I don't really know what to think about all this.
I feel very sorry for Madeleine and I can't honestly say I think she is alive right now.
I do feel sympathy for the McCanns as a family. But I understand why people are objecting to their decision being called a mistake when it was a planned and apparently repeated action to leave the children alone.
I will never understand why any of the parents in their group decided it would be okay to leave the children alone, even if they did check on them throughout the night. And that is something that I feel is overlooked. It wasn't just Kate who left children. She and Gerry chose to leave their three children, not just Kate, but there were other parents in the group who made the same choice and whose children didn't disappear and who aren't hated or the object of calls to have them prosecuted. Someone said that when the twins grow up Kate and Gerry might get their comeuppence but there are other children growing up who could easily have been taken in Madeleine's place whose parents might 'deserve' the same 'comeuppence' but aren't experiencing this because they were the lucky ones who got away with a bad decision (to put it at its kindest).
Yet people tend to vilify Kate above anybody else. If was assume Madeleine was taken by a stranger and the McCanns have no more knowledge than the rest of us then I fully understand why Kate would write this book. She is the figure of most people's hate and she is Madeleine's mother. I'd write any amount of books to try and raise money to get my child back. I can understand why she has done this. Many people are aware of Madeleine but time is passing, the search can't continue without money and some people are starting to forget. Kate will have known that reigniting interest in the case might help Madeleine but she would also have known that it would reignite this debate about their possible guilt, the theories, the accusations and the hate. I wouldn't want that attention if I had something to hide but if I was innocent and desperate for news of my child I would take it all without question.
I was under the impression that they could easily see their apartments and that those apartments were just over a small courtyard (thanks Kala for providing the link to show just how far away they were and how much was really between them.)
But even if they could easily see and reach them I don't think it was a good idea. After all, if you are having a meal with friends you are not going to be staring at your apartment all the time, you will be looking away, chatting, talking to waiters, looking at your plate, going to the toilet and a hundred other things to take your eyes and your mind off watching the apartment.
Plus, even if you were staring right at the apartment, you would have no idea what was going on inside with three very small children.
It's not a decision I could ever see myself making, not once, not twice, not ever.
I also didn't realise that they had left the children alone the night before and that has shocked me.
But now I know that I am a bit confused about the overdose theory. If they had realised that two of the three children had been distressed and frightened and they intended to medicate them, wouldn't they medicate them all? And if that was the case, and they mistakenly both gave Madeleine a dose of something, wouldn't they also have given the twins a repeat dose as well? And the twins were smaller and so surely more likely to overdose and die.
Also if someone took Madeleine there are lots of reasons why they might chose her above the twins or not take all three of them. Unfortunately it's the fact that they chose her that makes me think she isn't alive any more.
It would be easier to take one child than two or three children for a start
There is a small chance someone saw Madeleine and wanted her to raise as their own, she looked like a lovely and charming little girl. But it would be far easier to take one of the twins if you were longing for a child to pass off as your own (or as recently adopted) than to take a child just short of four years of age, who would remember her 'other' family and her name etc for much longer. So I think if that were the reason then it would be one of the twins that had been taken.
But if it was someone who wanted to harm or abuse her, perhaps taking her to order, then I think she was the most likely to be taken. The twins were so young and I know that some sick people do abuse children that young I wonder if some would find them too young and Madeleine was the 'right' age, sick as that makes me feel, not too young but not too old. It's sick and I feel ill at the thought that someone would think a child of almost four was the 'right' age but I think it might explain why it was her and not all of them or one of the others.
I do think though that one day we will find out the truth of the matter.