Maddy McCann

[timesjoke]

Emotional reactions can give false positives. I think I would be pretty emotional if my child went missing. Questions about my child would probably be distressing. In that case the experience of the operator wouldn?t make a lot of difference.

 

I will comment on this, I believe we agree on most of the rest, at least close enough to not worry about it.

 

 

I can see if you have never been formally questioned and tested on the machine how you may belive this is true, but a good operator will know your emotional and take steps to calm you down.

 

Like Snaf said, they many times will show you the questions ahead of time so there is no surprises and will extend the "warm up" longer if you need it to settle down.

 

Many times, people are asked to schedule again if the person cannot settle down because a real professional will not conduct the test under this situation.

 

Most of the negative studies showing some concern for the accuracy of this system are both based on older machines, not the newer computer controlled ones, and are counting "undertimed" results as failures. Sometimes a test cannot be decided, either from the person being too emotional like your talking about or for other reasons, the operator simply calls it undetermined and stopps the test. Those against lie detectors count that as a failure to work, so it brings down the accuracy numbers in a false way.

 

 

So, I hope this answers your concern about being very emotional bothering the test, because again, a good and experienced operator will not allow this to proceed if that is the case.

[hugo]

Jhony stated earlier that a false failed test would contaminate the jury pool. I got news for him their refusal to take the test has already tainted any potential jury pool.

[timesjoke]

Jhony stated earlier that a false failed test would contaminate the jury pool. I got news for him their refusal to take the test has already tainted any potential jury pool.

 

A very good point.

 

What people can imagine is much worse then what really happened in most cases, their imaginations run away with them.

 

 

While I feel very comfortable with a scenario where they accidently killed their child, I have always said that all we know for sure is they are guilty of child endangerment that resulted in the death of their child.

 

 

They could help to remove themselves from the suspect list by simply doing things like take the lie detector tests, by first agreeing to then changing their minds after they got this high power lawyer, they have made themselves look even more guilty.

 

Why do they need a lawyer who is known for keeping guilty people from being extradited? Why do innocent people concern themselves with that or even getting a lawyer that costs more then most?

 

Why is everythign about them and their problems?

 

 

If I was on a jury and knew the parents were acting this way, I know I would remember it. I would not convict based on that, but it would be pieces of the puzzle for me to consider to be sure.

[eddo]

It's called street smarts brother.

 

dude, I totally hear that in my head as Hulk Hogan talking...

[ToriAllen]

If I was on a jury and knew the parents were acting this way, I know I would remember it. I would not convict based on that, but it would be pieces of the puzzle for me to consider to be sure.

 

You honestly believe a good defense attorney would let you, an ex-cop, onto the jury?

[Jhony5]

People always say how much they hate cops but when their behind in on the line, all of a sudden they are who they turn to for help, all of a sudden they like cops, interesting isn't it?

I didn't say that I "hate cops". I said I don't trust cops. They feed cases to the prosecutor whom gets paid to put you in a cage. It makes a prosecutor look bad if he cannot accomplish this.

 

Actually if you take the time to truly read everything I said, I clearly gave my opinion that your assertions of never taking the test are based on not truly being in that situation and I believe that if you truly were in this situation and had the 98% chance to put more strength into looking for your child's abductors, you would give your daughter that 98% chance of more attention in the right direction.

My point being, the police shouldn't allow a magic machine to determine the direction of the investigation. It is not admissible in most courts, unlike "evidence" and "facts".

 

What do you want me to do man, you want me to post my old paycheck stubs for while I was a cop or do you want me to post a copy of my training certificats that I have to update every 4 years to stay certified in case I want to return?

 

I was a cop and still do private training and go to the law enforcement shooting competitions every year, I stay involved, so what, being a cop and being in training gives me a lot of exposures on things like this, your just upset because I won't let you get away with your bull concerning things I know more about than you do.

I have never heard you say this before. This is the interenet. I'm sure you are aware of the "know it all" syndrome that some people suffer from.

 

I believe you. About being an ex-cop, that is. I had to question you in order to gauge your reaction. You seem genuine.

