move to blocks. As Textusa reported, Neil said apartment 4G, then Textusa exhibited the record for 606. Excellent stuff, we are moving forward.

Then there is the bit about the take-away from the Tapas restaurant. Please forget about who paid for what or how it was recorded. Perhaps Rajinder, having successfully made a booking, got his meal for two plus two bottles of wine ‘free’ (given that these were allowed by Mark Warner). Perhaps he didn’t, paid for his take-away, and the Tapas restaurant ‘stiffed’ Mark Warner for €30-50. I don’t know and I don’t care as I don’t see how this clarifies anything.

Perhaps Neil, having been unable to book, had to pay for his meal for two plus two bottles of wine. Does that have any significance? It wouldn’t show up in the records, but who cares.

Someone moving from the Ocean Club 24 hour reception to block 6 does not leave the reception area unmanned. When the alert went up in the Ocean Club 24 hour reception there were at least two staff members present. Therefore, one person taking 5 minutes to go from reception to 606, erect a travel cot, and get back to reception is no big deal, as there is still another member of staff on duty.

I know that this has been an exceptionally long ramble, but Textusa does not do simple tales. They are more carefully interwoven than a J K Rowling novel.

So, what do we actually have?

Textusa has placed Neil Berry in block 6, in apartment 606, which should be on the second floor. Rajinder Balu has confirmed that the Berry apartment was not on the ground floor (and thus, that you gained entry by a block 6 stairwell). Both guys affirm that they had a take-away with their family, on the balcony of 606 at the rear of the block, on 3^rd May 2007. At the moment I am loving this.

On to the travel cot. It did not come out to Portugal from England. It is big and heavy and one of the guys would remember it in the luggage. It came from Portugal. Take your pick as to when it turned up – at the start of the holiday – or on 3^rd May. It matters not a jot.

The foursome could not get the travel cot assembled. That bothers me, but only in the sense that 4 parents who cannot assemble a travel cot deserve to be chastised. Please note, I have been beaten by a travel cot before, but in my defence I am not a parent. Four parents?

The Mirror and Mario are wobbly, very, very wobbly. 2^nd May as reported by the Mirror or 3^rd May as questioned by the PJ? 7.30 to 8.00pm as reported by the Mirror or 6pm as questioned by the PJ in April 2008? If such a meeting happened it would be damning, as Textusa has shown Neil should not be in block 5 on either occasion.

What we actually have is quite interesting.

Rajinder Balu and Neil Berry were in the Tapas restaurant around 8pm on 3^rd May 2007. This has a minor input to the case, only confirming that the McCanns arrived later.

The travel cot has no significance.

The sighting in the stairwell of block 5 on 2^nd May or 3^rd May, that has gone into my Red Herrings folder. Can you monitor apartment 5A front or rear from the stairwell? Nope.

The Balu’s and the Berry’s wined and dined on the balcony of 606 on 3^rd May 2007. They were not scrutinising the car park in front of them, (to the south of block 6), for the simple reason that there was no need to scrutinise. They were on holiday, having a good time, eating, drinking and chatting. But they were there.

Thanks, Texusa. There are now 4 adults overlooking the car park at the rear of block 6 and the entrance to the Tapas Restaurant, from around 8pm to when the alarm was raised on 3^rd May 2007. This impacts Mission Impossible, so it needs to be built into the operation.

Further, it looks like Neil and Rajinder both gave statements in early May 2007, but I’m not seeing those in the file.

Finally, I believe both could progress the case, if only Scotland Yard was smart enough to re-read their statements.

Textusa v Neil Berry and Raj Balu

I read Textusa partly because it has some interesting challenges on it and partly because I know it is going to influence people, whether it is correct or not.

On Friday 30 Jan 2015 I read Textusa’s latest post – Two men and a baby (cot).

My initial response one of excitement, given that block 6 is one of the better locations for observing apartment 5A, the McCann residence.

The gist of Textusa’s post is as follows. Ocean Club laundry worker Mario Marreiros had a strange encounter with a person in the stairwell of block 5 around 7:30 to 8pm on 3^rd May, whilst collecting laundry. According to the Mirror, Mario identified Neil Berry as 80% likely to be the suspicious individual. Neil Berry had no reason to be in the stairwell of block 5. The statements of Neil Berry and Rajinder Balu are full of contradictions, things that make no sense if you examine them logically.

This is interesting stuff indeed.

