text:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - View original article
|Madeleine McCann
Madeleine aged three in 2007, and forensic artist's impression of how she may have looked in 2012, aged nine[1]
|Madeleine Beth McCann
12 May 2003
Leicester, England[2]
|3 May 2007 (aged 3)
5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, Praia da Luz, Portugal
37°05′19″N 8°43′51″W / 37.0886565°N 8.7308398°WCoordinates: 37°05′19″N 8°43′51″W / 37.0886565°N 8.7308398°W
|Missing for 7 years, 5 months and 29 days
|Kate and Gerry McCann
|Distinguishing features
|Straight blonde hair, blue-green eyes, distinctive spot on the right iris, small brown mark on the left calf[2]
|Polícia Judiciária
Leicestershire police
London Metropolitan Police/Scotland Yard
|Operation Grange (Scotland Yard)
Madeleine's Fund
|Madeleine McCann
Madeleine aged three in 2007, and forensic artist's impression of how she may have looked in 2012, aged nine[1]
|Madeleine Beth McCann
12 May 2003
Leicester, England[2]
|3 May 2007 (aged 3)
5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, Praia da Luz, Portugal
37°05′19″N 8°43′51″W / 37.0886565°N 8.7308398°WCoordinates: 37°05′19″N 8°43′51″W / 37.0886565°N 8.7308398°W
|Missing for 7 years, 5 months and 29 days
|Kate and Gerry McCann
|Distinguishing features
|Straight blonde hair, blue-green eyes, distinctive spot on the right iris, small brown mark on the left calf[2]
|Polícia Judiciária
Leicestershire police
London Metropolitan Police/Scotland Yard
|Operation Grange (Scotland Yard)
Madeleine's Fund
Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) disappeared on the evening of 3 May 2007 from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal. The disappearance became what one newspaper called "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history." Her whereabouts remain unknown.[3]
Madeleine was on holiday from the UK with her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, younger twin siblings and a group of family friends and their children. She and her siblings had been left asleep at 20:30 in the ground-floor apartment while her parents dined with their travelling companions in a restaurant 50 metres (160 ft) away.[4] The parents checked on the children throughout the evening until Madeleine's mother discovered she was missing at 22:00. The Portuguese police seemed at first to accept that it was an abduction, but after misinterpreting a British DNA analysis came to believe that Madeleine had died in the apartment, which placed a cloud of suspicion over her parents.[5] The McCanns were declared arguidos (suspects) in September 2007, but were cleared in July 2008 when Portugal's attorney-general closed the case.[6]
The parents continued the investigation using private detectives until Scotland Yard set up a new inquiry in May 2011, Operation Grange, at the request of the British Home Secretary. The Portuguese police reopened their own inquiry in October 2013. That month Scotland Yard released e-fit images of men they wanted to trace, including one of a man seen carrying a child toward the beach that night.[7]
The disappearance attracted sustained international interest and saturation coverage in the UK reminiscent of the death of Diana in 1997. The McCanns were subjected to intense scrutiny and false allegations of involvement in their daughter's death, particularly in the tabloid press and on Twitter, which was just a year old when Madeleine went missing.[8] They received damages and front-page apologies in 2008 from the Express Group and in 2011 testified before the Leveson Inquiry into British press misconduct, lending support to those arguing for tighter press regulation.[9]
|Madeleine's right eye, with its distinctive mark, was highlighted in posters across Europe.
Madeleine was born in Leicester and lived with her parents and siblings in Rothley, also in Leicestershire. At the request of her parents, she was made a ward of court in England in the summer of 2007, which gives the court statutory powers to act on her behalf.[10]
Interpol described Madeleine as having straight blonde hair, blue-green eyes, a small brown mark on the calf of her left leg, and a distinctive dark strip on the iris of her right eye, possibly a coloboma.[11] Close-up shots of her iris appeared in shop windows around Europe, and posters highlighting the word "look" were designed with the first "o" containing the mark.[12] The McCanns released several age-progressed images in 2009 of how Madeleine may have looked at age six, and Scotland Yard released another in 2012 of her at age nine.[13]
|Kate and Gerry McCann
Madeleine's parents are both physicians and practising Roman Catholics. Kate Marie McCann (née Healy, born 5 March 1968, Huyton, near Liverpool) attended All Saints School in Anfield, then Notre Dame High School, Everton Valley, graduating in 1992 with a degree in medicine from the University of Dundee. She moved briefly into obstetrics and gynaecology, then anaesthesiology, and finally general practice.[14]
Gerald Patrick McCann (born 5 June 1968 in Glasgow) attended Holyrood Secondary School. He obtained a BSc in physiology/sports science from the University of Glasgow in 1989, qualifying in medicine in 1992. In 2002 he obtained his MD, a research degree, also from Glasgow, and since 2005 has been a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital, Leicester.[15] The McCanns met in 1993 in Glasgow and were married in 1998. Madeleine was born in 2003 and the twins, a boy and a girl, two years later.[16]
The couple were on holiday in Praia da Luz with a group of seven friends from the UK and eight children in all, including the McCanns' three.[17] Several of the friends – Russell O'Brien, Matthew Oldfield, and Fiona and David Payne – had studied medicine together at the University of Leicester. The group consisted of O'Brien and his partner Jane Tanner, a marketing manager; Oldfield and his wife Rachael, a recruitment consultant; and the Paynes, who were accompanied by Fiona Payne's mother, Dianne Webster. The nine adults met up most evenings at 20:30 in the resort's tapas restaurant, as a result of which the media dubbed the friends the Tapas Seven.[18]
|Ocean Club resort, with the McCanns' block on the right, on the junction of Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva and Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins.
|Apartment 5A on the ground floor and the steps from Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins to 5A's patio doors; the Ocean Club is on the left.
|Children's bedroom, with Madeleine's bed on the left; the window faces Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva.
The McCanns arrived in Praia da Luz on 28 April 2007 and stayed at 5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, which they had booked for a seven-night break through the British holiday company Mark Warner Ltd. 5A was a two-bedroom apartment on the ground floor of the fifth block of a group of apartments known as Waterside Village. The block lay on the perimeter of Mark Warner's Ocean Club resort and overlooked its pool, tennis courts, tapas restaurant and bar. Many of the privately owned apartments were rented by Mark Warner for its guests; the McCanns' apartment was owned by a retired teacher from Liverpool.[19]
Located on the corner of Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva and Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins, 5A was accessible to the public from all sides.[20] Sliding patio doors at the back faced the Ocean Club; the doors could be accessed from a set of steps and a gate on the side of the block leading from Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins.[21] The front door of the apartment was situated on Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, the non-resort side of the block, and led to a walled car park and the street. The three children slept in a bedroom next to the front door. The room had one waist-high window with an exterior shutter, which looked onto a narrow walkway that was separated from the car park by a low wall.[22] The twins slept in travel cots in the middle of the room, while Madeleine was in a single bed on the opposite side of the room from the window.[23]
|Pyjamas similar to Madeleine's, pink-and-white Eeyore pyjamas from Marks and Spencer's.
