Searching for Madeleine McCann: A Family's Heartbreak and Hope

[EPISODE 43] Searching for Madeleine: A Family's Heartbreak and Hope

Kyle Risi: What about Millie Dowler and the injustice caused there? What about the press hindering the investigation in the Madeleine McCann's case. What would have happened if the press was playing ball? Would we have found Madeleine McCann? Would these parents have the kind of the closure that they need?

Kyle Risi: Would we have even found her alive? Those are the questions that we need to ask. And that's the reason why we need to hold the press to account. Because without us, they have no power. Well said.

Kyle Risi: I'm really annoyed.

Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. We're a weekly variety podcast where each week I tell Adam Cox all about a topic I think you'll find both fascinating and intriguing. Stories from the dark corners of true crime. Mind blowing historical events and legendary people.

Kyle Risi: We give you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

Kyle Risi: I'm your host, Kyle

Adam Cox: Risi. And I'm your co host, Adam Cox.

Kyle Risi: So Adam, welcome to another episode of The Compendium. What is this now, like episode 43?

Adam Cox: Something like that. We're approaching a year into this now. 52

Kyle Risi: episodes, yeah. I think this is now the countdown, right? Yeah. 10 more to go, 9 more to go.

Adam Cox: So, Kyle, what are we adding to the Compendium Library today?

Kyle Risi: So on today's episode of the compendium, we are diving into an assembly of mystery and hope Unraveling the threads of the Madeleine McCann story.

Adam Cox: Oh So yeah, I guess this is a story that obviously has been in the news for the last Two decades almost.

Adam Cox: Something like that. Right?

Kyle Risi: This story is particularly interesting to me because of just how the case was dealt with during the early initial investigation, the media attention that it attracted and how it placed a huge amount of pressure on the small town in Portugal.

Kyle Risi: Which by all accounts was just ill prepared to deal with a case that overnight had become literally the largest media story in a generation. As we pretty much all know, Madeleine McCann was a three year old girl who had vanished from the Portuguese holiday resort in Prada de Luz, is that how you pronounce that?

Kyle Risi: I think so, yeah. And today the case still remains unsolved. So how old would you have been when that story broke? Like 17? Uh,

Adam Cox: no, I, so I was in or come to the end of my first year of university and I remember, it was just like really big news, for this girl going missing, even though she wasn't like, native to the country.

Kyle Risi: What do you remember about the case? What stands out for you the most

Adam Cox: I think the fact that,I'm sure we're going to dig into it today, but the fact that the parents sort of left her unattended, because they were out for dinner or they have their sort of rationale for, I know, but that was kind of what caused a lot of controversy and for what the parents ended up getting looked at for actually being negligence,

Adam Cox: then there was the case of the police, I can't remember exactly the detail, but they didn't necessarily do a good job. And then everyone was pointing the fingers at the parents, from what I recall.

Kyle Risi: That's right, it is such a complex case that just so many different things were happening all at the same time, that all influenced each other in positive and negative ways.

Kyle Risi: It's just a really crazy story, and of course the heartbreak at the very centre of it is that, This three year old kid just disappeared in the middle of the night. So, yeah, that's what we're going to be covering today. Okay. But before we jump into it

Adam Cox: It's time for all the latest things.

Kyle Risi: So this is the segment on our show where we catch up on all the week's happenings, where we share a quick little fact, some breaking news, a weird story, all from the past week.

Kyle Risi: So Adam, what have you got for me this week? Oh, you're laughing already? Come on! Hold it together,

Adam Cox: man! I'm laughing because I'm just thinking, oh god, is this appropriate now?

Adam Cox: Um, because I didn't know the content for today's topic. Oh, did you not? No, so

Kyle Risi: Ooh, maybe some heavy editing might be needed. Let's give it a go. Um,

Adam Cox: it's just, it's just completely the opposite of what we're going to be talking about. so it's been a few weeks since Christmas, and but one thing I found out this week is that Christmas is one of the peak times that A& E and hospitals receive, uh, injuries for penile fractures.

Kyle Risi: Penile fractures? What? What's a penile fracture? A break a broken penis. Really? I didn't think our penises had bones. I know like some animals do like raccoons, but The penis. Tell me more, say more words.

Adam Cox: So Christmas is a wonderful time, obviously. We had a great time. Yeah, break your penis. But doctors, say that it's one of the, yeah, biggest times of the year, as well as summer and just general weekends, apparently, but Christmas period in particular, they receive a lot more men coming to hospitals with a broken penis from having too much aggressive Sex.

Kyle Risi: Do you know what, I'm born on September the 20th, and actually, believe it or not, the 20th of September is like the most popular day to be born on because obviously nine months before was Christmas and everyone was mating during Christmas,

Kyle Risi: but hang on. How are they treating Fractured penises. a little bandage? What's going on there? Well, what they say

Adam Cox: is, it's This sounds horrible. Oh God. there's often an audible crack. Ah! Followed by severe pain. Ah! And then there's like swelling and all sorts.

Adam Cox: Oh God. so yeah, men come in to obviously have it fixed. I don't know how they fix it. I'm guessing bandages. Yeah. Creams. I don't know.

Kyle Risi: I guess it's just, it's like a muscle injury, right? Yeah. I guess, or there's tendons

Adam Cox: but interestingly, I found that the average age for penile fractures among men is 42. Wow. So maybe you need to limber

Kyle Risi: up. Weakening of the penis as you get into middle age.

Adam Cox: So take care at weekends, Christmases and summer.

Kyle Risi: Wow. Can't

Adam Cox: you imagine? But apparently not New Year's. no one does that at New Year's. Why? Because everyone's up late, celebrating, right? I guess so. And they're not. They get drunk. I don't know. It doesn't really happen at New Year's, apparently.

Kyle Risi: Fair enough.

Kyle Risi: So my latest things for this week is the 65 year old woman.

Kyle Risi: Her name is Kimberly McCormack, so she's from Washington in the U. S. and she'd been struggling with her weight for pretty much most of her life and she tried everything to shift the weight but she's now in her 60s and it's just not as easy to shift it. So she pays 13, 000 for gastric band surgery, which is basically a procedure that reduces the size of stomach, which means that you can't consume as much food as you normally were able to.

Kyle Risi: So it's pretty effective. She loses a bunch of weight. So a couple of years go by and She kind of books in for like a skin removal procedure where, she wants to remove that skin from around her arms, her thighs, her stomach.

Kyle Risi: So it makes sense that you want to do something like that. So she goes in for the surgery, which is pretty routine. She wakes up and her chest and her arse is really sore and she's really confused by what procedure has actually been done. And she finds out that she hasn't actually gone Under a procedure to remove any excess skin.

Kyle Risi: Instead, the surgeon has gone and given her a set of new tits and a Brazilian butt lift. What? She's 65, Adam. What? I know!

Adam Cox: How did they get

Kyle Risi: that mixed up? Apparently, the hospital tells her like, that's what you've asked for and she's like, no, no, it's not what I've asked for.

Kyle Risi: I just want to remove all the excess skin. So now they're suing her for 75, 000 in medical bills. Not only does she have to pay for that, but they also are charging her an additional 25, 000 because they said the procedure took longer than expected.

Kyle Risi: What?

Adam Cox: is that even a thing? That you can get charged for a longer procedure?

Kyle Risi: apparently. it's America, they charge you for everything, right? Oh, you want to hold your baby after you've given birth? Oh, that's an extra 800. How does that

Adam Cox: mix up even happen? Surely you're like, signing a form and on that it's saying exactly what you're going to have done?

Adam Cox: Yeah,

Kyle Risi: you would think, wouldn't you? I mean, she did go to Mexico for this, but that's besides the point but this is a great demonstration of extreme, maximum, incompetence. Yeah,

Adam Cox: I'm trying to think, silver lining, you wake up and you go, oh!

