Sorry it took so long to approve, this thread kind of slipped under the radar. Anyway, here's an update of sorts:
Police in Portugal probing the disappearance of Madeleine McCann on Friday called off their searches of an area of scrubland in the south of the country identified in a letter as the place where the body of the four-year-old British girl could be found.
"The clue has been ruled out due to a lack of evidence," the officer leading the case, Olegario de Sousa, told the Lusa news agency, adding police would continue investigating other leads.
Police with sniffer dogs searched the area, located about 15km from the seaside town of Praia da Luz where the little girl vanished on May 3, for several hours earlier on Friday.
The roughly 20-square-km area, which includes the villages of Arao and Odiaxere, was pinpointed in a letter accompanied by a map sent to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf and passed on to Portuguese police.
The author of the letter, which the newspaper said Wednesday it had received, claims the girl's body is hidden "under trees and rocks, five or six metres from the road", in barren ground.
Police carried out a preliminary sweep of the area on Wednesday but only began its formal searches of the land on Friday morning.
The officer leading the case, Olegario de Sousa, said Thursday that the contents of the letter were imprecise about the location where the body was allegedly hidden and he warned the search would take time.
While police were absent from the area on Thursday, several journalists, mostly from Britain, have combed the region, some with sniffer dogs they had hired to carry out their own search.
De Sousa warned the press that their actions could destroy evidence. The blades of helicopters used by television channels to capture images could mix up the scents and complicate the work of police sniffer dogs, he said.
Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, criticised the Dutch newspaper on Thursday for publishing the details of the letter before police had a chance to investigate.
"We feel strongly that this was an irresponsible piece of journalism and even if it were true is insensitive and cruel," Gerry wrote on a website devoted to the search for his daughter.
On Friday he added: "Six weeks since Madeleine disappeared. We believe Madeleine is alive and I am glad to say that following yesterday's letter in the Telegraaf (Netherlands) there has been no evidence that Madeleine is in the area indicated."
Madeleine vanished from the hotel room where she and her two-year-old twin siblings were sleeping in the southern resort town of Praia da Luz while her parents were dining at a nearby restaurant.
The McCanns have launched an international campaign to find their daughter which has drawn the support of celebrities including soccer star David Beckham and Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
Gerry McCann said that he and his wife, who have visited a number of countries and met Pope Benedict XVI, "spend most of the day updating each other and discussing future campaign ideas." - AFP
Source
The whole ordeal is terrible. People were accusing her
parents a few days ago, which I find distasteful to say the least. I hope she's found soon, alive.