 

Do you know what it means when you look up and to the right after I ask you a question? Do you know what it means if you look down and to the left?

Looking up is indicative that one is searching their brain for an answer or excuse. Looking down? I believe that is indicative of guilt. Not 100% sure, but this is why I always made a point of looking a cop in his eyes when I lied to them.

 

You said yourself the tests were 98% reliable, why would any loving parent not give their child that 98% chance?

That is the BEST case offered by the institution that is in the business of selling polygraph examiners on the open market. Logic tells us this is an inflated, best case figure. I posted several sources that hotly dispute this number as actually being much much lower. 80-95% depending on the operator.

 

The way I see it, the cops should be investigating upon evidence, not magic. Even in the best case, you would have a 2% chance of sending the cops after yourself, the innocent person. Better hope you aren't that 2 in a hundred.

 

Everything is a tool, nothing is foolproof, the question is do you sit back and condemn everything that does not meet a 100% rating (that would be everything) or do we take the tools we have and use them as best we can?

Real evidence has a 100% chance of being accurate. DNA, the murder weapon with your prints etc. Real evidence.

 

When people start wandering into the realm of unreliable mechanical mind reading devices, we are being dishonest to the investigation. It is a proverbial "desperate move" by the police in the absence of real evidence.

[Jhony5]

dude, I totally hear that in my head as Hulk Hogan talking...

 

[attach=full]1283[/attach]

 

You know, paranoia is a common side effect of marijuana…

 

While you are high on it yes. It does not cause permanent paranoia. I have been sober for days, weeks even months at a time over the years. I am sober most of the time. Yet, I never trust the cops.

[hugo]

Real evidence has a 100% chance of being accurate. DNA, the murder weapon with your prints etc. Real evidence.

 

 

.

 

That is quite a statement. That rules out all evidence. Even a 1 in a billion chance of someone else contributing the DNA. You have now also eliminated eyewitness testimony we all know it is not near 100% reliable. A little basic statistics., Several pieces of evidence taken together can give proof beyond a reasonable doubt when neither single piece of the evidence would. Let us take an 80% certainty level on each piece of evidence. This leaves a 20% chance the single piece of evidence points the wrong way. Now we have two pieces of evidence with am 80% certainty rate. This lowers the chance of error to 4%. Put a third piece of evidence in at an 80% certainty rate and now the chance of error is down to .8%.

[Jhony5]

That is quite a statement. That rules out all evidence. Even a 1 in a billion chance of someone else contributing the DNA. You have now also eliminated eyewitness testimony we all know it is not near 100% reliable. A little basic statistics., Several pieces of evidence taken together can give proof beyond a reasonable doubt when neither single piece of the evidence would. Let us take an 80% certainty level on each piece of evidence. This leaves a 20% chance the single piece of evidence points the wrong way. Now we have two pieces of evidence with am 80% certainty rate. This lowers the chance of error to 4%. Put a third piece of evidence in at an 80% certainty rate and now the chance of error is down to .8%.

 

Often, a DNA match has something like a 1 in hundreds of billions, even hundreds of trillions, odds of error.

 

I am all for a case built on a solid stack of circumstantial evidence. Many times it is the only way to hold a murderer accountable for a near perfect crime.

 

In the McCann's case, I don't see but a sprinkling of sparse circumstantial evidence. I honestly cannot qualify any of it as such.

 

The hardest thing to overlook is their alibi. It was impossible for them to have killed and/or hidden the body of Madeline McCann if you follow the time line. They have alibi's. They had no reasonable opportunity to hide a body before calling police.

 

It makes no sense to claim they hid the body somewhere and then called the police, thinking to get rid of the body later.

 

When I said "real evidence", I was speaking in the context of physical evidence.

[atlantic]

Often, a DNA match has something like a 1 in hundreds of billions, even hundreds of trillions, odds of error.

 

I am all for a case built on a solid stack of circumstantial evidence. Many times it is the only way to hold a murderer accountable for a near perfect crime.

