Missing British girl may be dead: Portuguese police
Pastor Dale Morgan
Missing British girl may be dead: Portuguese police*
By Katherine Baldwin and Jennifer Hill
Reuters
Saturday, August 11, 2007; 12:02 PM
LONDON (Reuters) - Portuguese police investigating the disappearance of
British four-year-old Madeleine McCann acknowledged on Saturday that she
might be dead.
Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa, one of the detectives leading the
inquiry, told the BBC that recent evidence had prompted officers to
pursue more intensely the theory she might have been killed.
Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, disappeared on May 3 during a
holiday with her family in the resort of Praia da Luz, in the Algarve
region of southern Portugal.
"In the past few days there have been some developments and clues that
have been found that could point to the possible death of this child,"
Sousa told the BBC in an interview.
"All lines had been open but this line is now checking with a little bit
of intensity," he said, speaking in English.
The clues to which he was referring were traces of blood found inside
the apartment where Madeleine was sleeping, at the Mark Warner Ocean
holiday resort, the BBC said on its Web site.
"We are waiting for lab results that have been collected," he added.
The traces of blood were being analyzed in Britain to find out whether
they matched Madeleine's.
Sousa refused to confirm or deny reports that police sniffer dogs had
detected odors of a dead body in the apartment.
It was the first public acknowledgment by the police that Madeleine
might have died, rather than been abducted.
He said her parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, were not considered
suspects, following media speculation that they were under suspicion.
Neither were friends who had been with them on the night Madeleine
disappeared, he said.
The family marked the 100th day since her disappearance with a special
church service on Saturday in Praia da Luz.
Despite the publicity, so far only one suspect has emerged, Briton
Robert Murat, while sightings and reported breakthroughs have come to
nothing or proved to be hoaxes.
The McCanns launched "Don't You Forget about Me," a channel on the
video-sharing Web site YouTube to help trace missing children, to mark
100 days without their daughter.