Daniel Abreu

Daniel Abreu, the little 18 month old missing boy in Madeira was found alive. That is VERY good news.

Really good news indeed.

He was found Wednesday, the 22nd, around 08.00 by a worker, Manuel Teixeira, around 30/40 yards from the pathway near a small water canal, levada, more than a mile from his house.

TVI Reporter near the levada where Daniel was found

The Madeira Island, the main one of the Madeira Archipelago, is an island with enormous amounts of water resources.

It also has a very steep terrain. These levadas were built so to allow the water to be taken out to sea. As they have to be regularly checked for clogging, there are pathways alongside them.

These pathways are used not only by workers responsible to keep the water flowing as it has become quite a tourist attraction, the Madeira Levada Walks. They are used for trekking along Madeira’s very green and mountainous terrain and highly recommended.

Tourist walking on the pathway near where Daniel was found

Daniel was found by a working party of 7. Mr Teixeira, the man who found him said that he heard a child cry. He told the others to keep silent and they all heard the crying. Immediately they understood it was Daniel.

Arrow pointing where Mr Teixeira indicated he found Daniel

They cried out for him but he had gone silent. The area where the crying came from was downhill and had some high shrub. The 7 men split up and finally found him.

Manuel Teixeira, 61, the man who first heard the cries and then found Daniel

Evidently cold but no signs of having been harmed, which later would be confirmed in the health centre.

He went missing Sunday afternoon. Found on Wednesday morning. This means that if he had wondered off, an 18 month old child would have been alone for 65-70 hours, over 2 full days and 3 nights.

When found, besides cold, he would be completely dehydrated, hungry and absolutely soiled. And he wouldn’t be in condition to be released from the hospital two days later, today, Friday the 24th and returned to his parents.

Evidently the scenario of him wondering off, is not unlikely nor even virtually impossible. It’s absolutely impossible.

No way has a child that age, who has just learned to walk, wondered off that distance unnoticed. Even in the unlikelihood of having left of his own accord, he would very quickly felt frightened and cried, making himself heard by the search parties. 

He didn’t leave the house of his own accord. That’s a fact.

The fact that when he was found his dummy was few yards away, means clearly that he left the pathway and wondered off to a realistic and expected distance by a child that age. Fortunately he followed the instincts to go downhill and not follow the pathway where he could have tripped and fall into the canal.

He was taken. Besides that fact we will not give any other opinion about the case. PJ has said it has all options open and we will respect that.

He was taken and left where he could be found. This was only possible because the searches were called off by the PJ on Monday.

What a risky and courageous decision. The reasoning was simple. It was evident he was taken as no child that age would get very far on his own. With the airport and port closely watched by the authorities, it was impossible to get Daniel off the island without being noticed.

Whoever held him quickly realised that Daniel had become a huge problem. Realising that, the PJ decided to “show” this person (or people) that Daniel could be returned without harming him. A huge gamble but one that paid off. A bow of the head to the decider. Much more important than to catch the criminal(s) was to have the child returned alive and well.

Mind you, we are only stating an opinion. We're sure that the search was called off for a good reason but PJ haven't said why yet.

This calling off the search was highly criticised. And the reason it was is what we would like to highlight.

It certainly appeared premature to do that.

For that the PJ was criticised because this time they seemed focused almost exclusively on the parents.

This time?

What was the other time? Need we answer it?

Maddie has become the yardstick used to measure anything related to criminal cases involving children.

Tia, Shannon, Mikaeel and now Daniel.

For the general public the PJ had called off the search for Daniel on Monday because it didn’t want to be fooled again and so this time they just focused on the parents.

This is very telling.

The perception that the public has about the McCanns is that they are guilty. Of what, they don’t exactly know. They know Maddie was not abducted and they know that Maddie is dead. They think that the McCanns are involved in both. In the lying about the abduction and in her death.

They think that the McCanns are protected by “the powerful” and that’s why they have escaped justice all this time.

But the biggest guilt the general public point towards the McCanns is that they have fooled the PJ, Portugal and the Portuguese.

Fooled in a very offensive way.

When the search for Daniel was called off, people thought that the PJ didn’t want to be fooled again by those people called… “parents”. So they had, according to the public perception, simply abandoned the searches on the terrain so they could focus entirely on Daniel’s “Gerry & Kate”.

Interesting to see how all arguments for the criticism were based on assuming as FACT that the McCanns were guilty and had fooled the PJ.

The “Maddie pressure” was and is a constant.

Maddie has completely benchmarked any and all issues related with missing children.

The silence from the couple from Rothley is inexplicable.

Here we have a carbon copy case of their own with the best possible outcome and the McCanns seemed to be distracted with things with similar importance as watching butterflies.

A blond child was taken from his home while the parents were in the backyard, well within a responsible parenting distance, having a meal. Sound familiar? It is.

That child was returned safely 3 days after.

It would be expected for the McCanns to, if not rejoice, feel vindicated for all that has been said about them faking the abduction.

Now was the time to rub that in all our faces, especially in those like ours who have for years proclaimed, in writing, the their guilt about lying about their daughter's fate.

