'Find Madeleine's body and prove we killed her': McCanns' challenge to police
Personally, I like a challenge. I think it is arrogant of the McCanns to throw down the gauntlet to the Portuguese police in this manner. I know it would make me all the more determined to prove my point.
The McCanns are labouring under the false belief that if there is no body there can be no crime. This used to be the case under English law. That is, until the famous Porthole Case, whereby a conviction was obtained even though the police never found the body.
It is said that history repeats itself. The article about the Porthole Case is entitled "Web of lies fails to save the porthole murderer". Let us hope that the McCann web of lies also fails to save them from justice.
UPDATE: Guilty verdicts without a body are rare. In this article are examples from the US.
Another one here. And here.
"The body can reveal a lot of secrets, so a number of killers have tried to get rid of their victim's body altogether".
"Most murderers are unaware of even the simplest clues that might give them away. But by thinking like a forensic scientist, is the "perfect" murder possible?".
What's the bet that Gerry and/or Kate have read and studied this book? Suspicious or what?
9 comments:
Off the top of my head, I cannot remember the names but there was a case more recently, whereby a man was sentenced to life in prison, for the murder of a woman and one or two children some 30 years previously. He was sentenced about 4 - 5 years ago.
I believe it was somewhere in the West Country and what happened was that the man was never caught. One of the reasons was that the bodies were never found - it was said that the missing people must have emigrated, or similar. Whilst the man was suspected, there was no evidence to link him to the family's disappearance.
After some years, the man met another woman and they lived together - again, not sure if they married. After many years, he either confessed to this woman or suggested strongly that he was responsible for the disappearance and murders of his family so many years previously.
She reported him to police and he was tried and sentenced, for murder, although no bodies have ever been found. I believe this was the first case of its kind to have convicted someone without a body.
The lady then wrote a book about her experiences.
Sorry - I can't recall names but it is true and I think, happened in Devon.
The court of Portimao already convicted a mother of killing her daughter without body (apparently,it had been proven that the body was dismembred and given to the pigs to eat).
Maybe it was on the beach.... :-)
Meanwhile, there is now a theory that the body can be in the most unexpected place to hide a body - the local cemetery!
http://www.correiomanha.pt/noticia.asp?id=257608&idselect=181&idCanal=181&p=0
The track of death marked by the english dogs starts in the Ocean Club and finishes in the Praia da Luz, at south of the resort. The same was defined by the South African radiostesist, to who the McCann had asked for aid in July, that also detected the presence of a body in that zone.
The "CM" knows, however, that the church, that is a few meters of the sea, was never visited by the authorities. Because it is a cult place, there are some legal reserves to hinder an operation of search, having that operation to be authorized for a judge and being folloied for the same.
Some elements of the PJ believe that the body can have passed for that place, or same to be embedded in unused cemetary there, what however has been looked at with some caution for the judicial hierarchies judicial, who avoid to advance for diligências not yet confirmed enough.
Exactly thus, it has some factors that have been taken on account. The first one is that Gerry and Kate had received the key from the church few days after the disappearance, having been able entering and leaving at any time. The father of Madeleine also was seen in the dawn of 4 of May in the immediacy of the temple with another British who folloied it in the vacations.
The "CM" also confirmed that Kate asked for a priest after the disappearance of the daughter be known The priest Jose Pacheco was contactado in the following day and was there that he knew the couple. The keys of the church had been deliver to them some days later, a situation already criticized by the bishop of the Algarve.
liz: Check out the updates.
I have often heard or read that if you confess to murder to a priest he cannot tell a living soul.
Is this correct and if so, do you think this is why the priest gave them the key?
The McCanns want a high profile PR manager. Weird or what?
see: http://media.guardian.co.uk/marketingandpr/story/0,,2168390,00.html
To anonymous - I'm a Catholic, and we were told during catechism lessons as children, that if you commit a crime & tell a priest, the priest can only absolve you if you go to the police and give yourself up. Only absolution completes the confession process. If someone intimates a crime, but doesn't properly seek absolution, it ain't really a Catholic confession, so the priest can and should be interrogated as any other witness.
To Africanmum:
If someone is guilty of a horrible crime such as murder and confesses it, the priest is perfectly free to give the person in question absolution. Even more, I think that the priest is obliged to give any severe person seeking peace with God absolution.
And if someone seeks absolution, but is unwilling to tell the police, that does by no standards release the priest from the duty to stay silent.
The only thing that could POSSIBLY release the priest from the duty to stay silent is if the person who has confessed the crime, agrees to this. The canon law does at least not explicitly exclude such an opportunity.
Imagine that it were known that a person who had comitted a horrible crime would be obliged to tell the police as a condition for absolution: That could meen that people would not seek peace with God, because they would fear worldly punishments. The church is not a policeman or a courthouse.
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