Thursday, 3 May, was the penultimate day of the family's holiday. The children spent the morning in the resort's Kids' Club while the parents went for a walk, then the family lunched at their apartment before heading to the pool.[23] Madeleine's mother took the last known photograph of Madeleine by the pool that afternoon, sitting next to her father and two-year-old sister.[24] The children returned to Kids' Club, and at 18:00 their mother took them back to the apartment while their father went for a tennis lesson.[23] The McCanns put the children to bed around 19:00. Madeleine was left asleep in the single bed next to her pink comfort blanket and a pink soft toy, Cuddle Cat. She was wearing short-sleeved, pink-and-white Marks and Spencer's Eeyore pyjamas.[25]
The parents left the apartment at 20:30 to dine with their friends in the Ocean Club's open-air tapas restaurant, 50 metres (160 ft) as the crow flies on the other side of the pool. This was a walk of 30–45 seconds, according to Madeleine's mother.[26] The staff at the tapas restaurant had left a note in a staff message book asking that the same table, which overlooked the apartments, be block-booked for 20:30 for the McCanns and their friends for several evenings during the holiday. The message said the group's children were asleep in the apartments, and the staff book was left at the swimming-pool reception area. Madeleine's mother believes that the abductor may have seen the note.[27]
The McCanns and their friends left the table throughout the evening to check on their children. The McCanns' patio doors could only be locked from the inside, so they had left them closed but unlocked to allow them to enter that way.[28] Madeleine's father carried out the first check on 5A at around 21:05. All was well, except that he recalled having left the children's bedroom door only slightly ajar and now it stood almost wide open; he said he pulled it back to a five-degree position before returning to the restaurant.[29]
The sighting by Jane Tanner, one of the Tapas Seven, of a man carrying a child that night became an important part of the early investigation. She had left the restaurant at 21:15 to check on her own daughter, passing Madeleine's father on Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins on his way to the restaurant from his 21:05 check. He had stopped to chat to a British holidaymaker, Jes Wilkins, but neither man saw Tanner. This became an issue that puzzled the Portuguese police, given how narrow the street was, and led them to accuse Tanner of having invented the sighting.[30]
Tanner noticed a man with a child cross the junction of Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins and Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva just ahead of her, heading east away from the Ocean Club.[31] She said he was carrying a barefoot child, who was wearing light-coloured pink pyjamas with a floral pattern and cuffs on the legs. She described the man as white, dark-haired, 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) tall, of southern European or Mediterranean appearance, 35–40 years old, wearing gold or beige trousers and a dark jacket, and said he did not look like a tourist. Tanner told the Portuguese police, but they did not pass the description to the media until 25 May.[32] Madeleine's Fund arranged for a forensic artist to create an image of the man (right), which was released to the public in October 2007.[33]
Although Tanner had not seen the man's face, the sighting became important because it offered investigators a time frame for the abduction, but Scotland Yard came to view it as a red herring.[34] In October 2013 they said that a British holidaymaker had been identified as the man Tanner had seen, and that he had been returning to his apartment after collecting his daughter from the Ocean Club night creche.[35] Scotland Yard took photographs of the man wearing the same or similar clothes to the ones he was wearing on the night, and standing in a pose similar to the one Tanner reported. The pyjamas his daughter had been wearing also matched Tanner's report. Scotland Yard said they were "almost certain" the Tanner sighting was not related to the abduction.[36]
The Tanner sighting suggested that Madeleine had been taken around 21:15, but another sighting of a man carrying a child that night was reported to Portuguese police by Martin and Mary Smith, who were on holiday from Ireland.[34] The Smiths saw the man at around 22:00 on Rua da Escola Primária, 500 yards (457 m) from the McCanns' apartment, carrying a young girl and walking in the direction of Rua 25 de Abril and the beach. They described the girl as 3–4 years old, wearing light-coloured pyjamas, with blonde hair and pale skin. The man was mid-30s, 5 ft 7 in – 5 ft 9 in (1.75–1.80 m) tall, slim-to-normal build, with short brown hair, wearing cream or beige trousers. They said that he had not looked like a tourist and appeared not to be comfortable carrying the child.[37]
In 2008 private detectives with Oakley International, a company hired by Madeleine's Fund, questioned the consistency of the Tanner report and became more interested in the Smith sighting. Oakley prepared e-fit images (above), one based on Martin's description and the other on Mary's.[38] Madeleine's Fund decided not to release them, because Martin Smith believed at the time that the man he had seen was Gerry McCann – the e-fits bear some resemblance to him – though multiple witnesses placed Gerry in the tapas restaurant at 22:00. Releasing the e-fits would therefore have fed the conspiracy theories about the McCanns, which were at their height in 2008. When Scotland Yard became involved in 2011, they concluded that the Smith sighting might offer the approximate time of Madeleine's kidnap, and in October 2013 they released the e-fits to coincide with a BBC Crimewatch reconstruction of the disappearance.[34]
Madeleine's mother had intended to check on the children at 21:30, but Matthew Oldfield, one of the Tapas Seven, offered to do it when he checked on his own children in the apartment next door. He noticed that the McCanns' children's bedroom door was wide open, but after hearing no noise he left their apartment without looking far enough into the room to see whether Madeleine was in bed. He could not recall whether the bedroom window and its exterior shutter were open at that point. Early on in the investigation the Portuguese police accused Oldfield of involvement because he had volunteered to do the check, suggesting to him that he had handed Madeleine to someone through the bedroom window.[39]
Kate made her own check at around 22:00. Scotland Yard said in 2013 that Madeleine was probably taken just moments before this.[40] Kate recalled entering the apartment through the patio doors at the back, and noticed that the children's bedroom door was wide open. When she tried to close the door it slammed shut as though there was a draught, which is when she found that the bedroom window and its shutter were open. Madeleine's Cuddle Cat and pink blanket were still on the bed, but Madeleine was gone. After briefly searching the apartment Kate ran back towards the restaurant, screaming that someone had taken Madeleine.[41]
At around 22:10 Madeleine's father sent Matthew Oldfield to ask the resort's reception desk to call the police, and at 22:30 the resort activated its missing-child search protocol.[42] Sixty staff and guests searched until 04:30, at first assuming that Madeleine had wandered off. One of them told Channel 4's Dispatches that from one end of Luz to the other, you could hear people shouting her name.[43]
According to Madeleine's mother, two officers from the gendarmerie, the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR), arrived at the resort at 23:10 from Lagos, five miles away. After briefly searching, they alerted the criminal police, the Polícia Judiciária, at midnight.[44] According to the Polícia Judiciária their officers arrived within 10 minutes of that alert.[45]
Two patrol dogs were brought to the resort at 2 am and four search-and-rescue dogs at 8 am.[44] Police officers had their leave cancelled and started working through weekends, organizing searches of local waterways, wells, caves, sewers and ruins.[46]
Despite the obvious efforts of the Portuguese police to find Madeleine, it was widely acknowledged that mistakes had been made. Perhaps the most serious was that the crime scene was not secured. Chief Inspector Olegário de Sousa of the Polícia Judiciária said that around 20 people had entered the apartment before it was closed off.[47] According to Madeleine's mother, an officer placed tape across the doorway of the children's bedroom, but left at 3 am without securing the apartment.[48] The Polícia Judiciária case file, which was released in August 2008, showed that 5A lay empty for a month after the disappearance, then had been let out to other tourists before being sealed off in August 2007 for more forensic tests.[49]
|Police officer dusts the shutter for fingerprints, without gloves or other protective clothing.[30]
A similar situation arose outside the apartment. A small crowd gathered by the front door after the disappearance, including next to the children's bedroom window through which an abductor may have entered or left, touching and trampling on potentially important evidence.[50] A police officer dusted the bedroom window's exterior shutter for fingerprints without wearing gloves or other protective clothing.[30] 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.[51] According to Madeleine's mother, roadblocks were first put in place at 10 am the next morning.[52] 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.[53] It took Interpol five days to issue a global missing-person alert.[52]
There were strained relations between the McCanns and the Polícia Judiciária from early on in the search. Criminal investigations in Portugal are governed by a secrecy clause in the country's penal code, which means there are no official press conferences with updates, and no release of suspects' or witnesses' names.[54] One journalist wrote that this leads to a culture of "leak, not speak," and a profileration of theories that are hard for others to counter without breaking the law.[55]
A senior officer in the Polícia Judiciária acknowledged in 2010 that the local police had been suspicious of the McCanns from the start, because the couple ignored a request not to talk about the disappearance and turned the inquiry into what the officer called a "media circus."[56] The McCanns' decision to interact with the media resulted in something approaching mass hysteria, according to Owen Jones. Media analyst Nicola Rehling wrote that the "Maddification" of Britain was complete within weeks of the disappearance, similar to its "Dianafication" in 1997.[57]
The PR firm Bell Pottinger, representing Mark Warner Ltd, dealt with the media for the first ten days, then the British government, under Tony Blair, sent in press officers. The first was Sheree Dodd, a former Daily Mirror journalist, then Clarence Mitchell, who had left the BBC in 2005 to become director of media monitoring for the Central Office of Information. When the government withdrew Mitchell, a non-government PR representative, Justine McGuinness, took over until September 2007, then another PR company, Hanover, was briefly involved.[58] Mitchell resigned his government position that month and returned to Portugal, when a benefactor, Brian Kennedy of Everest Windows, offered to cover his salary; this was later paid by Madeleine's Fund.[59] As of 2014 Mitchell was still the McCanns' part-time spokesperson.
