MAY
On May 3, Madeleine McCann disappears from the holiday apartment where she was staying with the family. The three year old girl was sleeping in one room while her twin brother and sister, Sean and Amelie, were next door. Their parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, had been eating out at the Ocean Club’s restaurant with a group of adults at the time of the disappearance.
The next few days saw intensive searches in the area surrounding the apartment. Specially trained dogs were brought in from different rescue teams in the Algarve and Lisbon. The GNR, Bombeiros, Maritime
 Photo: THE RESIDENT |  |
Police, Civil Protection and even the Red Cross were called to assist on the searches, coordinated by Polícia Judiciária, the criminal police in Portugal.
Residents at Praia da Luz organised themselves into small groups of volunteers to help in the search operations.
Meanwhile, reporters, photographers and cameramen from every section of the media arrived from the UK to gather near the improvised police headquarters facing the apartment.
The media coverage kept the issue in the prime time programmes for the following weeks, either in special reports, themed debates or just the daily news.
May was the most intensive period for the police investigations. More than 100 officers from criminal police were called to the Portimão and Faro office from other locations to help with the dozens of inquiries and with the many people to interview.
A first sketch of a possible suspect was drawn in May, thanks to the help of local witnesses.
Robert Murat, a British man living in a villa near the Ocean Club apartment was interviewed by police as an arguido,
 Photo: THE RESIDENT | |
or prime suspect, after a journalist from the Sunday Mirror reported what she described as his “suspicious” behaviour. Murat was said to be helping the police as a translator but that was later denied by the police.
As the parents of Madeleine struggled to keep their daughter in the spotlight, posters were designed featuring recent photos of Madeleine and a website was set up to host the Find Madeleine Campaign. A special fund was created by the McCann family to receive donations from all over the world.
Several possible sightings were reported during the month, with the police looking particularly at testimony from Morocco after a Norwegian tourist was said to have seen Madeleine with a suspicious couple in a petrol station.
Kate and Gerry went to Rome in May and received the opportunity to meet the Pope and ask for his help in his prayers. The couple also travelled to Holland, the UK, Morocco, Spain, Belgium and the United States.
International celebrities, such as football stars Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham and pop legend Robbie Williams started to make special appeals to the media, asking for Madeleine’s safe return.
June
With the beginning of a new month, and with information on how the police investigation was going becoming more and more rare, an anonymous letter sent to a Dutch newspaper created one of the most critical moments of the month. On June 10, De Telegraaf said a letter was received at their office with detailed information on the whereabouts of Madeleine. The information was considered reliable by police in the Netherlands and in Portugal, with search teams being sent to a location 15 kilometres north of Praia da Luz.
Then a report from a Spanish newspaper said that António Toscano, a freelance journalist, was sure he knew who the abductor of Madeleine was. Toscano accused a French man who had already been arrested for paedophilia crimes in France.
July
Extortion attempts marked the first days of July, with police being asked to intervene in Holland, where a man was arrested after sending several email letters to Gerry and Kate, asking for one million euros to reveal the whereabouts of Madeleine.
This followed an operation in Spain, where an Italian man and a Portuguese woman were jailed for a similar extortion attempt.
Meanwhile, friends of the family were asked to return to Portugal by Polícia Judiciária. Rachael Oldfield, Dr Russell O’Brien and Dr Fiona Payne were August A new possible sighting of Madeleine in Belgium created more media momentum in the very first days of August. At the same time, in Portugal, PJ investigators were searching different locations in Praia da Luz and Burgau area. All of them related with the prime suspect Robert Murat. Tomorrow (Saturday) marks 100 days since Madeleine disappeared. As the landmark is reached, police are intensifying their investigations under suspicion that Madeleine might be near the resort she vanished from.
