IT has been nine years since three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from
the holiday apartment she was staying at in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
Nearly a decade later police are still no closer to resolving the mystery that
captured the nation.
Just last week Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, head of the Met Police, said they have
just one line of enquiry left to follow before they close the cold case.
As the McCanns today vowed to continue doing everything in their power to find
their daughter, who would be 13 next week, we have compiled a timeline of
events in the years-long investigation up until today.
2007
May 3
Madeleine McCann disappears while her parents Gerry and Kate have dinner with
friends, dubbed the “Tapas 7”, 40 yards away.
The parents take turns checking on their children every half-hour, and when
Kate McCann goes to check on Maddie at 10pm she notices her daughter is not
there and raises the alarm.
Portuguese GNR report a possible kidnapping at 11pm, the CID team arrives at
11.50pm and around 20 people enter the McCanns’ apartment (5A) before it is
closed off.
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.
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.
Former police chief Goncalo Amaral was informed about the case at midnight.
Jane Tanner, one of the Tapas 7, spotted a man in light-coloured trousers
carrying a small girl wearing pink pyjamas near to the apartment earlier in
the evening.
May 4
Police notify border police, Spanish police and airports and a frenzied search
for Madeleine begins.
Roadblocks are put in place and apartment 5A is sealed off at 10am, forensics
arrive at 1pm and begin to work at the apartment.
A British expat barmaid turns up on McCann’s doorstep claiming she had a
psychic vision of Madeleine looking out a window, she is the first of 150
psychics to descend on resort.
The McCanns face media for first time in an emotional plea for information.
The first “Maddie sighting” is reported by taxi driver Antonio
Castela, who took three men, a woman, and a girl resembling Madeleine from
Monte Gordo to the Hotel Apolo in Vila Real de Santo António, where they
drove away in a blue Jeep.
He said he had recorded the sighting with the Portuguese police but that they
had not contacted him again.
May 5
Authorities widen the search to Spain and say they believe Maddie has been
kidnapped and is still alive in the Algarve area, as Brit police fly in.
Fifty elements of GNR (Portuguese National Republican Guard), including
sniffer dogs, a helicopter, firemen and divers join the search.
All airports in Portugal and Spain are placed on alert to look out for any
passengers matching Madeleine’s description. Portuguese border police also
check cars leaving the country.
May 6
Kate McCann speaks publicly for the first time since Maddie’s disappearance on
Portuguese Mother’s Day.
Joyce Joyce, from Dublin, becomes a key witness after claiming she saw two
people in a car acting suspiciously near a supermarket where tracker dogs
picked up and lost Maddie’s scent. She says she saw the black saloon less
than 30 minutes before the toddler went missing.
One of Kate’s colleagues offers a £100,000 reward for information as more than
150 officers search airports and two campsites a few miles away.
Officers receive more than 30,000 calls offering information and about 150
investigators are deployed in Portugal to liaise with British police and
Interpol. Police produce a drawing of a suspect.
A blonde girl, identical to Madeleine, is reported to be seen with a German
family, at the Cabopino campsite on the Costa del Sol. She later turns out
to be the daughter of Karsten Mayer, a German-speaking Swiss native.
May 8
Interpol issue a global missing-person alert.
Police in Nelas, central Portugal, are tipped off about a girl matching
Maddie’s description seen with a man at a supermarket. The man, a Belgian
citizen, stopped at the supermarket with his daughter and left the place in
a car before police were contacted, but police later confirmed that the
sighting had been a false alarm.
People in thePraia da Luz resort report unusual incidents, including a woman
who noticed a man trying to take away a pram and a man who caught a stranger
taking photographs of young blonde girls on a beach.
Portuguese police investigate a report by holidaymaker Andre van Wyk, who
claims he saw a girl resembling Maddie being taken in a cart to a gypsy camp
near Portimão, about ten miles from where she disappeared, shortly after her
disappearance.
May 9
24 Horas newspaper reports police have found a vehicle near Praia da Luz that
may have been used by the kidnapper.
CCTV from a petrol station near Lagos shows a child matching Maddie’s
description with a woman and two men. The child is seen having an argument
with the woman.
