Muddied Waters

Many have said there were and still are deliberate attempts to muddy the waters surrounding Mrs Fenn's statement.

For those of you who don't know, Mrs Pamela Fenn lived in the apartment above 5A and claimed that on the night of 1st May 2007, she heard a child cry alone, for over an hour.

"She refers to the day of the 1st May 2007, when she was at home alone, at approximately 22.30 she heard a child cry, and that due the tone of the crying seemed to be a young child and not a baby of two years of age or younger. Apart from the crying that continued for approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, and which got louder and more expressive, the child shouted “Daddy, Daddy”, the witness had no doubt that the noise came from the floor below.

At about 23.45, an hour and fifteen minutes after the crying began, she heard the parents arrive, she did not see them, but she heard the patio doors open, she was quite worried as the crying had gone on for more than an hour and had gradually got worse.  When questioned, she said that she did not know the cause of the crying, perhaps a nightmare or another destabilising factor.  As soon as the parents entered the child stopped crying.

That night she contacted a friend called E*** G***, who also lives in Praia da Luz, after 23.00, telling her about the situation, who was not surprised at the child’s crying."

The waters were muddied when news broke of Madeleine questioning her parents as to why he/she/they didn't come when her and Sean were crying.  I say muddied, because the McCanns claim this crying episode took place on the 2nd of May, contrary to what Mrs Fenn claimed.  Could she have been mistaken and confused the dates?  

Well as it happens, Mrs Fenn did recount the day and date quite correctly.  For, four years later on the Late Late Show we hear from Mr McCann himself that on the night of 1st May, it was Amelie who had woken up.

"The next morning, she (Madeleine) said "Mummy", can't remember if it was Mummy or Daddy now... "why didn't you come when Sean and I were crying last night?"  And we both looked at each other and thought "that's odd... crying?"  We didn't hear anything and we had been back checking and so we asked "When did you cry?"  You know sometimes when we first put them to bed, they cry and she just dropped it and as we were saying, Madeleine is very articulate and we kind of looked at each other and thought, did they wake up or was it the night before when Amelie had woken up?"

So by the McCanns' own admission, the children had woken on the 1st and 2nd of May, but dismiss any suggestion that Madeleine could have woke and wandered on that fateful night.  By stark contrast, none of the children woke on the 3rd May despite the hullaballoo happening in and around the apartment and being physically moved and carried by strangers to another apartment.

Recollections of the night of 3rd May also differ...

"During the day nothing unusual happened, until almost 22.30 when, being alone again, she heard the hysterical shouts from a female person, calling out “we have let her down” which she repeated several times, quite upset. Mrs Fenn then saw that it was the mother of little Madeleine who was shouting furiously.

Upon leaning over the terrace, after having seen the mother, Mrs Fenn asked the father, Gerry, what was happening to which he replied that a small girl had been abducted. When asked, she replied that she did not leave her apartment, just spoke to Gerry from her balcony, which had a view over the terrace of the floor below. She found it strange that Gerry when said that a girl had been abducted, he did not mention that it was his daughter and that he did not mention any other scenarios.

At that moment she offered Gerry help, saying that he could use her phone to contact the authorities, to which he replied that this had already been done. It was just after 22.30.  She said that after the mother’s shouts, she had seen many people in the streets looking for the girl."

In her own 'version of the truth', Kate McCann gives an altogether different account of the neighbourly encounter...

"At about 11pm, a woman appeared on a nearby balcony and inquired of Kate: "Can someone tell me what all the noise is about?"  Kate told the woman that her daughter had been stolen from her bed to which the woman responded: "Oh I see" as though, Kate writes, she had been told a can of beans had fallen off a kitchen shelf."

Could these two differing accounts describe the same moment?  Sadly Mrs Fenn has passed away, her statement in effect is etched in stone.  I would hate to think that Kate McCann has taken liberties when the lady in question is unable to defend herself.


Muddied waters?  I think with the publishing of Kate McCann's 'version of the truth', a lot of things are suddenly becoming clearer.

Please do what Scotland Yard are going to do... read the Portuguese investigation for yourself by visiting the Maddie Case Files.  Thanks to the hard work of many posters, all translated into English... for free.