Madeleine McCann 'died from overdose'

I hadn't followed this story until the report this week that the parents may have killed the child. It's hard to believe two physicians could accidentally overdose their child, but sedation would explain why they thought it would be OK to leave the kids alone.

Also, she was only three - how likely is it that they would have left it somewhere it could be found? Also, how does forensics do such tests in order to come to such a conclusion?

They were better at it than I was. That's when I got a lockbox for the meds.

illicit, maybe they were in a plastic bag in a drawer somewhere. All I can do is speculate which is pretty pointless. I doubt any forensic test could be done to tell how they were ingested. You'd need physical evidence to prove or disprove that, like empty bottles with finger prints or maybe marks on the child where she was forced to swallow them.

every sleeping pill I've ever taken, comes in all kind of different packaging - the last box I bought was a pop-through blister pack, very easy to get into.

My daughter once got her hands on a bottle of caffeine pills (she was maybe just 2) and had them open and a bunch in her hand (luckily she didn't put them in her mouth). I am usually (and since then extremely so) very careful about keeping things out of reach, but that day I left them on the table.

Also, if the pills were purchased in another country, they may not have the same laws and regulations about child-proof bottles.

Still wouldn't explain not calling an ambulance or the police though.

All during the most intense search in the city's history, the parents kept a decomposing body hidden, then put a putrid month-dead corpse in their car and got rid of it while they were under intense press scrutiny?

Not saying the parent's aren't capable of it, just that logistically it's unlikely.

On the other hand, the Portugese are very keen to wrap up the case and make the case that they don't have a pedophile gang on the loose...

After Susan Smith, we know that a murdering parent is capable of displaying great grief. So their protestations don't sway me.

But the 25 day thing seems real improbable to me.

"Not saying the parent's aren't capable of it, just that logistically it's unlikely."

Nah, logically it's more likely to be the parents then some stranger.

"On the other hand, the Portugese are very keen to wrap up the case and make the case that they don't have a pedophile gang on the loose..."

Either that, or that coven of child-eating witches that live in the gumdrop house out in the woods.

:rofl:

1. If the parents put anything that was ever touched by the kid in the car, then some DNA or other material could easily have transferred. Any child's toy for a start.

2. What's being claimed is very unlikely. Keeping a body hidden for nearly a month while you're under CONSTANT scrutiny? I don't buy it.

3. Many pedophile rings exist. They kidnap children, imprison them and have sex with them. This is a proven fact. Look up the Marc Dutroux case.

4. The police are obviously embarrassed by their failure to secure the crime scene properly and solve the case. Blaming the parents is an easy out for them. It is not necessarily correct.

5. Logistically does not mean logically. Look it up.

But the simplest, most logical explanation is that the parents did it.

"1. If the parents put anything that was ever touched by the kid in the car, then some DNA or other material could easily have transferred. Any child's toy for a start."

I really down any child's toy covered in blood would be just sitting around and then placed in a rental car weeks after the child disappeared.

"2. What's being claimed is very unlikely. Keeping a body hidden for nearly a month while you're under CONSTANT scrutiny? I don't buy it."

Nah, murdered children are often killed by their family members. Plenty of times murderers fear they haven't hid the body well enough, and go back to move it. The constant scrutiny is why they got caught doing it. Do you not buy it for valid reasons, or is it just wishful thinking? You'd like to believe these two wonderful people would never hurt their child?

"3. Many pedophile rings exist. They kidnap children, imprison them and have sex with them. This is a proven fact. Look up the Marc Dutroux case."

I suspect the numbers and fears are greatly exaggerated. Similar to how in the 1980's people were constantly talking about cults of Satan Worshipers kidnapping children. I'll say again, it's usually family members or close acquaintances.

"4. The police are obviously embarrassed by their failure to secure the crime scene properly and solve the case. Blaming the parents is an easy out for them. It is not necessarily correct."

Actually, it looks like the police are wrapping up the case rather nicely. It seems to me these attacks on the police are due to obvious denial.

"But the simplest, most logical explanation is that the parents did it."

HOW did they conceal a body despite the most thorough police search in history, then move it nearly a month later?

