Newly Reported Sightings of Madeleine McCann Fuel Interest in the Missing Girl

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/28/newly-reported-sightings-of-madeleine-mccann-fuel-interest-in-the-missing-girl.html

Newly Reported Sightings of Madeleine McCann Fuel Interest in the Missing Girl
Aug 28, 2012 4:15 AM EDT
Abducted in 2007, when she was 4, the missing British girl is still a cause célèbre, with new witnesses swearing they’ve seen her and Scotland Yard still on the case, writes Barbie Latza Nadeau.



If Madeleine McCann, the 4-year-old Briton who went missing from her parents’ holiday villa in Portugal in 2007, was abducted, would the kidnappers actually take her on a commercial flight? Apparently so, if we are to believe a German tourist who swears he saw the youngster on a Lufthansa hop from Ibiza, Spain to Munich earlier this month.
madeleine mccann

Kate and Gerry McCann hold an age-progressed police image of their daughter during a news conference to mark the 5th anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, on May 2, 2012 in London, England. (Dan Kitwood / Getty Images)

According to the Olive Press, an English newspaper published in Spain, German tourist John Bode saw the McCann lookalike on a flight. He says she was traveling with a German family, but that she spoke with a British accent. He told the Spanish newspaper that the family caught his attention because of their odd behavior. The two sons–presumably the young girl’s brothers–were holding on to her as if to keep her from running away. He said the girl’s mother, who he speculated was British, didn’t say a word during the entire two-hour flight. “She didn’t seem to fit with her family at all. Her father was clearly German, as were her two brothers, both around 10 to 12 years old, but her mother appeared to be British,” Bode told the Olive Press. “They were all speaking German except for the girl, who I clearly heard speaking British English.”

He then snapped a picture, which does bear a slight resemblance to the missing child. Whether it was McCann or not, Bode’s sighting does jibe with similar stories. In May, Karen Sissal, a resident of Gibraltar, said she had seen a girl that looked just like McCann at a campground on the Portuguese-Spanish border just days after the child went missing. Sissal described the child’s behavior as “groggy” or “drugged” and said she was with a German family with two male children. She said the girl who looked like Madeleine didn’t speak German.

The latest Madeleine sighting comes at a particularly sensitive moment in the case. In April, Scotland Yard announced that they would be reinvestigating the case after an initial survey of the 100,000-plus page Portuguese criminal dossier. British detectives found nearly 200 lost leads, including numerous sightings of the young girl in the days after her disappearance, that had never been followed up. They believed that Portuguese officials immediately suspected Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate, and turned a blind eye to any evidence contradicting their involvement.

But last weekend, a spokesperson for Scotland Yard told a British newspaper that they would have to close the reinvestigation unless they received additional funding. They were prepared to ask British Prime Minister David Cameron for financial assistance in the name of finding the truth about the young girl’s disappearance. An estimated $2.5 million has already been spent on translators, police detectives, and a team of forensic experts who are combing the tedious documents for irregularities.

British detectives found nearly 200 lost leads that had never been followed up.

“We are still reviewing a lot of material. It is a significant amount of money and we have quite a lot of officers tied up in this,” Metropolitan Police commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe told the Evening Standard. “The prime minister agreed to fund this. We have not had any pressure to say you must stop spending more than X amount, we have received a lot of support. But by Christmas I would want a very clear view of what work is outstanding and what timeline there is for that.”

Sightings like the one on the Ibiza-to-Munich flight certainly keep hope alive for Madeleine’s parents, but they might also prove to be incentive enough to keep the investigation alive for the British investigators. After all, they may be the only ones with the resources to finally answer the daunting question of what really happened to Madeleine McCann.

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Barbie Latza Nadeau, author of the Beast Book Angel Face, about Amanda Knox, has reported from Italy for Newsweek since 1997 and for The Daily Beast since 2009. She is a frequent contributor to CNN Traveller, Departures, Discovery, and Grazia. She appears regularly on CNN, the BBC, and NPR.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

Utter garbage... Here we go, you can tell its only 2 weeks befor the Amaral/McCann Trial starts

Lillyofthevalley wrote:Utter garbage... Here we go, you can tell its only 2 weeks befor the Amaral/McCann Trial starts

Too right. Anything to deflect from what will be happening. Altogether now.... look left!!!!

and just in time for B HH to go with the begging bowl, what was it he said, he would spare no amount of money in looking for her (thats our taxpayers money), so which version did Maddie look like, and four years on, would she not be settled in her new family, speaking german, would she not have forgotten her english if not exposed to it fluently on a daily basis. You really could not make it up. thats my opinion,

tanszi wrote:and just in time for B HH to go with the begging bowl, what was it he said, he would spare no amount of money in looking for her (thats our taxpayers money), so which version did Maddie look like, and four years on, would she not be settled in her new family, speaking german, would she not have forgotten her english if not exposed to it fluently on a daily basis. You really could not make it up. thats my opinion,

Hi tanzi....UUM, who's B HH? I have just sent an e-mail to the DailyBeast saying what I think of the story, suggest

others do the same., they kindly left their e-mail address at the end of the article.

Panda wrote:

tanszi wrote:and just in time for B HH to go with the begging bowl, what was it he said, he would spare no amount of money in looking for her (thats our taxpayers money), so which version did Maddie look like, and four years on, would she not be settled in her new family, speaking german, would she not have forgotten her english if not exposed to it fluently on a daily basis. You really could not make it up. thats my opinion,

Hi tanzi....UUM, who's B HH? I have just sent an e-mail to the DailyBeast saying what I think of the story, suggest

others do the same., they kindly left their e-mail address at the end of the article.

Panda, B HH is Bernard Hogan-Howe, the chief of the Met. When he was the Chief Constable of Merseyside, he was the one who went to Kate McCann's mother's home, to help light the Chinese lanterns on the anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.

Like many other people, Hogan-Howe ignored the advice of the R.N.L.I. who are against the lanterns, because they float over the sea and people think they are distress flares. These calls have cost the R.N.L.I., a lot of money when they've sent out lifeboats thinking someone is in distress. Kate McCann's mother lives in Formby Merseyside which is on the coast. Farmers are also against the Chinese lanterns, because many of their stock have been injured when they have encountered hot metal rings that have landed in their fields.

Chinese lanterns are now banned in many countries, who deem them dangerous. The UK also want to ban them but I don't know if they did.

Sorry for going off topic, regarding the Chinese lanterns, only my blood boils when I think of the harm they have caused and not just to animals. A child was burned by one of the burning rings from a Chinese lantern, when it landed on his head.

Don't tell me, let me guess. She is sporting a spray on tan, hair extensions and gel nails, and is running around on all fours in a field somewhere in Essex.