Portuguese Officials Weigh McCann Evidence

Former U.K. Detective Tells CBS News Police Investigation Trying To "Shoehorn" Parents Into Evidence

(CBS/AP)  Portuguese authorities moved closer to possibly bringing charges against the parents of missing British girl Madeleine McCann as police handed what they have discovered so far to the public prosecutor.

The attorney-general, who oversees the public prosecutor's office, said after receiving the file on Tuesday that officials would examine police findings and announce within 10 days what further steps were to be taken.

CBS News correspondent Richard Roth reports that for Madeleine's parents, the ongoing Portuguese investigation is lending them an opportunity for what a friend calls a moment of measured calm.

"That's an awful lot of information to go through, over the last few days we've had some unusual interpretations of that information," said Jon Corner, a spokesman for the McCanns.

Portuguese officials will say little more than that the investigation continues, reports Roth, and dramatic claims in the British press that strands of the missing girl's hair were found in the trunk of a car rented by the McCann's weeks after her disappearance are unconfirmed.

"The investigation... is not over, and further detective work is required," Attorney-General Fernando Pinto Monteiro said in a written statement, without providing details.

A McCann family spokeswoman last week said police told the child's mother they'd found what appears to be the 4-year-old's blood in a car the parents rented more than three weeks after their daughter disappeared during a spring vacation in southern Portugal.

However, Portugal's national police chief, Alipio Ribeiro, said Monday night that the forensic tests on the car were not conclusive and that he expected the investigation to continue.

Madeleine's parents, doctors Kate and Gerry McCann, were named as suspects Friday. They deny any involvement and insist police keep searching for their missing girl.

Former Scotland Yard detective John O'Connor told CBS' Early Show Wednesday that the Portuguese investigation was "grasping at straws" by focusing on the evidence found in the car.

"You don't have a body, you don't have a cause of death, you don't have any witnesses, you don't have a confession, you don't have a murder weapon, and you don't have a motive. Now if anybody thinks they could bring a murder charge with all those main ingredients missing, they're on the wrong end," O'Connor told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen.

The former detective was highly critical of the Portuguese police's investigation. "What they're trying to do is to shoehorn the McCanns into the evidence that they have, and that's not the right way to go about it."

For 16 weeks, police pursued the lead that appeared most plausible: Madeleine was abducted as she slept in the family's hotel room with her twin 2-year-old siblings.

Her parents, who were dining with friends at the hotel's poolside restaurant but said they checked on their children frequently, launched an unprecedented international campaign to find her, striking a chord around the world and raising $2 million to help find their daughter.

But in a stunning turnaround, police last week hauled the parents in for questioning. Forensic tests conducted at a government laboratory in Britain found evidence indicating that DNA from Madeleine was in the trunk of a car the parents used while remaining for months in Portugal's Algarve region, where they got regular updates on the investigation from local police, Justine McGuinness, a spokeswoman for the family, said last week.