May 10
The car from the petrol station is reported to have British number plates and
it is claimed one of the men seen on the CCTV was the “suspicious”
man caught taking photographs at the resort.
Marie Olli, a Norwegian woman living in the Spanish town of Fuengirola,
contacts police claiming she saw a girl matching Madeleine’s description in
a petrol station in Marrakech, Morocco.
The girl, who was said to have appeared sad, was allegedly accompanied by a
man in his late 30s. At about the same time, a British tourist reported
seeing Maddie near the Marrakech Ibis hotel.
Interpol discounted these sightings, but officers from Leicestershire police
remain in Morocco for some days afterwards.
May 12
Gerry and Kate make fresh appeal on Maddie’s fourth birthday.
May 14
Reporter Lori Campbell calls Leicestershire Police to say she is very
suspicious of Robert Murat, a British expat she has spoken to regarding the
case.
May 15
British-born Robert Murat is made an official suspect – or “arguido”
– following a search of his mother’s villa, which is 150 yards from the
McCanns’ holiday apartment. Police question three others.
May 16
McCanns set up Madeleine’s Fund, which raises more than £2.6million, and hire
private detectives.
May 17
An anonymous witness contacts police claiming to have spotted a Fiat Marea
with a forged license plate in Pinhal Novo, Palmela, Setúbal, which
allegedly transported the missing child.
May 25
Portuguese police pass the description of Tanner sighting to the media and
Madeleine’s Fund hires a forensic artist to create an image of the man.
The McCanns release the last picture taken of Maddie before she vanished.
May 26
Police issue a description of a man seen on the night Madeleine went missing “carrying
a child or an object that could have been taken as a child”.
May 30
Gerry and Kate McCann fly to Rome to meet the pope.
June 4
Attention switches back to Morocco, after GCHQ in Cheltenham pick up phone
intercept messages in Arabic referring to “the little blonde girl”,
a German man, and a ferry from Tarifa in Spain.
June 15
Spanish tourist Isabel Gonzalez says she saw a girl fitting Madeleine’s
description being dragged across a stree in Zaio, Morocco, by a North
African woman.
June 17
Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa admits vital forensic clues may have been
destroyed in the hours after Madeleine’s disappearance as the scene was not
protected properly.
June 21
Security is tightened in Valletta, Malta, following five reported Maddie
sightings on the island.
A mock-up of the man Tanner saw carrying a child was made
June 27
The total sightings of Maddie in Malta rises to 29.
June 30
The first of a series of articles criticising the McCanns appeares in
Portuguese weekly, Sol, and suspicion against the couple mounts.
July 28
A sighting is reported on a café terrace in Tongeren, Belgium by Katleen
Sampermans, who said Madeleine was in the company of a Dutchman and an
English woman.
The girl turns out to be the 4-year-old daughter of a Belgian man
July 30
Two British sniffer dogs are flown out to Portugal. Keela, who can detect
minute quantities of blood, and Eddie, who is trained to detect bodies, work
in the apartment and several cars, including the hire car the McCanns had
rented 25 days after Madeleine disappeared.
July 31
Sniffer dogs alert in Apartment 5A. Cadaver dog Eddie alerts in a number of
places and blood dog Keela alerts behind the sofa.
August 2
Polícia Judiciária remove items, including Kate’s diary, from the apartment.
August 3
Belgian police issue an identikit drawing of a man reportedly seen with a
child fitting a description of missing Madeleine McCann.
August 4
Potruguse ministers release 11,233 pages of the case file to the media on
CD-ROM.
August 6
A Portuguese newspaper reports British police sniffer dogs have found traces
of blood on a wall in the McCanns’ holiday apartment.
Police impound the McCanns’ car after a sniffer dog reacts to it and other
items.
Samples are sent to a British DNA lab for testing.
August 11
One hundred days after Madeleine disappeared, investigating officers publicly
acknowledge she could be dead.
Police say the McCanns are not being considered as suspects following
newspaper speculation they are under suspicion.
August 21
Two women report seeing a child who looked like Madeleine with a man at a
petrol station near Cartagena, Spain.
Naoual Malhi, a Spanish woman of Moroccan origin, claims to have spotted the
girl with a woman in the village of Fnideq, but private investigators are
unable to substantiate the lead.
