It’s been 16 years since three-year-old Madeleine McCann was snatched from her bed at an Algarve holiday resort.
For more than a decade, her anguished parents Gerry and Kate have waited in vain for any news – any clue – that their little girl is somehow alive after all this time.
And there have been moments – when police named suspects or members of the public had reported potential sightings – where they allowed themselves to think there was a chance they might have some answers.
But none of the tip-offs have turned out to be correct and the main suspect in the case, convicted rapist Christian Brueckner, has still not been charged in connection with Madeleine’s disappearance.
It has been a case filled with false starts and false hopes, with thousands of bogus sightings of Madeleine from Dorset to as far away as New Zealand.
And with the latest three-day search for Madeleine at a reservoir in Portugal resulting in a ‘relevant clue’ being found following a tip-off from one of Brueckner’s former friends, her parents once again face months of agony as they wait for the results.
Here, MailOnline takes a look at the key moments in Madeleine’s case that promised to turn the investigation on its head – but to no avail.
It’s been 16 years since three-year-old Madeleine McCann was snatched from her bed at an Algarve holiday resort
For more than a decade, her anguished parents Gerry and Kate (pictured together in 2017) have waited in vain for any news – any clue – that their little girl is somehow alive after all this time
May 2007: Madeleine disappears from her room
Madeleine was on holiday with her parents in Praia de Luz in Portugal when she disappeared just days before her fourth birthday.
On the night of May 3, her parents put her to bed with her two younger twin siblings, Sean and Amelie, before going out for dinner with friends nearby.
The group had organised a rotation to check up on the children every 30 minutes. At 9pm the children were there. At 9:30pm one of the friends found a door wide open. And it was around 10pm that Madeleine’s mother Kate found her daughter’s bed empty.
Police, friends and resort staff helped in searching the area. Days turned into months and hundreds of police officers were called in to support the search – without luck.
A huge publicity campaign led by the family, and with contributions from the likes of J.K. Rowling, leads to the naming of first suspects.
September 2007: Portuguese police astonishingly name Gerry and Kate McCann as suspects
Four months after their daughter’s disappearance, grief-stricken Gerry and Kate McCann were named as suspects in the case and endured hours of gruelling interrogations.
Portuguese detectives had claimed they had found incriminating DNA evidence in the family’s holiday apartment and, crucially, the boot of their hire car which they rented 25 days after Madeleine vanished.
British scientists had already warned the Portuguese that the forensic evidence was far from conclusive and the DNA could have come from almost anyone.
And it was later revealed that the police had tried to force a confession from Gerry by confronting him with the false DNA ‘evidence’.
Four months after their daughter’s disappearance, grief-stricken Gerry and Kate McCann (pictured in Portugal on May 17, 2007 with their twins) were named as suspects in the case and enduring hours of gruelling interrogations
Kate was subjected to an 11-hour interview in which she faced a barrage of questions about the DNA evidence, her relationship with Madeleine and whether she ever sedated her children to make them sleep.
The Leicestershire GP angrily refused to answer a total of 48 questions.
Her husband, in an eight-hour interrogation, had to deny police suggestions that his wife suffered from depression and had wanted to give Madeleine to relatives to look after because she could not cope.
Police even asked him if the couple had taken out life insurance on three-year-old Madeleine.
Gerry said in a Spanish TV interview that October that he was ‘confident’ the couple would be ‘eliminated’ from inquiries. ‘I’m confident of that, because we have done nothing,’ he said.
