Looking for Madeleine McCann – Sunday Night. Video and transcript
...but first, for four years Kate and Gerry McCann have lived a never ending ordeal and they still don’t know when or if it will ever end. It began on a family holiday in Portugal when Madeleine, their four year daughter, simply vanished. She hasn’t been seen since. Tonight, the mystery deepens. You’re about to see home video never shown before and learn the vital clue Madeleine left behind. Here’s Rahni Sadler.
[Cuts into Video of Madeleine McCann dressed a pink fairy outfit:
Gerry McCann: Okay, spin around darling. Right round. Oh yes, I can see your wings.
Kate McCann: Big smile. Kate laughs.
Gerry McCann: Oh yes. One more. Big smile. That’s pretty.]
Gerry McCann: She was incredibly beautiful baby actually.
Kate McCann: We sound like the most biased parents on the planet now but she was just really compact and was just really the really nice, round, perfect head...and......you know...and then she, she opened her mouth ...the whole world knew she was with us...
Gerry McCann: She’d McCann level volume, there’s no doubt about that.
[Cuts into Video of Madeleine sitting on the stairs with her twin siblings singing:
Madeleine: Clap your hands together one two three. Clap your hands...
Gerry McCann: Yay well done. Okay, let’s sing another one.]
Kate McCann: I always wanted to be a mother, erm, I don’t know, maybe that stemmed from being an only child and sort of, you know, wanting that feeling of family.
Voice over: Madeleine was the daughter Kate and Gerry McCann always wanted. For years Kate struggled to fall pregnant so when Madeleine came along they felt blessed. They loved to photograph her and she loved being photographed.
Voice over: this is the last picture of Madeleine taken seven hours before she disappeared.
Gerry McCann: There’s a photo of her that afternoon that was taken at 2:29 (laughs) I think, we’ve got it recorded on the digital camera and er she was just sitting by the pool er with myself and we’ve both got our feet just paddling and she’s so happy.
Voice over: It’s been one thousand, five hundred and forty-three days since Madeleine McCann vanished. To keep Madeleine’s case alive this private couple has revealed more of themselves than ever before. Kate and Gerry are both doctors. They married in 1998 and in 2001, after three years of failing to conceive naturally they began IVF. Eighteen months later, on the eve of another hospital appointment, Kate did a home pregnancy test.
Kate McCann: A little line appeared on the test, you know, I’m a doctor, it says on the box any kind of line is a positive but I said, Oh, I’m not sure, I’m not sure, but there’s that faint kind of...mmm...maybe...
Gerry McCann cuts in: She showed it to me and I’m like, it’s definitely..[laughs]...It’s definitely!
[All laugh together and speak at once]
Kate McCann: And obviously we had a scan and er there’s a little beating heart and that was our little Madeleine you know...so.
[cuts into video of Madeleine at the coffee table looking at a Christmas present:
Gerry McCann: Who’s that present for?
Madeleine: That’s for Aunty Clare
Gerry McCann: Are we gonna post it today?
Madeleine: No
Kate McCann: We are
Madeleine: It isn’t a letter]
[cuts into a different video of Madeleine sitting on the settee eating:
Gerry McCann: Who says ‘aha’
Madeleine: Aha
Gerry McCann: Say ‘yes daddy.’
Madeleine: Yes daddy
Gerry McCann: Okay]
Voice over: And then, in May 2003, three became five.
Gerry McCann: When she first saw the twins she was just ecstatic. Absolutely ecstatic
[cuts into video of Madeleine and Sean on their knees playing with a train set:
Madeleine: Oooh. This is a very big Thomas (I can’t make out what Madeleine is saying, something about toys)]
Gerry McCann: I felt blessed really that at that time.
Interviewer: You said the family felt really complete
Kate McCann: You know, we did feel incredibly lucky
Voice over: In late April 2007, the McCanns decided to travel to Portugal for a family holiday.