My initial problem was that Mario’s story is recounted in the Daily Mirror on 29 May 2013, as linked to by Textusa. The link is http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/madeleine-mccann-witness-saw-weird-1918572

That is not a source I would trust instinctively, and the date, some 6 years after Madeleine’s disappearance, gave me cause for concern.

Neil Berry’s statement is dated 23 Apr 2008. Rajinder Balu’s statement is dated 28 Apr 2008. This improves things as they are about a year after Madeleine disappeared. That means Mario’s story must have triggered a rogatory questioning of both men, which in turn means Mario must have identified Neil Berry as the suspicious character he saw sometime before those dates.

So far so good. Now we hit some problems.

The Mirror story says Mario saw his suspicious character on 2^nd May 2007. Mario’s statement, dated 8 May 2007 and quoted by Textusa, said he saw nothing suspicious in the days before Madeleine disappeared.

It is also the statement in which Mario says that on 3^rd May 2007 he started work around 10am, finished around 6pm, as per his normal routine.

The Mirror story puts the strange sighting at 7:30 to 8pm on 2 May 2007, therefore well outside Mario’s norm, but so what – exceptions happen.

But the PJ did not ask Neil or Rajinder about 2^nd May. They asked only about what happened on 3^rd May. With Neil they asked why he had been spotted in the stairwell of block 5 on 3^rd May around 6pm. Not the 7:30 to 8pm of the Mirror, and not the 2^nd May of the Mirror. They asked Neil if he had seen a laundry worker in the stairwell of block 5 at 6pm.

So Mario’s evidence, presumably given to the PJ after his initial statement but before Neil and Rajinder were questioned, must be that his strange encounter occurred in the stairwell of block 5 around his normal clocking off time of 6pm, on 3^rd May 2007.

Hopefully for Mario that is how it went. If it was 7:30pm to 8pm on 3^rd May 2007 (or on 2^nd May 2007), Mario has put himself firmly in the frame as a suspect. His normal hours might well end at 6pm, but in the Morror story he works late for whatever reason. The Ocean Club laundry is where the cleaners pick up the keys to the apartments they are going to clean, and it is where they hand back those keys. In other words, Mario could well have had access to the keys, he was familiar with block 5 and vicinity, and he was prone to hanging around late.

It almost certainly did not happen this way. In his statement, Mario leaves at his usual time around 6pm, and goes to his home which is outside Luz.

Nevertheless, Neil Berry and Rajinder Balu were definitely interviewed with respect to this incident, so it is now on to the rest of the story.

The Mirror put Mario’s encounter at a stairwell near apartment 5A. The stairwell of block 5 is near 5A. The stairwell of block 4 is near 5A. The two stairwells of block 6 are near 5A. So which stairwell are we talking about?

Let’s try block 4 first. Textusa said that the car parks of block 4 and block 5 are separate. This is correct for cars, however they are joined for pedestrians. (The route referred to as route 2 on Textusa’s post is not a dead end. It works for people on foot.)

I am certain of this for the simple reason that I visited the spot a few days away to make sure that in my Mission Impossible 1 post I was not bullshitting. So I went into the block 5 car park, then to the passageway between block 5 and block 4. At the north end that passageway also opens into the car park of block 4, so pedestrian access from the car park of block 5 to block 4 is definitely possible.

Think it through logically. For anyone coming out of the (central) stairwell of block 5, going anti-clockwise is the long way round, therefore it makes little sense. That passageway acts as a shortcut only for block 4, therefore simple logic says it should connect to the block 4 entrance, which it does. Matthew Oldfield says he used that odd, long route from block 5 on his 9:30pm check in 5A. It is a very strange route from block 5, but the simple fact is the car park of block 5 connects to the north end of that passageway. Ditto block 4.

This brings us to where Neil Berry’s apartment was located and what was going on.

Textusa has shown the record that Neil Berry was in block 6, in apartment 606, and not in 4G as per Neil’s statement made in April 2008. I think this is excellent work by Textusa, sifting through the records and coming up with facts which progress understanding of the case.

Therefore it is important to work through the facts of the matter to see if an even better explanation is available. Hopefully, showing where laundry worker Mario’s story in the Mirror does and does not match up with the files is one example. Clarifying that pedestrians can pass from block 5 to block 4 without needing to use the car park entrances/exits is another.

What of the cot? The one that is central to Textusa’s thesis.

Travel cots are not small items. They take up a lot of space and if you are flying from England to Portugal you tend to notice whether your luggage contains a travel cot or not.