Adam Cox: My boobs look good.

Kyle Risi: Like a bunch of people were saying like it isn't that bad, it could have been worse, but when she woke up she had a partially collapsed lung and she developed an infection and also like her breasts aren't healing properly because there isn't enough skin to go around the breasts they input because they gave her such large freaking breasts.

Kyle Risi: Oh my god. She's 65 years old, that's your mum pretty much. And

Adam Cox: yeah she's got these Great big boobs and,a bigger butt or lifted butt, but still this skin.

Kyle Risi: It's awful. Poor thing.

Adam Cox: What? I can't believe that. That is shocking. I'm hoping she gets, I don't know, she's able to sue back or whatever.

Kyle Risi: I hope so.

Kyle Risi: We'll see. But while we're on the topic of our parents, I just have a bit of a PSA, a public service announcement that I'd like to make. Because we all know that we have a lot of women that listen to our podcast, so If you have children in particular, this is for you.

Kyle Risi: I get it. As your kids get older, your relationship kind of changes and you're able to start talking to your kids about things that maybe you probably didn't talk to them about when you were younger, but I'm here to tell you that it's never, ever.

Kyle Risi: Okay, to talk to your son about vibrators ever.

Adam Cox: I see where this is going.

Kyle Risi: I was on the phone with my mum the other day and do you know that thing where like they're talking away and you're listening, but you're only half listening and the next thing I hear is, oh yeah, so I'll just go pick up the vibrator for Nancy.

Kyle Risi: And I was like, what, what, what? Nancy is my mum's best friend. She's In her late 60s, early 70s, and she asked my sister to go and buy her a vibrator for her birthday. And I was like, don't you ever, ever say that again to me. I do not want that image in my mind. And she doesn't see anything wrong with it.

Kyle Risi: And I'm here to tell you that there's a lot wrong with it. I get it. You're a human being. You're my mum. you used to be a person before you gave birth to me, but it is not okay. To discuss vibrators and masturbation with your kids. Yeah,

Kyle Risi: And then, when I was speaking to my mum this week, she was like, oh yeah, so she got the, uh, she got the vibrator, and yeah, Ken, her husband, Nancy's husband, nipped off, and she was like, yeah, and I, and I gave it a go, and it was really good.

Kyle Risi: And I was like, MUM! What did I just tell you, like, last week? I don't want to know this! She sees nothing wrong with it, and I'm, yeah, that's it. I just had to get that off my chest. I do find It's never

Adam Cox: okay. It is, yeah, I completely agree. Um, but then I do think, could, I mean, you know, online ordering now?

Adam Cox: Like, why, I don't know if I'd ever fetch someone to go get me a

Kyle Risi: No, I think that's exactly what it was. My mum is very computer illiterate, which is fine. she just shies away from it. She asks her sisters to go and buy this vibrator online. And, because my mum always gets my sisters to do all the online shopping stuff.

Kyle Risi: But I'm like,

Adam Cox: I don't want to know about it! Just add it to your Tesco shop. God!

Kyle Risi: So, yeah. That's, yeah, so that's all my latest things for this week.

Kyle Risi: So, Adam. It's May 2007. The McCann family from Rotherley? That's Leicestershire. Oh, it always makes me laugh how the Americans always pronounce some British words. How would they pronounce that? Leicestershire. it's not. It's, it's, it's Leicestershire.

Kyle Risi: That's where they're from. And they're on holiday in a quaint little resort town of Prada de Luz in Portugal. And Kate and Gerry McCann, they're both accomplished doctors in the late thirties and they're enjoying a much needed break. Kate is a general practitioner and Gerry is a cardiologist.

Kyle Risi: They are there with their three young children, Madeline, who is just shy of turning four years old, and their two twin kids, Sean and Amelia. Now, the McCanns aren't alone on this holiday. They're part of a large group of friends. Seven adults and eight children in total and they're just enjoying the sun and sand at the Prada de Luz resort Which is a super popular holiday destination, particularly amongst the British tourists Which is dubbed as Little Britain just because of the amount of kind of Brits that are visiting every year It's a bit like Benidorm, but on account of who the McCann's are I think maybe it's just maybe a little bit more, you know, upscale up a class.

Kyle Risi: Yeah so They stay with seven nights at the Ocean Club apartment complex in Prada deluge specifically staying in a ground floor corner unit, which is positioned with streets on two sides of the apartment. Because of this, there is a window that kind of looks out onto the street.

Kyle Risi: Through their entire stay they decided to obviously keep that window shut and the curtains drawn basically just to maintain a degree of privacy. I think we all kind of do that especially when you have a window that's looking right out on the street.

Kyle Risi: So they were around five days into their stay and so far the week had just been that typical tapestry of holiday activities. There's a large family swimming pool on the complex, there's sports facilities like tennis and a health spa. There's a kids club as well as a creche for kind of the younger kids.

Kyle Risi: It also had a couple of restaurants to choose from, particularly there was the Ocean Club Tapas restaurant, where the group typically gathered each evening for dinner and drinks while the kids slept in their apartment just 55 metres away.

Kyle Risi: Now the McCann's Holiday Group was also known as the Tapas 7 by the resort employees on account that this is where they pretty much ate every single night, booking the exact same table. Now, during dinner, the group had a system where every 30 to 60 minutes, they would take turns to go and check on the kids, making sure that, obviously, they hadn't woken up or they weren't crying or anything.

Kyle Risi: And the system seemed to work well. I mean, the apartment was only 55 metres away, so there were just no issues that they experienced throughout the week.

Kyle Risi: So on the 3rd of May, this was the last evening of their holiday. And the Tapas 7 were settled into a routine dinner around 8. 30pm and around 9pm. Jerry McCann was scheduled to be the first to go check on the kids where he just found them all just sound asleep, the twins, they were in their travel cot and Madeline was in her bed. Everything seemed to be as it should be. However, he notices that Madeline's bedroom door, which he remembers leaving just slightly ajar, was now wide open.

Kyle Risi: But he doesn't think anything of it. He just assumes that maybe Madeline had kind of like opened it and maybe walked around a bit before going back to bed. So he readjusts the door. And then he just heads back to dinner. pretty standard, right? Mm-Hmm. Around nine 30,

Kyle Risi: Kate has planned to do the next round of checks on the children, but another member of the party offers to do it instead. Now knowing that the McCanns had left the patio doors unlocked for easy access, they peer into the McCann's apartment. They also notice that the bedroom door is wide open. They don't know that this is the second time that this was observed open, so he doesn't hear any sound, he assumes everything's okay, and he just returns back to the restaurant without actually entering into her room.

Kyle Risi: And I guess, in that moment, you're not really looking for, like, a missing kid, right? you're just popping in, you just want to just check, are they awake, have they aroused, are they crying, is everything as it should be, right?

Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess so, you're not expecting something,

Kyle Risi: No, exactly.

Kyle Risi: So around 10 p. m. It's now Kate's turn to go check on the kids and Kate enters through the unlocked patio doors And she finds the bedroom door open now Without looking in. She goes to close it, but the door slams shut with very little effort. It's that kind of, that thing that happens when, you know, you have like a, an open window in the room and the door's able to kind of slam really easily.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. So she's like perplexed. So Kate enters the room and she sees that the bedroom window is wide open and Madeleine's bed is empty. Her comfort blanket and her little cuddle cat was the only things left in the bed.

Kyle Risi: So Kate goes to check on the twins. They're just sound asleep in their cot. And Kate's calling for Madeleine, which Turns into kind of like a bit of a frantic search around the apartment and What would be going through your mind at that point actually

Adam Cox: I can't even imagine that because you're well I guess you're starting to panic because you're like, oh, this isn't something's not quite right initially think or maybe gotten to the other kids bed or Her bed or whatever and but as you go through the house and not seeing anything else you start to that panic more rising within your body and I imagine I can't imagine when she Gets that point of realization to go.