Instead, they’re silent. Deafeningly silent. Their name being thrown about (in all Portuguese MSM) and them pretending that it’s nothing to do with them.

Their silence is understandable.

We will overlook the fact that Daniel’s responsible parenting distance was much shorter than Maddie’s.

We will overlook the fact that Daniel has 3 yr old blonde sister but it was him, about the same age as the McCann twins at the time, who was targeted.

The problem is that in Daniel’s case, all points very clearly to him being taken, while with Maddie all points, clearly again, that she wasn’t.

The McCanns cannot discuss details. The deepest they can go into that is to say only that Maddie is “missing”.

One important final note.

The main reason the person or people holding Daniel to have released him was the fact they realised that they couldn’t move the boy away from the island.

Daniel’s face became only really known in Madeira, much less so in Portugal’s mainland and Açores. If Daniel could have been moved away from Madeira and Portugal, he could have been easily integrated elsewhere.

But the airport and port were closely watched and monitored. That determined Daniel’s fate.

By calling off the search and so giving the possibility of Daniel NOT be killed, the PJ saved his life.

To those saying that Daniel’s case differs from Maddie’s in terms of location because Madeira is an island and Algarve isn’t, allow us to disagree.

With Maddie the whole world became an island. An island much smaller than Madeira.

Maddie’s face was very, very well known worldwide 3 days after she went missing. A lot better known than Daniel’s face ever was even in Madeira.

The MSM made sure of that. Maddie’s face and coloboma quickly became a worldwide icon, while with Daniel he was only a very vague “a blonde 18 month old boy”.

With Maddie, all “airports & ports” worldwide were closely watched and monitored. Every 4 yr old blonde little girl closely examined to see if they were Maddie.

Whatever pressure those holding Daniel felt, it wasn’t comparable with what would have been felt by anyone holding Maddie.

A live Maddie, that is.

A dead Maddie, as we know, was easily hidden away.



Post Scriptum (Sat Jan 25 10:00:00)

In the post above we have written that Daniel would have been returned to his parents, yesterday. He hasn't. He is still in Hospital.

We wrote that based on a Correia da Manhã news report, here.

We hesitated in including this in the post but opted to highlight that apparently the PJ was indeed looking at all possible avenues.

Meanwhile we have learned the boy remains in hospital. We have an opinion about it but will refrain to express it



Post-Post Scriptum (Sat Jan 25 11:40:00)

In the news piece from which we captured the screen-shots of current post, Mr Teixeira threw a stone to show where exactly he had found Daniel. From the images we formulated the opinion expressed in the post: the boy had been left in the pathway and made his way to the spot where he was found.

Since then Mr. Teixeira has walked with another TV crew from the pathway to where he found Daniel.

It's impossible for Daniel to have walked from the pathway to there on his own. There are tree trunks lying down which he could not overcome.

With this new piece of information our opinion has, evidently changed. He was not left on the pathway. We now believe that he was left on or near where dummy found. Just a few yards away from where he was found.

It's our opinion that whoever left him there, did it to avoid having Daniel fall into the levada and drown, trusting that his cries would be heard by either workers or tourists.


Post-Post-Post Scriptum (Mon Jan 27 12:55:00)

We have received and published the following comment:

"Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Daniel Abreu":

You are insane,
They screwed up, called off the search too early and now all their pathetic acolytes are scurrying like mice to retrofit a ridiculous story that it was a deliberate plan!!!
That child could and may well have found his own way there, an eminent paediatrician has confirmed he is suffering from exposure. Exactly what you would expect.
And now your glorious cops admit they took photos of Daniel and SOLD them.

Thank god for the levada men, thank god for the toughness and will to survive of the poor.

Posted by Anonymous to Textusa at 27 Jan 2014 10:59:00" 

The picture referred to in the comment is this one, shown yesterady on RTP:

We see absolutely nothing wrong with the taking of this picture. In fact, we find it very fortunate it was taken as it tells us much.

We obviously condemn the attempt, if proven, to make a profit out of it by the policeman. He alleges the money was destined to help Daniel's family.

It's an allegation if proven true should deserve full approval from the BH as it's exactly something that some people thought of doing, in a much bigger scale, more than 6 and half years ago relative to a case very similar to Daniel's.

This picture seems to have been taken very shortly after Daniel was found. It is taken outdoors and is before the boy was put in an ambulance to be taken to hospital.

The picture shows a perfectly healthy boy, who appears like to have just been found in a backyard after crawling out of a house via backdoor and not 3 days after he went missing.

According to Insane, this is what a cold, wet, exhausted, dehydrated, hungry and soiled 18 month old child looks like after having spent 3 nights and almost 3 days, outside in winter and alone:

John Rambo, you're just a sissy when compared to Daniel.

This picture also tells us very clearly that there was no sense of urgency in taking Daniel to the hospital. If was found cold, wet, exhausted, dehydrated, hungry and soiled, no one would stop a second to take a picture. The priority would be to rush him as quickly as possible to the nearest ambulance.

This also tells us that the excuse for Daniel not to have been released from Hospital due to "muscle fatigue" seems not to be, in our humble opinion, the real reason.

And it begs the question, why does it bother the BH so that Daniel was abducted and did not wander off by himself?