Since Neil did not recognise the travel cot and Rajinder did not recognise the travel cot, the simplest explanation is that it was not with either of these families on the flight to Portugal. If that is correct, the likeliest source is Mark Warner or the Ocean Club.

Here is where I speculate, so please notice that what I am doing is speculating. As in, I have no evidence whatsoever, therefore I am definitely in minefield territory.

Was the cot was provided by Mark Warner for the Balu’s on their arrival in Luz on 28 Apr 2007? Alternatively, was a cot was provided by the Ocean Club on 3^rd May 2007, when the Balu’s realised they were cancelling their Tapas restaurant booking and also cancelled the night crèche booking?

To be honest, I am not keen on either of these explanations. There are problems with both.

Swiftly moving on, the cot defeats 4 adults in their attempt to make it into a workable state. Neil alone or Neil with another person goes to the Ocean Club 24 hour reception and gets someone back to block 6 to show them how to erect the cot. Clearly, this suggests that the cot came from Portugal.

As to why someone from Portugal needed to erect the cot in block 6 in person is a little tougher. Perhaps it is the language barrier. Personally, I could not explain that I have a travel cot that I cannot make work, whilst speaking in Portuguese, if my life depends on it.

So the story again moves on. Somewhere around 8pm on 3^rd May 2007, Neil and Rajinder go to the Tapas restaurant to get a meal to eat as a take-away.

Textusa asks the question – as the Balu’s were already booked in to the Tapas restaurant, why didn’t they just make up from a booking for 2 to a booking for 4? This is an excellent question.

Textusa has already answered this question. The Balu’s booking required special permission from Steve, presumably as it exceeded the number of ‘free’ dinners the Tapas restaurant would be paid for by Mark Warner. Another two was simply two too many.

{As far as I can see. WordPress simply will NOT let me post a full answer in one go.  It looks like the rest needs to go in a second post.  Sorry!}

Madeleine – apartment 4G & smell of death

Credit to Pamalam at http://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/RED_T-SHIRT.htm

I started by trying to develop an article to prove whether a red T-shirt, from Rua 27 das Flores and alerted to by Eddie, belonged to Madeleine or to Sean McCann, as I have seen it attributed to both.

I was forgetting one important point. Madeleine McCann was wearing children’s clothing in the 2-3 years age range, as proved by her Eeyore pyjamas. And Sean was approximately 2 years and 3 months, so he should have been wearing children’s clothing in the 2-3 years age range. The PJ files confirm that he was, as there is at least one boy’s T-shirt, for ages 2-3.

Then I started trawling through the files to see if I could find Madeleine in a red airplane T-shirt. I found something more important.

First, Madeleine did wear red coloured clothing. A couple of photos are attached.

The evidence that the top is Sean’s is therefore somewhat weak. The motif is airplanes, which I associate with boys, whereas Madeleine had cute and cuddly things normally associated with girls. On top of this, I cannot find Madeleine wearing the airplane T-shirt, though that is also weak evidence. And finally, on Pamalam’s site, the entry about the red T-shirt has Sean in different photos, wearing the red airplane T-shirt.

I could tell from the different outfits worn that the family photos must have been on different occasions, but Pamalam went one better and dated the photos. They were taken on 4 June 2007 (Gerry in green and yellow T-shirt) and 8 June 2007 (Gerry in grey T-shirt).

Those dates are extremely important, as the McCanns moved into apartment 4G on 4 May 2007 and finally moved out on 3 July 2007, thus the red airplane top is dated to the time the McCanns were in 4G.

I believe it gets better. From Rua 27 das Flores, Eddie alerted to 3 items of clothing. One was the red airplane T-shirt. One was a white, sleeveless, shoulderless top belonging to Kate.

The files show two white, sleeveless, shoulderless tops belonging to Kate were taken from 27 Rua das Flores. Fortunately, both are shown in photos at http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/CLOTHES.htm

One, numbered #2 in the files, has thin straps at the top. The second, numbered #4 in the files, has much wider straps. The photo of Kate shows her wearing the wide-strap version (#4). At 62 minutes into the video at http://www.mccannfiles.com/id167.html, Eddie alerts to the wide strap white top. So in the photo, Kate McCann is wearing the suspect white top.

Kate is carrying Amelie close together, so I would expect there to be transfer from Kate’s white top to Amelie’s clothes. Gerry is slightly further from Sean, but still close enough that I would expect transfer from Sean to Gerry’s top. Always assuming that Kate’s top and Sean’s red airplane T-shirt were carrying the smell of decay at this point in time.

