More on the deleted call records
Where Was Kate McCann? (*)
The
CD issued by Ministerio Publico de Portimao in July 2008, contains a
great deal of information on the mobile calls made and received by the
“Tapas 9” but it is dispersed, difficult to retrieve and with important
pages and charts missing. The main documents of interest from the CD
are:
* A 3 page report by the Policia Judiaria (undated, but
probably 4th May 2007) listing call records retrieved from the handsets
of Mr and Mrs McCann
* A detailed (and excellent report) by Inspector Paulo Dias, Inspector of UNI-Sector de Análise, Lisbon, dated 9th November 2007
*
Schedules provided by Vodafone on 14th December 2007 covering a period
from 29th April 2007 for Gerald McCann, David Payne, Rachael Mampilly,
broken into four separate sections for incoming and outgoing telephone
calls, incoming and outgoing SMS traffic
* A second report by
Inspector Dias dated 5th February 2008, containing time bars, link
charts and maps pinpointing where the “Tapas 9’s” sets were when they
activated antennae
* A third report by Inspector Dias dated 2nd June
2008 which includes details of activations of the Luz and other mobile
antenna from 28th April 2007 to September 2007
* The Rogatory Letter
requests and correspondence dated from 5th December 2007 to May 2007 and
responses from the Home Office in April and May 2008
The PJ used
a program, called the “Analyst’s Notebook” as well as “Excel” to handle
what were very large datasets. Inspector Dias pointed out that “Excel”
was far from ideal, because of its limited capacity and it seems that
much of the data provided was paper based and had to be rekeyed. Also
the main focus of the research was limited to the evening of Thursday
3rd May 2007. But, despite the problems, the PJ’s work is impressive,
innovative and very detailed. For example, there is a brilliant analysis
(which unfortunately led nowhere) based on the hypothesis of two
abductors each working with mobiles in the Ocean Club area immediately
before Madeleine was reported missing. There is another excellent piece
of work which tracks down a misrouted call, from Swansea, to Kate McCann
at 11.21 on Wednesday 2nd May 2007.
However, there are potentially serious omissions:
*
The most important records were not available when Mr and Mrs McCann
attended their “Arguido interviews” on 6th and 7th September 2007 and it
is doubtful that they were ever reviewed by the very experienced
analysts from the Leicestershire Police, whose team left the Algarve
soon after the McCann’s return to the UK in September 2007
* There
are no detailed call records from the mobile operators for Kate McCann,
Russell O’Brien, Matthew Oldfield and Jane Tanner
* When the PJ obtained the McCann’s mobiles they do not appear to have retrieved deleted data or to extract their contact lists
*
None of the telecom records show triangulation co-ordinates but are
limited to identifying the single primary antenna on which calls were
registered
* The details of over 50 UK subscribers contacted by the
Tapas 9 in the critical period, as well as their onward local and
international call records, was included in the Rogatory Letter request
in December 2007. If this information was provided, it is not in the CD
* A critical link chart (Anexo 37) for Tuesday 1st May 2007 is missing from Inspector Dias’s report
These
omissions make interpretation of the data difficult but what is
available provides an interesting picture. First, it is obvious that the
memories in the McCann’s mobiles were incomplete and, in Kate McCann’s
case, selectively deleted.
Her mobile memory held details of 39
calls from 18.28 on Wednesday 25th April to 16.35 on 27th April 2007.
After her arrival in Portugal on 28th April 2007, with the exception of
one incoming call on Wednesday 2nd May 2007 at 11.21 (which, very
interestingly, was the Swansea “wrong number”), and one call from her
husband at 23.17 on Thursday 3rd May 2007, everything else has been
“whoosh-clunked” from memory. These deletions could have been
accidental, but a high degree of cunning could be implied. Why would she
selectively delete everything up to Thursday 3rd May 2007 with the
exception of one wrong number and what was her reason for deleting three
of the four calls, between 23.14 and 23.17, from her husband on that
critical night?. A possible answer is that she wished to avoid alerting
the PJ to evidence that details of around 40 calls had been erased and
she felt happier leaving something uncontroversial (or misleading) in
memory for them to find. Another answer is that, unsurprisingly, she was
under the most extreme stress imaginable following the disappearance of
her daughter: but why, in that case, give priority to deleting
anything. It is the last thing most parents would think about in the
circumstances.
