Person of Interest

UPDATE (23May2014 09:00):

We inform our readers that we will be keeping this post for another week.

The reason is we want to be inconvenient. Very inconvenient. We think it is inconvenient because we think it is an important piece of the puzzle.

To those who we are not inconveniencing, we hope you understand our decision.

********************

BLUF: The fact that PJ considers Euclides Monteiro a person of interest to the Maddie case means PJ is looking into Ocean Club, or some of its personnel, as active participants.


Who is Euclides Monteiro?

And the answer is: nobody.

And that, dear readers, is of the utmost importance and we hope to show you how really important is this fact that Euclides is simply a nobody.

Let’s get our facts straight about what we know about Euclides.

He’s a Cape Verdean. He’s slim, tall and black.

He liked to write poems.

He worked for the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz and was fired/left about 6 months before 03May07, the night Maddie departed. It is not clear the motives as to why he left the resort as it seems to us that the theft of 5€, as it’s reported, not to be sufficient enough. But we won’t question that as it’s perfectly irrelevant. What is important is that on the night of 03May07 he was not an Ocean Club employee.

On that same night of 03May07, according to his widow, he was home, at a distance of around 2 Km (in a straight line) from the resort. That night, again according to his widow, he saved a poem on his computer at 21H00.

He had a criminal record for petty theft and burglaries. For that he served prison time. He was pardoned by Portugal's President Jorge Sampaio in 1996.

He had a drug-addition problem. Not clear if after his prison time this problem persisted. Widow does say he had no drug problem after coming out of prison.

He died in a tragic tractor accident in 2009. This fact has led him to be known as Tractorman.

These are the facts.

There are things, although we have been told, we don’t know. For example, we don’t know where Euclides/Tractorman died. Initially we were told by SOL, 01Nov13, that it was in Bragança but recently we have been told by Brendan De Beer in Portugal News Online, that Euclides “died in a tractor accident on a golf course in Lagos, near Luz, back in 2009”.

There are three golf courses that can be considered near Luz: Onyria Palmares Beach & Golf Resort, Boavista Golf & Spa Resort and Parque da Floresta.  

Quinta da Boavista, where Euclides is reported to have worked there in 2008 is the nearest to Luz so more likely to be the one where it is now alleged for him to have had the fatal tractor accident.

A golf course is a very unlikely place for a tractor accident. In Bragança, in Northeast Portugal where Euclides initialy resided when he first arrived in Portugal from Cape Verde, would unfortunately be common.

A fatal tractor accident in a golf course in the Algarve would have been news.

One important fact about Tractorman is that he hit the stands from the Portuguese side of things. It was the Portuguese media who first spoke of him, revealing his identity to the public by saying that PJ had linked him to the Maddie case.

Euclides, as far as we know, is the only “Maddie suspect” originating from the Portuguese media.

He appeared in the Portuguese media in early November 2013 after UK CW and before the CMTV’s Maddie special.

We were all baffled. We asked ourselves what on earth could this man, this nobody, possibly have to do with Maddie? Absolutely nothing, we all said. There simply was no reasonable linkage between the two.

It was said that he PJ considered him a person of interest to the case due to his cell phone use.

If one recalls, SY started to say that it had 3,000+ records of cell phone calls on that night in Praia da Luz.

Then, out of these 3,000+ calls, it elected 3 numbers, of what was to become the very brief notoriety of the 3 Burglars, who, apparently were said to have been 3 Ocean Club workers if we’re not mistaken.

And then out came Euclides’ name. A former Ocean Club worker. Almost the logical conclusion of 3,000+ phone calls – 3 Burglars – 3 Ocean Club workers – 1 Ocean Club worker: Euclides Monteiro.

But Euclides stands out like a sore thumb in this logic: he’s the only one named from Portugal while all other come from Britain.

Portugal reopened case because of Euclides’ phone pings. Apparently that was the reason.

Apparently, again, he had used his cell phone near the Apartment 5A on that night.

All, including us, thought that to be ridiculous. With the actual GPS technology on smartphones, a cell phone can have, we suppose, its location pinpointed. However, the technology available then simply reported whatever retransmission antenna the cell phone activated.

