Missing Madeleine

Two theories of a crime:

Clint Van Zandt: This is a mystery within a mystery right now.

Madeleine is either abducted from her bed by person or persons unknown, or her parents kill her and then somehow dispose of her body.

In both theories there's a problem with the clock, the timing almost impossibly tight.

Clint Van Zandt: My challenge is this very small window of opportunity...

Take another look: the McCann family's apartment -- the large open pool and patio -- and the restaurant over here where the McCann friends are gathered outside.

Gerry McCann says he made the short walk to check on Madeleine and the twins at about 9:00pm.

Another member of the dinner party reportedly stops to listen at the McCann door while he's up from the table about 9:30.

At ten o'clock, when Kate McCann checks on the kids, Madeleine is gone.

Dennis Murphy: As an investigator, what's the problem for you with the abductor theory?

Van Zandt: The abductor was either awful lucky or he, or they, had really planned this. It was like, you know, 'OK, we're going to set our watches. It's 9:32. Go!'

The abductor presumably would have had to watch for several nights, monitoring the parents' dinner routine. Still it was a risky grab.

Van Zandt: All the surveillances, all the stalking, would have still left them with probably no more than an hour, a half hour, window of opportunity to get in, steal that child, be gone and never be seen again.

Likewise, for the parents to have killed their child and hidden her body, Van Zandt points to another narrow window of opportunity: from 6:00pm, when Madeleine is last seen apparently by hotel staff, to 10:00pm, when her mother shrieks that her child is gone.

A brief window, says Van Zandt, and a ludicrous series of suppositions.

Van Zandt: We'll say, 'OK cops, you're right' they gave her a sedative. She expired. The parents said, 'Oh my God we'll try to bring her back to life, we can't do it. We're supposed to be at dinner tonight. We've got our other two kids. Okay. We're cool. We'll put our other two kids down asleep. Now we have to conceal the body somewhere in 10, 15, 20 minutes where that body cannot be found in this massive search effort that's going to take place.

Dennis Murphy: You're trained to look at body language: what do you see in the McCanns?

Van Zandt: You know, I’ve watched the McCanns. I've watched where Gerry was being interviewed and Kate was sitting next to him listening to him tell his story, and I was really watching her. Show me some eye movement. Show me body language. But they've been able to keep their story pretty well wired together. Neither one has broke down. Neither one has given any indication.

Murphy: There are difficulties with both theories?

Van Zandt: Absolutely. But what I’m looking for is the physical evidence that'll link an offender or the McCanns to the disappearance and or death of their child. That's what I’ve not seen.

And in Portugal by mid-September, a judge was saying almost those very words to the police. Their case against the McCanns was collapsing before their eyes.

The supposed DNA in the rental car now more ambiguous and less damning.

Traces of blood in the apartment not from Madeleine.

And a mother's diary about an active child and a sometimes less-than-helpful husband, were words that could have been written by millions of women around the world.

It had all come back to May 3 at 10:00pm.

Madeleine was missing and no one had a clue.

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