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Traces of Madeleine McCann's body were found on a Portuguese beach weeks after
she was reported missing, during tests by a former detective renowned for
locating abducted children.
Forensic analysis by retired South African police superintendent Danie Krugel
claimed to reveal Madeleine's body had either been temporarily buried or was
still beneath the beach at Praia da Luz, the resort from where she disappeared
on 3 May.
Based on a combination of Madeleine's DNA sample and GPS satellite technology,
Krugel's findings were taken so seriously by Portuguese detectives that
officers twice searched the beach.
Krugel, of the University
of Bloemfontein, claims
that his technique is able to locate a missing person anywhere in the world
using only a single strand of hair. He became famous in South Africa
after helping a television crew locate the whereabouts of five South African
girls who went missing during the Eighties. Last July the retired detective
spent four days in Praia da Luz following a request for assistance from
Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.
'He clearly identified an area of the beach where Madeleine may have passed
through or was buried,' a close friend of the McCanns said yesterday.
Krugel's report of his findings to Portuguese detectives eventually led to
British officers being asked to bring in sniffer dogs to supplement the search
for Madeleine. The subsequent reaction of the dogs to Kate's clothing - the
so-called scent of death - led to the couple being declared formal suspects
over the death of their daughter.
The results of Krugel's investigations come amid mounting concern that the
Portuguese-led investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine has stalled
with an increasingly exhausted core of 'half-a-dozen' CID officers awaiting
potentially crucial final forensic results from laboratories in Birmingham.
Reports in the Portuguese press claim that the original team of more than 200
police who were involved in the frantic early days of the investigation has now
been whittled down to a small core who have been working without holidays and
are 'completely exhausted'.
The inquiry, increasingly managed by UK-based detectives, appears once again to
be focusing on trying to find a missing child rather than on the role of
Madeleine's parents in their daughter's disappearance. |
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NEWS OCTOBER 2007 |
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