Red - triangulation (live tracking) / Green - intersection

If a cell phone activated more than one antenna than a triangulation was possible to be obtained but only if one was doing live tracking of the call. To do that, one has to know beforehand what number to track.

If the number wasn't tracked live, then the best that is able to be obtained is a general area by intersecting the ranges of all antennae the cell phone activated.

Antennae do not register the azimuths of calls and to do a trilateration one needs at least 3 azimuths.

To be able to know where Euclides had used his phone, he would have to have been a person of interest to the authorities that night. As far as we know, he wasn’t. Not that night.

All that could then be determined from phone pings as to where Euclides used his cell phone would be a general location around Praia da Luz. Or as SOL, 01Nov13, stated “according to the news, the Oporto PJ would have arrived to the former employee through the triangulation of cell phone signals which were activated in the night of May 3, 2007 in the area of the tourist resort, and they would have understood that the suspect was in the vicinity in the night when Maddie disappeared.”

He could have been next to Maddie when he used it or he could have been sitting comfortably in his living-room in his home, watching TV or writing poems.

Vicinity is vicinity and on RTP his widow stated clealy that he was in his house with her.

He could have been anywhere in the range of the antenna his cell phone activated, and like him, there were certainly hundreds of other “nobodies” within it too.

So, we like you, racked our brains to understand why on earth Euclides’ name had popped up by the hand of the Portuguese press.

Unlike the British press, namely the tabloids, the Portuguese press is not prone to throwing names about. The Portuguese by nature are very respectful of the individual's privacy.

So there had to be a reason for the Portuguese press to report Euclides as linked to the case and that reason could only be one: the PJ had indeed found Euclides to be a person of interest to the case.

But why? Why did a nobody become a person of interest in the most globalised crime ever?

With time one thing struck us as odd: Monteiro’s name just wouldn’t go away. And that happened with a twist. On close analysis, the British press, after the initial news surge about him, have never linked Tractorman to any subsequent story put out by SY. In reality or allegedly.

In fact, they have been careful to say that Euclides is a suspect only to the PJ, not SY.

When SY presented Binman to the world, and his exclusive Super-Bock shirt which we all mistook for an Arsenal FC jersey, it ran a parallel campaign “dropping” Monteiro as a suspect and saying that he was only a person of interest to PJ.

All the linking made between Euclides and Binman or with the updated version, SuperBockman, has been done on the internet or only by the Portuguese MSM.

Didn't the Brit press report that SY was suspicious about an evil gang of 28? Why not include Euclides in this list? Why shy away from him?

SY was trying to get rid of all suspicions surrounding Monteiro but the Portuguese MSM didn't let him go.

Sandra Felgueiras' RTP's Sexta às 9 of 02May14, even went to the point of saying “PJ já tinha interrogado Euclides por abuso sexual de menores em 2008” which translates into “PJ had already questioned Euclides for sexual abuse of minors in 2008”.

Although in the entire report this suspicion is only mentioned in this caption, it is right up the alley of the latest sex-assault craze launched by SY.

But did the British press pick this up? No.

Why didn't it fill its headlines with “Maddie's Tractorman Suspect of Sex-Assaults on Minors”?

On the contrary, they went out to show how innocent Euclides is.

On 03May14, Mail online says: “Madeleine McCann suspect Euclides Monteiro was quizzed about a string of sex assaults linked to her disappearance before he died, his widow revealed last night.
Luisa Rodrigues said Portuguese police investigating Madeleine’s abduction questioned the convicted burglar about a spate of sex attacks at Algarve holiday villas in 2008, the year after the three-year-old vanished.
She claimed DNA tests had put the recovering heroin addict, a former worker at the Ocean Club holiday complex in Praia da Luz that Madeleine vanished from seven years ago yesterday, in the clear.”

On 09May14, 7 days after Sandra Felgueira's program aired and only after the massive public humiliating blunder that was the “let’s-dig-up-PdL-up-from-the-sky-with-a-helicopter”, Euclides was mentioned by the British press, in the Mirror.

A single paragraph clarifying how innocent Euclides is.

