Wednesday marks 10 years since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Back in 2007, the three-year-old disappeared from a Praia da Luz, Portugal apartment rented by her parents, Kate and Gerry. Madeleine vanished while her parents were eating at a nearby restaurant. Her twin siblings, Sean and Amelie, were still in the apartment when Kate and Gerry returned from their meal to find their oldest daughter missing.
With the May 3 anniversary of the disappearance looming, Kate and Gerry spoke with the BBC, asserting they will do “whatever it takes, for as long as it takes” to find Madeleine. Kate told British journalist Fiona Bruce that, although this anniversary is a “horrible marker of time, stolen time,” she remains optimistic, saying “There is progress and there are some very credible lines of inquiry that the police are working on and whilst there’s no evidence to give us any negative news, you know, that hope is still there.”
Even though the couple were cleared as suspects for the disappearance back in August of 2008, the The McCanns still are dealing with the court of social media. They avoid the negative comments, and what Kate refers to as “aspect of human nature that I hadn’t really encountered before,” by simply staying away from social networks, telling the BBC, “We don’t go there, to be honest. We are aware of things that get said because people alert us to them. I guess our worry is for our children.” Fortunately, not all who have an opinion on the case are negative. Gerry acknowledged “the goodness of people and the support that we have had over 10 years, which hasn’t wavered in all that time.”
The family is working with the police to find Madeline, there are still four officers from the Metropolitan Police on the case, over $14 million has been spent on the search. Gerry addressed critics of the expenditures and time spent by the police as “really quite unfair,” adding that Madeleine’s “stranger abduction” was “exceptionally rare,” which was why the case generated so much attention.
Although the family is adapting to life without Madeleine, Kate still buys presents for her daughter, admitting, “I obviously have to think about what age she is and something that, whenever we find her, will still be appropriate. So there’s a lot of thought goes into it. But I couldn’t not, you know; she’s still our daughter, she’ll always be our daughter.”
Losing a child under such mysterious circumstances has got to be tough, and to go for 10 years without any resolution has got to be even tougher. The other true crime cases I’ve covered here had endings – although tragic. I hope this story has a happy ending for the McCann family.
Photos: Getty Images, WENN.com