[Cuts into a video of Madeleine climbing the flight stairs to the aeroplane where she stumbles on the steps:
Voice over: In the pink pants climbing the stairs to the plane is Madeleine
Gerry McCann on the video: Oop day...you alright?]
Voice over: It was the McCanns first holiday overseas as a family and they went with three other couples
[video on airports shuttle bus pans in Gerry’s direction...‘cheer up Gerry, we’re on holiday.’ Gerry:‘F**k off']
Gerry McCann: It’s a small resort out of season, end of April beginning of May and it was incredibly quiet er, we felt very relaxed there, very relaxed.
[Cuts into Video of Madeleine McCann dressed a pink fairy outfit:
Gerry McCann: Okay, spin around darling. Right round. Oh yes, I can see your wings.
Kate McCann: Big smile. Kate laughs.
Gerry McCann: Oh yes. One more. Big smile. That’s pretty.]
Gerry McCann: She was incredibly beautiful baby actually.
Kate McCann: We sound like the most biased parents on the planet now but she was just really compact and was just really the really nice, round, perfect head...and......you know...and then she, she opened her mouth ...the whole world knew she was with us...
Gerry McCann: She’d McCann level volume, there’s no doubt about that.
[Cuts into Video of Madeleine sitting on the stairs with her twin siblings singing:
Madeleine: Clap your hands together one two three. Clap your hands...
Gerry McCann: Yay well done. Okay, let’s sing another one.]
Kate McCann: I always wanted to be a mother, erm, I don’t know, maybe that stemmed from being an only child and sort of, you know, wanting that feeling of family.
Voice over: Madeleine was the daughter Kate and Gerry McCann always wanted. For years Kate struggled to fall pregnant so when Madeleine came along they felt blessed. They loved to photograph her and she loved being photographed.
Voice over: this is the last picture of Madeleine taken seven hours before she disappeared.
Gerry McCann: There’s a photo of her that afternoon that was taken at 2:29 (laughs) I think, we’ve got it recorded on the digital camera and er she was just sitting by the pool er with myself and we’ve both got our feet just paddling and she’s so happy.
Voice over: It’s been one thousand, five hundred and forty-three days since Madeleine McCann vanished. To keep Madeleine’s case alive this private couple has revealed more of themselves than ever before. Kate and Gerry are both doctors. They married in 1998 and in 2001, after three years of failing to conceive naturally they began IVF. Eighteen months later, on the eve of another hospital appointment, Kate did a home pregnancy test.
Kate McCann: A little line appeared on the test, you know, I’m a doctor, it says on the box any kind of line is a positive but I said, Oh, I’m not sure, I’m not sure, but there’s that faint kind of...mmm...maybe...
Gerry McCann cuts in: She showed it to me and I’m like, it’s definitely..[laughs]...It’s definitely!
[All laugh together and speak at once]
Kate McCann: And obviously we had a scan and er there’s a little beating heart and that was our little Madeleine you know...so.
[cuts into video of Madeleine at the coffee table looking at a Christmas present:
Gerry McCann: Who’s that present for?
Madeleine: That’s for Aunty Clare
Gerry McCann: Are we gonna post it today?
Madeleine: No
Kate McCann: We are
Madeleine: It isn’t a letter]
[cuts into a different video of Madeleine sitting on the settee eating:
Gerry McCann: Who says ‘aha’
Madeleine: Aha
Gerry McCann: Say ‘yes daddy.’
Madeleine: Yes daddy
Gerry McCann: Okay]
Voice over: And then, in May 2003, three became five.
Gerry McCann: When she first saw the twins she was just ecstatic. Absolutely ecstatic
[cuts into video of Madeleine and Sean on their knees playing with a train set:
Madeleine: Oooh. This is a very big Thomas (I can’t make out what Madeleine is saying, something about toys)]
Gerry McCann: I felt blessed really that at that time.
Interviewer: You said the family felt really complete
Kate McCann: You know, we did feel incredibly lucky
Voice over: In late April 2007, the McCanns decided to travel to Portugal for a family holiday.