In an article about how the the Met is looking into a British Paedo ring, in which the names of Britons Raymond Hewlett and Roderick Robinson were brought up in the middle of SY wanting to interview “eight people of varying nationality, including an intruder linked to a spate of sex attacks there” (meaning they know who the intruder is), the Mirror had this to say about Euclides: “Porto-based detectives who led a cold case review into the seven year old mystery which led them to dead former Ocean Club worker Euclides Monteiro, are said to have concluded there is no evidence the Algarve sex attacker snatched Maddie.”

British sex-attackers become immediate suspects in the Maddie case simply because they have a criminal record and its deemed perfectly reasonable to expose them publicly and link them to the case just because they happened to have been within a 100 mile radius of PdL. It's completely irrelevant to the British media that PJ has not considered either as being of interest to the case.

And then there's the eight yet unnamed other people who may be linked to a paedo ring in the Algarve and who SY wants to talk to. Again, irrelevant if PJ has not considered any of them to be of interest to the case.

For the British media, PJ's opinion matters only when it comes to Euclides. Euclides is to be left alone because PJ has concluded there is no evidence that links him to Maddie.

But who says PJ has found no evidence linking Euclides to Maddie?

And why leave Euclides alone but continue to persecute Hewlett? Has far as we know, PJ also found no evidence linking him to Maddie.

But the day after Mirror published that article, the Portuguese press responded in kind. On 10May07, Correio da Manhã subtly but effectively keeps Euclides in the public's eye by reminding all that it was because of him that the process was reopened in Portugal: “after the process of the disappearance of the child was reopened based on the similarity with five cases of children allegedly victim of abuse – and in which Euclides Monteiro, meanwhile deceased, appeared as main suspect – the authorities now believe that Maddie’s disappearance was a single case.”

The British press doing it's best to minimise Euclides’ relevance in the case and the Portuguese press insisting in highlighting it.

The McCanns, if you remember, dismissed from the start the story as speculation and didn't want to comment.

It became very evident that it is not in the interest of UK to speak about Euclides the Tractorman.

That told us that Euclides must really be an IMPORTANT piece of the puzzle. There had to be a reason for the British not wanting to divert any attention his way. Could it be just a racial issue? Having, like we said, a black patsy would be going a little too far in terms of the politically correct?

The tolerant Portuguese MSM didn’t seem to give much importance to that. His name just kept appearing.

Then Monteiro’s widow showed us an essential piece in Euclides' puzzle: she didn’t show her face during Felgueira’s RTP’s Sexta às 9.

One only doesn’t show one’s face on TV because one is afraid. And with an alias for a name.

Euclides’ sister is not afraid to show her face.

Someone defending someone else’s honour and innocence should not be afraid to show their faces. Especially about a nobody and Euclides was simply that.

To defend the innocence of an innocent only shows nobility, friendship and loyalty.

If there's no reason for Euclides to have been singled out then we see no reason to hide one's face in fear when defending him and see many to show it openly and proudly just like his sister does as well as everyone else who speaks about him in the report. All except his widow.

On 02Nov13, she didn't seem to be afraid to pose or reveal her name and face on the Mirror online article of : “Madeleine McCann key suspect was heroin addict who burgled holiday flats to get fix” and nor again in February this year on the Huffington Post online article “Madeleine McCann News: Luisa Rodrigues, Widow Of Dead Suspect Euclides Lopes Monteiro Insists He Is Innocent” (17Feb14).

So what has changed since then? Well, we did have SY's “Bin-Super-Bockman” in March and “18-sex-assault-spree” in April.

So what could Euclides’ widow now be afraid of? That PJ is to lock her up for publicly defending her deceased spouse? What other reprisals can there be if Euclides has nothing to do with the case?

She said she had lost her job because of this. So she’s known to whom matters in the job world who may “fire” her again but that can't be a real fear as the remainder job providers in the market do not remember the face of a nobody who has appeared in a report talking about a nobody.

So, for us, Euclides is indeed a person of interest to the PJ. In our opinion, not a patsy but someone with some sort of connection to the case.

So first we had to determine why PJ had made a connection between Euclides Monteiro and the Maddie case.

The answer, in our opinion, was given by the press: his cell phone.