Adam Cox: She's not here.

Kyle Risi: Kate realises that, of course, she's not in the apartment, so she bolts back to the restaurant screaming that Madeleine has gone, someone has taken her. Now, those words are unfortunate because later people will question Why Kate's mind immediately jumped to someone taking Madeleine.

Kyle Risi: Maybe she had wandered off, especially considering that the patio door was left unlocked.

Adam Cox: Well this was my thought as soon as you said that. I thought okay, Is it right for them to be eating out at dinner, leaving their kids in the apartment? And, clearly they had some sort of routine system and I doubt that this is, these are the only like group of friends or families that have done this, it was, it's almost 20 years ago.

Adam Cox: Things are a bit different back then, perhaps. But even still, to leave the door unlocked, that is, that's concerning for me.

Kyle Risi: I don't know how I feel about it. I was a Gateslatch kid, maybe the last generation of them, because in South Africa, that's just how kids were raised, right? And you would just leave your kids at home alone, completely fine.

Kyle Risi: And this is in South Africa, so one of the most dangerous countries in the world. I struggle with this. I struggle with seeing that that's not okay today. I

Adam Cox: think about a three year old. You know, it's not like, um, there was a 15 year old or 16 year old that was babysitting or looking after, like, an older brother.

Adam Cox: Unless the other family, maybe there was nearby, but They would have to be awake, not asleep, minding that the younger children were in bed, right? Yeah,

Kyle Risi: and I guess, I guess they're also three years old, so the likelihood of kids waking up in the night to go find their parents is quite high.

Kyle Risi: But at the same time, that's also why they had that system of 30 minutes, right? Yeah. To check. And I mean, a kid is not really going to potentially, especially at that age, is going to potentially know how to open up the patio door and just wander off, I think. I guess so. It might be too heavy for them.

Adam Cox: Yeah, so maybe from their logic, oh, they're not going to be able to get out, but that doesn't stop anyone getting in, clearly.

Kyle Risi: And that's the thing about this case is that very quickly after the investigation starts, every action, every word from the McCanns would be subject to intense scrutiny. And this will all be fuelled by our little friends over at Fleet Street, essentially, the media. So the alarm is raised and local police are notified at 10 minutes past 10.

Kyle Risi: A while later, a couple officers arrive at the complex and it's worth remembering that this is a small sleepy resort. So they are completely unprepared for this particular type of situation. So the McCanns and the employees of the resort, they're trawling the streets frantically trying to locate Madeleine and just two hours later, it seems like the entire town has just turned up to help try and find Madeleine.

Kyle Risi: So it's pretty incredible. Because the Portuguese police have no idea what to do, it really sets the stage for this entire investigation because they make huge, glaring errors, coupled with a lack of any degree of urgency, Which is something that the Portuguese police would later come under intense scrutiny for because they completely waste those few crucial hours that are so important to gathering their evidence.

Adam Cox: So this police force, they clearly are not prepared for this kind of investigation. Is that what we're saying? So they don't really maybe know

Kyle Risi: what they need to do? That's it. They just don't know. Like I said, it's a small sleepy town. For example, the crime scene is not secured at all Which results in over 30 people being able to kind of freely move through the area potentially contaminating any evidence that might be in there Right.

Kyle Risi: Okay. They also never carry out any clearing of the ground which if you don't know This is where you stand in a line and then meticulously search Every single inch of the ground for any evidence like footsteps or hairs or anything like that Right, okay. So that's typical of like an investigation.

Adam Cox: Yeah, normally it's like you close down, you cordon things off, and

Kyle Risi: yeah That's what you do.

Kyle Risi: They don't do any of that.

Kyle Risi: And as a result, any evidence that I do find, like DNA, which the investigators find like weeks and weeks later, is rendered useless because the scene is just so completely contaminated. They don't dust for any fingerprints, especially around the open window. Really? That they find open, yeah, like crowds gathered around the window, they're touching it, they're taking photographs, and the police just do not do anything. No way. It's mental. And when they do collect forensics They just routinely don't wear gloves, they fail to alert the local transportation authorities, and remember, this is Portugal, so within less than two hours, you can be across that border in Spain.

Kyle Risi: But, but

Adam Cox: yeah, it just doesn't make sense, this is 2007,

Kyle Risi: like I know, that's the crazy thing, this is 2007, it's not like the Middle Ages! Yeah,

Adam Cox: I don't get that. Is it quite a small police force? I guess it's a small town, but I don't know, I would, uh,

Kyle Risi: I imagine so, but that's, I mean, and this is the local police.

Kyle Risi: It's not like it's the equivalent of the FBI, which they will contact later on, but also on top of this, they don't even bother contacting Interpol for days, which is crazy. That's the international police, which can pretty much help start the investigation in other countries as well. They work as that kind of liaison.

Kyle Risi: Also, the police's slow response that night was just laughable, even though the first officers arrived around 11 p. m. They were very quick to say, well shit, I don't see her. So, like, maybe we should call someone else? So, it's not until 1am in the morning the equivalent of the FBI is dispatched to the scene.

Kyle Risi: if there's anything that watching old reruns of CSI or The Bill has taught us is that every minute that passes in cases like this is just super paramount. That's the first thing you do is you call the FBI if you can't deal with the situation. Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Risi: So, it's said that the investigation quickly zeroed in on the McCanns as potential suspects , which I guess is common in these cases, but You have to kind of work really quickly to rule them out so you can then move on to the next most likely suspect but investigators fixate on them from the go which just results in stalling.

Kyle Risi: So they don't end up looking with any urgency into whether or not there's any local sex offenders or even interviewing other potential eyewitnesses that were in the area or in the vicinity at the time. They just drag their feet which is just so infuriating. Yeah,

Adam Cox: I mean, I know mainland Europe is known for being just a little bit more, relaxed.

Kyle Risi: This is ridiculous. So by the morning following Madeleine's disappearance, the story has literally exploded across the global media. And it's quite literally the main focal point of international news at this point. And this immediate and overwhelming media attention was partly due to, obviously, Madeleine's angelic appearance, which many criticize for being a classic example of kind of missing white woman syndrome.

Kyle Risi: So Madeline is, of course, white. She's a British girl from a middle class family attracting huge media coverage, when most children that do go missing are typically children of color or from less affluent backgrounds. So Pepini case. Because obviously she was white, she was middle class, she was beautiful, great photos.

Kyle Risi: It just attracted a huge amount of attention. But then other similar cases where Hispanic women have gone missing, there's just nothing. So that drew in some criticism very early on.

Adam Cox: This is like a little girl

Kyle Risi: regardless. Exactly, we have this beautiful little girl with this distinctive green eyes and that unique kind of like little black strip across her iris.

Kyle Risi: Do you remember that? Not really,

Adam Cox: no. But I know the photo that was plastered everywhere. I know the main picture.

Kyle Risi: Well one of the most distinctive features was this little kind of like black strip across her eye. Which is known as a columboma, which is in her case, that little keyhole appearance to a pupil. Let me show you a picture of her, see if you remember this.

Adam Cox: Do you know what, I've seen this photo probably hundreds of times and I've never noticed that about the pupil. That's bad

Kyle Risi: because the thing is though, that was the main purpose of their That particular photo.

Kyle Risi: Their initiative, yeah. Yeah, Because she, it was such a distinctive thing that it meant that finding her was easy because You all you need to do is look at her eyes to see that that defect. How did I miss that? That's ridiculous. I'm sure you do remember it Adam. I'm so stupid.

Kyle Risi: So Kate and Jeremy can remember they're both affluent and well respected doctors so they quickly recognize that their daughter's kind of appealing image combined with their social status created this kind of perfect storm for media interests that might benefit them in finding their daughter. So they're going to just completely embrace this and use this as best they can in the hope of finding their daughter alive.