"I really down any child's toy covered in blood would be just sitting around and then placed in a rental car weeks after the child disappeared."

All that has been found that authenticates as matching the child is DNA traces. You would expect ANY family that packed its belongings into a car to contaminate that car with DNA from all the family members. This evidence doesn't point to anything.

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_headline=madeleine-mccann-hire-car-dna-sample-8216-is-not-conclusive-8217&method=full&objectid=19769811&siteid=50061-name_page.html

"Bodily fluids - not blood - matching Madeleine McCann's DNA have been found in the car hired by her parents, according to sources, cited by Sky News."

"Nah, murdered children are often killed by their family members. Plenty of times murderers fear they haven't hid the body well enough, and go back to move it."

HOW did they do it? They were under press scrutiny 24/7. How did they conceal the body from a massive careful search, pack a month-old rotting corpse into a car under view of the press, and put it somewhere else? It's just implausible.

"You'd like to believe these two wonderful people would never hurt their child?"

I actually thought it was them to start with. I'm pretty cynical about parents and I'm fully aware that most murders aren't done by strangers. But there are exceptions. The knots that people who claim it the parents were the killers are tying themselves into, suggest that this is one of them.

"I suspect the numbers and fears are greatly exaggerated."

Pedophile kidnappings do happen. They aren't common, but one happened one street over from where I used to live. A young teenage boy was abducted off the street, drugged and sodomized for weeks, then his strangled body was dumped in a river. The cops caught the guy who did it a few months later, and suspected that a ring was involved, but nothing was proved.

"Actually, it looks like the police are wrapping up the case rather nicely. It seems to me these attacks on the police are due to obvious denial."

How is it that the Portugese police are so incompetent that they failed to secure the crime scene, failed to secure the hire car, and according to you, failed to notice a rotting corpse right under their very noses for 25 days, yet are suddenly "wrapping up the case rather nicely"?

I'm not saying that there's enough evidence to be certain either way. But the simplest explanation is that someone walked in, kidnapped the child, and walked out again. The DNA evidence doesn't contradict that.

thinking maybe the child got ahold of the pills and, thinking it was candy or something, injested the pills. The parents are in a foriegn country and are doctors at home and perhaps they just freaked-out. Under the circumstances, I would have too. And who knows what you'll come up with under such a scenario. It would be impossible to think straight.

I hope I am right. I would hate to think they medicated the children so they could have some free time. They could have hired an au pair if they wanted alone time.

For now, I'll give them the benefit of doubt.

I highly doubt it.

with not much thats actually been verified.

And all these rumours will just settle over the whole affair like a fog, and it'll be an utter miracle if we ever find out the truth.

and in the end there many times nothing comes of it. Remember that nut that claimed he killed Jon Benet Ramsey? when that came out i called bullshit and people told me i was nuts, well someone was nuts and sure as hell wasn't me.

that law enforcement does too, well, that's just depressing. I mean shit, they gave that guy you're talking about a free trip back to America and had to set him free (shudder). Makes me want to go hole up and watch CSI or Monk where they always catch the criminal!

I just can't bring myself to believe that any parents who put themselves through that GRUELING procedure, would kill the child.

The Portugal police think the couple had Maddy's body hidden in a church they went to to pray. So, we are to believe that they buried her at the church, went there to pray regularly while her body was there and went back, dug up the body 25 days later, without being seen by the police who surely had them staked-out, took her DECAYED body, put it in a rental car and disposed of it? I just don't believe that happened. I think the Portugal police are trying to save face because they can't find Maddy.

I'll wait to see what firm evidence they have. Why on earth would the parents stay in Portugal if they were GUILTY? Wouldn't they get the hell out of there?

The McCann's would have had to have been stone-cold psychopaths to keep up the charade of begging for information, seeing the Pope yada yada yada all the while knowing she was dead already.
I'm so angry at the way this case has been bungled by the police.

It's not that hard to believe.

Now we just have to figure out if they intentionally killed her (doubtful), accidentally killed her or if she ingested them on her own due to their negligence, and they just acted out of fear to cover it up. This is definitely going to get more interesting.

Regardless, what a tragic story.