It is popularly believed that this sketch was produced by the Policia Judiciaria, from Jane Tanner's description, in
order to show around the residents of Praia da Luz, in support of a traditional house-to-house enquiry.
It was actually drawn by Simon Russell, a half English and half Portuguese man who runs a video store and internet
cafe in the town.
On Wednesday 09 May 2007, he is reported as saying that a group of four or five plain-clothes police came into his
shop, on the Saturday afternoon of 05 May 2007, and asked him if he had seen anything suspicious.
After asking him if he had seen anyone accessing suspicious websites, they took him into a back room away from the customers
and discreetly slipped out the crude image asking him if he recognised the person.
It is reported by the Timesonline that the image produced by the Policia Judiciaria was computer generated - not a hasty
sketch on a piece of old paper as Mr Russell's sketch would appear to imply.
He said: "They just showed me this outline which apparently gave me the impression that it had high cheekbones and a
long face but other than that, no eyes, no nose, no mouth, so I call it an egg, it was an egg with hair."
It should be remembered that the Portuguese secrecy laws are so strict, that all they were allowed to show potential
witnesses was a featureless face - literally a blank shape faced blob!
Russell then drew an impression of what he had seen for the press. That is the sketch that was published in the
media and has been reproduced here. The original Policia Judiciaria image has never been made public.
There are a number of important questions raised by this report:
How can we be sure that Russell's sketch bares any resemblance to the image produced by the Policia Judiciaria?
What are his memory and drawing skills like? If he'd been shown a picture of the Mona Lisa, would he, in fact, have produced
a very similar drawing to this?
Why did it take 4 or 5 plain-clothes officers to show one, reportedly 'crude', image? Were they really interested
in the sketch or were they there for a completely different reason?
Were they more interested in the internet cafe business? If so, why? Did they believe that someone, close to the
investigation, had been using the internet to access particular sites? Did they remove any computers to check which websites had
been searched - and by whom and when?
Did the plain-clothes officers know something already, possibly from CCTV footage? Did they know who had been in
the internet cafe but needed to know which computer they had used? Or did they ask Mr Russell if he remembered a specific
person using a specific computer to access the internet?
Rather than showing Mr Russell the 'eggman' sketch in the back room, did they instead show him pictures of the person
they suspected of accessing the internet from his cafe? Did they ask him when he had seen that person last and what computer
they had used?
It would seem extraordinary that the Policia Judiciaria would tie 4/5 plain-clothes officers up, in one place, on
what was ostensibly a routine house-to-house enquiry, asking 'Have you seen this man?'.
Were these really Portuguese officers or were they British officers from the Leicestershire police collecting evidence
for something they already knew had ocurred? Could they have, that day, collected the 'stand alone' piece of evidence that
was mentioned at one stage?
There is no doubt that Mr Russell would have been reminded of the secrecy laws, so was 'eggman' a cover? A piece of ludicrous,
throwaway nonsense to keep the press happy and divert attention away from the main goal that day?
If the inspiration for the sketch was not Jane Tanner, then where did it come from?
The answer to that question lays in the Portuguese resort of Sagres, 18 miles from Praia da Luz.
It was here that holidaymaker Nuno Lourenco spotted a man taking photographs, whilst he was sitting at a beach cafe
with his wife and two children. He became so concerned that he took a photograph of the man on his mobile phone but partly
covered the lens with his thumb by mistake.
It is this obscured picture that is believed to have been the inspiration behind the image the Policia Judiciaria
produced, that became known infamously as the 'eggman' or the 'egg with hair'.
Claus Montex sees the same man. "When the man was challenged he ran off, but he came back a bit later went back to the
beach and carried on taking photographs."
So, what do reports published at the time tell us about the incident that inspired such a memorable element of the case?
Aside from the usual host of contradictions, perhaps most interestingly, it is reported that the McCanns were on the
beach at Sagres that same day, 30 April 2007 - three days before Madeleine's disappearance. It is reported that an eye witness
has positively identified them.