Kyle Risi: So within days, it becomes clear to the McCanns that the Portuguese police are far too focused on them as potential suspects and are missing opportunities to investigate other lines of inquiry. So they decide that they're going to try and lead the process by proactively engaging with the media themselves.

Kyle Risi: So they hire a public relations consultant called Hanover PR, which is owned by Colonel Charles Lewington, who was a former press secretary under the former British Prime Minister John Major. Now, the UK government also dispatches own PR experts to assist in just managing the overwhelming press presence that has gathered around the Prater du Louge kind of area.

Kyle Risi: This starts to cause whispers by some who question like where the McCann's priorities kind of sat. Like Why are they hiring PR specialists if not to make themselves look innocent in front of the cameras? Like, it was seen as very calculated.

Kyle Risi: But to me, that's just smart. they're smart people. They know that they need to get media coverage if they have any hope of trying to find their kids. to me, I don't see it as some kind of calculated move. I see that as a very logical thing to do.

Adam Cox: If you're not playing a certain role or being in a certain way, which people expect of you in this situation, I think it just makes people suspicious of you. Yeah. So if you're not a blubbering wreck or, I don't know, showing this emotion and, it looks like you're, liking the attention, then people are just not, you're not being a certain way.

Adam Cox:

Kyle Risi: don't, I don't buy that because I honestly think it's a case, and we'll come onto this in a minute, is that no matter what anyone does, there's always going to be someone criticizing based on whatever. if you're too emotional, they're going to criticize you for it. If you're not emotional enough, they're going to criticize you for that.

Kyle Risi: That's true, yeah. yeah, to me, it was a smart move.

Kyle Risi: So the McCann's hold numerous press conferences meticulously focusing on that one distinctive photograph of Madeleine and it's smart. It's drawing hyper attention to the very distinct features of their daughter's appearance, with the help of the best PR specialists in the world to make the most of that narrow window of opportunity.

Kyle Risi: But this is just something that they will sadly pay for later on. So Jerry McCann later tells Vanity Fair how people didn't like the fact that they were so clinical in their approach to what they termed as Marketing Maddie. And I mean, that is a unfortunate use of terminology, So they use that terminology?

Kyle Risi: Yeah, that was how the PR specialist that they hired termed it. They, it was a clinical operation, right? Right. Which struck many as obviously just coming across as cold and calculated. But to that, I say, consider who these people are as well. they're pragmatic, they're logical. And to an extent, they can probably distinguish when it's time for emotion and when it's time to be Yeah,

Adam Cox: and I guess, I don't know, if you're being in front of all these cameras you want, I don't know show some kind of strength in trying to find and like wanting to solve this case, right?

Adam Cox: Yeah And especially if they're leading it they brought on these people because they weren't happy with how the Portuguese police were handling it Yeah, then they've taken I guess Control of their own narrative and how they want this

Kyle Risi: out there. It's just optics, isn't it? It's just the way it's coming across.

Kyle Risi: I think it's a smart move what they've done.

Adam Cox: I guess it's not really the norm. I think in a way Maybe that's it. Maybe they're expecting this couple and this family to be distraught and not behaving in this way. And I think that's what it is.

Kyle Risi: But the thing is though, in the wake of Madigo missing, like effective spreading awareness, that's just really super important. So I understand the clinical kind of angle that they're taking. So on May the 15th, nearly two weeks after Madeline's disappearance, the McCann's launched a not for profit company called the Madeline's Fund, leaving no stone unturned.

Kyle Risi: And their ultimate goal was to just set out to secure the safe return of Madeline, ensuring that Her abduction is thoroughly investigated They have lost all trust in the Portuguese police.

Kyle Risi: The donations are also used to drive awareness through various posters and t shirts, and also to pay for the media management PR and various legal fees. So just two days after they launched the website, they get 55 million hits to that website Which is just crazy.

Kyle Risi: Between May 2007 and March 2008, they raised a total of two million pounds. Really? I mean, this was quite literally the biggest story in the world at the time. However, this aggressive fundraising strategy, while obviously indicates their determination, pisses off the Portuguese authorities, who see this as a direct indictment on their efforts.

Kyle Risi: So they become hugely resentful. And it results in this increased tension between the Portuguese and the McCann's private investigation team who are essentially telling the police in their own country how to conduct their investigation. So I understand, it's just egos at play here, isn't it?

Kyle Risi: Yeah, but

Adam Cox: then The Portuguese police or the initial people that arrived up were at fault, right? But I guess this perhaps wasn't, widely publicized at the time. No. So people didn't perhaps get why maybe the McCann's were doing this.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, possibly. So for a time, public sentiment largely leaned in favour of the McCanns. Like the whole world was empathetic the absolute nightmare that they were going through, especially in a foreign country, right? everyone seemed to be rallying around this find Maddie campaign.

Kyle Risi: But started to spring up. The McCanns, especially Kate, started getting criticised for her overly composed and collected demeanour during kind of these press appearances.

Kyle Risi: And people started saying things like If it was my child, I wouldn't be this calm. Like, Kate is perceived as having this lack of maternal instincts. While Jerry, who's typically the one doing all the talking, is being seen as this opportunistic kind of character who's just reveling in the attention.

Kyle Risi: Which I just think is really harsh. And people also start drawing comparisons between other high profile cases, like the JonBenet Ramsey case, where we see Patsy being unable to even hold herself together in front of the cameras, and she's constantly incoherent and just crying, she's just a babbling mess.

Kyle Risi: But what people are forgetting here is that Patti was totally criticised for that behaviour, saying that her behaviour was far too dramatic for it to be authentic. Yeah, how

Adam Cox: are you supposed to behave? You don't know in that

Kyle Risi: situation, do you? Exactly. And also, in the case of Lyndi Chamberlain, the woman whose baby was taken by a dingo when they were out camping in the Australian outback.

Kyle Risi: She was criticised for not displaying enough public emotion, Which leads the media to coin her as a hard faced, murdering bitch. Can you imagine, as a publication, writing that in an article? About someone who's just lost their daughter?

Adam Cox: I know there are bad people in this world, and some of them obviously do get found guilty.

Adam Cox: But to think that straight away or at least lead with that without kind of enough evidence. Exactly.

Kyle Risi: It's horrible. we're going to find out exactly how that type of line of inquiry and those types of headlines came about because, of course, it's all to do with money, corruption, greed and capitalistic nature of the media.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. But the thing is, though, like Kate wasn't going to win regardless of how she acted. because there's no manual out there to teach parents how to deal with a fallout from your kid literally being abducted. people deal with things in different ways. And that's not to say that these women weren't total wrecks behind the scene.

Kyle Risi: With Kate and, of course, with the case of Lindy, when they're in front of the cameras, they are probably likely very conscious about the very important critical job that they're there to do. And that is to give important information and draw awareness which will lead to the best possible chance of them finding the people who committed this crime.

Kyle Risi: People also start to focus on their decision to leave their kids unattended and people start pointing out that they were deliberately misleading the public about the distance from the tapas restaurant to the apartment. They tell people it was just 50 meters away, but people argue that was only as the crow flies and that you saw how to navigate through the restaurant, around the pool and into the apartment, especially through multiple spaces.

Kyle Risi: Just because I'm a dick, and I hate it when the media grabs onto something that they think is tangible and then they blow it up into something that it's not. I actually looked at the difference between the distance from the restaurant to the apartment and compared this to how the crow flies and.

Kyle Risi: The reasonable route that it would take if you walked it, and it probably doesn't hold much weight because at the end of the day, they still left their kids unattended and that's not the popular things to do today. But here's an aerial shot of the complex.

Adam Cox: Actually, do you know what? That's way closer. than I imagined in my head. you just, okay, you walk out of the clubhouse or whatever, you walk around the pool, a little pathway, and then you're at their

Kyle Risi: apartment. You can literally see it if you're standing outside of the restaurant, you can see the apartment door.