Photographs of Madeleine became some of the most reproduced images of the decade. She appeared on the cover of People magazine on 28 May 2007, while on 30 May the McCanns and a group of journalists flew to Rome, in a Learjet belonging to British businessman Sir Philip Green, to meet and show her photograph to Pope Benedict XVI. Placing Madeleine on the front page of a British newspaper would sell up to 30,000 extra copies; she was on the front page of several British tabloids every day for almost six months and became one of Sky News's menu options.[60] The Portuguese tabloid Correio da Manhã published 384 articles about her between May 2007 and July 2008.[61] By June 2008 over seven million posts and 3,700 videos were returned in a search for her name on YouTube.[62]
The PR approach set the tone for poor relations between the McCanns and the Polícia Judiciária, who were deeply suspicious of the way their investigation was being dominated, as they saw it, by British media handlers. One officer said: "The British press ... treats Portugal as a place full of incapable, careless incompetents."[58] The bad feeling reached such a height that the Polícia Judiciária officer who coordinated the investigation from May to October 2007, Chief Inspector Gonçalo Amaral, resigned in June 2008 to write a book alleging that Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment and that the McCanns had faked the abduction.[63]
The Polícia Judiciária interviewed several witnesses who described men behaving oddly near apartment 5A in the days leading up to the disappearance. Scotland Yard came to believe that these men may have been engaged in reconnaissance for a pre-planned abduction, or were involved in a burglary gone wrong.[64]
One holidaymaker told the Polícia Judiciária that a bedraggled-looking man had rung her doorbell on 20 April 2007 to say in broken English that he was collecting money for an orphanage in nearby Espiche. She described him as 38–45 years old, with a sallow complexion, lank dark hair, a moustache and large teeth. (According to British journalist Danny Collins, itinerants with poorly typed photo ID claiming to be collecting money for children's charities are a common sight in southern Iberia.)[66]
On Thursday, 3 May – the day of the disappearance – between 15:30 and 17:30, two black-haired men (right) visited apartments close to 5A, again ostensibly collecting for orphanages; one was seen in the McCanns' block at 16:00. A black-haired man was seen a week earlier going up the steps to 5A and speaking to someone on the balcony.[64]
At 8 am on Monday, 30 April, a girl whose grandparents used to own 5A saw a blonde-haired man leaning against a wall on a path behind the apartments, and saw him again on 2 May near the car park by the pool, looking at 5A. She described him as Caucasian, mid-30s, "ugly" with spots, and wearing a black leather jacket and sunglasses. A second witness saw a blonde-haired man on 29 April near the apartments, and saw him again on 2 May across the road from 5A. She remembered him because he made her uneasy: she described him as "ugly," with pitted skin and a large nose. That day or the next a third witness saw a man standing by a wall near the car park next to the pool; he was staring at the McCanns' apartment block, where a white van was parked.[67]
On the day of the disappearance a fourth witness saw a man walk through a gate leading away from the apartments; she noticed him because he tried to close the gate quietly, with both hands, and looked around as he walked away.[67] At 14:30 that day another witness saw two blonde-haired men on the balcony of 5C, an empty apartment two doors from 5A. At 16:00–17:00 a blonde-haired man was seen near 5A, and at 18:00 the same or another blonde-haired man was seen standing in the stairwell of the McCanns' block. At 23:00, an hour after the disappearance was reported, two blonde-haired men were seen in a nearby street speaking in raised voices; when they realized they had been noticed, they lowered their voices and walked away.[68]
The first person to be given arguido (suspect) status, 12 days after the disappearance, was a local British-Portuguese property consultant, Robert Murat. Arguido status gives people additional rights, such as the right to remain silent.[69] Murat lived in his mother's home 150 yards from apartment 5A in the direction the man in the Tanner sighting was walking.[70] He was made an arguido after coming to the attention of a British tabloid journalist when he offered to translate statements for the police; the police had briefly signed him up as an official interpreter. Murat said his interest in the case stemmed from his having lost custody of his own three-year-old daughter.[71]
Three members of the Tapas Seven said they had seen Murat near the resort on the evening Madeleine disappeared, which would have been unsurprising given the proximity of his house to 5A, although he and his mother said he had been at home all evening.[72] The house was searched, the pool drained, his cars, computers, phones and video tapes examined, his garden searched using ground radar and sniffer dogs, and two of his associates were questioned.[70] The associates included Sergey Malinka, a Russian-born IT consultant, who in 2014 was questioned again by the Polícia Judiciária, this time on behalf of Scotland Yard.[73] There was nothing to link Murat to the disappearance and he was cleared on 21 July 2008 when the case closed.[74]
As with the McCanns, Murat found himself at the centre of wild media allegations that continued for months. He told the Cambridge Union in March 2009 that he had felt like a "fox pursued by hounds," and that the case had almost destroyed his life.[75] He and his two associates sued 11 newspapers for libel in relation to 100 articles published by Associated Newspapers, Northern & Shell (Express group), Mirror Group Newspapers and News Group Newspapers (News International). According to The Observer, it was the largest number of separate libel actions brought in the UK by the same person in relation to one issue.[76] Murat was awarded £600,000 in July 2008 and the others $100,000; all three received public apologies. The British Sky Broadcasting Group, which owns Sky News, paid Murat undisclosed damages in a separate libel action in November 2008, and agreed that Sky News should host an apology to him on its website for 12 months.[77]
An early indication for the McCanns that the tide was turning against them publicly came on 6 June 2007, when a German journalist asked them during a press conference in Berlin whether they were involved in Madeleine's disappearance. On 30 June the first of a series of articles critical of the couple appeared in Sol, a Portuguese weekly. The reporters had been given the Tapas Seven's names and mobile numbers, so there appeared to have been a leak from within the inquiry.[78]
This and later articles in the Portuguese press, almost invariably followed up in the UK, made several allegations, based on no evidence, that would engulf the McCanns for years on social media. They included that the McCanns and Tapas Seven were "swingers," that there was a "pact of silence" between them regarding what happened the night of the disappearance, and that the McCanns had been sedating their children.[79]
Much was made of apparent inconsistencies within and between the McCanns' and Tapas Seven's statements. That these were attributable to translation problems was apparently not fully considered. The interviews had not been taped, but relied on an officer's handwritten notes. The police had asked questions in Portuguese, the interviewee had replied in English, and an interpreter had translated. The officer had then typed up a statement in Portuguese, which was verbally translated into English for the interviewee to sign. The likelihood that misunderstandings would emerge was high.[80]
Among the inconsistencies was whether the McCanns had entered the apartment by the front or back door when checking on the children. According to the Polícia Judiciária case file, Gerry McCann told them during his first interview on 4 May 2007 that they had entered 5A through the locked front door for his 21:05 and her 22:00 checks, and in a second interview on 10 May that he had entered through the unlocked patio doors at the back. There was also an inconsistency regarding whether the front door had been locked that night.[81] He told the Sunday Times in December 2007 that the couple had used the front door during their checks earlier in the week, but it was next to the children's bedroom so they had started using the patio doors instead.[30]
|Madeleine's bedroom window, showing the exterior shutter
Another issue was whether the exterior shutter over Madeleine's bedroom window could be opened from outside. Kate McCann said that the shutter and window were closed when Madeleine was put to bed, and that both were open when she discovered Madeleine was missing. Her husband told the Polícia Judiciária that, when he was first alerted to the disappearance, he had lowered the shutter, then had gone outside and discovered that it could be raised from the outside.[82] Against this, the police said the shutter could not be raised from the outside without being forced, but there was no sign of forced entry. According to journalist Danny Collins, the shutter was made of non-ferrous metal slats linked together on a roller blind that was housed in a box at the top of the inside window, controlled by pulling on a strap. He writes that the shutter was gravity-fed; once rolled down, the slats locked in place outside the window and could only be raised using the strap on the inside.[83]
The discrepancy contributed to the view of the Polícia Judiciária that there had been no abduction.[84] Even Kate's shout of "they've taken her," when she discovered Madeleine had gone, was viewed by the police with suspicion, as though she was paving the way for an abduction story.[30] The suspicions developed into the theory that Madeleine had died in the apartment as a result of an accident – perhaps after being accidentally administered an overdose of sedatives – and that her parents had managed to hide her body for a month, before retrieving her and driving her to an unknown place in a car they had hired over three weeks after the disappearance.[85]
In July 2007 Mark Harrison, the national search adviser to the British National Policing Improvement Agency arrived in Praia da Luz to help with the ground search, and recommended bringing in Keela and Eddie, two Springer spaniel sniffer dogs from South Yorkshire in the UK. Keela was a crime-scene-investigation (CSI) dog trained to alert her handler, Martin Grime, to traces of human blood. Eddie was an enhanced-victim-recovery dog (EVRD), who alerted to the scent of human cadavers.[86]
The dogs were taken to two beaches, Robert Murat's house and several Ocean Club apartments. Both dogs gave alerts only in apartment 5A, including behind the sofa in the living room, and on and under the veranda in the bedroom Madeleine's parents had used.[87] On 2 August the Polícia Judiciária took several items from the new house the McCanns had rented on Rua das Flores, including four boxes and two suitcases of clothes, and Madeleine's Cuddle Cat; they told the McCanns only that an anomaly had arisen. They also took items related to the post-disappearance period: a diary that Madeleine's mother had started after the disappearance and a friend's Bible she had borrowed. A passage the Bible's owner had marked from 2 Samuel, about the death of a child, became another item of interest and was copied into the police case file along with a Portuguese translation.[88]
On 6 August they took the Renault Scenic the couple had hired 24 days after Madeleine went missing.[89] Keela and Eddie were placed in a room with the clothes and other items, and taken to an underground public car park where the McCanns' car was parked alongside others, including Robert Murat's. Eddie, the cadaver dog, gave an alert outside the McCanns' car and inside the boot (trunk). One or both dogs gave alerts at Cuddle Cat, Kate McCann's clothes and the Bible. According to the Sunday Times, it seems apparent from a video released by the Ministério Público that the handler was directing the dogs to particular spots inside the apartment and to the McCanns' car.[90] The McCanns' lawyer said that, if there was indeed a smell of corpses on Kate's clothes, it might have been caused by her contact with the deceased as a family doctor.[91]
Material, including hair and other fibres, was collected from the areas in the apartment and car that Keela and Eddie had reacted to, and was sent to the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in Birmingham for DNA profiling, arriving around 8 August 2007.[92] The FSS used a technique known as low copy number (LCN) DNA analysis, which they had developed in 1999.[93] LCN DNA is used when only a few cells are available; the test is controversial because it is more sensitive than other techniques, and more vulnerable to contamination and misinterpretation.[94]
On 3 September John Lowe of the FSS emailed Detective Superintendent Stuart Prior of the Leicestershire police, who was acting as a liaison between the British and Portuguese police. Lowe told Prior that a sample from the boot of the car contained 15 out of 19 of Madeleine's DNA components, and that the result was "too complex for meaningful interpretation":
A complex LCN [low copy number] DNA result which appeared to have originated from at least three people was obtained from cellular material recovered from the luggage compartment section ... Within the DNA profile of Madeleine McCann there are 20 DNA components represented by 19 peaks on a chart. ... Of these 19 components 15 are present within the result from this item; there are 37 components in total. There are 37 components because there are at least 3 contributors; but there could be up to five contributors. In my opinion therefore this result is too complex for meaningful interpretation/inclusion.[95]
At this point, according to the Sunday Times, the Polícia Judiciária "abandoned the abduction theory."[30] The FSS email was translated into Portuguese on 4 September. The next day, according to Madeleine's mother, the Polícia Judiciária proposed that, if she were to admit that Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment and she had hidden the body, she might only serve a two-year sentence; her husband would not be charged and would be free to leave.[96] Both parents were given arguido status on 7 September.[97] They were interviewed that day and were advised by their lawyer not to answer questions; Gerry did answer them but Kate declined.[98]
