For the McCanns information Cadaver has been sufficient for a conviction without forensic back-up.
http://steelmagnolia-steelmagnolia.blogspot.com/2011/03/two-kates-and-cadaver-detected-in-both.htmlThe Almeida Interim Report – Time to Move on
March12
In fairness, most people have. Only those who continue to insist that Madeleine died in apartment 5a and that the McCanns had something to do with Madeleine’s disappearance are still stuck there.
PJ inspector Tavares Almeida wrote what came to be called the ‘interim report’ in September 2007. It was, ostensibly, deeply damning of the McCanns but, actually, deeply flawed.
Almeida missed two crucial facts about the cadaver dog Eddie: that he reacts, also, to the scent of blood lost by living humans, and that his alerts are meaningless unless corroborated by forensic analysis in a laboratory.
We must assume, in ignorance of both these facts, Almeida peppered his report with references to “findings” of cadaver scent by Eddie.
In fact, his reaction to the car was proved to be blood.
Eddie was never deployed inside the car, but his canine partner Keela, who reacts only to human blood, was.
She detected blood on the igition card, which was then placed inside a sandbox and buried for Eddie to test a second time. He again reacted, proving that his response was to blood on the card. In the UK forensic laboratory in Birmingham, it was confirmed that the blood was Gerry’s.
A witness statement of a visitor to apartment 5a two weeks before the McCanns, a Mr Gordon, states that he cut himself shaving, bled for 45 minutes and paced the whole apartment trying to stem the flow of blood with tissue.
If even minute traces were shed in the apartment, that would be sufficient to create a scent for Eddie to detect and react to.
Almeida asserts that Kate’s father, Brian Healey, “confirmed” that Kate and Gerry used sedatives with the children.
He did no such thing.
He actually confirmed what Kate and Gerry themselves had both already told the PJ – that they occasionally used the children’s drug [i]Calpol[/i], an analgesic or pain reliever, with no sedative properties whatever, and with an excellent record of safety in use with children.
It is a medicine readily available in shops and is not prescribed by a doctor. The McCanns told the PJ that they had it with them on that holiday but that they didn’t use it.
After suspicion fell on them, the McCanns pleaded with the PJ to test the twins for drugs in their systems.
Almeida refers to this in his report, dismissing their request on grounds that (according to him) it was by then too late.
He makes no reference to the fact (revealed on this blog in an earlier article) that the McCanns first queried with the PJ whether there had been drug-use in the abduction just 2 days after it happened. They would scarcely have been likely to do that if they had anything sinister to hide in respect of the use of drugs.
There is more to say.
But that is enough, I think.
Move on and leave the Almeida report behind.
It tells us nothing about what happened to Madeleine, and casts dark shadows, rather than shedding light, on events of May 3rd 2007.
http://madeleine-writingthewrongs.com/2011/03/12/the-almeida-interim-report-%e2%80%93-time-to-move-on/