 

In the McCann's case, I don't see but a sprinkling of sparse circumstantial evidence. I honestly cannot qualify any of it as such.

 

The hardest thing to overlook is their alibi. It was impossible for them to have killed and/or hidden the body of Madeline McCann if you follow the time line. They have alibi's. They had no reasonable opportunity to hide a body before calling police.

 

It makes no sense to claim they hid the body somewhere and then called the police, thinking to hide the body later.

 

When I said "real evidence", I was speaking in the context of physical evidence.

The timeline was what changed my mind.

[Jhony5]

The timeline was what changed my mind.

 

Away from or toward guilt?

[atlantic]

Away from or toward guilt?

Away from guilt.

[Jhony5]

Away from guilt.

 

I C.

 

Then you aren't retarded, good.

 

Seriously though, one has to fully question this angle before moving on. What did the McCann's do with the body in the few minutes they had? Did they run around the corner and stick her ass under a rock? They certainly didn't place her in the trunk of their rental car, if they even had one at that point. I mean to say, if they had only a few minutes to pick a hiding spot, they had better pick a god damn good one because they are about to launch a full scale search for the item they are hiding.

 

Remembering that they are in a foreign country that is alien to them is key.

 

The only manner that I've seen this alibi attacked is to insinuate that one or more of the 9 alibi witnesses from the bar are working in collusion with the McCann's. Which makes no sense. What incentive would these casual acquaintances have to support the McCann's in getting away with the most unspeakable act humanly imaginable, murdering ones own child. It would take an extraordinary amount of cash to coerce even the most nefarious person to get in on a plot such as this. A monetary transaction such as this would leave an unmistakable paper/electronic trail.

[Guest sheik-yerbouti]

 

It makes no sense to claim they hid the body somewhere and then called the police, thinking to get rid of the body later.

 

.

 

Why ? Use a litle imagination. Suppose that for whatever reason, one of the parents lost conrol and beat the child to death, hence the blood residue.

 

In this senario we can see that the crime was not planned. If it were, it would have been executed outdoors, leaving the police with no crime scene, and not places that once held a body, as confirmed by trained dogs. And no blood residue on the floor either.

 

Now they see how vulnerable they are to capture. They have no vehicle to remove and hide the body somewhere safe. The kid is wraped in a blanket like a sleepng child and carried out, no one who sees suspects anything. Parents carry kids like this all the time.

 

The body is secreted somewhere, where dogs cannot gain access to alert curious owners. Maybe somewhere in the church ground they were ostensibly fond of visiting.

 

Its midday, so they go shoping for bleach and other chemicals/detergents. Back at the hotel they bleach and scrub the floor tiles, and bleach the walls and ceilings. As doctors they know this is necessary as the police may search for minute blood samples using search tools. They get their clothes washed at a launderette immediately. Many other jobs are done, and they spend hours thinking of other things that need to be done. They then concoct their story.

 

Now they need to create an opportunity for the pseudo-knaper to strike. They leave the kids alone, with the door unlocked. Yes they know they will be censured for this, but its getting late and they really cannot think of another plausible occurance to explain the dissapearance of the kid.

 

They go out for a meal leaving the other two kids alone. They return every 1/2 hour, playing the doting parents publicly for other guests.

 

They return from their meal, and start crying and screaming. Their dear child is missing. Won't somebody call the police !

 

Several days later as the heat dies down, they hire a car, and move the corpse to its final resting place. Most likely the sea. Its nearby and all but impossible to search, and the fish will remove all flesh. The bones will never be found.

 

They can now only be discovered if they incriminate themselves. They believe they can survive any ammount of questioning / psycho - war.

 

Why Maddie and not the others? - because Maddie is dead. Why not the other two?- because they are alive.

[Jhony5]

Why ? Use a litle imagination.

I think y'all motherf ckers are using a bit too much imagination as it is.

 

Suppose that for whatever reason, one of the parents lost conrol and beat the child to death, hence the blood residue.

