A missing child is one of the saddest things that can happen and it is especially difficult for the parents to process. Unfortunately, it happens all too often and 17 years ago, it happened in a vacation apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
It’s hard to believe that it was 17 years ago that Madeleine McCann, a three-year-old girl went missing from her apartment in Portugal. Ever since that time, it has been of interest to people around the world and is sometimes described as being ‘the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history.’
Kate and Gerry McCann are the little girl’s parents and they have dedicated their lives to searching for their daughter. On the 17th anniversary of her disappearance, they went on the Finding Madeleine website and shared an update that was heartbreaking.
Prior to the report, Kate had spoken about something that may have led to the disappearance of her daughter. Madeleine disappeared while they were on holiday and she was in bed for the evening. It happened on May 3, 2007, at a resort in Portugal.
She was sleeping along with her twin siblings as the parents went out to a nearby restaurant with friends. When they discovered that she had disappeared, a huge search took place but despite the attention the case received, the whereabouts of the little girl are still unknown.
Over the years, there have been some updates, including when senior officers traveled to London to meet with her father.
Apologies were given for how detectives investigated the case and how the family was treated. No comment was given on the apology by the parents.
During the investigation, one of the German prosecutors, Hans Christian Wolters said that the apology was ‘a good sign’. He went on to explain: “It shows that, in Portugal, there’s development in the McCann case.”
In 2022, a prisoner in Germany, Christian B was named as an official suspect in the investigation. He had been cleared by the German court of s*xual abuse in an unrelated trial. He is also denying the charges that he had anything to do with the little girl’s disappearance.
Madeleine’s mother spoke before updates were given in the case and talked about a detail that happened on the night her daughter disappeared. It was in her memoir from 2011: ‘Madeleine: Our Daughter’s Disappearance and the Continuing Search for Her’.
She said that she had unearthed something a year before documents by the police became public. She was disturbed after finding a note from the holiday apartment complex while looking through police files.
The mother explained it in her book, saying how when Madeleine disappeared, there was a group of nine that went to a tapas restaurant in the evenings. It was complicated to have such a large party seated, but they did get evenings penciled in for the rest of the week.
Kate looked through the police documents and saw how accessible the book and the restaurant were to the public. She wrote: “The note requesting our block booking was written in a staff message book, which sat on a desk at the pool reception for most of the day.
“This book was by definition accessible to all staff and, albeit unintentionally, probably to guests and visitors, too.”
The book also had details on how the McCanns would leave their children in the apartment by themselves.
She continued: “To my horror, I saw that no doubt in all innocence and simply to explain why she was bending the rules a bit, the receptionist had added the reason for our request: we wanted to eat close to our apartments as we were leaving our young children alone there and checking on them intermittently.”
She went on to explain how the group of nine would do their own ‘child checking service’ while eating at the restaurant instead of bringing the children along or asking for a child service to take care of it for them.
She said: “We now bitterly regret it and will do so until the end of our days.”