Eddie did not alert to any of Gerry’s clothing from 27 Rua das Flores. Eddie did not alert to any of Amelie’s clothing from 27 Rus das Flores.

Critically, Eddie did not alert in apartment 4G, although it is clear from the photo that these articles of clothing were in apartment 4G.

I can only conclude that there was no smell of decomposition in 4G during the McCann stay, that any decomposition smell on the red airplane T-shirt must date to after apartment 4G, and that any smell of decomposition on Kate’s suspect white top must date to after apartment 4G.

This strongly suggests that if the McCanns were involved in hiding Madeleine’s body they were either experts or extremely lucky. There is no chain across 5A, 5H, 4G to 27 Rua das Flores. 4G is the link that simply does not exist.

For me, this also rules out the idea that the dog alerts were due to Kate handling dead bodies in the week leading up to the holiday. I cannot see how apartment 4G is clean and Amelie’s clothing is clean if that is the case. Both should have been contaminated.

And these results mean the case is getting simpler.

The McCanns trek across Luz

The McCanns left apartment 5A in the early hours of 4 May 2007 and spent the remainder of the night in apartment 5H (Payne apartment). They were interviewed by the PJ in Portimão on 4 May and they moved into apartment 4G, presumably after the interview .

On 2^nd July 2007 they moved into 27 Rua das Flores, a villa somewhat north and east of apartment 5A, but still close to the centre of Luz, and even closer to the mound that British police searched in June 2014.

They finally completed a move out of 4G on 3^rd July i.e. there was an overlap of a day.

While they were in 5H for only a short time, they occupied 4G for nearly 2 months.

They were given a second apartment in the Ocean Club complex, which they used as office, and which is called “mission control” in Kate’s book “Madeleine”. This must have been some time after Gerry had his experience in Nossa Senhora Da Luz, the local church, since until then there was no campaign to orchestrate. I do not have precise dates for mission control, nor do I have an apartment number, merely that it was in the Ocean Club. If anyone can be more precise, I would be grateful.

According to the McCann Files at http://www.mccannfiles.com/id167.html, on 31 July 2007 the dogs searched 5A (McCanns), 5B (Oldfields), 5D (O’Brien/Tanner), 5H (Paynes/Webster), 4G (McCanns in May/June), but mission control is not mentioned in any search.

This is around 3 months after Madeleine went missing and around a month after the McCanns moved out of 4G and into 27 Rua das Flores.

I haven’t looked up the date of the search at Rua das Flores for this post. It is on file, but I cannot see it as relevant to an examination of what happened in the interim.

What was found?

The McCann Files URL posted above contains a link to a 95+ minute long video of the searches, and thus far I have ignored it, thinking the shorter 6½ minute video contained all the relevant information, with the dross cut out. That was a big mistake, mea culpa.

The video shows that nothing was found (i.e. Eddie did not alert) in apartment 5B (Oldfields), 5D (O’Brien/Tanner), 5H (Paynes/Webster) and 4G (second McCann apartment in the Ocean Club). As Eddie did not alert, Keela was redundant.

The lack of alerts in these locations suggests that whatever the Oldfields/O’Brien/Tanner/Paynes/Webster may have done, there is nothing to implicate them in the physical disposal of a dead body.

The lack of an alert in 5H (Paynes/Webster) suggests weakly that the McCanns did not have the stench of death on them at that time. I say weakly because it could be that there was no physical transfer of evidence and in the 3 months which passed before Eddie was deployed, it may be that any temporary odour had dissipated. This is unlike the alert in 5A in the McCann parents’ bedroom, which seemed to have no source, but which lingered on.

More importantly, unless there was a conspiracy between the McCanns and the Paynes/Webster, it rules out the storage of Madeleine’s body in 5H. To have a body in 5H for longer than there was a body in 5A, and 5A gets alerts while 5H does not is complex to explain, unless you take the simple view that Madeleine’s body was not there. The conspiracy angle is that the McCanns dragged in a large black plastic binbag about the size and weight of Madeleine, thus preventing contamination, and the Payne’s/Webster thought nothing of this.

So 5H is clean, thereby suggesting that if the McCanns had disposed of or concealed a dead body, they had managed to get themselves clean before going into 5H for the night.

The two really important ones are apartment 4G, the one the McCanns moved into on 4 May after leaving the Paynes, and mission control.