Adam Cox: Yeah, do you know what, if this was like a gated, more secluded area where you don't have loads of houses and apartments nearby. You could probably, understand that a little bit more. I think the fact that you've got all these apartments and it is just in the middle of, housing or residential area, that, yeah, that's where it perhaps gets a little bit more

Kyle Risi: risky.

Kyle Risi: The sad thing is that this wasn't a private complex. People from the public could just walk in because it also had a creche that was available to other people within the community. So people could come and go. But still, it's not that far.

Adam Cox: Yeah, it's not far. I'm not condoning it, but it's not.

Adam Cox: As far as I thought in my head.

Kyle Risi: So I calculated the distance using the Google Maps measure tool. As the crow flies from the restaurant, the apartment is 42 meters away. And then if you do a route, as if you're walking it, out of the restaurant down along the pool, it's just 50. 9 meters away. So it's the opposite of what people were saying

Adam Cox: in the press.

Adam Cox: It's like within five meters or

Kyle Risi: something like that. So it's an irrelevant statement they're making. Oh, that's as the crow flies. It's even shorter.

Adam Cox: You're kind of

Kyle Risi: splitting hairs a little bit. They are and that just wound me up a lot But either way the revelation that the McCann's couldn't directly see or hear their kids was a significant turning point in this case So people began branding them as reckless and negligence and a woman who McCann's had been any other type of people that didn't have money or status, then their kids would have been taken away from them. And why also, if they were rich doctors, did they not hire a babysitter or a nanny to look after their kids throughout the evening.

Adam Cox: That, that's a fair point, I think, or fair criticism. Because, yeah, like, why wouldn't you do that?

Adam Cox: I still don't get why they would do that. But

Kyle Risi: I mean, I would do it. I would. I think it's just really unfortunate that this happened. It's not. Something that happens every day, if the chances of your child being abducted is very low, I don't see how you would have been able to foresee that. Just like when you go and check on your kids, you're not checking to see if they've been abducted, right?

Kyle Risi: You're checking to see if they're crying, or if they've woken up, or if they've roused. you're not expecting the worst, because the chances of those types of things happening are very rare and very slim.

Adam Cox: I guess if they've done this several nights that week, they kind of built some sort of confidence to go, this is okay.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. I don't know.

Kyle Risi: the shift in public sentiment towards McCann starts becoming apparent to them during conference when a reporter asks them, How do you feel about the fact that more and more people seem to be pointing the finger at you? Saying that the way you behaved is not the way that people would normally behave when their children are abducted and Kate's response was like You know what to be honest.

Kyle Risi: I don't really think that is the case I think that it's just a very small minority of people that are criticizing us and the fact that we were dining very close to The children where we were checking on them on a regular basis. We are very responsible parents We love our children so much and I just think it's just a few people that are criticizing us and at that moment in time That was 100 percent true But this is the moment that they realized that the public perception towards them was starting to shift.

Kyle Risi: Right.

Kyle Risi: So the McCann's are still in Portugal. They're working with their own investigation team to try and find Maddy. Of course, they still have their twins with them, which they need to care for. All while still deeply involved in relentless media appearances. They then start doing press tours across various European cities to try and keep Madeline's story in the global spotlight.

Kyle Risi: And again, their efforts are being met with increasingly more and more scrutiny. People are starting to see them as more like desperate. Which again, is such a stupid thing to say because of course they're desperate! Of course they are! This is what I mean, people will just criticize someone for anything, anything, and try and make it tangible. Of course they are desperate.

Adam Cox: But yeah, they need to, they want to find that child.

Kyle Risi: But for a short time, even though there are grumblings in the media, it's the media attention, which is the thing that helps them get leverage over the Portuguese police who were saying things like, just keep out of our investigation and mind your own business.

Kyle Risi: So the McCann's figured that if they stay close to where the investigation is happening, then the police would be under more pressure because the media and the press are there and therefore they would be more proactive. Right. And this helps them persuade the Portuguese authorities to finally follow up on the lead from one of the tapas seven who say they'd seen a man walking away with the child from the apartment building with a similar appearance to Madeleine.

Kyle Risi: How have they not looked into it yet? I know, they didn't even bother! But they finally look into it and they find the man and they don't look too far into it before they just fire at the hip and they release his damn name to the bloody press. and of course the press are gonna run with it.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. So the man is a guy called Robert Murat, who is a 34 year old British portuguese property consultant, who was living just 150 yards away from the complex and the child that he was carrying in his hands was his daughter who he had picked up from the children's creche in the complex.

Kyle Risi: Okay. So when the news breaks, he is just completely bombarded with media attention to the point where it is completely impossible for him to live any kind of like normal life whatsoever. He is constantly hounded by the tabloids who keep just printing the most salacious lies about him. To the point where they're even offering huge amounts of like hundreds of thousands of pounds to his family members to corroborate theories that they're coming up with.

Kyle Risi: All they need is just one family member to say, yeah that's true and that's all they're Willing to pay the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Adam Cox: Really? What, a

Kyle Risi: lie, basically? It's a blatant lie that they're printing, and then they say, you corroborate this, and we'll pay you a hundred thousand pounds.

Kyle Risi: That's horrendous! It's awful!

Adam Cox: Did any of his family do that? No! Oh, good. I'm just double checking.

Kyle Risi: But the thing is, though, his life is ruined because he's getting death threats, he just couldn't live a normal life. So the McCann's continue to publicly criticise the Portuguese police for how they're just handling the investigation and the tensions between them escalate and start becoming extremely public.

Kyle Risi: Which ultimately makes Portugal as a country, not look that great. So in Portugal, the public sentiment shifts, driven largely by the Portuguese authorities themselves, who start publicly insinuating that Madeleine's disappearance was not an abduction, but actually a cover up from an accident.

Kyle Risi: So the McCann's get named as their prime suspects. Meanwhile, in the UK, publications like the News of the World, our good old friends, and the Daily Mail, they start discovering that front page spreads with Maddie on the cover, of course they sell really well, but front page spreads that are critical of the McCann's.

Kyle Risi: Sell even better. Of course they do. And so increasingly more and more headlines questioning. That's very important because they can't come out and say it, right? Questioning the decisions of the McCann's and their demeanor questions like why were the kids not with you at dinner?

Kyle Risi: Like and why is Kate McCann? Why does she seem so unemotional and detached, right? Like these are facts that they can say, but they're not borderlining or libel or defamation.

Kyle Risi: And these headlines, mind you, they're subtle. So libel laws in the UK, they're strict, so you can just come out and say these things explicitly. But you're

Adam Cox: planting that thought in people's subconscious, right? And so naturally the public are going to start, I don't know, thinking, because people do, there are people out there that believe everything they read. They're going to go, oh yeah, they've done it, they're the ones that are covering it up. That

Kyle Risi: is it. That was until. The British authorities propose sending a team of two expert cadaver dogs to help the Portuguese police. Cadaver dogs? Yeah, so they're like sniffer dogs that are essentially trained to detect human decomposition.

Kyle Risi: Oh, okay. So these dogs, Eddie and Kila, they're taken to various locations around Portugal, including a set of ten cars. And when sniffing around one of these cars, they pick up on a scent coming from the boot of one of the cars. It's the McCann's rental. And when this news drops, it's finally the signal that the press needs, and have been waiting for, to dig the knife in and twist without needing to be subtle about it in any way.

Kyle Risi: Wow. Before they were of course just testing the waters with speculative headlines and questions, but now they seemingly had a credible source of information. That protects them from any libel or defamation because they can just say well This is what this expert said . It was rooted in fact, right?