August 31
The McCanns launch a libel action against Portuguese newspaper Tal & Qual
which claimed “police believe” they killed their daughter. The
McCanns say they are “deeply hurt” by the allegations.
A photograph of a blonde girl being carried on the back of a North African
woman is taken by Clara Torres, another Spanish tourist, in Zinat, northern
Morocco, but she turns out to be a Moroccan girl.
September 3
The sample taken from the McCanns’ car boot is found to contain 15 out of 19
of Maddie’s DNA componenets, a result John Lowe of the FSS deems “too
complex for meaningful interpretation”.
September 7
The McCanns are declared arguidos (suspects).
September 9
Kate and Gerry McCann return home to Rothley, Leicestershire with their
two-year-old twins, despite their arguido status.
September 11
Portuguese police play down reports DNA evidence with a 100% match to
Madeleine was found in her parents’ hire car.
The 10-volume case file is passed to a judge, Pedro Miguel dos Anjos Frias,
who authorizes 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.
September 19
Portuguese prosecutors rule there is “no new evidence” in police
files to justify re-questioning Gerry and Kate McCann.
September 24
The McCanns get a security company to test the twins’ hair samples for
sedatives as they fear Madeleine’s abductor drugged them.
Control Risks, the company who carry out the tests, take a sample from Kate
McCann too, to rebut allegations that she was on medication. No trace of
drugs are found.
October 3
Goncalo Amaral, the detective in charge of the inquiry, is removed from the
case after criticising the British police in a Portuguese newspaper
interview.
October 9
Paulo Rebelo, deputy national director of the Portuguese police, is appointed
to take over the Portuguese inquiry.
A school inspector claims to have seen Maddie in Karia Ba Mohamed, Morocco,
but after enquiries the local police are adamant she was not there.
Moroccan Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa says there is no evidence to
suggest Madeleine was ever in Morocco.
November 4
An Irish tourist reports a sighting in Me¿ugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina.The
child is later revealed to be the 3-year-old daughter of Slavko Dedi¿, a
dentist from the nearby town of Ljubuški.
A Portuguese trucker phones the Método 3 helpline to report seeing a blonde
woman pass a child wrapped in a blanket to a man, who then ‘bundled’ her
into a car. He said this took place two days after the disappearance, in the
Algarve town of Silves.
November 18
Gerry McCann, in a personal video, speaks of his belief that his family was
watched by “a predator” in the days before his daughter’s
disappearance.
December 5
CCTV from a department store in southern Dunedin, New Zealand, shows a girl
who looks like Madeleine being led into the store by a man at around 9:00pm.
2008
January 20
The McCanns release sketches of a man they believe may have abducted their
daughter. The drawings are based on a description by a British holidaymaker
of a “creepy man” seen at the resort.
February 4
Divers search a remote Algarve lake for Madeleine after being hired by a
Portuguese lawyer who believes her body has been dumped there.
February 15
Dutch student Melissa Fiering claims to see Maddie with a ‘tall, swarthy man’,
at the L’Arche motorway service station restaurant in the south of France.
French police, after examining CCTV evidence, decide the girl is not Maddie.
Retired civil servant Alan Cameron claims Madeline was with a Portuguese
couple who came to his door in Dorset. It is the UK’s first reported
sighting.
March 17
A sighting is reported in the Sydney central business district of a
middle-aged man carrying a blonde girl. It turns out to be a false alarm.
A witness reports seeing Madeleine on a plane flying to São Paulo, in late
March. Five earlier reports had been investigated and discounted.
March 19
The McCanns accept £550,000 libel damages and front-page apologies from
Express Newspapers over allegations they were responsible for Madeleine’s
death.
April 7
Portuguese police fly to the UK to sit in on interviews conducted by
Leicestershire Police of the so-called “Tapas Seven”.
April 14
Portuguese police deny leaking details of statements given by the McCanns
early in the investigation. Spanish television broadcasts quotes, including
some made by Kate, supposedly telling officers Madeleine had been upset the
night before she disappeared that her mother had not come to her when she
cried.
May 3
A tearful Mrs McCann urges people to “pray like mad” for Madeleine
as the family mark the first anniversary of the little girl’s disappearance.