Beating a child to death would produce lots of blood, spatter patterns on adjacent object/walls/clothing. A mess indeed. Remember, they had but minutes to kill their daughter, think of a place to hide her, subsequently hide the body, get back, clean up, make up a story and call the police. If it doesn't fit.......you must acquit. It don't fit. This line is entirely void of logic and stands in full disregard to common sense and plausibility.

 

In this scenario we can see that the crime was not planned. If it were, it would have been executed outdoors, leaving the police with no crime scene, and not places that once held a body, as confirmed by trained dogs. And no blood residue on the floor either.

 

Now they see how vulnerable they are to capture. They have no vehicle to remove and hide the body somewhere safe. The kid is wraped in a blanket like a sleepng child and carried out, no one who sees suspects anything. Parents carry kids like this all the time.

 

The body is secreted somewhere, where dogs cannot gain access to alert curious owners. Maybe somewhere in the church ground they were ostensibly fond of visiting.

 

Its midday, so they go shoping for bleach and other chemicals/detergents. Back at the hotel they bleach and scrub the floor tiles, and bleach the walls and ceilings. As doctors they know this is necessary as the police may search for minute blood samples using search tools. They get their clothes washed at a launderette immediately. Many other jobs are done, and they spend hours thinking of other things that need to be done. They then concoct their story.

 

Now they need to create an opportunity for the pseudo-knaper to strike. They leave the kids alone, with the door unlocked. Yes they know they will be censured for this, but its getting late and they really cannot think of another plausible occurance to explain the dissapearance of the kid.

 

They go out for a meal leaving the other two kids alone. They return every 1/2 hour, playing the doting parents publicly for other guests.

 

They return from their meal, and start crying and screaming. Their dear child is missing. Won't somebody call the police !

Big problem with that is that Maddy was seen ALIVE, with her parents, only a few hours before she was reported missing. In this tangled menagerie of activity, surely there would be evidence, witnesses and the like. There is none.

 

The dogs didn't hit on a dead body being present at the apartment. They hit on minuscule trace amounts of blood that were so small and degraded, that they couldn't even be matched as the same blood type as Maddy, let alone establish a proper DNA match.

 

Why Maddie and not the others? - because Maddie is dead. Why not the other two?- because they are alive.

This fact supports a lone intruder. Whom cannot carry two or three children weighing in excess of 50 pounds in dead (sleeping) weight.

 

I find it quite ironic that you speak of "imagination". Because this is the kind of thinking that the tabloid fodder has spawned. Inducing people to entertain their macabre side by indulging in a wildly imaginative spectacle at the expense of two grieving parents.

 

The McCann's DID NOT have time to ditch a body. The only reports of anyone carrying a child around were of an unidentified man.

[snafu]

Or they could’ve poisoned there daughter accidentally, paid a local thug to take the wrapped child in a blanket away, hence the eyewitness of a man carrying a child that night. Then later hooking up with said thug and properly disposing of the body later. How about that?

 

It makes perfect sence to me.

[Jhony5]

Or they could?ve poisoned there daughter accidentally, paid a local thug to take the wrapped child in a blanket away, hence the eyewitness of a man carrying a child that night. Then later hooking up with said thug and properly disposing of the body later. How about that?

 

It makes perfect sence to me.

 

Lemme guess, Snaffy. You watch CSI and all of its spin-offs? You like TV shows such as "24"?

 

The last two posts in opposition to my view of this incident have much in common. Imagination and unlikely convoluted scenario. Funny that these suppositions are offered in combat of the placid, un-sexy "a pervert took the kid by climbing in the window when the parents left the room" theory. Which requires no imagination.

[ToriAllen]

While you are high on it yes. It does not cause permanent paranoia. I have been sober for days, weeks even months at a time over the years. I am sober most of the time. Yet, I never trust the cops.

 

My father-in-law is the most paranoid man I know. He didn't want to get a computer because he didn't want the government to be able to track him. If my mother-in-law wasn't around to keep him somewhat grounded he would be walking around with tinfoil on his head. That is what years of marijana abuse will do to you. Have to watch out for The Man.