Kyle Risi: So they run with a whole slew of stories claiming that there is now damning evidence against the McCann's and tabloid sales Quite literally skyrocket and results in the entire world turning against the McCann's almost overnight All because of

Adam Cox: the what the dog found in that

Kyle Risi: car Or because of what the dog found in the car, there's even speculation that the Portuguese police had done something to the car, maybe put some kind of rotting meat or something like that in the car, swabbed it or something like that

Kyle Risi: okay. But here's the kicker, right? That rental, it was rented 25 days after Madeline's disappearance. So they didn't even have the car. When she disappeared. They hired the car so they could get around while they were trying to help with the investigation.

Adam Cox: Oh my god.

Adam Cox: But I guess the press failed to tell

Kyle Risi: people that. When the News of the World and other publications find this out. They don't retract the story, right? They find a new angle that fits this and they start saying that the McCanns had hidden Madeline's body and then later transported it in this car, 25 days later, all under the intense scrutiny of the police and the media, painting them as calculated and brazen.

Adam Cox: I mean there is some logic to that, if they did

Kyle Risi: do it. But it's still speculative, it's still a stretch, you don't know, all you know is that a dog sat down and said I think there's some, some sexy dirty meat in there.

Adam Cox: I can't believe that.

Kyle Risi: So this new development from the cadaver dogs now meant that the Portuguese authorities completely abandoned all other lines of inquiry and purely focused on proving that the McCanns were guilty. But every other angle that they look into other than the reaction of the dogs was just completely weak, but they just are not willing to admit that they made a mistake because the rest of the world already thought that they were incompetent.

Kyle Risi: And so this would prove to be even more damaging if they did come out and say, actually, we made a mistake. so by pursuing the McCann's was their way of saying to the world, see, we weren't dragging our feet. We knew from the very beginning. That they were guilty, and now you guys are the ones who look stupid for not listening to us.

Kyle Risi: That is just That's literally what they

Adam Cox: believed. How did the press get away with

Kyle Risi: all this sort of stuff? It's mental. So all of this was just reinforced by the media, who were loving this new spin, that the McCanns had now murdered their daughter, because it just sold more papers. It's ridiculous.

Adam Cox: It reminds me of, I don't know if you were going to touch on it, but it reminds you of what happened with Amanda Knox. Yes. And again, in Italy. We

Kyle Risi: see it all the time. Yeah. The media. And it's always the British media, right?

Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there are different publications, but I think ours are just so, well, it feels like ours are so renowned across the world, at least the bad press, i. e. the Daily Mail or News of the World at the time. Those two constantly come up as these, ah, just Terrible publications.

Kyle Risi: They are, they're just awful. So now that the media had carte blanche, other headlines start popping up. Theories that the parents had sold Maddy into sex slavery. That's terrible. It's awful. Or that the McCanns had accidentally killed her in a fit of rage and then disposed her body in a nearby quarry.

Kyle Risi: And it was really Relentless at this period. Like essentially this marked the departure of any balanced reporting instead veering into kind of this wild speculative realm of sensationalist reporting.

Kyle Risi: And the disturbing thing is, is that I remember this period. This is when we as the public, don't see this as sensationalist reporting because we believe these stories are being delivered to us by the very institutions that are supposed to have journalistic integrity.

Kyle Risi: So this is just a huge betrayal, to the public so the tabloids made the public believe that the McCann's had taken the entire world on this horrible emotional journey as a way to cover up their crime in a way that only money and privilege and status could achieve, and it all stems from the media's corrupt and capitalistic greed.

Kyle Risi: Yeah,

Adam Cox: I don't know what to say to that's

Kyle Risi: just terrible. So people start booing the McCanns in the streets. Booing them? Yeah. Wow, I did not know that. Yeah, they were relentlessly hounded. And TV shows and radio shows, they start digging in deep, and they start receiving death threats and all sorts of things.

Kyle Risi: It's a real tough time for them. So the McCanns are advised that they need to return back to the UK, otherwise they will be arrested, because they are off course. prime suspects in the case. Which, remember, that's a difficult decision to have to make, right? Because this is where the McCann's thought that Maddy might still be, and this is quite literally the last place where they saw their daughter.

Kyle Risi: But back in the UK, the case just goes stagnant. They were the only ones really pushing the case forward, and despite the Portuguese police continuing to investigate for another year, They found fuck all to prove that the McCann's were guilty. They found fuck all in regards to any other leads that might Lead them to Maddy.

Kyle Risi: They found nothing. So in 2008 the Portuguese authorities put the case on hold and they were like, well We wait around and nothing fell in our laps So yeah The only people that were really pushing the investigation forward were forced to leave the country because you know hurt feelings So yeah, it's like case on hold.

Kyle Risi: Okay. Bye. Thanks What would you

Adam Cox: I can't imagine what they must have a feeling at that point whereby they've done all this. Devastation. Yeah, just to They had to retreat, essentially, trying to keep their heads down, still actively pursue it, but then, I don't know, to be told that's it, we've done everything we can.

Kyle Risi: So of course, as you know, Kate and Geri, they're devastated but they just keep pushing as best they could. They couldn't rely on the press anymore to help keep Madeline's story alive, because All they cared about was selling more newspapers and the Guilty Angle was the one that was most profitable to them.

Kyle Risi: So nobody listened to them. At all. So they decided that they needed to get their own story out there. They release a book about Madeleine. And this is what Kate says about her reasons for publishing it. The decision to publish this book has been very difficult. It has been taken with heavy hearts. My reason for writing it is simple.

Kyle Risi: To give an account of the truth. Writing this memoir has entailed recording some very personal, intimate and emotional aspects of our lives. Sharing these with strangers does not come easy to us. but if I hadn't done so, I would not have felt I would have been able to give the fullest picture as possible.

Kyle Risi: As with every action we have taken in the last five years, it ultimately boils down to whether what we are doing could help us find Madeline. When the answer to that question is yes, or even possibly, our family can cope with anything. Nothing is more important to us than finding our little girl. Kate McCann.

Kyle Risi: And what's really poignant about this passage is that it tells us a lot about Kate McCann who finds herself at this intersection of logic and hope where guilt is the thing stopping her from moving on, right? So her daughter has been taken and she is very likely aware of the statistics, especially after this length of time. And that is possibly stopping her from accepting that Madeleine might be dead?

Kyle Risi: Is that guilt, right? Not being able to know that she could do more because she's not been allowed to do more. like when I say guilt, I don't mean like guilt isn't Oh, I, I hurt my daughter. It's that mom guilt, right? It's the worst kind of guilt.

Adam Cox: To give up, essentially to give up, isn't it?

Adam Cox: Like she doesn't want to be seen as doing that. But then there were so many reports I remember for other years where people saying, Oh, they might have seen her in, I don't know, some other country or, she could still be alive. There's always this. hope every now and again that they might find

Kyle Risi: her.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. hope is a big thing for them as well. So I also think this passage tells us that she has made a deal with herself. She will not give in to that natural, pragmatic, logical nature of hers until she can truly say that she has tried everything possible to find a daughter and that's very clear in that last passage but sadly the press are closed off as an option for her so writing this book is the only option that family had and this woman Who probably wants to mourn her daughter isn't being allowed to do it because she can't, get to a point where she can say, I've tried everything I possibly can.

Kyle Risi: It's so heartbreaking. So they released computer generated images of her on her birthday showing us,what she would look like as she grows older. You probably remember some of those as well. Like, this is what Maddy would look like because she would be, like, 12 this year. Or, this is what she would look like at 15 or whatever it might be.

Kyle Risi: And they just keep fighting to keep her out in the open. At one point in a TV interview, Jerry refers to other girls who had been abducted and then found years later, like the girls that were taken by Ariel Castro and then held captive, which we did an episode a few weeks ago.

Kyle Risi: And he says it is just so unbelievable to think that these people can be just taken and then kept alive, but these stories prove that it can happen. And that is the hope that we're clinging onto. And you know what? I couldn't get that out of my mind when I read that.

