Eight years on, the Madeleine McCann mystery continues

IT HAS been exactly eight years since Maddie McCann went missing, and conspiracy theories are still swirling. One of them might be right.

Eight crucial Maddie McCann theories

EIGHT years ago Madeleine McCann was put to bed by her parents in their holiday apartment in Portugal and soon after she vanished — never to be seen again.

The Madeleine McCann mystery has gripped the world ever since. Who took the three-year-old? Is she still alive? Was the initial police inquiry flawed? How seriously were her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, treated as suspects? What could possibly be the motive — and how has the culprit got away with it for so long?

After one of the most heavily reported cases in history, there are still few aspects of the case that remain unchallenged.

Madeleine, or Maddie, was reported missing at 10.14pm on May 3, 2007. Since then almost every sighting, theory, witness account, and suspect has been checked or disproved.

Here are some of the theories about what really happened to Maddie McCann

ABDUCTED BY A PAEDOPHILE

This is the most popular, and for many the most likely, scenario.

Portuguese police have pursued a line of inquiry that points to a paedophile ring operating in the area. It’s believed there were several convicted British paedophile in the area, along with many others from European countries, who are drawn there because of lax sex offender laws. Portugal doesn’t have a sex offenders register.

Kate McCann wrote in her 2011 book of her fears Madeleine was abducted from her bed by a paedophile and her anger that attacks on children of tourists were covered up by local police.

An image released in 2010 of what Madeleine could have looked like at age six.

BOGUS CHARITY COLLECTORS

Scotland Yard, which is leading the new inquiry, said it was concentrating on a “criminal act by a stranger” and announced it was looking into reports of bogus charity collectors in the area soon before Madeleine was taken.

The men were supposedly asking people for money for orphanages.

Police believe they may have in fact been on a planning mission at the time, either for a theft or an abduction.

Police composite pictures of men seen near the apartment building the night Madeleine went missing.

BURGLARS WHO WERE LINKED WITH DRUG TRAFFICKING

At one stage Scotland Yard worked on a theory that burglars broke into the apartment, looking for cash and jewellery.

There had been an intruder in the same complex a year earlier and a four-fold increase in burglaries in the area in the months before Madeleine vanished.

The suggestion was Maddie was taken, or killed, by mistake and was never the intended target.

However, it was never proved — largely because there was no evidence to suggest a break-in occurred. No sign of forced entry, nothing disturbed and the only thing missing was Maddie.

Despite this, supporters of this theory point to the apartment being contaminated by up to 20 people before it was secured as a crime scene.

Imagined aging. What Maddie looked like when she went missing.

Another age progression image, this time what Madeleine could have looked like at age nine (right)

ALLEGATIONS IT WAS THE PARENTS, KATE AND GERRY McCANN

There have been a number of wild theories that it was the parents themselves who were responsible. Everything from accidentally killing her with a sedative overdose, to the little girl dying after a fall down the stairs and the couple, fearing they would be charged with manslaughter, hid the body.

None of the claims were ever substantiated and they took a former investigator, Goncalo Amaral, to court and won £357,000 in damages after he suggested in his book The Truth of the Lie they had a role in their daughter’s death.

The couple also took several British newspapers to court who printed unproven allegations.

In their desperate hunt for Madeleine McCann, authorities released images of what she could have looked like age 12, including how her skin may have tanned in a hot country or if her hair darkened.

There have been no confirmed sightings of Madeleine McCann for eight years.

SHE WAS KILLED IN THE APARTMENT

A cadaver dog reportedly found the scent of death throughout the apartment, particularly behind a couch in the lounge. It was also apparently detected in the hire car the McCanns had. But crucially there was no trace of blood, or any other forensic material was found.

The apartment hotel building where Madeleine McCann disappeared in Praia da Luz, southern Portugal, in 2007.

MADELEINE WANDERED OFF AND WAS THEN ABDUCTED

A variation of the initial abduction theory. Some believe Madeleine was indeed abducted — but later and from a different location than what was originally suggested.

Police dogs found a scent leading down the stairs and out onto the street, fuelling suspicion that she woke up and, upset that she was alone, went looking for her parents.

It was here, the theory alleges, that Madeleine met a paedophile who took advantage of the situation and abducted her.

Madeleine McCann’s parents have refused to believe she has been killed.

MADDIE IS IN THE DRAINS

Drainage work was taking place to pipes in the town around the time Maddie went missing and deep holes were dotted around the town. But within a day of Maddie going missing, some of the drains were filled in and covered over.

Some locals believe the toddler may have tumbled into one of the pits, others think whoever attempted to abduct her may have panicked and dumped her body into one of the holes in an attempt to cover their tracks.

THE MYSTERY MAN

For years after she vanished police chased a theory about a man who was seen walking away from the apartment building holding a small child in pink pyjamas.

Madeleine went to bed that night in pink pyjamas.

But in 2013 police declared they had found the man and ruled him out as a suspect, saying he was a British holiday-maker.

But a man described by Irish tourists, Mary and Martin Smith, remains a suspect.

Two police composites of the man described by the Smiths

Originally published as Eight years on, the Madeleine McCann mystery continues