The first call found in Gerald’s mobile memory was
timed at 00.30 on Friday 4th May 2007. Again matching antenna records
to memory suggests that by the time he gave the handset to the PJ the
records of 24 calls or SMSs had been erased, including the one from him
found on his wife’s handset and timed at 23.17 on Thursday 3rd May 2007.
It appears that he had deleted details of the four calls he made to her
that night and she deleted just three. It was this simple discrepancy
that first led the PJ to suspect interference with the handsets.
If
the deletions were deliberate (and it is an “if”) it implies the
McCann’s were both “forensically aware” and crafty and wanted to hide
something from the PJ. For this reason, it is important to explore the
call record data and to match it against other evidence.
On
Saturday 28th April 2007, after their arrival in Luz, Kate McCann’s
mobile triggered the antenna 9 times. It is not possible to say, from
the available records, whether these were incoming or outgoing calls or
SMSs or for how long they lasted. The last activations were at 20.55 and
20.59 when (based on their statements) the Tapas 9 returned for an
early night after eating at the Millennium Restaurant with their
children. All of these records were erased from the memory of Kate
McCann’s mobile. Gerald McCann’s mobile did not activate any of the Luz
antennae that day.
On Sunday 29th April 2007, the first
activation of Kate McCann’s mobile was at 9.23, but again there are no
Vodafone logs or time bars to provide further detail. However, by
internally matching the antenna records it appears that she called her
husband at 12.26 and 17.02.
The crèche records indicate that he
collected Madeleine at 12.15. He also picked up the twins around 17.00
but mistakenly recorded the time as “12.30”. Chances are that the calls
from Kate McCann were to check that he had picked up the kids. At 10.13
Gerald McCann received a call from a UK mobile xxxxx3899. The last
activation by Kate McCann’s mobile was at 19.30 and Gerald’s at 17.02.
A
pattern on this sheet (and it applies to all of the Tapas 9) is that no
activations took place at any time during the week while they were at
dinner. So maybe Clarence Mitchell was right, after all, and that they
were so “into each other” that they didn’t want to be disturbed while
sardine munching and left their mobiles in their rooms. They were never
specifically asked this question, but it is very important and the point
will be addressed later.
On Monday 30th April 2007, neither of
the McCann’s telephones activated the Luz transmitters. This looks very
odd, especially as they were around the Ocean Club to shuffle the kids
to and from the crèches. On this afternoon, Madeleine remained in the
crèche for only 15 minutes and was picked up by her mother at 15.30. We
do not know what Madeleine did for the rest of the day, but it is
possible she was being fractious. Interestingly, a friend of Mrs and Mr
McCann supposedly told the “Dispatches” team that made a TV program on
the tragedy, that “Madeleine was a screamer”. This could be interpreted
in one of two ways, but any use of the past tense in referring to
Madeleine would be very significant. It was such a past tense referral,
to her supposedly living children, that alerted the FBI to their murder
by Susan Smith, their mother.
On Tuesday 1st May 2007, Gerald
McCann’s handset was silent all day. Kate McCann’s mobile first
activated the Luz antenna at 10.16, but all details of the day’s calls
have been deleted from the handset and there is no nothing in the CD
from her mobile provider. Another activation took place at 12.17. The
crèche records show that Gerald McCann picked up Madeleine at 12.20 (a
bit earlier than usual) but Kate McCann’s call at 12.17 does not appear
to have been to him, (because his mobile was not activated at all that
day). Kate McCann dealt with her last call before leaving for the Tapas
Bar at 20.35.
At around 8.45pm on Tuesday 1st May 2007, Miss
Nejoua Chekeya, the Ocean Club’s busty Aerobics Instructor, held a “Quiz
Night” and was later invited, allegedly by Gerald McCann, to join his
table which she did sometime between 9.30pm and 9.50pm. She did not say
how long she had remained with them, but she is not the sort of woman
men would wish see to leave too quickly. Miss Chekeya stated that one
dinner setting was unused and that she could not remember seeing Kate
McCann.
