Source: Correio da Manhã, 03.08.2008, paper edition. Translation by Astro

Investigation – What the PJ inspectors wanted to know

When she became an arguida, Kate stopped talking to the inspectors

September 7, 2007. Kate McCann entered the Polícia Judiciária in Portimão in the morning and the questioning extended into the evening. She was heard as a witness, but the tension in the air was evident. For the first time, people were concentrated at the PJ building’s door and murmured words of mistrust regarding the couple.

On that day, CM had reported that the dogs had detected cadaver odour on Maddie’s mother’s clothes. A piece of evidence that the authorities intended to use as a trump, during a questioning that only changed course on the next day, after the PJ failed to see their doubts clarified.

Kate began by replying all the questions, but when she was made an arguida, she stopped talking. She went silent, in the company of her lawyer, and accepted all the insinuations in a provocative manner. Less than 48 hours later, Kate and Gerry travel to England with the twins, leaving the investigation into the disappearance of their daughter, who meanwhile had become four, behind.

They later guaranteed that they would return if necessary – which they never did, although they were never formally requested to return – and they are no longer arguidos for the suspected involvement in concealing the child’s body. Today, CM reveals the 48 questions that Kate did not want to answer during the interrogation and which reflect the investigators’ doubts. More than a year after Maddie disappeared, many of these questions remain unanswered.

Jeers for the McCann couple

The day that Kate and Gerry went to the PJ’s offices in Portimão marked a turnaround in the relationship between the local people and the couple: the curious bystanders that spent the day on the street jeered at Maddie’s mother and father, mainly criticizing the “absence of visible suffering” from Kate. The foreign press also attended in great numbers.

The Judiciária’s 48 questions that Kate did not answer

1. On the 3rd of May 2007, at around 10 p.m., when you entered the apartment, what did you see, what did you do, where did you search, what did you handle?
2. Did you search in the couple’s bedroom’s closet? (said she would not reply)
3. (Two photographs of her bedroom’s closet are exhibited) Can you describe its contents?
4. Why are the curtains in front of the side window, behind the sofa (photograph is exhibited) ruffled? Did someone pass behind that sofa?
5. How long did the search that you made in the apartment after detecting the disappearance of your daughter Madeleine take?
6. Why did you say straight away that Madeleine had been abducted?
7. Presuming that Madeleine had been abducted, why did you leave the twins alone at home while you went to the Tapas to raise the alarm? Even because the supposed abductor could still be inside the apartment.
8. Why didn’t you ask the twins at that moment what had happened to their sister, or why didn’t you ask them at a later point in time?
9. When you raised the alarm at the Tapas, what exactly did you say and what were the words?
10. What happened after you raised the alarm at the Tapas?
11. Why did you do to warn your friends instead of calling out from the balcony?
12. Who contacted the authorities?
13. Who participated in the searches?
14. Did anyone outside of the group learn about Maddie’s disappearance during the following minutes?
15. Did any neighbour offer you help after the disappearance?
16. What does the expression “we let her down” mean?
17. Did Jane mention to you that she had see a man with a child that night?
18. How were the authorities contacted and which police force was called?
19. During the searches, and already with the police present, in what locations was Maddie searched for, how and in what manner?
20. Why didn’t the twins wake up during that search, or when they went to the upper floor?
21. Who did you call after the facts?
22. Did you call SKY News?
23. Did you know about the danger of calling the media, because that could influence the abductor?
24. Did you request the presence of a priest?
25. How was Madeleine’s face publicized, with a photograph, or other media?
26. Is it true that during the search you remained seated on Maddie’s bed without moving?
27. How did you behave that evening?
28. Did you manage to sleep?
29. Before the trip to Portugal, did you comment on a bad feeling or a bad premonition?
30. What was Madeleine’s behaviour?
31. Did Maddie suffer of any disease or did she take any kind of medication?
32. What was the relationship like between Madeleine and her siblings?
33. What was the relationship like between Madeleine and her siblings, her friends and her colleagues at school?
34. Concerning your professional life, in how many and in which hospitals have you worked?
35. What is your medical specialty?
36. Did you work by shifts, in emergency rooms or in other departments?
37. Did you work on a daily basis?
38. Did you stop working at a certain point in time? Why?
39. Do your twin children have difficulty in falling asleep, are they unruly and does that upset you?
40. Is it true that at certain times you were desperate over your children’s attitude and that left you were upset?
41. Is it true that in England you considered the possibility of handing over Madeleine’s guardianship to a relative?
42. In England, did you give your children medication? What type of medication?
43. Within the process, you were shown films of cynotechnical inspection of forensic character, where the dogs can be seen marking indications of human cadaver odour and equally human blood traces, and only of human origin, as well as all the comments that were made by the responsible expert. After the visualization, and after cadaver odour was signaled in your bedroom next to the wardrobe and behind the sofa that was pushed against the living room window, you said that you could not explain anything apart from what you had already said?
44. You said that you could not explain anything apart from what you had already said, concerning the marking of human blood behind the sofa by the detection dog
45. You said that you could not explain anything apart from what you had already said, concerning the marking of cadaver odour in the boot of the vehicle that you rented a month after the disappearance?
46. You said that you could not explain anything apart from what you had already said, concerning the marking of human blood in the boot of the vehicle?
47. You said that you could not explain anything apart from what you had already said, upon being confronted with the result of the collection of Maddie’s DNA, which was analysed by a British lab, behind the sofa and inside the vehicle’s boot?
48. Did you have any responsibility or intervention in the disappearance of your daughter?

The question that she answered

Are you aware of the fact that by not answering these questions you may compromise the investigation, which is trying to find out what happened to your daughter? She said “yes, if the investigation thinks so.”

Process becomes public tomorrow

From tomorrow onwards, the entire investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine will be made available to the arguidos, to the witnesses, to the lawyers and also to the journalists, because it is a case of manifest public interest.

The process, which was archived on the 21st of July, will also be available to the general public, a situation that will allow for an authentic scrutiny of the work that was developed by the Polícia Judiciária. This decision, which came as a surprise due to the fact that the case involves a child, was only announced at this point in time, after the Portuguese lawyers for the McCann family, Carlos Pinto de Abreu and Rogério Alves, requested the Portimão Court for priority in the access to the process.

Last Wednesday, the Court had requested the interested parties that had already asked for the consultation of the process to leave a CD at the secretary’s office, given the fact that the process will be supplied in a digital format.

The archiving of the investigation into the little girl’s disappearance, which happened on the 3rd of May 2007, in the Algarve, precipitated the lifting of the judicial secrecy, which had been extended precisely until the month of August.