[utahagen]

I’ve always thought it highly unlikely that Madeleine’s parents went out to dinner and left three children under four alone. I’m not saying that the McCanns were stupid and are getting what they deserve; I am saying that I don’t believe that these two adults, with support from two other adults, would go out to dinner and leave the children alone in the first place. If my friends met me at a restaurant and explained that their small children were back at the hotel alone, I’d insist we all go to the hotel immediately. I’ve suspected from the get-go that the abduction story was a cover-up for Madeleine’s accidental death.

[BlackVeil]

I, too, have always wondered about that story, and I am not surprised that the mother is now a suspect. But, of course, she may be innocent.

[Politicalmom]

I’ve suspected the parents ever since I saw an interview with them playing with the other two children, giggling, no sign of stress or worry or tears.

[soccermom]

I have no clue what happened, but leaving kids in a room within view of the restaurant is not considered negligent in Europe. They could be entirely guilty. But, if that were the case, I would think they would come up with a better story.

[Ptarmigan]

That’s what I thought too. Many kidnappings are actually committed by a parent, relative, or friend, 90 to 95 percent of them. Rarely, it is a stranger. Of course they get more media attention. I remember in the mid 1990s, Samuel McKay Everett, a teenager in Conroe got kidnapped and murdered by Hilton Crawford, a family friend. Everett opened the door and abducted him. Crawford was caught and sentenced to death and was executed in 2003.

[ktscarlett66]

Apparently there were other parents in the group they were with and they all left their children to go eat each night, taking turns checking on them. So they were with like-minded people as far as leaving the kids.