with that theory of morphing from one into the other, um, is really problematic. jon: but just so vies know and, again, a lot of people have been following this case for seven years. this is not a whim, this is not a hunch or a slouch investigation. this is scotland yard saying that they have noted spikes in cell phone activity among three known burglars who were in the area of the resort when madeleine disappeared. and on top of that, robberies had increased in the resort area by a factor of four between february and may of 07. seven teen days before she disappeared there was one burglary and one attempted burglary at the resort. so they have written a letter to the port guise authorities portuguese authorities, and they are asking to speak to them. what after seven years can you expect the gleam from suspects in a case like this? well, here s two things that are really quite important.
that would kidnap a child. jon: you worked on the elizabeth smart case, the teenager who was miraculously found alive after she was kidnapped in this country. what do you say about the prospects that little madeleine mccann is still alive seven years later? absolutely the parents will never give up hope, nor should they. and i think in a case like this because the child is very young, we all will hold out hope that they may have felt she s not a threat, they may have felt that she would not remember what happened to her. so if she was not killed right away, then the idea that she could be out there living with somebody else or kept with somebody else is not impossible. and as you say, we have other cases where the child has been returned after years. so it makes sense that we should hold out hope here, continue with the investigation but always hold out hope. jon: just astounding to me that they are making progress apparently in this case after all this time.
happened to little madeleine mccann. she would be 10 years old now. british authorities are heading to portugal to arrest three men. officers say the suspects were involved in a series of burglaries in the coastal town where mccann was last seen. joining me now, mary ellen o toole who worked as a profiler for the fbi when this kidnapping occurred. she is the author of dangerous stints. i know the fbi was approached at the time about the madeleine mccann case. what can you tell us about what the thinking was? well, initially, when the case came to the bau or the behavioral analysis unit, it was very early on, and it was at that time which is typical in these kinds of cases the family needed to be ruled out. that s not unusual, that s standard operating procedure. but then as time went on, the case really became pretty dormant, and now this recent lead regarding the burglars is really pretty interesting because burglars who steal money
anybody to view. and now six years later it s really difficult to get a description of a suspect, connect that description up to a live person. you know, in my experience six days is a long time, six weeks is ridiculous, six months is almost impossible, six years? i think that s highly unlikely in a resort environment. martha: yeah. it is, it s a stretch. it certainly seems to be. but, you know, you look at the elizabeth smart case, and she s been out talking about her book, and when i listened to her last week saying, you know, that you can never give up on these missing children, it s understandable that the mccann parents are looking for any avenue that they can, and this time it comes in the form of this new documentary that s coming out in the bbc and also this new effort to try to find their child. well, i agree. but the elizabeth smart case you have parents that totally cooperated with law enforcement. there s a big difference here. the mccanns on face value or
most of the missing are runaway kids. parental stuff? exactly. that s part of the problem because initially when you get reports of a missing child or a missing teenager, the assumption can tend to be well was there a problem in the family? is this a teenager who is having some adjustment problems? social problems at school? they assume it s a run away. after a certain amount of time they can say it s a missing person that s frustrating for family members. don t know what the situation is. even though there is 411 stranger abductions. a most of the others are family things and. 2,000 are family. bill: impact of them is so tremendous. that s why the kids can t play anymore outside. play dates. molestation problem and this kind of stuff that pops up, elizabeth smart case. i work for the