Journalists in Portugal were told that the DNA evidence was a "100 percent match."[99] The Polícia Judiciária told Gerry that Madeleine's DNA had been found in the boot (trunk) of the car and behind the sofa in the apartment.[100] British tabloid headlines included "Corpse in McCann Car" (London Evening Standard) and "Brit Lab Bombshell: Car DNA is 100% Maddie's" (Sun), while another reported that "a clump of Maddie's hair" had been found in the car.[101] Jerry Lawton, a reporter with the Daily Star, a British tabloid, told the Leveson Inquiry in March 2012 that the leaks had come directly from the Portuguese police.[102] Matt Baggott, who when Madeleine disappeared was chief constable of Leicestershire police, the force that coordinated the British input, told the inquiry that he knew that the DNA evidence was being wrongly interpreted, but because the Portuguese were in charge of the inquiry, he made a decision not to correct reporters who were being briefed that the McCanns were involved. His force's priority, he said, was to maintain a good relationship with the Polícia Judiciária with a view to finding out what had happened to Madeleine.[103]
Tributes in Rothley, 17 May 2007
Despite their arguido status, the McCanns were allowed to leave Portugal and arrived back in England on 9 September 2007.[104] The following day Tavares de Almeida, head of the Polícia Judiciária in Portimão, signed a police report concluding that Madeleine had died in apartment 5A as a result of an accident, and that the McCanns had concealed the body and faked an abduction.[56] On 11 September the 10-volume case file was passed to a judge, Pedro Miguel dos Anjos Frias, who authorized 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.[105]
On 24 September Control Risks, a British security company, took hair samples from the McCann twins at their parents' request. An anonymous donor paid for Control Risks' services. The McCanns were concerned that the abductor might have given the children sedatives; the twins had slept through the commotion in apartment 5A after Madeleine was reported missing, but despite requests the Portuguese police had not taken samples. Control Risks took a sample from Kate McCann too, to rebut allegations that she was on medication. No trace of drugs was found.[106]
In October 2007 Gonçalo Amaral, the inquiry's coordinator in Portugal, was removed from his post after telling a newspaper that the British police only pursued leads that were helpful to the McCanns.[107] He was replaced by Paulo Rebelo, deputy national director of the Polícia Judiciária. The team of detectives was expanded and a case review began.[108] On 29 November four members of the Portuguese investigation, including Francisco Corte-Real, vice-president of Portugal's forensic crime service, were briefed at Leicestershire police headquarters by the Forensic Science Service.[109]
The Polícia Judiciária investigated links to known paedophiles. One man who came to their attention in 2007 was Urs Hans von Aesch (1940–2007), a Swiss man living at the time of Madeleine's disappearance in Benimantell, Spain.[110] He was implicated in the abduction and murder in Switzerland on 31 July 2007, three months after Madeleine went missing, of five-year-old Ylenia Lenhard. The day after Ylenia disappeared, Von Aesch was found dead from a gunshot wound in a wood in Oberbüren, St. Gallen, apparently a suicide, 15 miles (24 km) from where Ylenia was last seen. He is believed to have killed himself hours after she was taken.[111] In July 2013 police in St. Gallen confirmed that Scotland Yard had made inquiries there about von Aesch.[112]
The Tapas Seven were interviewed by Leicestershire police in England in April 2008, with the Polícia Judiciária, including Paulo Rebelo, in attendance.[113] The Polícia Judiciária planned the following month to hold a reconstruction in Praia da Luz, using the McCanns and Tapas Seven rather than actors, but it was cancelled when the Tapas Seven declined to participate.[114] The poor relationship between the McCanns and the Portuguese police was evident again when, in April 2008, on the day the couple were at the European Parliament in Brussels to promote a monitoring system for missing children, transcripts of their interviews with the Polícia Judiciária were leaked to Spanish television.[115] The national director of the Polícia Judiciária, Alípio Ribeiro, resigned not long after this, citing media pressure from the investigation; he had publicly said the police had been hasty in naming the McCanns as suspects.[116]
A judgment from the Evora Supreme Court of Justice in Portimão was released in May 2008 and revealed that Portuguese prosecutors were examining several charges, including abandonment of a child, abduction, homicide and concealment of a corpse.[117] Two months later, on 21 July, the Portuguese Attorney General announced that there was no evidence to link the McCanns or Robert Murat to the disappearance, that the case was closed, and that the arguido status of all three had been lifted.[118] On 4 August Ministério Público released 11,233 pages of the case file to the media on CD-ROM.[119]
Days after the case closed, excerpts from Kate McCann's diary, which had been taken by the Polícia Judiciária in August 2007 for the sniffer dogs, were published without her permission by a Portuguese tabloid, Correio da Manhã, translated from English to Portuguese. This despite a Portuguese judge's ruling in June 2008 that the seizure had been a privacy violation and that any copies must be destroyed.[120] On 14 September 2008 one of the News International tabloids, the News of the World, also published the extracts, again without permission and now translated poorly back into English.[121]
Three days after the case closed in July 2008, a book by Gonçalo Amaral, coordinator of the Portuguese investigation from May to October 2007, was published by Guerra & Paz, in Portugal and elsewhere in Europe. Maddie, a Verdade da Mentira ("Maddie, the Truth of the Lie"), which by November 2008 had sold 180,000 copies, alleged that Madeleine had died accidentally in apartment 5A and that the McCanns had invented the abduction scenario.[122]
Amaral was head of the regional Polícia Judiciária in Portimão at the time of the disappearance, and was himself an arguido in another case. A month after Madeleine went missing, he and four other officers were charged with offences related to their investigation into the disappearance of Joana Cipriano, an eight-year-old Portuguese girl who vanished in September 2004 from Figueira, seven miles (11 km) from Praia da Luz. Her body was never found and no murder weapon was ever identified. The girl's mother, Leonor Cipriano, launched a campaign to find her daughter, but was accused of having killed her; the mother and her brother were convicted of murder after confessing to the killing. The mother retracted her confession, saying she had been beaten by police; the police accounted for bruising on her face and body by saying she had thrown herself down some stairs in the police station. Amaral was not present when the beating is alleged to have taken place, but was accused of having covered up for others. In May 2009 he was convicted of perjury and received an 18-month suspended sentence.[123]
The McCanns had little or no contact with Amaral during the Madeleine inquiry. After telling a Portuguese newspaper in October 2007 that the British police only pursued leads helpful to the McCanns, he was transferred to another position in Faro.[107] He resigned from the police force in June 2008, shortly before his book was published.[124]
The McCanns sued for libel in June 2009. A Portuguese judge issued an injunction against further publication or sales of the book, banned Amaral from repeating his claims, and passed the copyright of the book and an accompanying documentary film to the McCanns' lawyer. Amaral responded by publishing a second book, A Mordaça Inglesa ("The English Gag").[124] The Court of Appeal in Lisbon overturned the publication ban in October 2010, stating that it violated Amaral's freedom of expression.[125] The libel case continued, with the McCanns seeking €1.2 million in damages from Amaral, his publishers Guerra & Paz, filmmakers VC Filmes, and TVI, a Portuguese television station that aired the film in April 2009.[126] The McCanns sought but failed to reach an out-of-court settlement in January 2013, and Amaral sought unsuccessfully to have the trial held in camera. The trial opened in September 2013 in Lisbon.[127] Amaral sacked his legal team in June 2014 the day the McCanns were due to testify, creating further delay.[128]
In May 2007 the family set up a limited company to finance the search, Madeleine's Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned.[129] Appeals were made by public figures and screened at football matches across Britain. Over £2.6 million was raised and the News of the World offered a reward of £1.5 million.[130] The Fund was criticized for making two of the McCanns' mortgage payments early on when they were unable to work.[131]
Madeleine's Fund hired several firms of private investigators. Shortly after the disappearance, an anonymous benefactor paid for the services of a British security company, Control Risks. As with the media attention, the arrival of private detectives in Praia da Luz caused friction with the Portuguese police.[132] Kennedy also hired a Spanish agency, Método 3, for six months for £50,000 a month; the company had 35 investigators on the case in Europe and Morocco, and Kennedy went to Morocco himself in 2007 to look into one sighting.[133]
Other private initiatives included a Portuguese lawyer financing the search of a reservoir near Praia da Luz in February 2008,[134] and an attempt in May 2009, by the McCanns' private detectives, to question British paedophile Raymond Hewlett; he denied involvement, declined to speak to them and died of cancer in Germany in December that year.[135] Dave Edgar, a retired detective working for the McCanns, released an e-fit in August 2009 of a woman said to have asked two British men in Barcelona, Spain, shortly after the disappearance, whether they were there to deliver her new daughter.[136] A South African property developer, Stephen Birch, said in 2012 that ground radar scans showed there were bones beneath the driveway of a house in Praia da Luz.[137]
In March 2008 Madeleine's Fund hired Oakley International, a Washington, D.C.-registered detective agency, for over £500,000 for six months.[138] The contract was signed with Red Defence International, a security company in London.[139] Oakley and Red Defence were owned by Kevin Halligen, who was arrested in 2009 in connection with an unrelated fraud allegation.[140] Oakley sent a five-man team to Portugal, led by Henri Exton, a former British police officer who had worked undercover for MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service; the team engaged in undercover operations within the Ocean Club and among paedophile rings and Roma communities.[139]
Exton questioned the significance of the Tanner sighting of a man carrying a child at 21:15 near the Ocean Club, and focused instead on the sighting at 22:00 by Martin and Mary Smith, 500 yards (457 m) from apartment 5A. The Oakley team produced e-fits based on the Smiths' description. This was a sensitive issue, because in September 2007 Martin Smith had watched television footage of the McCanns arriving in the UK from Portugal, and believed he recognized Gerry McCann as the man he had seen with the child at 22:00. Smith came to accept that he was mistaken; at 22:00 numerous witnesses placed Gerry McCann in the tapas restaurant. Nevertheless, the publication of the Smith e-fit, which bears some resemblance to Gerry, would have fed the conspiracy theories at that time about the McCanns' involvement.[34]
Exton submitted his report to Madeleine's Fund in November 2008, but the Smith e-fits were not published. The relationship between the Fund and the company had soured, in part because of a dispute over fees, and in part because the report was critical of the McCanns and their friends; it also suggested that Madeleine may have died in an accident after leaving the apartment herself through its unlocked doors. The Fund told Exton that the report and its e-fits had to remain confidential; a spokesperson told the Sunday Times that the report would have been a distraction. The Fund passed the e-fits to the Portuguese and Leicestershire police – the police had received them by October 2009 – but did not otherwise release them. Kate McCann did not include the e-fits with the other images of suspects in her book, Madeleine (2011), though she suggested that both the Tanner and Smith sightings were crucial.[34]
When Scotland Yard became involved in 2011, they came to regard the Tanner sighting as a false lead. They obtained a copy of the Oakley report in August 2011 and released the Smith e-fits in October 2013 for a BBC Crimewatch reconstruction. The BBC did not say that the e-fits were new, but until the Sunday Times published the background two weeks after Crimewatch aired, there was no indication that Madeleine's Fund had had them for five years.[34] David Elstein, chair of the board of openDemocracy, criticized the McCanns for having withheld the images and the BBC for having misled the public.[141]
The McCanns' campaign to find Madeleine turned a harsh spotlight on their lives, one that became increasingly intrusive as familiarity bred contempt. Nicola Rehling wrote that the disappearance had all the ingredients the media could latch onto: a whodunnit involving a white, middle-class family caught up in a nightmare of evil abroad. While the News of the World offered a £1.5 million reward for Madeleine, another News International tabloid, The Sun, offered just £20,000 for information about Shannon Matthews, who had gone missing in February 2008 from a West Yorkshire council estate and whose mother had seven children by five men.[142]
Within weeks of the disappearance, the couple's middle-class status, at first protective, turned into a weapon against them. They were harshly criticized for having left their children alone despite the availability of Ocean Club babysitters and an evening crèche. Seventeen thousand people signed an online petition in June 2007 asking Leicestershire Social Services to investigate; the argument ran that a working-class couple might have faced child-abandonment charges, but a group of doctors on a posh holiday had been let off the hook.[143] Novelist Anne Enright wrote that parents distancing themselves from the McCanns became a "potent form of magic," one that kept their own children safe.[144]
|Front page headlines in the Daily Express, a British tabloid, between 31 July and 24 August 2007.