[Cuts into a video of Madeleine climbing the flight stairs to the aeroplane where she stumbles on the steps:
Voice over: In the pink pants climbing the stairs to the plane is Madeleine
Gerry McCann on the video: Oop day...you alright?]
Voice over: It was the McCanns first holiday overseas as a family and they went with three other couples
[video on airports shuttle bus pans in Gerry’s direction...‘cheer up Gerry, we’re on holiday.’ Gerry:‘F**k off']
Gerry McCann: It’s a small resort out of season, end of April beginning of May and it was incredibly quiet er, we felt very relaxed there, very relaxed.
Voice over: In the evening the children were put to bed by half past seven before the adults had dinner together down at the pool. From where they ate, Kate and Gerry could see the back of their apartment and left the door unlocked.
Gerry McCann: If you measured it directly from the back of the apartment there’s a straight line to where we’re dining, it’s only 50 metres
Interviewer: 50 Meters?
Gerry McCann: Er..that, that’s a direct line...
Kate McCann interrupts: 49 point 4 on Google if you want to be really specific
Gerry McCann: But the proximity was very close
Voice over: Madeleine and the twins slept in a room at the front of villa 5A. Kate and Gerry believed their shuttered bedroom window, overlooking the car park and street, was closed and locked. Every half an hour the parents would take turns to check on each other’s children.
Gerry McCann: We thought that was the best thing erm, and it seemed to work absolutely fine and we didn’t have any problems right until the Thursday morning when Madeleine said “why didn’t you come when we cried last night?” We thought that’s odd
Interviewer: You now think somebody had either tried to get into the room or was in the room and woke them up the night before
Kate McCann: Er it seems too much of a coincidence that she made that comment and then that happened that night.
Interviewer: Looking back now, you think that could have been your one chance...to save her
Kate McCann: Well as soon as ermm I’d discovered that Madeleine had been taken it..it just hit me straight away what she said that morning and I just thought, my god, someone tried the night before.
voice over: On Thursday night, Kate put her daughter to bed for the last time.
Kate McCann: My memory of that evening, it’s really vivid, I mean she was really tired but she was just cuddled up on my knee and we read a story and we also had some treats, some crisps and biscuits erm and then after they’d done the usual kind of, toilet, teeth erm we went through to the bedroom and read another story: If your happy and your know it...ermm...[looks at the interviewer then away and back again] ...yep.
Voice over: At 9pm Gerry checked on Madeleine and the twins
Gerry McCann: I’d actually stuck my head around the door and I, I just lingered for a few seconds and thought how beautiful she was erm and that’s the last time I saw her.
Interviewer: Last time you saw her
Gerry McCann closes eyes and swallows: Mmmm
Interviewer: You thought how lucky you were
Gerry McCann: Exactly. Your world’s shattered within an hour
voice over: At 10pm it was Kate’s turn to look in on the kids
Kate McCann: The bedroom door where the three children were sleeping was open much further than we’d left it. I went to close it to about here, and then as I got to about here it suddenly ...slammed. And then as I opened it, it was then that I just thought, I’ll just look at the children. And literally as I went back in the curtains of the bedroom which were drawn, were closed ...whoooosh...it was like a gust of wind kind of blew them open.
Kate McCann: And the curtains which had been closed just swung open into the room and reveal that the shutter was all the way up and the window had been pushed right across and then I just knew...I just knew she’d been taken.
voice over: Kate says that after a quick frantic search of the apartment she ran back towards Gerry who was still with their friends at the table by the pool.
Gerry McCann: I know exactly where the table was. It was kinda this bit, so it would be about around here. And er, I was kinda sitting in this bit.
Gerry McCann: Kate was clearly distraught and I jumped up but, kind of disbelief. She can’t be gone. She can’t...she can’t possibly be...how can she be gone? And I was saying that to Kate as we were both running
Voice over: Police were called within fifteen minutes. But they didn’t arrive for nearly an hour. It took them another two hours before they bothered to seal off Madeleine’s bedroom. British investigators later called it the worst preserved crime screen they’d ever encountered. Road blocks and checks weren’t put on Portugal’s borders for a full twelve hours and in days hundreds of guests, potential witnesses and suspects had checked out and left without ever having been interviewed.
