Madeleine went missing from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve on 3 May This is what happened on that day :. Kate and Gerry McCann make a mental note to constantly check their children are settled when they go for a meal later that night.
E-fits of two Portuguese men are later issued by police. One man approaches a property on the Rua do Ramalhete, near the Ocean Club. According to witnesses, he is white, has blondish fair hair, described as being quite close-shaven, and is aged between years old. He sees all three children fast asleep before returning to the restaurant. On the way back he stops to chat to a guest. Kate McCann returns to the apartment and discovers that Madeleine is missing.
Investigating officers publicly acknowledge she may not be found alive. Prosecutors later say there is no new evidence to justify re-questioning them. Gerry McCann releases a video in November saying he believes his family was watched by "a predator" in the days before his daughter's disappearance. On 20 January the McCanns release sketches of a suspect, based on a description by a British holidaymaker of a "creepy man" seen at the resort.
In April, Portuguese police fly to the UK to sit in on interviews conducted by Leicestershire Police of the McCanns' friends they had dinner with on the night Madeleine disappeared.
On 3 May , one year since the disappearance, Mrs McCann urges people to "pray like mad" for her little girl.
By July Portuguese police say they have submitted their final report on the case. Weeks later, authorities shelve their investigation and lift the "arguido" status of the McCanns.
On 3 November , new images of how Madeleine might now look are released. In March , the McCanns criticise the release of previously unseen Portuguese police files - detailing possible sightings of Madeleine - to British newspapers. A month later, in April, Gerry McCann says it is "incredibly frustrating" that police in Portugal and the UK had not been actively looking for his daughter "for a very long time".
In November , the couple sign a publishing deal to write a book about Madeleine's disappearance. The McCanns' book, Madeleine, is released in May. A two-year review follows. A computer-generated image of what Madeleine might look like aged nine is released, a day before Portuguese authorities say they are not reopening their investigation. In May , UK detectives reviewing the case say they have identified "a number of persons of interest". By July, Scotland Yard announces it has "new evidence and new witnesses" in the case and opens a formal investigation.
By October , Scotland Yard detectives say they have identified 41 potential suspects. A BBC Crimewatch appeal features e-fit images of a man seen carrying a blond-haired child of three or four in Praia da Luz at about the time Madeleine went missing.
Portuguese police reopen their investigation - to run alongside Scotland Yard's - citing "new lines of inquiry". He would later publish a book, Maddie: The Truth of the Lie , the following summer, resulting in a lengthy libel battle with the McCanns that would run back and forth through the courts until March With the trail cold and no closure in sight, the McCanns continued to publicise their cause, issuing computer-generated images of how Madeleine might look now that she had aged on 3 November and condemning the release of previously unseen Portuguese police files - detailing possible sightings of their daughter - to British newspapers in March The McCanns published a book of their own about their ordeal in May , entitled simply Madeleine , which was serialised in The Sun as the newspaper led a campaign calling on British prime minister David Cameron to launch a new inquiry.
He did so. It began to yield results in , with Scotland Yard formally announcing a new investigation in July and saying in October it had identified 41 potential suspects. Detectives arrived in Portugal in January promising new arrests and finally searched the village in June, interviewing four people the following month but without unearthing new information. That investment had enabled detectives to have tens of thousands of documents translated, investigate over 8, potential sightings, take 1, statements, collect 1, exhibits and investigate sex offenders and 60 persons of interest, all without definitively establishing the truth.
The Madeline McCann case lay dormant before suddenly exploding into life in June when German media revealed that Christian Brueckner , a year-old prisoner with a track record of child abuse and drug trafficking, had been identified as a new suspect by the public prosecutor of the German city of Braunschweig. German investigators classified their probe into his movements as a murder inquiry, saying they are working on the assumption that Madeleine is dead and reporting last July that they had found an abandoned cellar beneath his former allotment near Hanover where she could, theoretically, have been held captive.
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