TIMELINE of events 2007

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

2007

2007

May 3
Madeleine McCann disappears while her parents Gerry and Kate have dinner with
friends, dubbed the “Tapas 7”, 40 yards away.
The parents take turns checking on their children every half-hour, and when
Kate McCann goes to check on Maddie at 10pm she notices her daughter is not
there and raises the alarm.
Portuguese GNR report a possible kidnapping at 11pm, the CID team arrives at
11.50pm and around 20 people enter the McCanns’ apartment (5A) before it is
closed off.
Neither border nor marine police were given descriptions of Madeleine for many
hours, and officers did not appear to make extensive door-to-door inquiries.
Police did not request motorway surveillance pictures of vehicles leaving
Praia da Luz that night, or of the road between Lagos and Vila Real de Santo
António on the Spanish border; the company that monitors the road, Euroscut,
said they were not approached for information.
Former police chief Goncalo Amaral was informed about the case at midnight.
Jane Tanner, one of the Tapas 7, spotted a man in light-coloured trousers
carrying a small girl wearing pink pyjamas near to the apartment earlier in
the evening.

May 4
Police notify border police, Spanish police and airports and a frenzied search
for Madeleine begins.
Roadblocks are put in place and apartment 5A is sealed off at 10am, forensics
arrive at 1pm and begin to work at the apartment.
A British expat barmaid turns up on McCann’s doorstep claiming she had a
psychic vision of Madeleine looking out a window, she is the first of 150
psychics to descend on resort.
The McCanns face media for first time in an emotional plea for information.
The first “Maddie sighting” is reported by taxi driver Antonio
Castela, who took three men, a woman, and a girl resembling Madeleine from
Monte Gordo to the Hotel Apolo in Vila Real de Santo António, where they
drove away in a blue Jeep.
He said he had recorded the sighting with the Portuguese police but that they
had not contacted him again.
May 5
Authorities widen the search to Spain and say they believe Maddie has been
kidnapped and is still alive in the Algarve area, as Brit police fly in.
Fifty elements of GNR (Portuguese National Republican Guard), including
sniffer dogs, a helicopter, firemen and divers join the search.
All airports in Portugal and Spain are placed on alert to look out for any
passengers matching Madeleine’s description. Portuguese border police also
check cars leaving the country.


.

May 6
Kate McCann speaks publicly for the first time since Maddie’s disappearance on
Portuguese Mother’s Day.
Joyce Joyce, from Dublin, becomes a key witness after claiming she saw two
people in a car acting suspiciously near a supermarket where tracker dogs
picked up and lost Maddie’s scent. She says she saw the black saloon less
than 30 minutes before the toddler went missing.
One of Kate’s colleagues offers a £100,000 reward for information as more than
150 officers search airports and two campsites a few miles away.
Officers receive more than 30,000 calls offering information and about 150
investigators are deployed in Portugal to liaise with British police and
Interpol. Police produce a drawing of a suspect.
A blonde girl, identical to Madeleine, is reported to be seen with a German
family, at the Cabopino campsite on the Costa del Sol. She later turns out
to be the daughter of Karsten Mayer, a German-speaking Swiss native.
May 8
Interpol issue a global missing-person alert.
Police in Nelas, central Portugal, are tipped off about a girl matching
Maddie’s description seen with a man at a supermarket. The man, a Belgian
citizen, stopped at the supermarket with his daughter and left the place in
a car before police were contacted, but police later confirmed that the
sighting had been a false alarm.
People in thePraia da Luz resort report unusual incidents, including a woman
who noticed a man trying to take away a pram and a man who caught a stranger
taking photographs of young blonde girls on a beach.
Portuguese police investigate a report by holidaymaker Andre van Wyk, who
claims he saw a girl resembling Maddie being taken in a cart to a gypsy camp
near Portimão, about ten miles from where she disappeared, shortly after her
disappearance.
May 9
24 Horas newspaper reports police have found a vehicle near Praia da Luz that
may have been used by the kidnapper.
CCTV from a petrol station near Lagos shows a child matching Maddie’s
description with a woman and two men. The child is seen having an argument
with the woman.

May 10
The car from the petrol station is reported to have British number plates and
it is claimed one of the men seen on the CCTV was the “suspicious”
man caught taking photographs at the resort.
Marie Olli, a Norwegian woman living in the Spanish town of Fuengirola,
contacts police claiming she saw a girl matching Madeleine’s description in
a petrol station in Marrakech, Morocco.
The girl, who was said to have appeared sad, was allegedly accompanied by a
man in his late 30s. At about the same time, a British tourist reported
seeing Maddie near the Marrakech Ibis hotel.
Interpol discounted these sightings, but officers from Leicestershire police
remain in Morocco for some days afterwards.
May 12
Gerry and Kate make fresh appeal on Maddie’s fourth birthday.
May 14
Reporter Lori Campbell calls Leicestershire Police to say she is very
suspicious of Robert Murat, a British expat she has spoken to regarding the
case.
May 15
British-born Robert Murat is made an official suspect – or “arguido”
– following a search of his mother’s villa, which is 150 yards from the
McCanns’ holiday apartment. Police question three others.
May 16
McCanns set up Madeleine’s Fund, which raises more than £2.6million, and hire
private detectives.
May 17
An anonymous witness contacts police claiming to have spotted a Fiat Marea
with a forged license plate in Pinhal Novo, Palmela, Setúbal, which
allegedly transported the missing child.
May 25
Portuguese police pass the description of Tanner sighting to the media and
Madeleine’s Fund hires a forensic artist to create an image of the man.
The McCanns release the last picture taken of Maddie before she vanished.

