Cops Suspect Parents In Missing British Girl Case

Mame wrote:

Steve 41oo wrote:

There are only 3 possible explanations for Madeliene's disappearance

-she wandered off by herself

-she was abducted

-her parents were involved in her disappearance and are lying.


Only the second bears any scrutiny.

Only the second bears any scrutiny IN YOUR OPINION; obviously not everyone agrees with you. She COULD have been abducted or the parents COULD have been involved, so obviously, the second and third bear scrutiny. Don't be so close-minded. They COULD be involved, Steve.

Are you always so adamant about things you don't know everything about?

and as happy cat said she COULD have been taken by aliens. Ok lets talk probability. Wandered off 0.01 Parents lying 0.02 Alien abduction 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001 Human abduction (by subtraction) .9699999999999999999999999999999999999

I'm not certain and not closed minded just 97% sure.

Chance that the Portugal Police are framing the McCanns is also pretty low, Steve.

I truly don't think this is anything to be buying each other drinks over. Regardless of the outcome, this whole thing is a tragedy.

In fact, I think it's scary that it would occur to anyone, even in joking.

That is certainly true, as we discussed earlier. But those cases don't look like this one.

Yeah I'm sure the McCanns will see the funny side eventually.

HappyC you're not related are you to the girl who asked "Yes but apart from that Mrs McCann, what did you think of the Algarve?"

steve - Children are abused, abducted, and murdered everyday all over the world. This is only a special case because the media made it one, because the parents are well-to-do doctors from London. If this had been a little Iraqi child stolen from a street in Baghdad, we wouldn't even know about it. Would it have been as important to you steve?

FreeDuck wrote:

That is certainly true, as we discussed earlier. But those cases don't look like this one.

Actually, what you discussed was that Walter had come across a number of cases like this through his work, but that you hadnt come across any cases like this (or more than one) in past media headlines.

I dont think the selection of child murders/abductions that made enough headlines in the past to be remembered now constitutes a very representative sample of the things that actually happen, so I'm inclined to ignore the latter argument.

I've never heard of a case where the two parents conspired to cover up such a thing.

I suppose that's just because those stories are on the frontpages.

My experience in a normal, more rural, quite small court district as a social worker for the court and for the prosecution office, in a high security prison as well as probation officer is different.

I know just from the media (and litterature) - we had had about half a dozen of such ... [..] I've "met" about a dozen of such persons personally - in prison and as probation officer.

FreeDuck wrote:

I've never heard of a case where the two parents conspired to cover up such a thing.

I know you never heard of such a case, you said that - but by your own admission you were going only on the previous stories you heard about in the media, and I dont think that's a sample thats representative of anything.

Meanwhile, when you wrote that "Children being abducted from their beds, though, feels fairly common -- Jessica Lundsford, Polly Klaas, Elizabeth Smart -- and none of them turned out to have been murdered by their parents," Walter commented:

Moreover, when you then asked him, "How many parents kill their children and then launch an elaborate scheme to hide the body and then claim abduction to cover it up?", he reiterated:

I realise that once more, you then followed up to Walter by detailing yet more specifics of this case and insisting whether any of the cases he'd come upon met all of those, too, but come on - at some point, every crime is unique, yes, especially such a high-profile one as this. That sounded to me a little too much like narrowing the question ever more just because you didnt like the answer you were getting.

The basic given is this - just like there have indeed been cases where a child was snatched from nearby by a total stranger, there are also parents who kill their children - and even launch elaborate schemes to claim abduction as cover-up. More than you might think or want to know.

I think the clue to much of the reaction was in a Daily Mail column quoted in the NYT: Allison Pearson wrote, "The deed the McCanns are accused of would have required such black, cold-hearted evil that I refuse to believe they are guilty unless overwhelming evidence is uncovered." Indeed. It is to horrible to contemplate, so we are tempted to believe it could not possibly be so - but unfortunately patterns in child murder show otherwise.

But I see no reason to be so willing to believe the worst of these people when their case does not fit any of the typical examples of parents killing their own children.

nimh wrote:

The basic given is this - just like there have indeed been cases where a child was snatched from nearby by a total stranger, there are also parents who kill their children - and even launch elaborate schemes to claim abduction as cover-up. More than you might think or want to know.

Again, those cases don't look like this one.

I agree, but that's as it SHOULD be. We should not believe they are guilty unless overwhelming evidence (or any evidence at all, in this case) is uncovered.

We should not be so willing to believe it.

We should not show such glee in believing it.