May 7
Portuguese prosecutors are examining several charges against the McCanns,
including abandonment of a child, abduction, homicide and concealment of a
corpse
Alípio Ribeiro, the Portuguese police chief criticised for his handling of the
Madeleine McCann case, resigns.
He also fires the police officer who earlier headed the investigation, Goncalo
Amaral, for comments he made to the media.
May 27
A reconstruction of the night Madeleine McCann disappeared does not happen
after friends her parents dined with that evening decline to take part.
July 1
Portuguese police say they have submitted their final report on the case,
which the attorney general says “will be the object of careful analysis
and consideration”.
July 7
Leicestershire Police agreed to disclose the content of files related to
sightings and tip-offs. They hand over 81 pieces of information to
Madeleine’s parents.
July 15
British expat Robert Murat accepts a £600,000 damages settlement over
allegations in 11 UK newspapers he was involved in Madeleine’s
disappearance.
July 21
The Portuguese authorities shelve their investigation and lift the “arguido”
status of the McCanns and Murat.
July 24
Ex police chief Goncalo Amaral publishes a book about the case, entitled The
Truth of the Lie, in which he alleges that Madeleine died in her family’s
holiday flat.
August 4
Thousands of pages of evidence from the Portuguese police files in the
exhaustive investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance are made public.
They reveal details of the lines of inquiry pursued by detectives, witness
statements and a 14-volume annexe of previously unknown sightings of the
little girl across the world.
The release of the Portuguese police case files reveals a possible sighting in
Amsterdam, Netherlands, in early May 2007. Anna Stam reported to Dutch
police a girl of three or four years of age, who resembled Madeleine, had
come into her shop and had told her that the adult she was with was “a
stranger” who “took me from my mummy” while she was on
holiday. She added her name was “Maddy”.
November
The Truth of the Lie sells 180,000 copies.
2009
January 29
Companies House accounts show nearly £2 million was raised for the official
fund to find Madeleine in the first 10 months after she went missing.
May 1
McCanns release age-progressed images of how Maddie may look age six.
Investigators working for the McCanns attempt to question a British
paedophile, Raymond Hewlett. He denies involvement, declines to speak to
them, and dies of cancer in December.
May 3
The second anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.
May 23
Goncalo Amaral is convicted of perjury and receives an 18-month suspended
sentence in relation to the investigation of eight-year-old Portuguese girl
Joana Cipriano, who disappered from Figuera (seven miles from Praia da Luz),
in 2004.
Joana’s body was never found, and no murder weapon was identified. Her mother,
Leonor Cipriano, launched a campaign to find her daughter, but she 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 stairs in the police station. Amaral was not present when the
beating is alleged to have taken place, but was accused of covering up for
others.
August 7
Dave Edgar, a retired detective working for the McCanns, releases an e-fit 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.
September 9
McCanns begin libel action against Amaral and gain an injunction against his
book, The Truth of the Lie.
October 10
The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet publishes a photograph of a girl, seen in
Sweden, who looks like Madeleine. The photographer claims the girl only
spoke English, and was accompanied by a man who spoke Swedish.
November 3
A one-minute video message – produced in seven languages – is launched by
Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, showing new
images of how Madeleine might look more than two years older.
2010
February 18
Jerry and Kate McCann welcome the decision of a Portuguese court not to lift
the ban Goncalo Amaral’s controversial book.
March 6
At the request of the British Home Secretary Alan Johnson, the Home Office
began discussions with the Association of Chief Police Officers about
setting up a new investigation.
April 28
Gerry McCann says it is “incredibly frustrating” police in Portugal
and the UK had not been actively looking for Madeleine “for a very long
time”.
May 3
The third anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.
July 5
Gerry and Kate McCann meet with Home Secretary Theresa May to discuss search
for Madeleine.
October 19
The Court of Appeal in Lisbon overturns the ban on Amaral’s book, stating that
it violates his freedom of expression
November
The McCanns sign a publishing deal to write a book about their daughter’s
disappearance. They also launch a petition calling for a full review of the
case by the UK and Portugal.
2011
March
Polícia Judiciária in Portugal begin a case review.
May 3
The fourth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.
May 12
In an open letter in The Sun, the McCanns ask the Prime Minister to launch an “independent,
transparent and comprehensive” review of all information relating to
Madeleine’s disappearance.