Not by triangulation, which would be absolutely ridiculous but by calls made and received by him that night.

Let us make a parallel with another known character in this affair: Malinka.

Why was  Malinka considered a person of interest for this case? Because PJ determined that Murat called him late night on 03May07. Murat, a person of interest, calling Malinka at odd hours on the night in question made him a person of interest also.

That simple.

From then on, all Malinka’s phone records were of the interest to the case.

Malinka, by the way, another nobody.

So imagine that records do show that a phone number of a person of interest called Euclides’ number that night. At late hours.

Imagine that it’s on record that Euclides received or made various calls that night from and to numbers of people of interest.

That would make Euclides a person of interest to the case.

But let’s continue, let’s presume that our imagination is right this far.

Let’s list all possible people of interest to the case who may have called him that night.

We can only see the following: one of the T9, Murat, Malinka, an ex-Pat or someone from the Ocean Club, management, a worker, such as a receptionist or an Ocean Club worker who had Euclides’s number

Anyone else, for example a local friend, would not fire up a red flag on Euclides and make him to the PJ a person of interest.

And this is where the fact that Euclides was a nobody is very, very important.

Only the Ocean Club management and possibly an Ocean Club worker friend would have his number. Not seeing any reason for any of the T9, Murat, Malinka or an ex-Pat to have the number of Euclides, a nobody.

And why would Ocean Club management, or the hypothetical Ocean Club worker friend, call him late that night? Weren’t all Ocean Club’s available hands engaged in searching the area for Maddie?

Why call a nobody who wasn't their employee on such an eventful night?

If Euclides did receive and make calls from and to people of interest to the case we are sure that PJ is very much interested in knowing why.

If we say he became a person of interest to the PJ because of calls received and made that night with a person of interest in the case, we obviously don’t think Euclides had anything to do with Maddie’s death. We think he was simply an innocent middleman

The most important thing about Euclides being considered a person of interest to the case is not, obviously, Euclides.

As we said, for him to be considered a person of interest means that someone who the PJ already considered a person of interest called him.

Someone, who is considered a person of interest by the PJ but isn't any of the T9, Murat ou Malinka.

See how important to the case Euclides is after all?

We could not but note the following:

SOL mentions Euclides worked at Quinta da Boavista in 2008.

Euclides was said initially to have died in North, now likely to have been in Quinta da Boavista. Why call attention to this golf course now?

Quinta da Boavista has links to Ocean Club and has strong links to John Geraghty

Geraghty got church keys and stored the hire car and returned it to hire company.

But if Euclides is a person of interest to the PJ because he received a call at odd hours that night, who could have called him?

We know Euclides, within the Ocean Club, worked at the Millenium.

Could it have been been Virginia Monteiro? Virginia, like Euclides, is Cape Verdean and shares with him the surname and work place. Virginia is a Millenium’s kitchen worker and married. We don't know if they're related in any way, just pointing out the coincidences.

It could have been Nelson Rodrigues? Nelson, a barman and waiter at the Ocean Club for two years, who worked alongside Monteiro in 2006.

Nelson is the same “former Ocean Club worker” who on 31Jan14 “told Sky News, told Sky News Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt that employees at the complex would have had the perfect opportunity to snatch a child.”  

Nelson Rodrigues shares the surname with Euclides’ widow, Luisa Rodrigues, but Rodrigues is a very common surname in Portugal. Again, we don't know if they're any relationship between them, just pointing out the coincidence.

We know by Nelson that he searched for Maddie until 05H00. He apparently searched one hour after the McCanns stopped their search at 04H00: “He heard about the child's disappearance on Thursday night. Shortly after he heard the news, a Mark Warner tennis instructor arrived at the Millenium and they went to search for the child together by the swimming pool and tennis courts. As they did not find Madeleine he phoned Luis de Barros, the head waiter who was on his day off to inform him. The latter arrived shortly afterwards and together they searched until about 05.00 AM.”

His girlfriend Alice Silvestre, says, “she knows about the facts being investigated through her boyfriend Nelson Rodrigues who works as a barman at the OC and who phoned her at about 23.00/23.30 on 3rd May telling her that he would be home late as a girl was missing and he was helping to look for her. Her boyfriend arrived home at 04.00 the following day.”