However, both Jane Tanner and Russell O’Brien have stated
that he did not go to the Tapas Bar on the “Quiz Night” (ie Tuesday 1st
May 2007), but had stayed in their room looking after his sick
daughter. Jane Tanner took his dinner to the room; thus explaining the
unused plate setting. Russell O’Brien was not asked by either the
Policia Judiciaria or Leicestershire Police whether he had heard
Madeleine crying!
Kate McCann’s mobile was next activated six
times, in rapid fire, between 22.16 and 22.27, after she had returned to
Apartment 5A after dinner. The antenna traffic proves that these calls
were not made to any of the “Tapas 9”.
The evidence from the call
logs gives the strongest clue that the “Tapas 9” left their telephones
in their rooms when they went to dinner. Clarence Mitchell, the McCann’s
spokesperson, confirmed this. In an interview, reported on 6th April
2008 by Ned Temko of “The Guardian”, Mr Mitchell said: “You had nine
people in a bar without watches on, without mobile phones and absolute
panic set in when they realised what had happened…. We would say that,
if the police had a perfect time line across nine people, that would be a
damn sight more suspicious than the fractured, illogical, composite
statements they might have got”
Mrs Fenn, the McCann’s neighbour,
reported that Madeleine had cried for her father between 22.30 and
23.45. The evidence shows that Kate McCann was in Apartment 5A 14
minutes before Madeleine started crying. Tuesday 1st May 2007 is the
only night (except, of course, for Thursday 3rd May 2007) that either of
the McCanns or any of their friends made calls after dinner.
Mrs
McCann volunteered to the PJ that on the night of Wednesday 2nd May
2007, she had slept in the spare bed in her children’s room because her
husband had not paid her enough attention over dinner. Or put another
way, does she mean the amorous Scot was paying someone else (like Miss
Chekeya) too much attention, causing her to stomp out of the Tapas Bar
before him: ultimately leading to the spare bed in a strop? Gerald
McCann said he thought the reason his wife had slept in the children’s
bedroom was because of his snoring and that he did not even bother
asking her the following morning what the problem was.
Could it
be that their timings are wrong by 24 hours and that Kate McCann’s
nocturnal shenanigans took place on the night of Tuesday 1st May 2007?
It would fit, but why be untruthful about it? A possible reason is that
they wanted to conceal both Kate McCann’s state of mind and the fact
that she had returned to Apartment 5A, just before Madeleine’s cried for
help.
On Wednesday 2nd May 2007, Kate McCann called her friend
“Amanda” at 7.36.41 and again at 7.36.45. This was around two hours
earlier than any of mobile activations on any other morning: so Kate
McCann was “up with the larks”. Amanda returned the calls at 7.50. There
is no record of how long any of these calls lasted or whether they were
SMSs. They were all deleted from memory.
At 8.07 Gerald McCann
received a call from the SMS message centre (447818520047), but does not
appear to have responded. At 8.50 Kate McCann received a call from a UK
mobile xxxxx27010 and returned it at 8.53, before going to play tennis.
Gerald McCann received a series of calls from his SMS message centre
between 9.10 and 10.47, again without response.
At 11.21 Kate
received a call from what appears to be a landline in Swansea (
xxxxx0023). The report by Inspector Dias researched this call in detail
(Page 21 in his report of 9th November 2007) and discovered that it had
not activated any of the Luz antennae. But digging deeper, he found that
another UK mobile (xxxxx 1583) had triggered the Luz antenna when
connecting to the same Swansea number at 14.01. He dug even deeper,
tracked all of the calls made from Luz by xxxx1583 and established it
had no connection whatsoever with any of the “Tapas 9”. The Swansea call
to Kate McCann was simply a “wrong number”, misrouted and thus not
logged by the Luz antennae.
What Inspector Dias did not realise
was that the Swansea call had become so special to Kate McCann that,
when deleting all of the other Portuguese call records from memory, she
decided to leave this one intact.
Gerald received five further
calls from the SMS message centre and at 15.50 called 91121, probably to
collect his messages. He received further calls from the centre at
17.49 and 19.49. The records provided by Vodafone show these calls but
that they originate from a different mobile number (0xxxx014310)
At
20.08 Kate McCann received two calls from a UK mobile xxxx7624 and six
minutes late Gerald McCann called 91121: again to collect messages
before he left for the Tapas Bar. This was the last activation of the
day by either of the McCanns; probably confirming that their mobiles
remained in Apartment 5A when they went to dinner.