However, and perhaps unsurprisingly in this case, this is contradicted by one of the reports, the Sunday Herald,
which states that the McCanns were on the beach that day but 20 miles away!
Another article suggests that Nuno is reported to have identified Madeleine as one of the girls photographed.
The sighting by Nuno Lourenco is also linked to the sighting of two men and a woman at the Galp service station, just
outside Praia da Luz, with a girl fitting Madeleine's description. Mr Lourenco is reported to have said, after viewing the
CCTV footage, that he is 100% certain the two people he saw were two of the three people at the garage.
It is also reported that these two people were identified by police as having rented a holiday apartment in the Solimar
complex at Burgau, 4 miles along the coast from Praia da Luz. Reports state a blonde woman with shoulder-length hair
and a 40-year old man with a middle-parted hair were seen on the balcony of their apartment having breakfast.
However, it is also reported that the apartment block mentioned was deserted and neighbours said they knew nothing about
it.
Timesonline report, 11 May 2007 (link)
Days before her abduction, a blonde woman was seen with a man who was taking photographs of young blonde girls in the
resort of Sagrès, about 20 miles from Praia da Luz.
When Nuno Lourenco, the father of one of the girls, aged 4, challenged the photographer, he fled in a car driven by a
woman. The car, a grey Renault Clio, was confirmed to have had false numberplates.
Mr Lourenco, who is married to a German with whom he also has a two-year-old son, used his mobile phone to take a photograph
of the man. This was used as the basis for the first computer-generated sketch of one of the suspected abductors.
Daily Mail report, 11 May 2007 (link)
'Holidaymaker Nuno Lourenco, who is from Sagres but now lives in Germany, was sitting at a cafe with his German wife
and their two children when he noticed a man taking pictures of his four-year-old blonde daughter and other children.
He became so concerned at his behaviour that he took his own picture of the man - who was balding with long hair at the
back - on his mobile phone.
The picture is believed to have inspired Portuguese detectives to produce their infamous "egg with hair" photofit of
a suspect with a blank face and side-parted hair.
It was also reported that police have identified two people caught on CCTV at a local petrol station as being a couple
renting a holiday apartment in the chocolate-box village of Burgau, four miles along the coast.
A blonde woman with shoulder-length hair and a man with middle-parted hair, both about 40, ate breakfast on their terrace
of the Solimar.
Apartments, according to the Portuguese press. However, the apartment block in question was deserted and neighbours said
they knew nothing about it.
Other holidaymakers were also interviewed, with two men and a woman being taken away still in their swimsuits from the
Mark Warner complex where Madeleine vanished on Thursday last week.
The reason for the urgency in not allowing them to get dressed was not clear, but they were not arrested and were being
interviewed as witnesses rather than suspects.'
*
Another part of the report states:
'The McCanns are believed to have visited Sagres -which is on the country's southwest tip and effectively the "Land's
End" of mainland Europe -on Monday, April 30.
A shopkeeper in the town said she remembered them well.
She said: "On the road into the town, Kate was holding Madeleine's hand. On the other side of the road was Gerry with
a baby buggy.
"I remember thinking it odd to see him with a baby buggy because I thought the little girl was too old to need one."
She said it was the same day as the stranger taking photographs, although other witnesses said that happened two days
later.'
- The obvious two questions to this statement are: If this was the McCanns, why were they walking apart on separate
sides of the road and where were the twins?
Daily Express, 11 May 2007 (link)
Maddy’s parents also faced the harrowing task yesterday of scanning CCTV film for a glimpse of their kidnapped
daughter.
Footage at a garage in Portugal captured an image of three suspects, including a woman, with a girl who matched
Maddy’s description. The camera also caught the car’s British number plate and the registration has been circulated
by Interpol and British police.