According to her, Nelson arrives home at 04H00. For that to happen we would say he could only have searched until 03H00 at the latest. A 2 hour discrepancy on a critical night. A night all remember its details to the finest.

From these statements we get to know he made two phone calls. One to Luis de Barros, the head waiter and we suppose his direct boss, and the other to his girlfriend. Neither were in the resort at the time of the calls. The first in a restaurant with his family and the other home.

Luis de Barros confirms (and also confirms the search until 05H00) but clarifies that the call came from the resort’s fixed line phone: “he was dining with his wife, son and friends in a restaurant in P da L, before 24.00 he received a call to his mobile from the fixed network phone in the Millenium restaurant, informing him about the disappearance.
It was his colleague Nelson who contacted. He was not asked anything in particular, just informed, however he felt that he should go to the resort, which he did immediately, making himself available for whatever was needed. He remembered that there was great panic amongst all the people looking for Madeleine. He helped search, remaining at the OC until 05.00, searching the entire resort.” 

David dos Santos waiter at the Millenium says “Concerning the events being investigated, when he was working his normal shift from 16.00 to 24.00 an individual, tall and of British nationality, appeared in the restaurant at about 22.30/22.45, who asked him whether he had seen a little girl who had disappeared, describing her as blonde and three years old and that she was probably wearing pyjamas.” 

Gustavo Campos confirms the time the alarm reached Millenium “When questioned, he says that when the events occurred he was working in the restaurant and heard about the disappearance at about 22.30 - 23.00 from a Mark Warner employee (he doesn't know his name, but he is of English nationality) who, at that moment asked to use a telephone in the bar to make a call as he had received information about the disappearance of the girl on his mobile.”

According to Nelson, David and Gustavo news of the disappearance reaches the Millenium at 22H30/23H00 via a tennis instructor.  

Wouldn't have been more logical to have used phones instead of sending someone to go to the Millenium and warn that a child was missing? It wasn't overnight that the resort became spread all over PdL so we're assuming that the most used means of communication between the various areas would have been the phone.

Logic would dictate that once aware of the disappearance and the search plan activated, calls would be made to the various areas of the resort where personnel would be available to help: Reception, Millenium and Adult pool.

In the case of the Millenium it would be expected it would be ordered to reduce all services to the minimum possible - even close for the night as due to the late hour little or no further clients would be expected - and have all availabe help head down to the Tapas area so they could help the search starting from there, where the little girl had gone missing.

Apparently that wasn't the case. Nelson and the tennis instructor went on to search the Millenium premises. It doesn't seem to be that large of a place especially taking into account it's a one entrance/exit only place.

A 4 yr old would have had to exit the apartment, walked the long and tortuous path uphill which she had only walked once 5 nights before and about which her parents had so much complained, enter the restaurant unnoticed and access the pool area or tennis courts all by herself.

But however unlikely that may seem to have happened to anyone, they apparently searched the premises thoroughly (something which we fail to see having been done similarly by the Tapas staff at the Tapas premises much more near to the disappearance).

And they searched it quite well, for almost an hour and a half, because only around midnight was Barros called - which was after the search - and the call is from the Millenium. 

Barros had to pay, say goodbye to his family and friends, leave the restaurant and head for the Millenium where, it seems, Nelson was waiting for him.

At midnight Gustavo becomes also part of Nelson’s search party: “when his shift ended he joined in the searched with his colleague Nelson. He searched until 03.00 AM.” Around about the time Nelson's girlfriend implies Nelson did search.

Being Barros the head waiter, one would expect for him to take leadership but from these statements it is Nelson who appears to have taken some sort leadership role that night.

Barros remembers the group who ate breakfast EVERY DAY at the Mill, but he didn’t serve them. He also says that it was his boss Steve (Cova) who authorised Tapas Dinners - only 20 provided (Kate says 15 in her book) so they could be close to the children.

Why are we picking on Nelson?

We aren’t. He seems to be the person in Ocean Club who best knows Euclides. It’s he who tells the media that he worked with Euclides in 2006 and that he was a drug addict and thief who stole from apartments.