On Thursday
3rd May 2007 (the critical day) at 8.23 and 8.24 Kate McCann’s mobile
activated the antenna to call xxxx7624. There is nothing in file to
indicate the owner of this mobile but it does not appear to be any of
the McCann family or friends.
At 12.24 Gerald McCann received a
call from a UK Mobile xxxx1746. Again there is no clue in the file to
the subscriber’s name. At 12.31 Kate McCann received a call (or SMS)
from her mother’s mobile and responded an hour later.
Neither of
the McCanns appears to have had any further activity on their telephones
until after Madeleine was reported missing when Gerald McCann called
his wife four times between 23.14 and 23.52. At 23.40 he called his
sister – Trish Cameron and at 23.52 -Janet Kennedy.
The batch of
SMS messages received by Gerald McCann on Wednesday 2nd May 2007 seems
to have caused him some anxiety. Although the number “07818520047” is in
a block allocated to Vodafone, the company has no record of the
subscriber’s name. When the number is dialed, connection is made to a
recorded message which explains that changes have been made to the way
customers can access their mailboxes and that they can now dial “121”
from their handset or “07836121121” from any other telephone.
Thus
the number appears to be a message box for Gerald McCann that sends him
an SMS when his mobile is unable to accept a call (because it is out of
range or turned off). However, when he was asked by “Expresso TV” on
6th September 2008 about the “sixteen SMS messages” received, he
flustered:
“No one has ever asked to see any of my text messages.
There is no way that there 16 messages on that day or even the day
after, you know. You know, the day after, you know that we got…” Kate
McCann came to his rescue and interrupted; “Gerry hardly ever sends text
messages until the day after, the day after Madeleine was taken”.
Gerald McCann continued: “so you know that it is actually rubbish”
Their
McCann’s denials were, of course, technically true although perhaps
disingenuous - because there were only 14 messages received on the day
before they reported Madeleine missing and two on the day after.
There
were 16 SMS messages, in total, so why prevaricate and deny an
allegation that was never made. The question was about received
messages, not those sent, and on the day before not on 3rd May 2007 or
the day after! In the field of forensic linguistics you must always
concentrate on the precise wording of denials and especially on those of
allegations not made. The denials made by the McCanns are suspicious.
However, Mrs McCann’s statement about her husband not sending SMS
messages, until after Madeleine’s disappearance, is confirmed by
Vodafone’s records.
Mr and Mrs McCann were never closely
questioned by the PJ about the detail of their calls, but Gerald McCann
excused the deletions by saying that his telephone’s memory only
retained details of the last ten calls made. This obvious inaccuracy (It
already had retained details of 17 calls) does not appear to have been
challenged by the PJ and it does not in anyway explain the selective
deletions from his wife’s handset.
So the bottom line is that
Kate McCann was in Apartment 5A when Madeleine cried for her father
between 22.30 and 23.45 on Tuesday 1st May 2007, leading to a unique
flurry of late night calls and to unique calls very early the following
morning. A forensic examination of the records of Madeleine’s attendance
at the “Lobsters” crèche on Wednesday 2nd and Thursday 3rd May 2007 is
critically important because if they have been falsified, to establish
she was there when she was not, this case takes on an entirely new
dimension and sets different search parameters.
Secondly, if the
memories of the mobile telephones were deleted in way suspected, a level
of cunning is implied that would be capable of conceiving plan to
deliberately delay reporting Madeleine’s “disappearance”; if for no
other reason than to disassociate it from the crying incident on Tuesday
1st May 2007.
Of course, this is speculation and it is entirely
possible that further investigation and the much awaited transparency by
Mr and Mrs McCann will totally exonerate them. But why don’t they
simply produce the SMS messages and explain why call details were
deleted?
By Paulo Reis and associates
(*) This report is a
result of cooperation with a leading international investigative firm
that is in the closing stages of an 18 month intensive investigation
that is expected to reopen the case in Portugal and to start new
proceedings in the UK.
https://gazetadigitalmadeleinecase.blogspot.com/2008/12/more-on-deleted-call-records.html
