Help Find Madeleine McCann

The McCann Family Speak About Their Loss

My stomach churned and twisted as I watched Madeleine McCann's mom and dad's tortured faces as they pleaded with the person or persons out there who might hold the key to their happiness, who might have Madeleine or have information that would help them find their daughter. Madeleine would be approximately five years old today. I am a mother and I know I would have gone crazy by now if anything like this should have happened to my child.

The McCanns made headline two years ago when their daughter then 3, was kidnapped from their holiday apartment in Portugal. At first there was an outpouring of public sympathy and then at one point the public appeared to turn on them and accused them of being responsible for killing their child accidentally and trying to cover it up. This change had come about because Mrs. McCann had showed no emotions during her first public interview. She told Oprah, she did not show emotion because that what she was advised to do by a behavioral specialist who felt she should appear strong and resolute. She would have done anything if there was a chance of successfully bringing her daughter home safely. It was difficult for me to watch her on TV. The grief and sense of helplessness was palpable.

How absurd, how absolutely cruel, on the face of it, that parents should be accused of the most heinous crime of being responsible for their own children's disappearance while experiencing unspeakable grief of real loss at the same time. Unfortunately, there are precedents where parents themselves led the public down the garden path, looking all over the place for lost children when they themselves were the culprits.