Doesn’t seem to us Euclides is the kind a person Nelson would call in the middle of the night to help out in the search. Doesn't seem to have a great opinion about his work mate.

And if he did call Euclides, for whatever reason, then why had the PJ to find out from records? Why didn't he just say so when he made his statement?

And wouldn't Euclides’s widow notice that call? He spent, according to her, the night writing poems.

So who could have called Euclides?

We don't know but does it really matter? No, it doesn’t.

What matters is that PJ considers of interest to the case a call to Euclides that night. And because of that call, PJ is likely to consider also of interest other calls he made and received that night. That is what matters and what is important.

To consider that initial call of interest it means that PJ already considered whoever made it to be a person of interest. We don't know who it is but we're sure PJ does.

It makes sense that the case would not be reopened just because Euclides made phone calls that night, as many people would be doing so, unaware of the drama. He had to be making calls to somebody else the PJ considered relevant (the basis of the 3 Burglars episode?).

His criminal record would be investigated and nothing relevant to sex crimes of any sort. So not seen as the abductor, although earlier press articles about him say PJ looking for where he buried her.

So apparently PJ was linking him to Maddie directly at this point.

So who has PJ considered as person of interest and who would make Euclides also one? Is it Virginia Monteiro? Or is it Nelson Rodrigues? Or is it someone else from the Ocean Club?

Irrelevant isn't it? What matters is the fact that PJ seems to be subscribing to some of our theories, doesn't it? After all, aren’t we the only ones saying that the Ocean Club is actively involved?

It seems that PJ has joined us. And not recently but at least since it has reopened the case. Or already back in 2007 as we showed you in our “Why Swing?” post (04Apr14).

We hope you now understand now how great a desperation is SY in to be able know what REALLY is PJ investigating. And why it will do all it can, independent of shame or pride, to know. To get inside that investigation.

That’s what Euclides, indeed a nobody, represents to this case.

To sum up, if you don’t believe, like we don’t, that mobile phone providers do not have azimuth information for all the calls from each of their antennae and if you believe, like we do, that Euclides Monteiro is indeed for the PJ a person of interest to the case, then you have to believe, like we do, that PJ thinks that the Ocean Club is involved and is doing something about it.

And that is scaring the living hell out of Britain.

But what do we know? As our critics would and will certainly say.




ADDENDUM:

Early chronology of Euclides in the media:

25Oct2013:

CdM – Maddie case reopened 

 

26Oct2013:

CdM – PJ analyses phone signals on Maddie’s case 

29Oct2013:

CdM – PJ looks again for Maddies’ body 

30Oct13:

CdM (01H00) – PJ investigates dead suspect lead

(first time, although completely unidentified, Euclides is referred to)

ITV – McCanns: Hotel worker reports are 'pure speculation

Mirror (11H25) – Madeleine McCann 'kidnapper' was 'hotel worker who snatched her after being sacked then DIED in tractor accident'
(article also says PJ planning to reinterview several Ocean Club employees)


31Oct2013:

CdM – Suspect of kidnapping Maddie received pardon from Jorge Sampaio 

Mirror – Madeleine McCann kidnapping suspect 'had received a presidential pardon after theft conviction 

01Nov2013:

Daily Star – Madeleine McCann suspect was a known criminal

(first time fully named as Euclides Monteiro)

CdM – Profile leads PJ to Maddiés kidnapper

(not identified) 

SOL – Widow contradicts PJ

(first time named in Portugal but only by “Monteiro”)

02Nov2013:

CdM – Suspect of Maddie’s kidnap fired for theft

(referred to as immigrant)

CdM – Maddie’s kidnap suspect stole five euros from OceanClub

 (referred to as immigrant)

Mirror – Madeleine McCann key suspect was heroin addict who burgled holiday flats to get fix

(fully named and widow, Luisa Rodrigues, appears claiming Euclides is a scapegoat) 

04Nov2013:

DailyStar – Maddie suspect 'was not at the resort that night

(full name appears)

05Nov2013:

CdM – Maddie case: Sister says suspect is a “patsy”

(full name in Portuguese media – sister speaks out)