Kate and Gerry McCann were driven at speed from their holiday apartment to a police station in Portimao to help officers
examine the tapes after Mrs McCann again went to the local church to pray for her daughter.
Bill Henderson, the British
Consul in the Algarve, was seen leaving the police headquarters while Mr and Mrs McCann were still inside.
Two of the
three suspects in the CCTV footage that may show the missing girl have been identified by a man who claimed he caught them
photographing his own child two weeks ago.
The witness, Portuguese-born Nuno Lourenco who lives in Germany, said the
gang attempted to abduct his own young daughter.
He told detectives that he saw a man of English appearance photographing his daughter, described as strikingly similar
in appearance to Maddy, on April 30 in Sagres, a town just a few miles from the holiday complex where the McCann family was
staying.
The witness, who with his German wife has two children aged two and four, said he chased the man, who fled,
jumping into a car with a woman and another man before speeding off. Mr Lourenco is believed to have provided the authorities
with a photograph taken on his mobile phone.
The witness has told officers he was “100 per cent certain”
they were the same people caught on CCTV with the girl matching Maddy’s description hours after she went missing.
The description of the woman also matches that given by a witness who spotted someone acting suspiciously outside Madeleine’s
bedroom on the night of her disappearance. The CCTV footage from the garage shows a young girl with a blonde, middle-aged
woman and two men. The child apparently wanted to say something, which made staff suspicious.
Sunday Herald report, 12 May 2007 (link)
The CCTV images are being linked to eyewitness reports of a man and a woman taking photos of young children at a beach
not far from Luz in the days before Madeleine was abducted.
OnApril30,three days before Madeleine went missing, a Portuguese
holidaymaker, Nuno Lourenco, chased a man he had spotted taking photos of his four-year-old daughter at a beach near Sagres.
Lourenco took an obscured mobile phone photo of the man who fled in a car driven by a woman.
The McCann family were
on the beach, some 20 miles west of their resort, on the same day - an eerie coincidence that indicates to Portuguese police
that this was the co-ordinated kidnapping of a preselected child.
The Sun report, 12 May 2007 (link)
The McCann family are understood to have visited the resort of Sagres three days before Maddie, four, was taken.
While
they were there a Portuguese dad frightened off a man photographing his four-year-old daughter and other blonde kiddies on
the beach.
The dad, Numo Lourenco, says Maddie was one of the tots snapped.
Sagres is 15 miles from Praia da
Luz, where Maddie was snatched from her bed last week.
Numo tried to snap the mystery man with his mobile phone camera
? but partly covered the lens with his thumb by mistake.
He said the suspect drove off in a grey Renault Clio with
British plates.
Later he identified the man from CCTV footage shot at a petrol station near Praia da Luz on the night
Maddie vanished.
The security camera filmed two men and a blonde with a child matching Maddie’s description.
Their car also had UK plates.
Villagers in Burgau, three miles from Praia da Luz, said two of those in the CCTV footage
were a British couple who stayed at the local Solimar apartments ? a man and a blonde woman.
The Telegraph, 12 May 2007 (link)
Detectives are working on the theory that the abductors may have seen Madeleine in Sagres and tracked her back to the
family apartment in Praia da Luz, 18 miles away.
A witness, Nuno Lorenco, said he saw a man following his family down
the beach and taking "discreet" photographs. He said he challenged the man, who fled with a blonde woman in a Renault Clio.
Khaleej Times, 15 May 2007 (link)
The investigation has
suffered a setback however with police ruling out the prime suspects they had been seeking for four days. Detectives had been
looking for a blonde woman and two men seen at a motorway service station with a girl similar to Madeleine.
This
trio, caught on CCTV, along with a suspected paedophile seen taking pictures of children on a beach, have now been discounted,
said Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa. He added that his officers did not have a single suspect in the 11-day-old case.
According
to Portuguese newspapers, police sources believe the "key" to the mystery lies with ten witnesses - including the McCanns
- who have been questioned over the past week.