[snafu]

Lemme guess, Snaffy. You watch CSI and all of its spin-offs? You like TV shows such as "24"?

 

The last two posts in opposition to my view of this incident have much in common. Imagination and unlikely convoluted scenario. Funny that these suppositions are offered in combat of the placid, un-sexy "a pervert took the kid by climbing in the window when the parents left the room" theory. Which requires no imagination.

 

I watch alot of Forensic Files and Cops.

You pegged me.

I never watch CSI or anything like that made up. I like documenties mostly .

[snafu]

My father-in-law is the most paranoid man I know. He didn't want to get a computer because he didn't want the government to be able to track him. If my mother-in-law wasn't around to keep him somewhat grounded he would be walking around with tinfoil on his head. That is what years of marijana abuse will do to you. Have to watch out for The Man.

 

That souds like the four hundred acid trips he musta took.

[atlantic]

Or they could?ve poisoned there daughter accidentally, paid a local thug to take the wrapped child in a blanket away, hence the eyewitness of a man carrying a child that night. Then later hooking up with said thug and properly disposing of the body later. How about that?

 

It makes perfect sence to me.

CB, I love ya man, but do you really believe that? If they had accidentally overdosed their child would they really involve another party in it. Also, having a medical background they would know the dangers of drugging a child, I do not believe they would do such a thing. I think they were too trusting and naive.

[ToriAllen]

Or they could?ve poisoned there daughter accidentally, paid a local thug to take the wrapped child in a blanket away, hence the eyewitness of a man carrying a child that night. Then later hooking up with said thug and properly disposing of the body later. How about that?

 

It makes perfect sence to me.

 

I'm assuming the dad was a man, right? And it was dark? Couldn't the man sen be the dad, or is that impossible?

[Jhony5]

I watch alot of Forensic Files and Cops.

You pegged me.

I never watch CSI or anything like that made up. I like documentaries mostly .

 

Same here. Sorry for the assumption. I particularly like the series 'Cold Case Files' and the real-time documentary 'The First 48'.

 

That is what years of marijana abuse will do to you. Have to watch out for The Man.

I think you have watched too many government produced propaganda films, Tori.

 

I grew up in some very poor neighborhoods. I ran the streets until my late teens. This sort of upbringing will often manifest itself in an acute distrust of authority by way of witnessing its abuses.

 

Much of this can be irrational, yes. But much of this sort of thinking is quite wise, and an affront to naivety.

 

Some of us lead. Some of us follow. Some of us say "F ck you two, Im'a be over here goin' this a'way. (how's that for conjunction abuse?)

[Jhony5]

I'm assuming the dad was a man, right? And it was dark? Couldn't the man sen be the dad, or is that impossible?

 

Considering he was with 9 other people that testify to the fact he wasn't unaccounted for, for any more than a few minutes. Yes, it is impossible.

[ToriAllen]

I think you have watched too many government produced propaganda films, Tori.

 

I grew up in some very poor neighborhoods. I ran the streets until my late teens. This sort of upbringing will often manifest itself in an acute distrust of authority by way of witnessing its abuses.

 

Much of this can be irrational, yes. But much of this sort of thinking is quite wise, and an affront to naivety.

 

Some of us lead. Some of us follow. Some of us say "F ck you two, Im'a be over here goin' this a'way. (how's that for conjunction abuse?)

 

I don't have to watch propaganda films, all I have to do is watch my in laws and all of their friends.

 

My husband grew up the same way and has a very different outlook. When he was six his step-dad beat him with a two-by-four and broke his ribs and arm. He was in foster care until he was twelve then went to live with his dad who stole cars for a living. He helped steal over 60 cars and then got busted by the cops. He testified against his dad and had his record expunged, then lived on his own working at night and finishing high school. He joined the military and is drawn toward law enforcement. We are a product of our experiences, but some people learn from them and move on

 

 

Considering he was with 9 other people that testify to the fact he wasn't unaccounted for, for any more than a few minutes. Yes, it is impossible.

Maybe he has a twin? Where were the other two children?