May 26
Police issue a description of a man seen on the night Madeleine went missing “carrying
a child or an object that could have been taken as a child”.
May 30
Gerry and Kate McCann fly to Rome to meet the pope.
June 4
Attention switches back to Morocco, after GCHQ in Cheltenham pick up phone
intercept messages in Arabic referring to “the little blonde girl”,
a German man, and a ferry from Tarifa in Spain.
June 15
Spanish tourist Isabel Gonzalez says she saw a girl fitting Madeleine’s
description being dragged across a stree in Zaio, Morocco, by a North
African woman.
June 17
Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa admits vital forensic clues may have been
destroyed in the hours after Madeleine’s disappearance as the scene was not
protected properly.
June 21
Security is tightened in Valletta, Malta, following five reported Maddie
sightings on the island.
A mock-up of the man Tanner saw carrying a child was made

June 27
The total sightings of Maddie in Malta rises to 29.
June 30
The first of a series of articles criticising the McCanns appeares in
Portuguese weekly, Sol, and suspicion against the couple mounts.
July 28
A sighting is reported on a café terrace in Tongeren, Belgium by Katleen
Sampermans, who said Madeleine was in the company of a Dutchman and an
English woman.
The girl turns out to be the 4-year-old daughter of a Belgian man
July 30
Two British sniffer dogs are flown out to Portugal. Keela, who can detect
minute quantities of blood, and Eddie, who is trained to detect bodies, work
in the apartment and several cars, including the hire car the McCanns had
rented 25 days after Madeleine disappeared.
July 31
Sniffer dogs alert in Apartment 5A. Cadaver dog Eddie alerts in a number of
places and blood dog Keela alerts behind the sofa.

August 2
Polícia Judiciária remove items, including Kate’s diary, from the apartment.
August 3
Belgian police issue an identikit drawing of a man reportedly seen with a
child fitting a description of missing Madeleine McCann.
August 4
Potruguse ministers release 11,233 pages of the case file to the media on
CD-ROM.
August 6
A Portuguese newspaper reports British police sniffer dogs have found traces
of blood on a wall in the McCanns’ holiday apartment.
Police impound the McCanns’ car after a sniffer dog reacts to it and other
items.
Samples are sent to a British DNA lab for testing.
August 11
One hundred days after Madeleine disappeared, investigating officers publicly
acknowledge she could be dead.
Police say the McCanns are not being considered as suspects following
newspaper speculation they are under suspicion.




PA
11

August 21
Two women report seeing a child who looked like Madeleine with a man at a
petrol station near Cartagena, Spain.
Naoual Malhi, a Spanish woman of Moroccan origin, claims to have spotted the
girl with a woman in the village of Fnideq, but private investigators are
unable to substantiate the lead.
August 31
The McCanns launch a libel action against Portuguese newspaper Tal & Qual
which claimed “police believe” they killed their daughter. The
McCanns say they are “deeply hurt” by the allegations.
A photograph of a blonde girl being carried on the back of a North African
woman is taken by Clara Torres, another Spanish tourist, in Zinat, northern
Morocco, but she turns out to be a Moroccan girl.
September 3
The sample taken from the McCanns’ car boot is found to contain 15 out of 19
of Maddie’s DNA componenets, a result John Lowe of the FSS deems “too
complex for meaningful interpretation”.
September 7
The McCanns are declared arguidos (suspects).
September 9
Kate and Gerry McCann return home to Rothley, Leicestershire with their
two-year-old twins, despite their arguido status.
September 11
Portuguese police play down reports DNA evidence with a 100% match to
Madeleine was found in her parents’ hire car.
The 10-volume case file is passed to a judge, Pedro Miguel dos Anjos Frias,
who authorizes the seizure of Madeleine’s mother’s diary and her father’s
laptop. The McCanns had taken both items back to England, although the
police had retained a copy of the diary.

September 19
Portuguese prosecutors rule there is “no new evidence” in police
files to justify re-questioning Gerry and Kate McCann.
September 24
The McCanns get a security company to test the twins’ hair samples for
sedatives as they fear Madeleine’s abductor drugged them.
Control Risks, the company who carry out the tests, take a sample from Kate
McCann too, to rebut allegations that she was on medication. No trace of
drugs are found.
October 3
Goncalo Amaral, the detective in charge of the inquiry, is removed from the
case after criticising the British police in a Portuguese newspaper
interview.
October 9
Paulo Rebelo, deputy national director of the Portuguese police, is appointed
to take over the Portuguese inquiry.
A school inspector claims to have seen Maddie in Karia Ba Mohamed, Morocco,
but after enquiries the local police are adamant she was not there.
Moroccan Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa says there is no evidence to
suggest Madeleine was ever in Morocco.
November 4
An Irish tourist reports a sighting in Me¿ugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina.The
child is later revealed to be the 3-year-old daughter of Slavko Dedi¿, a
dentist from the nearby town of Ljubuški.
A Portuguese trucker phones the Método 3 helpline to report seeing a blonde
woman pass a child wrapped in a blanket to a man, who then ‘bundled’ her
into a car. He said this took place two days after the disappearance, in the
Algarve town of Silves.
November 18
Gerry McCann, in a personal video, speaks of his belief that his family was
watched by “a predator” in the days before his daughter’s
disappearance.
December 5
CCTV from a department store in southern Dunedin, New Zealand, shows a girl
who looks like Madeleine being led into the store by a man at around 9:00pm.



https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/1157813/madeleine-mccann-a-timeline-of-events-since-the-three-year-old-disappeared-nine-years-ago-today/

To be continued..

Blimey Candyfloss - that`s a piece and a half. Very useful too.

Thanks Candyfloss. I wondered about door to door searches and whether they had taken place. This is what I would have thought one of  the first things to do would be and I would have been knocking on doors asking questions, not sitting in a room wailing.