Looking For Madeleine McCann: All Show And No Punch (Murat’s Car And Malinka’s Release)
MADELEINE McCann is missing. Still missing. But Madeline McCann is not missing on the front page of the Mail.
The Mail has news on how readers can learn Spanish in a week, or at least learn to speak Spanish the way Spaniards should speak it. There’s the offer of a The Darling Buds of May DVD. And the news that Nigel Havers is getting married for the third time.
But no Madeleine McCann.
Murat’s Motors
Madeleine McCann does gets a mention on the Sun’s front page. But there’s no picture of the missing four-year-old. The image if of Kelly Brook’s bra.
We do learn, however, that Robert Murat ordered a hire car two days before Lori Campbell of the Sunday Mirror told the local police she found him “creepy” and he was taken in for questioning. Before being released without charge.
Readers can get more on this story via the Sun’s page 7. After stories about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s money (he made £122million last year), swimming pools in five jails, Emma Thomason loading up her boyfriend’s van with her boyfriend’s clothes and driving it into the sea, there is news of Madeleine McCann.
Maria Rocio, of Auto Renta111 (number on application), fielded the call from one-eyed Murat. “I didn’t understand why he wanted another car when he had one of his own already,” says Rocio. “I could tell in his voice he was in a real hurry.”
Oh? “He wanted it then and there. It was lunchtime last Saturday and Madeleine had already been missing for eight days.”
Murat did not want this “car fast” in the moments immediately preceding or following the theft of Madeleine McCann. It was eight days later.
Says Rocio: “He said the English couple who were looking for the little girl needed his car and wanted to put posters on it.” Did they? Were posters put on Murat’s car? The Sun fails to say, but it does tell readers that Kate and Gerry McCann “ALREADY had a hire car”.
Watching Madeleine
While Sun readers wonder about Robert Murat, and everyone else wonders what good knowing about such things can do, the Mirror sticks to the story.
The paper that kept its weapons of mass destruction counter going well into the Second Iraq War knows how to stick to a story.
“25 MILLION hearts go out to you,” says the front-page headline. There’s a picture of Madeleine McCann’s mother. And another of Madeleine.
News is that millions of you have logged onto the website created by the family to aid the search for Madeleine. Tributes have been flooding in to www.findmadeleine.com. Readers learn that the family has been “overwhelmed” by the support shown.
The campaign is designed to raise Madeleine’s profile. (Not to spread anxiety about child kidnap. That’s the tabloids’ job.) And it is working. Many know the name Madeleine McCann. Many know what she looks like.
Everyone’s A Potential Suspect
But no leads have come from the site. And buried in the story of the traffic attracted to the website is news that Russian “web geek” Sergey Malinka has been released without charge. He is not a suspect. He is being treated as a “witness”. Lead detective Olegario Sousa tells us: “It’s a very dramatic investigation. A witness could be in the future a suspect. There may be more suspects for all we know.”
Yes, there may be. They may be tens, hundreds, thousands of suspects. Robert Murat may be the first of many. Robert Murat, he of the bouncy castle “fixation”, may be innocent. Robert Murat’s family may come out of hiding.
Maybe. And maybe. And maybe.
The case goes on. But things are staring drift. Many want to look at Madeleine. Many want to find her. But where she is remains a mystery that no-one appears any closer to solving.
And there are signs of the media becoming tired of the story…
Posted: 18th, May 2007 | In: Tabloids Comments (66) | TrackBack | Permalink