Kyle Risi: Because at the same time, it's a really tough conundrum. We know what happened to the likes of Michelle Knight and Amanda Barry and Gina de Jesus in the Ariel Castro case, and what they had to endure. when we are forced to think about it, there is no question in my mind, I would not want my daughter to go through that. And I would probably wish her Dead. Instead.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess when you're thinking of the comparison, you're going like, oh, the hope that she could be alive and she's captured, but what has she been going through? Exactly.

Kyle Risi: She's three years old. So I get where the McCann's coming from.

Kyle Risi: I understand there's that hope. But at the same time, when you think about just this one example that is used, the reality is that those girls went through a nightmare. There was

Adam Cox: that story of, that boy. I think he's now 17. I think he went missing. I don't know, five or six years ago. I can't remember exactly.

Adam Cox: but it was his mom and I think his grandfather that actually kidnapped him, but took him to another country. and I think they were in some sort of weird I say weird. I don't know. They were basically he had no contact with his grandma for five or six years, but then decided to leave wherever they were because his mom went off and wanted to be with this other kind of community.

Adam Cox: And I think he like messaged his grandma on Facebook to say, Hey, I'm all right. can I come back home sort of thing? Yeah. And she hadn't heard from him really for five, six years. And I think he got picked up by some, I don't know, like Someone that was driving through, essentially, because he had walked, miles through the mountains or these hills.

Adam Cox: Wow. And it is these stories that kind of do give people hope to say actually they could be out there. For sure. I don't think they ever thought that he was perhaps dead because obviously his mum and his granddad had gone as well. yeah. But that missing person. For

Kyle Risi: sure. And I mean, I'm never going to pretend to understand how they must be feeling, they're just speculative. I'm just trying to empathize with them as best I can. It's tough, right? It's a complex set of emotions on what they must be going through. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: And then the media, start attacking Madeline's Fund, that kind of campaign that they created, leaving no stone unturned. And they start questioning where all the money had gone and they also managed to get a bunch of celebrity endorsements on the topic and they get comments from a bunch of other celebrities it just sends it into the stratosphere like these are huge stories now which I just think is so cruel and that's completely orchestrated by the media in order to you. Just sell more papers.

Kyle Risi: So in 2011, at the request of the Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, Scotland Yard launches its own investigation into Madeleine's disappearance. And based on the lack of any substantial evidence against the McCanns, they quickly conclude that Kate and Gerry are unequivocally innocent. They had nothing to do with this.

Kyle Risi: It was just impossible. So the McCanns are like, thank fuck for that. And as a

Adam Cox: result Someone on their side.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Logic and pragmatism. And as a result, the public start questioning. Why these two grieving parents were allowed to be put through all of this and why the media was spouting all this garbage when none of it was true?

Kyle Risi: So now the tabloids are in hot water because they're now liable for defamation because they have this big institution, Scotland Yard, that's saying None of this is true. It was all lies. They're completely innocent. And now all these headlines that they were releasing are now liable for defamation.

Kyle Risi: Really? It's interesting because the one thing to point out here is that the disappearance of Madeleine McCann wasn't the only isolated case where the tabloids were abusing their status and platform for money because for years the media was getting out of hand. you remember 2011?

Kyle Risi: Probably the biggest story at the time was the phone hacking scandal with the news of the world.

Adam Cox: Oh yeah. They hacked into what? Like the royalty, celebrities, sports people, loads of people.

Kyle Risi: That's it. It was this investigation into the Madeleine McCann case that drew attention to that scandal.

Adam Cox: Oh really, that's what brought that to attention,

Kyle Risi: no way. So for those of you who aren't familiar, this is a series of instances where the news of the world who are a British Tabloid had hacked into voicemails of a bunch of high profile people in the UK.

Kyle Risi: For example, they hacked into voicemails of several members of the royal family releasing details about their private lives, which were not really in the public domain. In fact, they weren't in the public domain at all, which kind of set off the first alarm bells. Because it wasn't anything interesting either.

Kyle Risi: It was like, William Hurt is knee. And next thing you know, that was in the papers. How did they know? Because it was a really private kind of story, right? They also hacked into the voicemails linked to the Millie Dowler investigation, who was that young schoolgirl who was murdered by that kind of club bouncer in 2011.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. And the voicemails were like really critical to their investigation, but the press, they get hold of them, and they publish them, and that really fucks up the case. They also hack into the voicemails of celebrities like David Beckham, which I think gives rise to the Rebecca Loos kind of story, where I think it's revealed that he was having an affair, I think.

Kyle Risi: But either way the public are outraged and so this is the catalyst that launches the Leveson inquiry. Have you heard of that? The Leveson, yeah. Officially titled the Inquiry into Culture, Practices and the Ethics of the Press, which sets out to examine the relationship between press and the public opinion and politicians and things like that.

Kyle Risi: And they find that the press had harmed the public with unethical behaviour as was the case with, of course, Madeleine McCann. And they said that this was all allowed to happen because there was insufficient regulation being enforced, onto the press which resulted in an unhealthy relationship between the press, politicians and police.

Kyle Risi: So Kate and Jerry actually testified during the inquiry where they talk about how her diary had gotten leaked to the news of the world. Kate's diary. Yeah, this is what she says. She says, I'd written those words at the most desperate time in my life. Most will never have to experience what we went through.

Kyle Risi: This was my only way of communicating with Madeline. And the media demonstrated absolutely no respect for me as a grieving mother. Or for my daughter. she says that it made her feel vulnerable and small and all she wanted to do was drive awareness and give authorities the best chance that they could of finding her daughter.

Kyle Risi: I just couldn't believe the injustice. She says in a diary, all I wanted to do was climb into a hole and not come out because I felt so worthless as a mother. That is awful to have written those words and then to have them shared In a way that's purely capitalistic and greed just to sell more papers and to laugh at her because at this point the public were made to believe that she was guilty and the papers were peddling that and to have those words written is absolutely disgusting.

Adam Cox: Yeah, this did result in the News of World being shut down,

Kyle Risi: wasn't it? Well, yeah, the Leveson Inquiry finally forced the world to recognise the intense suffering that the McCanns were obviously going through. Something that the media had denied them of all in pursuit to report or let's call it manufacture the biggest story in the world, which all it did was hinder the progress of finding Madeleine.

Kyle Risi: So the Leveson Inquiry recommended that and I think this is laughable because nothing seems to have changed at all. They recommended a more cautious approach. And responsible journalism. You think? yeah. What about some laws? What about some policies? What about some checks and balances?

Kyle Risi: Not a recommendation.

Adam Cox: I guess it's kind of free speech, but also money's probably playing a part in this and all sorts. There's some big corporate dodgy people.

Kyle Risi: Exactly.

Kyle Risi: So as a result, high profile figures are In the tabloid world, lost their jobs. I don't know if you remember Rebecca Brooks. She was formerly Rupert Murdoch's top executive. Was she a redhead? Do I remember that? Yes. Yeah, that was the most iconic thing about her, was that red hair.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Piers Morgan, he was sacked as well, but He's still kicking around, unfortunately. Exactly, he's clawed himself out of obscurity. Um, But also this marks the end of the news of the world as a publication which I guess that's a win for the McCanns and for the rest of the world.

Kyle Risi: After this, Robert Murat, he was the first suspect that was seen carrying his sleeping daughter in his arms. He is formally cleared of any involvement and he sues the tabloids for libel and wins 1. 1 million settlement and four other newspapers are just forced to apologise to him, which is good, I guess.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. But ultimately, the damage was done for everyone all around. The McCann's lost a vital opportunity in finding their daughter. And a lot of people are still hardwired in believing that they're guilty.

