A (33:12)
2007, three year old Madeleine McCann disappeared from her bed in a vacation apartment at a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal. More commonly known as Maddie in the media and to those close to her, she had been taken on vacation by her parents, Kate and Gary, along with her younger twin siblings. One night the McCanns left their children to sleep in the ground floor apartments they were staying in while they ate at a nearby restaurant. Kate and Gary had assumed it would be safe to leave their children alone for the duration since the aforementioned restaurant was just 180ft away, which would allow them to momentarily check on them from time to time. But when Kate went to check up on the children at around 10pm she discovered that Maddie was missing. Over the next few weeks, Portuguese police managed to misinterpret some of the DNA evidence collected from the crime scene. This led to them suspecting that Maddie had died in some kind of tragic accident at the apartment with their parents, covering up their own involvement by faking a kidnapping. The McCanns were formally declared suspects in the case by Portuguese police in September 2007, but were essentially absolved of any suspicion In July of 2008, when Portugal's Attorney General archived the case on the grounds that there was too little evidence to take a case against them to trial. Britain's own Scotland Yard law enforcement agency then began its own investigation, Operation Grange, in mid-2011. After a fair amount of research, the senior investigating officer declared that he was treating the disappearance as a criminal act by a stranger, most likely a planned abduction or burglary that had turned violent when the perpetrators believed themselves discovered. In 2013, Scotland Yard released composite images of local men they wanted to talk to regarding Maddie's disappearance, including one man seen carrying a child toward the beach the same night she disappeared. Shortly after this, in light of new local suspects being identified, the Portuguese police reopened their inquiry into her disappearance. This caused Britain's Operation Grange to be scaled back in 2015 to allow Portuguese authorities more control over the investigation. But some of the detectives who worked on the case continued to pursue a small number of inquiries that they seemed worthy of following up. A prominent British newspaper described the disappearance as the most heavily reported missing person case in modern history, and to this day her whereabouts remain a complete mystery, despite the fact that police in multiple countries were involved in trying to locate their daughter. The McCanns took it upon themselves to hire a company of private investigators to dig up information that might help regular police agencies in their search. The PI company known as Oakley International was based in Washington D.C. in the United States States and was initially awarded a six month contract worth then half a million dollars that was raised mostly by charitable donations made by members of the public. Oakley International began to interview potential witnesses, delve through security footage and trace clues all over Europe. But in 2008, the McCanns leveled a serious accusation at the firm's 50506 year old Irish CEO Kevin Halligin, which meant they reneged on the contract, handing over only half of what the firm was apparently owed. Haligen was said to be misusing resources meant solely for the purpose of finding Matty, allegedly using them to fund a lavish lifestyle of travel and leisure. Halligen fiercely denied the claims, but it appears the man was no stranger to fraud. In 2012 he was extradited to the US to face charges over an unrelated $1.3 million fraud to which he pleaded guilty. The following year he was sentenced to 41 months in prison, but was deported from the United States soon after his court appearance because of the time he had already spent behind bars. Haligen had escaped, escaped the possibility of a lengthy jail term in the US probably because he was wealthy enough to afford the best defense attorneys that money could buy. But because he had become central to the floundering and now apparently corrupt efforts to locate young Matty, he had angered a lot of people along the way and made himself many enemies, some of which vowed to seek revenge on a man that apparently used a little girl's abduction for his own own financial gain, which is why it is so suspicious that he died suddenly at his home in Guildford, Surrey in January of 2018. Adrian Gatton, a TV director and investigative journalist who made a documentary with Haligin in 2014, confirmed his death to the Press association, saying that he had not been in good health. There was blood around the house, probably caused by previous falls when he was either drunk or blacking out. He said his house was full of empty drink bottles. A lot of people wished him ill, but his death is almost certainly related to alcoholism. But following his death, a Surrey police spokesman said that we were called to an address in Cobbet Hill Road, Normandy, following a report of a man in his foot 50s having been taken unwell who subsequently died. The death is being treated as unexplained and a file will be passed to the coroner's office in due course. Unexplained Certainly not a word we might expect to hear following the death of a man who, as Adrian Gatton had phrased it, was certainly related to alcoholism. The fact remains that when the police broke into Halligen's home, they found blood stains all over the house. There is, of course, the possibility that Halligan's corruptly wicked ways had finally caught up with him. That the people who were furious and vengeful regarding Matty's disappearance heard of his apparent corruption and then channeled their anger toward him. But Halligan always insisted that the media reports were a gross distortion of what actually happened. The print media in particular took this line that really nothing was being done. I was living the high life on the proceeds of the McCann case, he once said. Trust me, I didn't so much as buy a new suit. The money, all of it, is fully accountable. It's provable. It seems that Haligin was very keen on proving his innocence with regards to the Find Maddy fund, that he was accused of misusing it. Perhaps the alcoholism he was said to suffer from was a direct result of the ire he had occurred, was a manifestation of the pain that any innocent man would suffer under that kind of undue scrutiny. And maybe, just maybe, he believed that finding Maddy would vindicate him. Did Hallijan die a natural death? Did he even die an explainable one due to his heavy drinking? No. Unexplained. That's