They publish a book entitled Madeleine, which they hope will prompt people
holding vital information about what happened to Madeleine to come forward.
Sale proceeds will go towards the Find Madeleine fund.
May 13
David Cameron writes to the McCanns telling them the Home Secretary will be in
touch to set out “new action” involving the Metropolitan Police.
May 22
Jerry and Kate McCann return to Portugal to make a fresh appeal.
May
Operation Grange launched with a team of 29 detectives and eight civilians
July 28
British and American tourists reportedly saw a young girl resembling Maddie
with a French/Belgian couple in Leh, India, who claimed that the child was
theirs.
Although reports suggested DNA tests had been conducted, the chief of police
in Leh, Vivek Gupta, denied the reports and stated that no DNA test had been
undertaken by the police.
September 9
British detectives reviewing the search for Madeleine hold their first
face-to-face meetings with Portuguese police chiefs.
2012
March 27
Stephen Birch, a South African real estate developer and self-styled
investigator, says he has found what could be a burial site below the
surface using a ground-penetrating radar. Birch, who has invested $50,000 of
his own money investigating the case, asks Portugese authorities to excavate
the area,
April 24
The detective leading the UK review of Madeleine’s disappearance says they
have the “best opportunity” yet to find her. Det Ch Insp Andy
Redwood tells BBC’s Panorama his team are “seeking to bring closure to
the case”.
April 25
Scotland Yard release new image of what Maddie may look like age nine and
detectives say she could still be alive.
A sighting of Maddie in Costa del Sol is reported.
April 26
Portuguese police say they have found no new material that will allow them to
reopen their investigation.
May 3
The fifth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.
July 10
Kate McCann launches a nationwide campaign to find missing people. Mrs McCann,
a new ambassador for the charity Missing People, launches a network of
billboards which will publicise the cases of individuals whose whereabouts
are no longer known.
December 21
In a Christmas message on the Find Madeleine website, Kate and Gerry McCann
say the festive season will “never be as it should”.
December 31
New Zealand police are informed of a possible sighting in Queenstown. The
informant said the girl she had seen had the same coloboma of the iris as
Madeleine. After investigation, police identified the girl and stated that
they were “absolutely satisfied” she was not Madeleine.
2013
February 6
A DNA sample from a girl in New Zealand is sent to British police to quash the
suggestion that she could be Madeleine McCann.
Februay 21
Tony Bennett, a man who ran a website devoted to criticizing the McCanns
receives a three-month suspended sentence after leafleting their village
with his allegations.
May 1
The McCanna say they have not given up hope in the search for their daughter,
nearly six years after she vanished. Kate tells the Press Association she
believes Scotland Yard officers are “more determined than ever” to
find what happened to her daughter.
May 3
The sixth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.
May 17
UK detectives reviewing the case say they have identified “a number of
persons of interest”.
June 21
Prosecutors confirm London’s chief crown prosecutor Alison Saunders and her
deputy Jenny Hopkins flew to Portugal with Scotland Yard detectives in April
to discuss the case with their Portuguese counterparts.
July 4
The Metropolitan Police says it has new evidence and has opened a formal
investigation. It says it is investigating 38 “persons of interest”,
including 12 Brits.
September 12
A £1m libel case against former Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral begins
in Lisbon.
October 4
Scotland Yard detectives say mobile phone records may hold the key to solving
the case. There are 41 potential suspects, they say.
October 14
Scotland Yard releases e-fit images of men they want to trace, including one
of a man seen carrying a child toward the beach that night
A British holidaymaker who was returning to his apartment after collecting his
daughter from the Ocean Club night crèche is identified as the man Tanner
had seen in 2007.
The pyjamas his daughter had been wearing matched Tanner’s report and Scotland
Yard say they are “almost certain” the Tanner sighting was not
related to the abduction.
October 23
Britain’s most senior police officer Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe defends the way
the Portuguese dealt with the initial investigation into Madeleine’s
disappearance, saying it would have been “very difficult” to
immediately know if they were dealing with a serious crime.
A blonde-haired blue-eyed seven-year-old girl is placed in care after being
found living with a gypsy family in Dublin – days after another
blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl was found living with gypsies in Greece.