The McCanns testified in November 2011 as core participants before the Leveson Inquiry into press standards in the UK. The inquiry heard that the editor of the Daily Express, in particular, had become "obsessed" with the McCanns. Lord Justice Leveson said the newspaper had published "complete piffle" about the couple, while Roy Greenslade called the Express articles "a sustained campaign of vitriol."[145] The British tabloids regularly cited Portuguese newspapers, which in turn referred to unnamed sources. "Maddie 'Sold' By Hard-Up McCanns," ran one headline in the Daily Star.[146]
Kate McCann – or "Hot Lips Healy," as one tabloid called her after digging up an old university nickname – came in for particular attention, considered too attractive, too thin, too well-dressed, too intense, too controlled and not mumsy enough, according to media analyst Caroline Bainbridge.[147] Several tabloids criticized her for not crying in public, despite her obvious distress; the Portuguese tabloid Correio da Manhã complained that she had not "shed a single tear" and called her "cynical and strange," at the same time relying on Portuguese police sources to portray her as hysterical and out of control. Kate told the Leveson Inquiry that photographers would lurk near the couple's home and bang on her car as she left with the twins to obtain a startled expression for a photograph.[148]
Kate's situation reflected that of Lindy Chamberlain, mother of Azaria Chamberlain, the baby who was killed by a dingo in Australia in 1980. Lindy spent three years in prison for a murder that had not occurred after the public judged her too unemotional in her responses; there was even a similar (false) story in both cases about a supposedly relevant Bible passage the mothers had highlighted. Dr Nicola Goc of the University of Tasmania wrote that Kate had joined a long list of women the media sought to transform into Medea figures – dangerous mothers – including Chamberlain, Sally Clark (1964–2007), Trupti Patel, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony.[149]
Rehling saw the treatment of Madeleine's disappearance as paradigmatic because of the extent to which social media shaped the narrative. Twitter was one year old when she went missing. According to Eilis O'Hanlon, the case "could almost stand as a metaphor for the rise of social media as the predominant mode of public discourse" with its "poisonous fantasies" about the McCanns.[150] The attacks on the couple reportedly included threats on a discussion forum to kidnap one of their twins, and when Scotland Yard and Crimewatch staged their reconstruction in 2013, there was talk on social-networking sites of phoning in with false information to sabotage the appeal.[151]
The McCanns responded to the allegations of involvement by bringing libel actions against several newspapers. The Daily Express, Daily Star and its sister Sunday papers published front-page apologies in March 2008 and agreed to pay £550,000 in damages, money that was donated to Madeleine's Fund.[152] The Tapas Seven were awarded £375,000 against the Express Group, also donated to Madeleine's Fund, along with a published apology in the Daily Express.[152] One man in the UK, who continued to spread the claims on social media and leafleted the McCanns' village, was given a three-month suspended sentence in February 2013.[153]
At the request of British Home Secretary Alan Johnson, the Home Office began discussions in 2010 with the Association of Chief Police Officers about setting up a new investigation.[154] In May 2011, under Home Secretary Theresa May, Scotland Yard launched an investigative review, Operation Grange, with a team of 29 detectives and eight civilians led by Commander Simon Foy. Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood of Scotland Yard's Homicide and Serious Crime Command was named as the senior investigating officer, reporting to Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell.[155]
The review, which had cost £4.7m by August 2013, was financed by a government contingency fund at the request of Prime Minister David Cameron, reportedly after News International persuaded the government to get the British police involved.[156] DCI Redwood said he rejected the "conspiracy theories" about the parents and was focusing on "a criminal act by a stranger."[157] The team began the work of translating tens of thousands of documents from the Portuguese inquiry, and in April 2012 released an updated age-progressed image of Madeleine. Redwood said they believed she may still be alive.[158]
In July 2013 the British Crown Prosecution Service sent a request for assistance to Portugal, and DCI Redwood announced that Operation Grange had become a criminal inquiry.[159] Detectives said they wanted to trace 12 manual workers who were at the Ocean Club resort when Madeleine disappeared, including six British cleaners in a white van who were offering their services to British expats.[160] Officers also made inquiries about two convicted paedophiles in jail in Scotland since 2010 for murder; the men were running a window-cleaning service in the Canary Islands when Madeleine went missing, and one of them was said to resemble one of the e-fits released by Scotland Yard.[161] Urs Hans von Aesch, a deceased Swiss man implicated in the murder in July 2007 of five-year-old Ylenia Lenhard, was also a focus of the inquiry.[112]
In October 2013 Scotland Yard and the BBC's Crimewatch broadcast a reconstruction of the disappearance, in a programme shown in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.[162] They released several e-fits, including the e-fit of the man the Smiths saw that night and of black- and blonde-haired men seen near the McCanns' apartment on and around the day of the disappearance. One theory is that Madeleine disturbed a burglary. There had been a fourfold increase in burglaries in the area between January 2007 and the disappearance in May, including two in the McCanns' block in the three weeks beforehand, during which intruders entered through apartment windows.[163]
Days after Crimewatch aired, Portugal's attorney general reopened the Portuguese investigation, citing new evidence.[164] According to the Portuguese tabloid Correio da Manhã, the new evidence was based on mobile-phone tracking techniques, which reportedly showed that a former Ocean Club restaurant worker's phone had been used near the resort on the evening of the disappearance. Originally from Cape Verde, West Africa, the man died in 2009 in a tractor accident after being fired from the Ocean Club in 2006 for theft; the suspicion is that he was breaking into apartments to finance a drug habit.[165]
In January 2014, the British Crown Prosecution Service sent a second request for assistance to Portugal; the request followed an analysis of mobile phone data, which reportedly showed that three people connected to burglaries in the area had made a high number of calls to each other around the time of the disappearance.[166]
|Burgundy top possibly worn by a man police want to trace[167]
Scotland Yard issued another appeal in March 2014 about a man who had entered holiday homes occupied by British families in 12 incidents in the Western Algarve, two in Praia da Luz, between 2004 and 2010. On four occasions he sexually assaulted five white girls, aged 7–10, in their beds. He spoke English with a foreign accent, his speech was slow and perhaps slurred, and he had short, dark unkempt hair, tanned skin, and in the view of three victims a distinctive smell; he may have worn a long-sleeved burgundy top, perhaps with a white circle on the back.[167]
Kate McCann wrote about these incidents in 2011 in her book, Madeleine, in which she alleged that the possible link to Madeleine surfaced only because the children's parents, after reporting the assaults to Portuguese police, repeated the information to police in the UK.[168] The day after the March 2014 appeal, the Polícia Judiciária said they believed the intruder was the former Ocean Club employee from Cape Verde who died in the 2009 tractor accident. This implied that the police forces disagreed as to whether the intruder was black or, as Scotland Yard said, had "dark (as in tanned) skin."[169]
In June 2014 Scotland Yard and the Polícia Judiciária, accompanied by archaeologists and sniffer dogs, spent days in Praia da Luz digging in 60,000 sq metres of wasteland and searching drains.[170] Nothing of interest was found. The following month Scotland Yard attended interviews conducted by the Polícia Judiciária with four Portuguese citizens, including Sergey Malinka, a Russian-born IT consultant who was first questioned shortly after the disappearance; 11 witnesses were also interviewed. Malinka was one of several people who received damages in 2008 from British tabloids.[73]
For Twitter, Eilis O'Hanlon, "Eilis O'Hanlon: The sad rise of cyber courts full of Twittering bullies", Sunday Independent (Ireland), 29 April 2012.