how Surrey police described his death. There's every possibility that he was murdered. And if indeed he was, could it possibly be because he had gotten so close to the truth behind Maddy's disappearance that someone somewhere felt that he must be silenced? The actual disappearance took place in Portugal. Haligen's death occurred in Surrey, England. And In June of 2020, a public prosecutor in Germany ordered an inquiry regarding a possible involvement of a 43 year old man believed to have been living in a borrowed VW camper van in the Algarve at the time of McCann's disappearance. The suspect's car, an expensive Jaguar XJR6, was registered to a new owner the day after McCann disappeared. These international connections suggest a coordinated network of child kidnappers, complete with a system of support and logistics that could prove deadly under the right circumstances. Yet regardless, it seems the case that we will never truly know how and why Madeleine Macan was abducted, where she is now, or if she is alive or dead. But if we ever do uncover the truth, we might just lift the lid on a terrifyingly well organized conspiracy that has been responsible for the Disappearances of children all over Europe time and time again. And frankly, I'm not sure the general public is ready for that kind of information. Nor are they ready to find out just how far the tendrils of such an organization really run. Martha Jean Lambert was born on March 26th of 1973 to Howard and Margaret Lambert in St. Augustine Beach, Florida. Martha Jean was an extremely popular young lady among her peers and greatly enjoyed spending quality time with her many friends and family members. Those that knew her often described her as kind and shy, saying that she had a generally happy demeanor. But despite this, her home life was not great. Her father Howard, was an abusive, raging alcoholic with a fierce and volatile temper and her mother Margaret, could often be heard arguing with him when he came home drunk from various bars around St. Augustine. As a result of this highly unstable and distressing relationship between her parents, Martha and her two older brothers were often cared for in various foster homes which had a highly negative impact on their academic performance. Yet in spite of such difficulties, Martha was known for being something of a tough cookie and she didn't let it get her down too much, maintaining a positive attitude wherever she was. In 1985, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving was a day much like any other for young Martha. She spent the day attending her usual classes at school and then when it was over she went over to a friend's house to hang out until around 7:30 that evening when she began the short walk back to her parents trailer. Only that much is certain about what happened that evening. Afterwards things begin to get very unclear indeed and mainly due to conflicting accounts given by her very own family members. What we do know for definitely is that it wasn't until 3am on Thanksgiving Day that Martha was actually reported missing. Her family told the police that she was a 12 year old white girl with sandy blonde hair and bright blue eyes, standing at roughly 4ft and 5 inches tall and weighing just shy of 70 pounds. She was also described as having birthmarks on both her upper left chest as well as on the front of her right thigh. Last her parents had seen of her, she had been wearing a short sleeved summer dress. Given her age and inherent vulnerability, the cops started an intense search for Martha as soon as the missing person's report came in. They initially focused their search around the area near the State Road 207, a stretch of four lane highway that ran through northeastern Florida. They also scoured areas around Carrie Lynn Road, the place that Martha and her family called home. Yet despite their efforts, not a single trace of Martha Jean could be found. And to the heartbreaking disappointment of her family, the trail soon ran cold. Strangely enough, from the very moment she realized her daughter was missing, Martha's mother insisted that her daughter had been kidnapped. This is a rather curious detail as it's a rather specific idea of her daughter's fate, not that she had been murdered, gotten lost or ran away from what was undoubtedly a broken home, specifically kidnapped. Martha's mother told police that on the night in question that she wasn't at her friend's house until the mid evening and she was in fact attending a social gathering with her. She had apparently turned to her mother and in reference to visiting the friend's house, I'm going over to a friend's. I'll be back in five minutes. But Martha never returned. And by the time her mother had realized something something was amiss, it was far too late. She searched and she searched all night and into the wee small hours of the following morning. And by the time 3am rolled around, Martha's mother was worried half to death. Police questioned pretty much everyone in the surrounding area and found that some of Martha's neighbors had some very interesting information regarding some suspicious activity activity in the neighborhood. Shortly after Martha was seen walking west down Carry Lynn Road that evening, a few members of the local community had seen a suspicious green van in the area, One that was seen to drive in roughly the same direction as Martha a short while after she had left the social gathering. And what was most concerning was that not a single person who had seen it was able to recognize the van as belonging to anyone in the community, and nor had they been able to record a license plate number Conflicting with his mother's account. Martha's brother David told the police that he and his sister were having dinner together that night. During the time just before she disappeared, he mentioned that she had gotten up from the table and walked out of the house, refusing to tell him where she was going before she climbed into the passenger seat of a black sedan. Yet police were forced to dismiss Martha's brother's claims in the face of other more consistent accounts, yet were continuously flummoxed as to why the boy had given them such a strange fabricated version of events. Despite her mother's insistence that she had been kidnapped, Police originally assumed that Martha was a runaway due to the violent and volatile situation between her parents. But it only took a small amount of speculation and investigation for them to conclude that there was most likely some degree of foul play involved in her disappearance that had most likely ended in her murder. However, Not a single suspect has been named as her kidnapper, and there have never been any arrests