The time spent in apartment 4G was just nearly 2 months, but apartment 4G was clean. Eddie did not alert in 4G. I can’t see how 4G was clean if apartment 5A was not and the Renault Scenic was not and Rua 27 das Flores was not, except for two scenarios.

First, Gerry had learned enough about police methods to clean 4G to a level that defeated Eddie. Of course, since Gerry was not forewarned about Eddie, this seems unlikely. Further, if he managed for 4G, why didn’t he manage it for the Renault Scenic and for 27 Rua das Flores? This scenario does not work.

Second, the McCanns were not carrying the stench of death while they were in 4G as Madeleine’s body had not yet been retrieved and disposed of. If this scenario is true, Madeleine’s body was not retrieved until early July and the date of hiring the Renault Scenic becomes redundant. The smell of death in the Scenic and in Rua 27 das Flores might come from that second operation.

The crucial evidence required to understand what might have happened is mission control in the Ocean Club. If clean, it would strongly support the idea that the McCanns could not have retrieved Madeleine’s body before early July, and this cuts down the window of opportunity for a disposal theory. However, if Eddie alerted in mission control, this would strongly support the idea that there is a line running from 5A to mission control to 27 Rua das Flores, and the McCanns are highly implicated.

So what does mission control tell us? Nothing, because it does not appear to have been searched. Like most of the Madeleine McCann case, a simple piece of evidence that could be vital is simply not available.

Where the McCanns went next

From the testimony of Mark Harrison, who advised where to search in and around Luz, based on the assumption that Madeleine McCann was dead.

“On 31-07-07 the PJ conducted canine searches with a search warrant at apartments in Praia da Luz that had been previously occupied by the McCanns and their friends.

….

On 02-08-07 the PJ conducted a search warrant at a villa in Praia da Luz currently occupied by the McCann family.”

The canine searches refer to the deployment of Eddie and Keela. The ‘villa currently occupied’ was 27 Rua das Flores, with more Eddie and Keela.

Around the early hours of 4^th May, the McCanns were asked to take what they needed and leave, and apartment 5A was then treated to the first forensics.

In those very first photos you can see a number of things. The twins had been moved and the bedding from their cots had also moved. Other important objects had not been moved, notably the family’s passports, a camera on a table etc.

Someone moved these objects to where the McCanns were, whether the police or the McCanns, at some point in time after the photos.

Where the McCanns went next was to 5H, where they spent at least one night with the Paynes. If Kate was reeking of the smell of death, should or should not apartment 5H smell of death?

At some point (I don’t know when and if you do give me a clue) the McCanns moved into apartment 4G in the Ocean Club. Again, if Kate and various other items reeked of death at this stage, should or should not apartment 4G smell of death?

Kate’s book, “Madeleine”, in chapter 8 “No stone unturned”, says that another apartment had been loaned to them by Mark Warner, therefore it was presumably in the Ocean Club. The McCann team was using it an an office and directing their efforts through that. Kate says this apartment was dubbed ‘mission control’.

I cannot find where ´mission control’ was. I cannot tell if Kate spent time in ‘mission control’. It would be incredible if she did not. Therefore, if Kate reeked of death by this point, should or should not ‘mission control’ smell the same way?

27 Rua das Flores was rented from 1 Jul 2007. The McCanns moved in on 2^nd Jul, and moved out of apartment 4G on 3^rd Jul 2007. Presumably, they moved ‘mission control’ at the same time, but the truth is, I don’t know.

Apart from alerting in apartment 5A, in the Renault Scenic, and to articles found in 27 Rua das Flores, the real issue is where the dogs did not alert.

If the dogs were in 5H, should there have been an alert in 5H?

If the dogs were in 4G, surely there should have been an alert in 4G?

If the dogs were in ‘mission control’, would there have been an alert in the office?

If ‘mission control’ was transferred to 27 Rua das Flores, shouldn’t the dogs alert to at least some of the objects transferred, rather than simply to Kate’s clothing, the red airplane top, and Cuddle Cat?

The file is extremely unclear on what was searched and what was not. Apartment 5A was, the Renault Scenic was and 27 Rua das Flores was.

If Mark Harrison is correct, I am overlooking search warrants for the friends of the McCanns, amongst others. I haven’t found them. Perhaps search warrants were not required in those cases.

I now need to look at the long version of the Eddie and Keela video to see if it clarifies where the McCanns went next.