Also see Brian Cathcart, "The Real McCann Scandal", New Statesman, 23 October 2008.
James Robinson, "Leveson inquiry: McCanns deliver damning two-hour testimony", The Guardian, 23 November 2011.
The mark may not be a coloboma; see "Where is Madeleine McCann?" (transcript), Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN, 11 May 2011.
David James Smith, "Kate and Gerry McCann: Beyond the smears", The Sunday Times, 16 December 2007: "It has been suggested that the HRD dog was treated differently in the McCanns' apartment than in the others. The dog kept sniffing and running off and it was called back on several occasions. Eventually it 'alerted', meaning it went stiff and stayed still.
"Then the blood dog was called in and directed to the area where the other dog had alerted. Eventually this dog alerted in the same place – behind the sofa in the lounge, which is where the trace of blood was supposedly found.
"The cars were lined up, not in a controlled environment, but in the underground public car park opposite Portimão police station. Again the dog was led quickly from one car to the next until he reached a Renault with 'Find Madeleine' stickers all over it. The dog sniffed and moved on to the next car, but was called back. The dog was taken around the McCanns' car for about a minute, as opposed to the few seconds devoted to the other cars. Then the dog went rigid, an 'alert', and the doors and the boot were opened. It was this that led to the recovery of some body fluids that the PJ suspected would contain traces of Madeleine's DNA, and which led to the supposed revelation that her body must have been carried in the car."
Also see Andrew Alderson and Tom Harper, "The allegations facing the McCanns", The Daily Telegraph, 9 September 2007.
Also see Rich Bowden, "McCanns: Madeleine DNA samples too degraded for proper analysis - police", Monsters and Critics, 4 December 2007; "DNA test halted after Omagh case", BBC News, 23 December 2007; "Police resume use of DNA method", BBC News, 14 January 2008; "DNA technique 'fit for purpose'", BBC News, 11 April 2008.
Also see James Orr, Brendan de Beer and agencies, "UK police warned on DNA evidence before McCanns became suspects", The Guardian, 4 August 2008; McCann 2011, p. 331.
"Wednesday 28 March 2012: Afternoon session", Leveson Inquiry (Matt Baggott's evidence), following Lord Leveson's question starting 104:38 mins, continuing 115:22 mins. Transcript of Matt Baggott's evidence, p. 68ff; Matt Baggott's witness statement, question 50, pp. 22–25.
The McCanns went to the High Court in July 2008 to gain access to 81 pieces of information Leicestershire police held about sightings of Madeleine. In August 2008 over 11,000 pages of Portuguese police files were released to the public, including 2,550 pages of sightings, and in 2009 the McCanns obtained a copy from the Portuguese police of a further 2,000 pages describing 50 sightings. See Gordon Rayner, "Madeleine McCann parents gain access to police files", The Daily Telegraph, 7 July 2008; and "Madeleine McCann's parents criticise release of files", BBC News, 6 March 2010.
For responses to Enright's article, Margarette Driscoll, "Too serene for sympathy," The Sunday Times, 21 October 2007; Sam Leith, "Anne Enright was spot on about McCann mania", The Daily Telegraph, 22 October 2007.
For a list of Leveson Inquiry core participants, see Core participants and "Core participant victims, Leveson Inquiry.
For threat to disrupt appeal, Colin Freeman, "Madeleine McCann: is there hope at last?", The Daily Telegraph, 19 October 2013.
For the Tapas Seven, see Matthew Moore, "Madeleine McCann: Daily Express publishes apology to 'Tapas Seven'", The Daily Telegraph, 16 October 2008.
Another strand of the inquiry is a burglary gone wrong. Redwood: "We have noticed that there was between January and the time Madeleine went missing a fourfold increase in the number of burglaries that were taking place in the vicinity." Reporter: "In the three weeks prior to her disappearance, two incidents took place in the very block where Madeleine slept. In both, windows were used to gain access."


text:
The Wurst Gallery has an new online exhibition called Vintage Vandals. They asked artists to find a framed piece of artwork at their local thrift shop and turn it into something of their own. It's an interesting mix of work. The piece displayed here is loosely titled "hug more trees" and was created by Andy Sargent.
Personal Data Forest
by Josh Rubin
This image is a representation of all the data right here on Cool Hunting, created using Texone's Tree Applet. You point the applet to a web address and it translates the syntactic structure of the site to a tree visualization. It also creates...
Mixed Greens
by Josh Rubin
A great site featuring many comtemporary artists. You can buy work or just maintain an on line gallery. Mixed Greens
by Jacob Resneck
The concept behind Swipple is so simple, it makes you wonder why there aren't more sites like it. An online art gallery that exhibits the work of different artists from a wide range of styles, it's easy to navigate, simple to browse, and...
Boundless Gallery
by Jacob Resneck
We're always a fan of a good website stemming from simple ideas that have been competently executed. BoundlessGallery is one such site that connects thousands of artists from all over the world with potential buyers and clients, creating a global...
by Josh Rubin
Grainbag is a Pittsburgh based on-line gallery featuring a really broad range of contemporary work. Thanks to Apartment Therapy for turning me on to Grainbag and the work of Corey LeChat, who's piece Senescent Shaman is pictured above. Grainbag...
Word of Mouth: 7th District, Budapest
Vintage shops, creative hangouts and delectable ice cream in our guide to navigating Hungary's diverse capital
by CH Contributor
by Anya Lawrence In the midst of a cultural upheaval, Budapest is rapidly becoming the vibrant creative mecca of Central Europe. Its plentiful offering of baroque thermal baths and classically beautiful architecture alongside a bevy of superb yet...
Patrick Blanc: Vertical Gardens
by Letizia Rossi
French artist and botanist Patrick Blanc's Vertical Gardens are living installations. The lush wall plantings, which are often several stories tall, require no soil and come equipped with a self-sufficient watering system. You can see Blanc'...
Our interview with the proprietors of Portland's first pop-up shop and gallery space highlighting Maine-made goods
by Kat Herriman
A hybrid between a retail and gallery space, Seawall is home to Portland, Maine's first pop-up shop and also its newest clothing line. Founders Daniel Pepice, Sara Lemieux, Thom Rhoads and Brook Delorme opened Seawall this spring with the hope to...
Crash Bonsai
by Ami Kealoha
Like a cross between a grown-up dollhouse and sculptor Jonathan Schipper's "Car Crash," Boston-based artist John Rooney's Crash Bonsai doses the Zen art of Bonsai with a little violence. Pick up one of Rooney's custom melted...
by CH Contributor
by Laura Neilson As older methods of correspondence become more obsolete in today's digital age, TelegramStop brings the best of the old and the new world. Through the company's website, anyone can send vintage-era telegram to any country...
Arts Recommendations from The Mirror Cube
A site dedicated to music, film and artistic happenings, as recommended by an array of working artists
by David Graver
Perhaps no one knows the music, film and art scenes better than those within them. Communities form and flourish, and engage other active creators. Highly collaborative art leads to highly connected scenes with an escalated awareness of what's working...
Land of Light
The instruments behind Jonny Nash and Kyle Martin's brilliant musical experiment
by Karen Day
Land Of Light, an eponymous new album from London-based duo Jonny Nash and Kyle Martin, is an ethereal labor of love intended for serious listening. The talented musicians spent the last three years creating the 37-minute-long LP, and the upshot...
Loading More...

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Tag Archives: medical marijuana patients
Medical Marijuana Consumption: Smoking vs. Vaporizing
Humans have used the smoke and vapors of plants and herbs for thousands of years for medicinal and religious purposes, and as technology evolves, so do the means of inhaling the beneficial remedies. Today, as the legalization for medical and … Continue reading
Pain Meds: Narcotics vs. Medical Marijuana
The January edition of "Men's Health" magazine published an article discussing the increasing rate of prescription drug related overdoses. In Scioto County, Ohio, accidental overdoses are exponentially growing, and surpassing any other causes of death among men ages 35-54. Prescribed … Continue reading


text:
College wrestling: Worthington Open coming to Minnesota West
WORTHINGTON — A flood of wrestlers from throughout the region will hit the mats in Worthington Saturday for the 24th annual Worthington Open.
Get the full story
Subscribe or Log In
Are you a newspaper subscriber but you don't have a Digital Access account yet? Activate your account.
You will need your subscription account number and phone number. Not sure if you have an account? Email us or call (800) 274-5445 and we can help you.


text:
"I've purchased graduation announcements before from Tiny Prints. . The quality of paper and printed photos is excellent. I have no complaints.. Received the order very quickly. Everyone loved the announcement. My sister saw my son's card and decided to order announcements for her graduating senior as well. Website easy to use. Great experience."
"The quality and design of this card is quite lovely in person! We've received so many compliments from friends and family! There were a few issues along the way, but James T. in customer service made sure everything was corrected and perfect upon arrival! Thanks again James!"
"We found this card most excellent. The design was clean, the layout was crisp, the photo resolution was excellent and the graphics were as pictured. Guests receiving it commented that it was beautiful.I added a picture to the back and text and this too was appropriately sized and looked amazing. I only have two thoughts, I wish the card dimensions were slightly larger and the design was so on trend that I wish they offered a matching thank you card in addition to the mailing labels! Oh and I used the super rush mailing option and the cards were in hand less than 48 hours after my hitting the submit button....that"s great shipping and customer service. I would definitely buy again and and would recommend this card and Tiny Prints to friends!"
"I ordered graduation announcements for my sons open house. Tiny Prints had so many more unique designs to choose from. My son has a unique sense of style and Tiny prints had the perfect card to match his personality. The announcement was delivered prior to the delivery confirmation date. The quality was superb. I can't say enough about how happy I was with the order. Thank you Tiny Prints!"