regarding her disappearance. Essentially, Martha walked off that night from somewhere and basically vanished from the face of the earth. A few days after she had initially disappeared, a handful of police officers scoured a wooded area behind the family's trailer for any sign of her, but again, nothing was found. Detectives also put a substantial amount of man hours into searching for Martha's remains around the area where the Florida Memorial College once stood. But again, nothing was found. It confounded them. All the places where it was thought that she may have either run off to or have been dumped were completely devoid of clues. As a result, it was assumed that Martha's mother had been correct in her assertions and that Martha had indeed been kidnapped by someone who wasn't part of her extended family. Many missing persons agencies in the United States still classify Martha's case as. As a non family abduction to this day. Yet despite this, police say there is absolutely nothing to back this up, that there is no evidence of abduction. And the green van theory, the one that neighbors claim they saw, has never been substantiated. The one real discrepancy with the whole case is the fact that Martha's older brother, David, seems to have lied about what happened that night. As a result, for a while, he actually became the closest thing the investigation ever had to a serious suspect, based on the fact that there were obvious lies being told and that his story seemed to change in its details on a few different occasions. As was previously mentioned, David claims that he saw Martha get into a black sedan that evening after they had dinner together. But he later changed his story to say that she had simply left to visit a local convenience store and then never returned home. Due to these inconsistencies, investigators suspected that although David might not have murdered her, there was definitely some information that he knew that he was not entirely forthcoming with. After all, he was only 14 years old at the time of the disappearance and may not have been capable of cold blooded murder. However, in the year 2000, when David was 29 years old, he approached local law enforcement with an outrageously shocking claim. He confessed to killing his sister and told officers that he had disposed of her body in a mine located on Holmes Boulevard. Yet when the police searched the mine, there were no human remains to be found, nor any signs that anyone had been hurt or murdered there at all. Which meant that despite his apparently full and frank confession, there was simply not enough evidence to charge David with his sister's murder. But then again, in 2009, David tried to convince the cops that it was in fact him that had murdered his sister, but changed his story from the version he had given nine years previously. This time around, David claimed that he and Martha had been playing together on the grounds of the then derelict Florida Memorial College building, having left their parents trailer after a drunken argument had broken out over an overcooked Thanksgiving turkey. David said once that they were tired of playing, that they walked to a nearby convenience store to purchase refreshments. It was at this store that they began to argue over a $20 bill that David had nabbed from his mother's purse. When the argument peaked, Martha slapped David across the face. David told the police that he had retaliated by shoving her, which caused her to fall backwards in an awkward fashion, smashing her head on a piece of metal as she fell. David panicked, called for help, but after seeing that no one was around, dragged his sister's body back to the grounds of the old college before burying her in a shallow grave. Once again, such a detailed confession warranted investigation, but just like the previous occasion, there was absolutely no evidence found to support it. But since the college buildings were demolished in the mid-90s and the grounds excavated. Excavated, there is every chance that her body could have been lost among the debris as it was being disposed of. However, when Martha's mother was asked if she believed that David had murdered her, she completely rebuked the idea. Even in the face of such an apparently frank confession, David's mother insisted that David often told lies in order to get attention and doubled down on her claims that some kind of outsider was responsible for Martha's disappearance. Whether or not it was a result of direct pressure from his mother, David ended up retracting these previous confessions, admitting that he had completely fabricated the stories so that law enforcement would give up the search for Martha and declare the case closed. He went on to admit that he suffered from intense emotional and mental problems, and it was these that made him outright lie about his involvement in his sister's disappearance, now denying that he had anything to do with it. As of November 2020, almost 25 years to the day since she disappeared, Martha Jean Lambert's disappearance remains completely unsolved, and no human remains have ever been discovered. There are only really two main theories regarding her disappearance, which revolve around the idea of abduction or her brother accidentally killing her. But as previously stated, there is very little evidence to support either theory, and so logically, neither can be fully supported since there have been no arrests or charges. But that doesn't stop many from insisting that since David's confession is so detailed and believable that we cannot simply dismiss his stories, even though they seemed to shift in their details over time. Essentially, the one person whose story deviated may have just allowed a drip of information over time, unable to quite face the truth himself. Then, overcome with guilt 15 years after the murder, he came forward to give a full and frank account of what happened that night after he did so. So David's mother, not wanting to lose two children to the same incident, may well have convinced him to retract his confession so that he wouldn't end up rotting in prison. On top of that, the statute of limitations for manslaughter had expired by the time he made his first confession, which raises the question, is that simply a coincidence or was it a well timed attempt to both clear his conscience while avoiding any actual punishment for his actions? Either way, it is pure speculation, and the case may truly be that we will never, ever know what really happened to Martha Jean Lambert that Thanksgiving night. And it is a truly terrifying thought that a young girl can simply vanish from the face of the earth with no closure to her friend, friends, family or society as a whole.
