The Search For Madeleine
On May 3, 2007, 3-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from the apartment her family was staying in while vacationing in Portugal. Her disappearance prompts a major search effort and media outreach campaign led by her parents, Gerry and Kate.
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Madeleine is reported missing. Her parents say they left her asleep with two smaller siblings while they had dinner at a nearby restaurant, and that they checked frequently on the children. They say Madeleine was kidnapped.
STORY: Police Search For Maddie
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Police in Portugal say there is evidence the girl was abducted, and appeal for her return.
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David Beckham and other soccer stars appeal for Madeleine's safe return. Police in Portugal scale down local searches, saying the case has become an international investigation.
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Madeleine McCann's fourth birthday.
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Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling pledges to contribute to a $3 million reward fund for the safe return of the child.
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Robert Murat, a Briton who lives near the complex where the child vanished, is questioned after journalists report him to police, saying he was poking around the crime scene and implying that he was part of the probe.
STORY: Suspect Named In Case
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A Web site set up to help find Madeleine receives some 65 million visitors in 48 hours.
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Murat is questioned by police in the company of his lawyer, and again the next day. He insists he has nothing to do with Madeleine's disappearance.
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Authorities in Belgium say they are taking seriously a reported sighting of the child in the town of Tongeren. Police issue a drawing of a Dutch-speaking man reportedly seen with the girl and an English-speaking woman at a table outside a pub. Authorities eventually carry out DNA tests on a milkshake bottle from the pub, but none of Madeleine's DNA is found on it.
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Portuguese media report that sniffer dogs found traces of blood in the room where Madeleine went missing. This forensic evidence is sent to Britain for testing.
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Police say new evidence prompts them to consider the possibility Madeleine is dead.
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Kate McCann is reportedly named as a suspect in her daughter's disappearance, and a family spokesman says Gerry McCann has been told he too will be named as a suspect.
STORY: McCanns Now Suspects
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The McCanns return to England.
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Police outline the case to the prosecutor, who will decide on charges.
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The McCanns, back in England, are told of no immediate plans for a new interview back in Portugal.
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A girl resembling Madeleine, photographed in Morocco, turns out to be the daughter of a local olive farmer.
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A Dutch teen told a Dutch newspaper that she believed she saw Madeleine McCann alive at a highway restaurant near the southern city of Montpellier, France. But after an initial viewing of video from the restaurant, French police said they believed that a young girl who resembled the British girl was not McCann.
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Two British tabloids issued front-page apologies to Kate and Gerry McCann for suggesting the couple were responsible for their daughter Madeleine's death. The McCann's accepted the apology and more than $1 million in damages over stories suggesting they had caused their daughter's death.
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Officials in Lisbon suspend their investigation in the case of Madeleine McCann. Portuguese authorities say they found no evidence of a crime during their 14-month probe. The case will remain on hold unless new evidence comes to light. Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, are cleared of suspicion.
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Nearly 30,000 pages of previously secret Portuguese police evidence in the McCann case are made public. The files, which were made public under Portuguese law after the lifting of the period of judicial secrecy in the case, include forensic details as well as interviews with Kate and Gerry McCann.
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A lawyer for the family of Madeleine McCann
say a team of legal experts in Portugal is sifting through nearly 30,000 pages of police evidence. The team will pass along information to the British girl's
family, who has hired private investigators. The McCanns hope the file will furnish leads that will give new momentum to their own search.
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Credits:
AP
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