"We were so pleased with our cards when they arrived. They also came very quickly. I love the photo finishing options that are included. They look even better than they look online."


text:
John C. Sullivan, Supervisor
51 North Enola Drive, Enola, PA 17025
EMAIL: email@example.com
John C. Sullivan, Supervisor
51 North Enola Drive, Enola, PA 17025
EMAIL: firstname.lastname@example.com
Continuing John C. Sullivan's Legacy.....
On behalf of the Sullivan family, I would like to thank everyone who expressed their deepest sympathies to us while we mourn the loss of our founder, John C. Sullivan. A special thanks to all of our fellow funeral directors who so willingly offered to assist us during this difficult time. Throughout the years, John's commitment to dignified, professional, and affordable funeral service was quite evident. He cared so much for the business that he started; consequently, he wanted to ensure the community that it would thrive even after he retired.
In December of 2009, John approached me to help him at the funeral home. He knew that I was an Enola resident and cared about the community as well. As the years passed by, I learned many lessons from him as he mentored and groomed me to someday take his place. In August of 2013, John and Nancy sold the funeral home to my wife, Windy, and myself. He wanted to enjoy his retirement and spend as much time with his family as possible. We were hoping that we would have many years together with him; however, God had other plans for him.
Each and every day, I think about John and what his presence in our lives meant to our community. He has set a very high standard that I hope to live up to. You have my solemn promise to treat your family the same way John did. When you read an obituary that we place in the newspaper, you will notice that we mention, "The Sullivan Funeral Home is honored to serve the family." We are honored that you call upon us at your most difficult time, and we place your needs above our own, just like John did.
Mario, Windy, and Maribella Billow
At Sullivan Funeral Home we know it is often the little things that make a big difference, and we offer a variety of services to ensure that every detail of planning a funeral or memorial services is as effortless and straightforward as possible. Our unique approach to memorial services allows our families to celebrate the lives of their loved ones in a variety of different ways. We invite you to combine our services with your own ideas to create a memorable funeral service for your loved one.
Your Comfort....
At Sullivan Funeral Home, we believe that your comfort during this time is of the upmost importance to us. Many families ask us, "Will you visit us in our home to make the arrangements?". The answer is "yes". Our goal is to offer you and your family a caring and compassionate atomosphere.
Our funeral home prides itself on our ability to make the final tribute to your loved one a special experience. We offer free of charge a tribute candle, memory portrait, memory video, and custom embroidery as well as a casket lid impression that symbolizes what your loved one's interests were. We are also the first funeral home in the area to offer webcasting at our facility or another facility such as a church or fraternal club.
John C. Sullivan, Jr. 65, died Monday, March 16, 2015 in Panama City, FL. John lived in Enola, PA with his wife of 22 years, Nancy L. (Kelsall) Sullivan.
Kenneth L. Mundis Sr., 86, of Enola, PA passed away peacefully on Saturday, March 21, 2015 at Country Meadows retirement community. He was born on July 14, 1928 in Enola, PA, son of the late Edna & Emory Mundis.
Geraldine A. "Gerry" Shammo of Enola, 77, passed into Eternal Life at Messiah Village, Mechanicsburg on Monday, March 16, 2015.
OUR MISSION: Our organizational goal at the Sullivan Funeral Home is to provide the families we serve with an affordable, dignified, and personalized funeral service for your loved one that surpasses your expectations. We are honored to serve your family and firmly believe in the Golden Rule - "Treat others as you would want to be treated."


text:
Narrow your search
Pebble has recaptured the top spot for most-funded project, with its new smartwatch raising more than $20.3 million from backers, far surpassing the initial goal of $500,000.
Launched this week on Indiegogo, this elegant connected lock will be able to talk to Nest and HomeKit products.
The 361 smart shoe contains MediaTek tech, a GPS tracker and wireless charging so you can see where your anklebiters are.
Pricing not available
LifeBeam's heart-rate-sensing hat isn't such a dumb idea.
Pricing not available
The Sesame Smart Lock is a new August competitor with a tempting price point.
The Linq Home Smart Vent aims to give you room by room temperature control.
Pricing not available
Designed with seniors in mind, the Emporia Smart is an Android smartphone that packs a physical emergency call button, a stylus, and a minimalistic user interface.
Pricing not available
This capable cooker returned consistently great results, but the so-so Bluetooth and app portion isn't quite worth the inflated price.
The Keen Home Smart Vent replaces your existing vents to allow room-specific control over your heat.
Made for the hardcore runner, the Sensoria smart sock manages to stand out of the wearable crowd on the show floor of CES 2015.
Pricing not available


text:
European collateralised debt obligation (CDO) managers are likely to target leveraged loans this year, said the European structured finance ratings unit of Standard & Poor's (S&P) today.S&P expects the bulk of European cashflow CDOs this year to be backed by European leveraged loans, with new managers entering this asset class. In 2003, CDO managers are expected to target mezzanine loans as assets in portfolios of leveraged loans in place of senior secured leveraged loans.
"As the CLO (collateralised loan obligation) market matures and more tailored structures are sought, there is growing interest in structuring transactions that offer a much higher mezzanine loan component," said Stroma Finston, a director at Standard & Poor's European structured finance ratings group, in London. "Standard & Poor's expects that at least one CLO backed only by mezzanine loans will be brought to market in 2003." But the agency added that the number of CDO transactions brought to market in 2003 will depend on the availability of the collateral.
"During 2002, the proportion of leveraged loans in the portfolios increased at the expense of bonds, demonstrating European CDO managers' growing interest in leveraged loans," said Finston.
In 2002, S&P rated a total of six CDOs backed by leveraged loans, with an aggregate pool size of €1.9 billion. In the six related portfolios, leveraged loans made up anywhere from 63% to 100% of the total portfolio, with a weighted-average proportion of leveraged loans of about 88%.
The agency took a rating action on only one transaction: the long-term ratings on Concerto I BV's class A and B notes were lowered in the quarter due to some deterioration in the credit quality of the pool, and because a number of coverage tests were not met. However, the deterioration in credit quality and par erosion of the portfolio was due more to the performance of the bonds than the loans.
More on Structured Products
Structuring shops get shirty about spread-bets and CFDs
Retail brokers accused of stealing bank business with little oversight
China rate cut boosts offshore structured product market
High-net-worth investors pile into dollar and commodity structures as PBoC loosens
CCPs mull equity swaps clearing solutions
Progress slowed by lack of standardisation and fear of triggering regulatory mandate
Aussie super funds seek alternatives for diversification
Low returns from traditional investments are driving Australia's pension industry to look more at alternative assets
Sign up for Risk.net email alerts
Related media
Credit derivatives – looking forward in a time of change
Sponsored video: MarketAxess
Latest developments in the European derivatives markets
Sponsored video: Tradeweb
Sponsored video interview: Multifonds' Keith Hale
Multifonds talks to Custody Risk on being nominated for the Post-Trade Technology Vendor of the Year at the Custody Risk Awards 2014
Examining the current state and future direction of enterprise stress testing
Sponsored webinar: IBM Risk Analytics
There are no comments submitted yet. Do you have an interesting opinion? Then be the first to post a comment.
Updating your subscription status
Risk iPad and iPhone Apps
Click here to see our full portfolio
Email alerts
Readers poll


text:
Boomer Consumer
The Boomer Consumer is dedicated to helping boomers get what they want in life through using consumer information, making effective choices, and sharing their own experiences.
Posts filtered on Category
Happy holidays to you
Merry Christmas or happy Hanukkah, Eid al-Adha, Kwanzaa, winter solstice, or other celebration. I hope that the holiday season is a great one for you. [Read More]
Top 10 tips for the best holiday season ever
If you're still looking for ideas or need inspiration, this article offers helpful holiday tips. [Read More]
Tips for safe, effective giving during the holiday season
If you're able to help those in need during the holidays, it's a good idea to check out any charity you're considering giving a donation to. Helpful information is available in the "2010 Commercial Fundraiser Activity Report" prepared by the Secretary of State's Office. [Read More]
How's your Black Friday shopping going?
Did you wait at a store in the predawn hours? Was it worth it? Did you get a great bargain or did you just catch a cold? Are you fighting crowds? Are there any bargains left? While some consumers swear by their Black Friday traditions, others skip it all together and opt for Internet shopping instead. [Read More]
What's an eco friendly handbag?
When I was at Seattle's Green Festival last weekend, handbags made by Reveal were among the items shown at an eco friendly fashion show. I was curious about how you make handbags that have fewer environmental impacts. So I asked Terry and Jia Omata, founders and co-owners of Reveal, if they'd answer the questions below about their handbags and other products. [Read More]
How to have a great Mother's Day Celebration
If you're still looking for ideas on ways to celebrate Mother's Day, this article offers ideas to help you. [Read More]
Top 10 tips for having a great Valentine's Day
Haven't bought a gift for your sweetheart yet? Pondering on where to make a reservation for a special dinner out, but worried you may be too late? Experiencing other stresses and strains over your Valentine's Day plans? Here are suggestions to help you have a successful Thanksgiving Day. [Read More]
Valentine's Day facts and figures 2010
This article provides information on the origins of Valentine's Day, when people began sending cards, and how much people will be spending this year. [Read More]
Ideas for a fun, joy-filled holiday season
Looking for ways to help you have an enjoyable holiday season filled with fun and joy, but minimal stress? This article offers a dozen ideas to help you out. [Read More]
Check on return policies as you do your holiday shopping
Every year, ConsumerWorld.org does a return policy survey, and this year it found that shoppers will find returns slightly easier in some stores because of more lenient rules. Some stores have extended their return deadlines, and eased policies regarding the return of goods without receipts. Most stores, however, continue to create complicated rules for different categories of items. [Read More]
Show More


text:
Item #07044
The fine craftsmanship of the Lake Champlain Collection was inspired by Burlington, a charming city by the lake which prides itself in the arts. Featuring cast aluminum details and scrollwork, this hazelnut-finished lighting fixture boasts seeded glass; order for your home today.