Kyle Risi: So, it's not like it's an undue switch, right? Just because they found them completely innocent doesn't change the damage and the brainwashing that the media has managed to do to people because that's now in the zeitgeist, right? That's in the back of people's minds.

Kyle Risi: Did they do it?

Adam Cox: Well, exactly. Cause when you started this, um, podcast, you sort of asked me what I knew about it. And the first thing that comes to my head, and whilst there is an element of truth to this is negligence, right? Yeah. And this kind of negative connotation towards the mum and the dad. so yeah, that is what's, that's what's stuck.

Adam Cox: Unfortunately, I didn't know the level of detail. I knew the press were involved in hyping things up, but I didn't know the level of detail of how they, impacted this investigation and probably the efforts and the results of what, how quickly they were able to like, jump on things.

Adam Cox: you can't help but feel sorry for Kate and the father they're just in the whole family really. Yeah. yeah, it's sad.

Kyle Risi: 2017 ten years after their daughter's disappearance a new suspect comes onto the radar when a woman contacts German police suggesting that her boyfriend a man by the name of Christian I want to say brew We're just going to call him Christian. That he might be connected to Madeleine's disappearance.

Kyle Risi: So Christian has a history of sexual offences between 1995 and 2016 that includes sexually abusing a child. On top of this, he was living in Prado de Luz around the time that Madeleine disappeared. When police look into him they find that phone records place Christian near the apartment the night that she went missing.

Kyle Risi: They also find that almost immediately Following Madeline's disappearance, he re registers his car and he moves out of the farmhouse where he had previously lived in for 10 years.

Adam Cox: what is the significance of re registering the car? I

Kyle Risi: guess it's so they can't track him, right?

Kyle Risi: It's under a different registration. I see. So in 2019, he was actually convicted of sexually assaulting a 72 year old woman in Prada de Luz, back in 2005. that was just half a mile away from where Maddie was abducted. And he is due for release in 2025, so God knows what investigators have in store for him when he's released.

Kyle Risi: And I don't know much about how ongoing inquiries into suspects work when the suspect is in prison. Like, why do they need to wait until he's out of jail? Why can't they investigate now? Do you know what I mean? Yeah,

Adam Cox: surely they can still continue this investigation,

Kyle Risi: right? Sure, I don't know what they're waiting for.

Adam Cox: I don't know, can you be charged whilst serving time? I don't

Kyle Risi: know, but Yeah, it doesn't make any sense that you can't be, which makes me think that if they are not pursuing or they're not investigating it, then maybe they've discounted him in some way. Maybe they can prove that he isn't involved. Right, okay.

Kyle Risi: But as far as I'm aware, there's no other information. We have to wait until 2025, I guess, to see what happens.

Kyle Risi: And then recently In 2022, a 21 year old Polish woman called Julia Wendel, she sets up an Instagram account filled with posts of her saying that she is Madeleine McCann, and that she is desperately trying to reach out to the McCanns to contact her.

Kyle Risi: She says that she has strange similarities between her and Maddie, having similar birthmarks and freckles on the face and apparently she also has a similar kind of columboma in her eye as well. And basically Julia wants a DNA test, but her parents are like, lol our daughter is nuts.

Kyle Risi: But Julia is insisting that someone explain to her the similarities between her and Maddy and why there are no pictures of her mother pregnant with her. And also, her parents are unable to produce a birth certificate or even willing to grant permission for her to have a DNA test. So they must be hiding something, right?

Kyle Risi: I guess, yeah,

Adam Cox: maybe they're hiding, who the real dad is or something, right? Possibly. actually, this rings a bell, because I remember thinking, I think this is this case, does Kate actually go, yeah, we welcome you to have a DNA test?

Kyle Risi: Kate's of course, if you want a DNA test, let's do it, why wouldn't we, right?

Kyle Risi: Um, so in April this year. They get the results of the DNA test coordinated through the McCann's private investigation team and it shows that 21 year old Julia Wendell is 100 percent Polish. Right. But also, they send her off for more tests immediately following this because doctors think that she might have leukemia.

Kyle Risi: Oh. So like,

Adam Cox: wow. That's a That's something you weren't expecting. No. I don't know if she was generally expecting.

Kyle Risi: Not. Apparently she's done this kind of thing before. She's assumed a different identity before.

Kyle Risi: Oh. And she, she might have some kind of psychological issues. That's like almost a stroke of luck, right? It's unfortunate, a horrible thing to dredge these things up again and to come forward. And say that you're Madeleine McCann, but as a result this girl has potentially saved her life by finding out that she potentially has leukaemia.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess that really is a silver lining on that cloud.

Kyle Risi: But now it's almost 17 years since Madeleine's disappearance and the McCanns are trying to kind of just return back to some kind of semblance of a normal life. They've both resumed their medical careers and are focused on just raising their kids who are now teenagers.

Kyle Risi: On the 2017, Kate reflects on the resilience and the enduring hope, where she says you don't realise how strong you are until you have no option. I think that's really true. So in a similar fashion to what happened to JonBenet Ramsey, I think we might potentially never find out what happened to her. And I worry that Kate and Jerry may never find out what happened either.

Kyle Risi: will they ever be able to get that closure that they need? Yeah, I

Adam Cox: mean, the case is quite old, there's going to be a point, whoever did take her, if they don't find him, we're assuming him, that this person's going to die.

Adam Cox: And how do you ever get any kind of justification or, I don't know, closure if that happens, if it continues to go on. So I'd love for them to have some kind of closure.

Kyle Risi: I hope so, and I hope that whatever happens in 2025 with this Christian guy, that something substantial comes out of that, because I think they deserve it, after everything they've been through.

Adam Cox: Are they just sitting there waiting? They obviously know something's gonna happen, but what? God

Kyle Risi: knows, it's just frustrating, because they're not saying anything, and I guess they don't want to just in case it hinders the investigation, right? Or maybe he knows something. Who knows? But yeah, that is the story of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Wow. It's quite a fascinating case. I say that in such a, in a way because this happened to real people and the heartache, but it almost feels like not real.

Kyle Risi: It's a awful, awful thing for any mother to go through. But what I find so compelling about this case is that.

Kyle Risi: It almost feels like we are just pawns in this bigger game, right? With more powerful institutions that are just there to make money, to take advantage of the public. But I think the lesson here is to learn is that these big institutions, we're not helpless against them because without us, they don't have that power.

Adam Cox: Yeah, clearly the head. Honchos, the big corporate level. They're the ones that are pulling the strings. The key thing to take away from this is what you knew about the case. whatever mistakes were made for sure, but let's remember that there's people at

Kyle Risi: the heart of this. Exactly.

Kyle Risi: But also at the same time, like what really made me angry as well, it's like, yes, the Leveson inquiry came about, but the thing that really kind of propelled that forward, was, oh, someone leaked a story about Prince William hurting his knee, and that's an invasion of our privacy. Fuck you!

Kyle Risi: Right?

Kyle Risi: What about Millie Dowler and the injustice caused there? What about the press hindering the investigation in the Madeleine McCann's case. What would have happened if the press was playing ball? Would we have found Madeleine McCann? Would these parents have the kind of the closure that they need?

Kyle Risi: Would we have even found her alive? Those are the questions that we need to ask. And that's the reason why we need to hold the press to account. Because without us, they have no power. Well said.

Kyle Risi: I'm really annoyed. Shall we run the outro? Let's do it. So we come to the end of another episode of The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. If you found this episode both fascinating and intriguing, then subscribe and leave us a review, but don't just stop there, schedule your episodes to download automatically as soon as they become available.

Kyle Risi: We're on Instagram at The Compendium Podcast, so stop by and say hi, or visit us at our home on the web at thecompendiumpodcast. com We release every Tuesday, and until then, remember, even the most puzzling stories remind us that hope, like the search for truth, never fades away.

Kyle Risi: see you next time.

Kyle Risi: See you then.

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