Kate McCann: The night seemed so long, every second was excruciating and it was dark and er, you just want there to be light and everybody searching and Madeleine found.
Voice over: It’s thought Madeleine was taken shortly after nine O’clock. In the following forty-five minutes there were two significant sightings of a man carrying a young girl. The first by Jane Tanner, one of the McCanns friends.
Jane Tanner: I was walking up here, probably as I got to ...it’s hard to know exactly where, but probably about here, I saw the man walk across the road there carrying a child.
Gerry McCann: Jane had seen a man carrying a child away at, at 9:10, 9:15
Voice over: But no one took any notice because no one knew then that Madeleine was missing. They thought the man was a local father carrying his own sleeping child. Two different witnesses reported seeing a man watching the McCanns apartment in the days leading up to Madeleine’s disappearance, but the Portuguese police turned their focus on Gerry and Kate. In September, four months after she went missing, the McCanns returned to the UK as suspects.
Interviewer: Did you kill your daughter?
Gerry McCann: No. That’s an emphatic no. I mean the ludicrous thing is erm what, I suppose what’s been purported from Portugal is that Madeleine died in the apartment by an accident and we hid her body. Well when did she have the accident and died, because, the only time she was left unattended was when we were at dinner so ...if she died then, how could we of disposed – hidden her body. You know, when there’s an immediate [inaudible but sounds like he was about to say ‘search’] it’s just nonsense. And if she died when we were in the apartment or fell and di...why would we ...why would we cover that up?
Kate McCann: It gets even more ludicrous that we’ve obviously hidden her somewhere incredibly well where nobody’s found her ...
Interviewer: Incredibly well
Kate McCann: and we’d hidden her so well that we’d decided we’d move her in the car which we hired weeks later and you know, it’s just ridiculous
Interviewer: When you come back to Portugal do you feel closer to Madeleine?
Kate McCann: Although I don’t know where Madeleine is that is the last place that, you know, I saw her, held her, and I guess there’s a part of me that still feels connected to her there so.
Voice over: If Madeleine is alive she’d now be eight years old and possibly looks like this. And the reason for not giving up hope comes from this young woman. When Natascha Kampucsh was ten she was abducted near her home in Vienna, like with Madeleine, the police were slow to act and as the years passed they believed she’d either been smuggled across the border by a paedophile ring or killed, but all the while, the whole eight and a half years she was living in a cellar under this house, just fifteen kilometres from her own home. Natascha was kept in a purpose build dungeon. She was given up for dead by virtually everyone except her Mum.
Natascha: My mother always thought that I be alive
Voice over: Then after nearly nine years in captivity her kidnapper finally let his guard down and Natasha escaped
Interviewer to Natascha: Do you still have nightmares?
Natascha: Sometimes, but I’m looking forward. Mostly I am looking in the future and not back
Natascha: I think so. Yes, I hope so
Kate McCann: I think kids can be written off, you know, missing kids can be written off too easily. You cannot do that, you cannot give up on a child.
Voice over: With no police force currently investigating Madeleine’s case, the McCanns are using their own money, including royalties from Kate’s book to hire investigators and former police to continue the search for Madeleine.
Gerry McCann: Kids are survivors
Kate McCann: You know, Madeleine means tower of strength. Wherever she was, whoever she’s been with, whatever’s happened, we will get her through it
Interviewer: You will not rest until you find your daughter, until you wrap your arms around her
Kate McCann: I don’t believe any parent could, you know, and I don’t believe we could ever reach the point where we just think oh wel we’ve done everything now, you know. Whilst the situation remains as it is, you know, Madeleine’s out there and she needs us to find her
Gerry McCann: Mmmm
Interviewer: You’ll keep looking forever
Kate McCann: We will
With the greatest of thanks from SASHA at Little Morsals.