Product Details
Carrington Manor Small Outdoor Sconce
$279.00 - $599.00
Landon Storage Box
Anderson Outdoor Wall Lantern
$81.00 - $249.00
Paris Flea Wall Sconce
Pembrooke Outdoor Wall Lantern
$189.00 - $279.00


text:
Apr 27
Breakfasts & Brunches, British Vegan, Manfood, Savouries, Starters & Snacks
This post is password protected. Enter the password to view comments.
Hi, I'm Miriam. I love meatless dishes, I love my kitchen, I adore food and I am a passionate gourmet cook.
see more . . . http://mouthwateringvegan.com/about-me-2/
The Best Vegan Cheeses in the World available online now - handmade, artisan, second to none !
See the customer reviews on the Midas Fine Art Cheeses Facebook page :
I value your feedback - please scroll down to the Comment Box at bottom of the page to leave yours. Thanks.


text:
Steelers' Clark back from the brink
PITTSBURGH -- Oddly, Ryan Clark had felt sick to his stomach playing in Denver's mile-high altitude before, as a member of the Redskins three years previously. But after the Steelers lost to the Broncos on Oct. 21, 2007, he was in agony.
The team doctor tilted back Clark's seat on the plane, climbed onto his lap, started pressing around his ribs and asked him to try to take deep breaths. They wheeled him away before takeoff and took him to the hospital.
Thus began a baffling, sometimes harrowing, three-month odyssey that would take the Pittsburgh safety to the brink of death. When Clark recently leveled Baltimore's Willis McGahee with a brutal -- but legal -- tackle in the AFC Championship Game, sending the Ravens running back to the hospital, it was a haunting flashback for Clark and those who love him.
"When we hit, I think I just kind of blacked out for a second," Clark said. "That's how I've always played. When you think about it, you flinch, and when you flinch, there's a possibility that somebody could hurt you. If you think about what could happen, what could be worse than what I went through last year?
"What could be worse?"
The Steelers' defense is the NFL's finest, in terms of fewest points and yards allowed. And while the lineup is filled with marquee names, according to team statistics the anonymous Clark finished the regular season as the second-leading tackler. As the not-so-free safety, he allows Troy Polamalu to careen randomly all over the field. Clark is, literally, Pittsburgh's last line of defense.
NFL.com Video
Ravens RB Willis McGahee takes a scary hit from Ryan Clark in the AFC Championship Game.
Clark was born with sickle cell trait but had never experienced full-blown complications of the disease, in which healthy red blood cells turn sickle-shaped and compromise blood flow in and around the spleen. There are two factors, according to studies, that can cause this: extreme physical exertion and high altitude. Both were present in Denver, but no one understood the ramifications at the time. A week after returning home to Pittsburgh, Clark's condition worsened dramatically.
"Apparently, his spleen was disintegrating," said his wife, Yonka. "It wasn't getting the oxygen it needed to operate. It disintegrated. It melted."
It might have happened the night Clark's mother and his wife tucked him into bed, piled up the blankets and wrapped his head in a scarf. Yonka had the blow-dryer going under the covers to warm him up -- trouble was, he had a fever of 104 degrees.
"They kept telling me, 'It's not cold. It's not cold,'" Clark said. "I was like, 'I'm freezing.' So I started to shake. My mom was laying on top of me, praying, and I'm bouncing the bed, moving the bed.
"That was the only time through the whole process I thought I could die. I even said a prayer. I just asked the Lord to forgive me for anything, just asked his mercy upon my life because I thought that was it."
"You think about you've got a 7-year-old son," Clark said. "What's it going to be like without Dad? You think about your daughters. Who's going to walk them down the aisle? Who's going to take them on their first date, so they know how men should treat them? Who's going to marry my wife after I was gone?"
The immediate crisis passed, however, and, despite spiking fevers and night sweats that drenched his pajamas, Clark tried to go to work each day. Even though he couldn't dress himself and needed a ride to the facility, doctors and coaches were optimistic he soon would play.
"When someone is telling you [that] you should be all right, all the tests check out, you want to feel OK," Clark said. "I'm training, fever is 102, 103. I'm lifting weights. I'm trying my best to walk around the field and people are saying things like, 'Oh, you should be ready Monday or Wednesday.'"
How did that make him feel?
"Angry. I felt like you're not going through this," Clark said of team doctors and coaches. "There's no way I can wake up every morning with a normal temperature, then by 2:30, 3, you have to send me home because I'm 103. I know that's not normal."
Said Yonka, "Certain doctors want it to be what they want it to be. When you find scientists, doctors that have gone to school for such a long period of time, they want to be able to explain everything, and when they're not able to, it just kind of comes down to there's nothing there, that it doesn't exist.
"In this case, particularly, it could have cost my husband his life."
After three weeks on the inactive list, the Steelers placed Clark on injured reserve. In December 2007, the Clarks reached out to Dr. Stanley Marks, a noted hematologist, at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Marks, who was in New York, suggested a Monday appointment.
The Clarks credit Dr. Marks with saving Ryan's life. Marks, through the Steelers, declined ESPN's request for an interview.
Clark's playing weight is 205, but when he entered the hospital he had lost 40 pounds. Polamalu, with whom he is close, visited him there.
"That was probably the most crying I did in the hospital, was when he came to see me," Clark said. "It was so much more than football for me and him. I hadn't cried, not one time ... he started crying, too."
In two surgeries, in the span of a month, doctors removed his ruined spleen and gallbladder. When Ryan started joking with the nurses and picking on the doctors, Yonka knew he would recover. They cleared him to work out at the end of January and he traveled to Arizona to rebuild his dormant muscles.
"It was really awesome to see how he transformed when he started getting back in shape," Polamalu said. "This defense has been all about sacrifice, the way we throw our bodies around. Ryan's a prime example of that, obviously."
Said Yonka, "The NFL is not forever. I think it's a great thing that he accepts it as a blessing and is able to go out and play it to the fullest extent that he can, because it's only for a moment, and then, when it's done, it's over."
As fate would have it, the Steelers will play another game in the high-altitude of Denver in 2009. Asked whether he will play after all he has endured, Clark at first sounded cautious.
"It'll be a big decision, something we're definitely going to pray about," he said. "We're going to do our due diligence, finding what could happen."
He went on in this manner for some time with his wife nearby, listening intently. Still, there was something in his eyes that suggested the decision already had been made.
"You're going," his questioner said, not in the form of a question.
Clark smiled.
"No question," he said.
Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
Greg GarberWriter, Reporter
In one of the best Super Bowls ever, the Steelers blew a 13-point lead before they delivered their own comeback to beat Arizona, 27-23. Super Central
Super Bowl results | MVPs
Photos: Game action | Halftime show
- Fitzgeralds share bittersweet Sunday
- Walker: Holmes humbled by MVP award
- Clayton: 10 things we learned
- The Last Call: Analysis, team grades
- Wojciechowski: Steelers do it the right way
- Chadiha: Holmes seizes the moment
- Garber: Harrison changed game with INT
- Pasquarelli: Steelers' Woodley delivers
- Sando: Warner deserved better ending
- Yasinskas: Big Ben's time to shine
- Walker: Inside the final drive
- Recap: Steelers blow lead, win
- SportsNation: Pick the best commercials
- Chadiha: QBs can define legacies
- Research: Top defensive performances
- Pasquarelli: No. 3 WRs could prove pivotal
- Wojciechowski: Reasons to pick the Steelers
- Super Bowl XLIII expert picks
- Super Bowl MVPs' most valuable moments
- Sando: Cards made all the right moves
- Chadiha: History means little
- Fleming: Whiz flipped play-calling script
- Yasinskas: Rodgers-Cromartie dishes up D
- Chadiha: Tillman still resonates
- Yasinskas: A dismal desert history
- Chadiha: Leinart's awkward position
- Chadiha: Why Edge seems sharper
- Football Outsiders: Pass-happy Cardinals
- Grant: Stopping Fitz a matter of timing
- Wojciechowski: Cardinals had a plan
- Sando: Examining Cardinals' defense
- Chadiha: Boldin earns benefit of doubt
- Reilly: A father's dilemma
- FB Outsiders: Fitzgerald better than Rice?
- Seifert: Warner finally on solid ground
- Chadiha: Fitzgerald improving by leaps
- Garber: Safety Clark back from brink
- Garber: Legacy of Terrible Towel
- Garber: Quiet Polamalu will make noise
- Wojciechowski: Another win for "The Rule"
- Outsiders: Defense sets Steelers apart
- Walker: Fifty years of LeBeau
- Garber: Big Ben ticks to his own clock
- Clayton: The evolution of Roethlisberger
- Merrill: Steelers' Harrison a 'scary' presence
- Merrill: Noll's legacy alive and well
- Walker: Tomlin, Farrior share unique history
- Clayton: That Curtain something
- Clayton: Cards-Steelers is good theater
- Wojciechowski: Steelers put hammer down
- Nike Boys' Home Game Jersey Pittsburgh Steelers Heath Miller #83
Shop »
- Sando: Free-agency grades for all 32 teams
- Kiper: Perfect prospect-team draft fits
- Williamson: Top 10 impact signings, trades
- McShay: Winston's edge over Mariota | Top 10s
- Muench: Top draft targets for the 49ers