October 24
Portuguese police reopen their inquiry into Madeleine’s disappearance, citing “new
lines of inquiry”. The Scotland Yard inquiry will run alongside the
Portuguese investigation.
October 27
Another sighting of a man carrying a child that night is reported by Martin
and Mary Smith, who were on holiday from Ireland. Scotland Yard concludes
the Smith sighting offered the approximate time of Madeleine’s kidnap
November 4
It is claimed a key suspect in the abduction of Madeleine McCann was sacked
from the hotel complex where the youngster disappeared the year
before she and her family holidayed there.
According to a national newspaper, police are investigating the possibility
Euclides Monteiro could have kidnapped Madeleine after being disturbed as he
broke into her family’s apartment. Monteiro, known as Toni, died in an
accident four years ago but phone records place him near the complex at the
time the three-year-old vanished.
2014
January 29
Scotland Yard detectives travel to Portugal following leads in their hunt for
Madeleine McCann. The four officers are believed to be asking Portuguese
Police to sanction the arrest and questioning of three suspects.
March 19
Scotland Yard issue another appeal about a man who entered holiday homes
occupied by British families in 12 incidents in the western Algarve between
2004 and 2010, two of them in Praia da Luz.
On four occasions he had sexually assaulted five white girls, aged 7–10, in
their beds. The man 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.The
Polícia Judiciária said they believed the intruder was Euclides Monteiro,
the former Ocean Club employee from Cape Verde who died in a 2009 tractor
accident.
March 20
Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann receive more than
250 calls and emails following their latest appeal.
May 3
The seventh anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.
May 6
British detectives are granted permission to excavate two sites at the Algarve
resort where Madeleine vanished seven years ago.
May 8
British detectives arrive in Portugal to meet with Portuguese officers.
May 22
Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine say they are set for a “substantial
phase of operational activity”.
June 2
A large area of waste land in Praia da Luz, Portugal, is cordoned off in
connection with the Madeleine investigation.
December 5
Detective leading the hunt for Maddie, Andy Redwood, steps down and is
replaced by DCI Nicola Wall
December 10
Scotland Yard and Portuguese police re-interview former suspect Robert Murat.
Eleven men and women were interviewed in December, including Murat, his wife
and her ex-husband; at least one former Ocean Club employee; and another man
who had been interviewed three times previously.
2015
April 28
The McCanns win 500,000 euro libel damages against Goncalo Amaral for his book
The Truth of the Lie.
May 3
The eighth anniversary of Maddie’s disappearance.
June 13
Kate McCann does a 500 mile cycle to raise £10,000 for the Maddie hunt as it
is revealed money given to investigation has hit £10m.
July 29
A girl’s body is found in suitcase in Australia, sparking fears it could be
Maddie. This is soon ruled out by police.
October 25
Officers are scoure dozens of images from the camera of Polish businessman
Wojciech Krokowski.
They focus on those he took while in Praia da Luz around the time Madeleine
went missing.
Krokowski’s flat was searched after the three-year-old vanished. Portuguese
cops later ruled him out.
October 28
Operation Grange’s team is cut from 29 to four after having tens of thousands
of documents translated and released, an updated age-progressed image of
Madeleine made, and investigating 560 lines in inquiry and 8,685 potential
sightings of Madeleine.
By 2015 they had taken 1,338 statements, collected 1,027 exhibits, and
investigated 60 persons of interest, as well as 650 sex offenders
November 2
Scotland Yard monitor a man known as Silvio S after he is arrested over the
disappearance and death over a four-year-old migrant boy. He confesses
killing another child who went missing in July.
2016
March 10
Maddie spotted in Paraguay – private investigator Miraz Ullah Ali goes public
with claims she was being held by local woman.
April 18
A top Brit cop working on the case says they still hope to find Maddie alive.
April 20
Amaral wins appeal against libel payout.
April 28
Kate McCann returns to Praia da Luz to hunt for Maddie. Bernard Hogan-Howe
says investigators have one last line of enquiry and will close
investigation after. They believe Maddie may have been taken during botched
burglary
May 1
Amaral announces plans to write second book about Maddie
May 3
Ninth anniversary of Maddie’s disappearance
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