Madeleine McCann': The riddle of Maddie and 'The Fat Gipsy Women'

'I'm convinced the little girl I saw was Madeleine McCann':
The riddle of Maddie and 'the fat gipsy women'


By Arthur Martin
Last updated at 8:01 AM on 04th March 2010




Private investigators searching for Madeleine McCann mounted a surveillance operation amid fears that she was being held prisoner in a run-down farmhouse, secret police files reveal.

They acted after a British holidaymaker spotted a ‘gaunt’ blonde girl wearing a black wig being dragged by ‘gipsy women’ 30 miles from where Madeleine was snatched.

Jean Godwin, 56, a retired care home worker, said the girl she saw on the Algarve was ‘100 per cent Madeleine McCann’.



Seen with a girl: McCanns’ investigators believe Yvone Albino, a cleaner from Silves, was seen outside the McCanns’ apartment in May 2007

One of the women spotted in Carvoeiro by Mrs Godwin was seen by another British tourist acting suspiciously outside the McCanns’ apartment on the day the youngster vanished from Praia da Luz.

The evidence prompted investigators to follow their suspect to an isolated farmhouse in an orange grove near the town of Silves, north of Portimao. In the following months she paid several visits to the property, a holiday home owned by a teacher and his partner whom the inquiry team deemed to be ‘suspicious’.

Their concerns were raised when they discovered a white Citroen Berlingo with a child’s doll on the back seat and a child’s drawing among rubbish bags – even though the couple did not have young children.


Investigated: Jorge Martins and partner Maria Silveira had their remote home checked

They also spotted the man buying clothes suitable for a girl of five – Madeleine’s age at the time. But surveillance was eventually wound down and the child was never found.

The operation began in 2008 after Mrs Godwin, from Widnes, Cheshire, rang the ‘Find Madeleine’ hotline and gave her suspicions to private investigators. By this stage, the official police inquiry into the disappearance on May 3, 2007, had been closed.

Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry continued to employ private detectives in the hope of finding their daughter but these investigators have no legal powers to force suspects to talk to them. The sightings were passed to the Portuguese police who deemed them irrelevant and promptly archived the reports.

Details of the evidence are contained in a 2,000-page police dossier finally published by the Portuguese authorities after requests from newspapers including the Daily Mail. It contains the testimony of Mrs Godwin, who claims she spotted Madeleine in September 2008.

She said: ‘This was a young girl, in the middle of the two women and holding the hand of each. Her eyes were wide open and my attention was drawn to the large irises.

‘The child was wearing what was clearly a black wig. It was short, cut in a bob style and very thick. The wig was shiny and unnatural looking and out of keeping with her very pale complexion and fair eyebrows.

‘I would say she was about 3ft 1in tall and about five years of age. She was very thin and I would describe her as malnourished. Her cheeks looked gaunt. I think she had a bump on her nose.

'I am convinced that the little girl I saw that morning was Madeleine. I have been asked how certain I am. I will say I am 100 per cent sure






Missing: Madeleine (left) disappeared in 2007 while on holiday with her parents. A doll was found in the car of a couple investigated as part of her disappearance


Mrs Godwin described the first woman as being an ‘obese’ size 30, in her mid-to-late 40s with ‘dirty and unkempt’ red hair. The second woman was around 60, with unwashed brown hair, and even fatter.

The McCanns’ investigators believe the red-haired woman was Yvone Albino, a cleaner from Silves. Another witness, Jeni Weinberger, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, said she saw a woman resembling Mrs Albino outside the McCanns’ apartment in May 2007.

Mrs Albino, who has two grown-up sons, met teacher Jorge Martins and his partner Maria Silveira at their house in the orange grove.

David Edgar, a private investigator working for the McCanns, described their movements as ‘suspicious’.

Portuguese police confronted Mrs Albino, who said she knew nothing about either sighting and denied any contact with young children. Officers found the house deserted. The woman with Mrs Albino in Carvoeiro was never identified.

Mr Martins and Miss Silveira have never been accused of any crime by police. He told police the doll was given to him by his students several years earlier.

The McCanns’ spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: ‘It’s clear that our investigators have made considerable efforts to follow up leads but without having full access to the files and co-operation from the Portuguese police.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255297/Riddle-Madeleine-McCann-fat-gipsy-women.html#ixzz0hEY6nGPN

This story seems to be stirring things up on several forums, and I admit I am getting a warm feeling about this. Could this be the breakthrough....?

One would hope the PJ did more than just take this couple's word for it. 'Did you take Madeleine McCann?" "No, we are teachers". OK IRRELEVANT TO THE CASE.

It is like when the 'tradesman' were ruled out. They were tradesman, so they were legitimately outside apartment 5A, staring at it, so not involved.

Just because someone has a reason to be there, doesnt mean they could not have been involved. Strangely enough, people that work in banks, do rob them, cleaners in hotels do steal from guests, etc etc. They still need to be ruled out properly.

We have all felt positive in recent weeks/months about a breakthrough, more so, since the files previously ignored by PJ have come to light.
I do feel they will get a breakthrough very very soon. I hope this is it, something about it makes me think it could be.
I went cold looking at the guy in the picture....shivery!

This is the picture I have had of Madeleine from day one and have said many times that she could have been taken by gypsies. After seeing young children begging in the streets in Paris two years ago, she would have been an ideal candidate. Someone was watching that child from the day the McCanns arrived at Praia da Luz, and just waited until the time was right to take her.

There'll be many more sightings in those released files. Let's hope they did investigate most of them thoroughly. And let's hope that one of the sightings that perhaps wasn't as thoroughly investigated as one would expect, leads to finding Madeleine.

Jean I've lived in Paris (near Place Pigalle ) mid nineties, but I've never seen little blonde girls begging. Things obviously must have changed a lot since then.

So the rag doll is several years old ? looks pretty immaculate to me.

Strange gift for someone to buy a man, stranger still that he should keep it in his daily possession after all these years!

Peaceful1 wrote:We have all felt positive in recent weeks/months about a breakthrough, more so, since the files previously ignored by PJ have come to light.
I do feel they will get a breakthrough very very soon. I hope this is it, something about it makes me think it could be.
I went cold looking at the guy in the picture....shivery!

Peaceful, this is EXACTLY the reaction I had, I looked at his photograph and recoiled, I had to make myself look at it to try and understand why I had done this, but could find no sensible reason. I knew inside that photograph in the NZ picture was not Madeleine, I wanted it to be, because I thought it would be a positive lead, but deep down knew it wasn't, I still think Madeleine is in Portugal. Tinks and Chris will confirm that I have been unable to shake this since day 1, but here is something odder, I think that picture in Belgium was Madeleine, somehow or another that sighting I cannot erase it from my mind, my instinct as a mum and a grandmother is telling me these two things are connected and I know it seems far out, but I think they are. I think we are on the verge of a big breakthrough, hopefully, the investigators are already there well before us!

As for the way these buffoon PJ have ruled people out of this investigation, well they had better start praying and the Portuguese government had better start doing something constructive to hlep Madeleine and her parents because the metaphorical tsunami is now forming and soon it is going to unleash itself on those responsible, so Amaral, Paiva, Flores etal had better watch out, hell is coming for them! I feel it (no I know it!!!)