On May 3, nine days before her fourth birthday, Madeleine McCann, a British girl on vacation with her parents in Portugal, disappeared. She hasn't been found in more than four months despite one of the most intensive and far-flung missing-person searches in history. This past spring and summer, Europe and much of the rest of the globe became fixated on the disappearance, which carries both the international breadth of the Diana tragedy and the hypersentimental, at times prurient fascination that Americans brought to the unsolved case of another little blond girl, JonBenét Ramsey.The Pope and even bigger global celebrities--David Beckham and J.K. Rowling among them--have taken an interest in the search for Madeleine. People around the world have given more than $2 million to a private investigative fund begun by Drs. Kate Healy McCann and Gerry McCann, Madeleine's parents. Yet many Americans have only a vague sense of Madeleine's case and why it has mesmerized so many for so long. Only in the past few days, when it emerged that her parents might be charged with accidentally killing her, has Madeleine's image begun to appear with regularity in the U.S. media.
On September 7, Portuguese authorities named both parents as suspects and within a brief amount of time Kate McCann's (mother of Madeline) personal diary entries were being examined by Portuguese investigators as well as being quoted online in the court of public opinion.
I literally cringed upon reading the first online heading:
Kate McCann's diary 'tells of struggle to control Madeleine'
Look, I'm an ocean (or two) away from the all the details and I'm not about to purport to know what's-what when it comes to the investigation of this yet another horror story of loss and every parents nightmare. All I know is gleaned from what I read in online news articles and what I hear on television.Clearly, the facts of the case are for the authorities to settle. However, I literally cringe upon consideration of a mother's personal journal/diary musings being copied, printed, and quoted for public consumption--especially given the fact that up until this moment, Kate McCann has not been officially charged with specific crimes against her daughter. Nor have these diary documents been presented against her in an official court of law. No, her words were filed away in the confines of her journal; read and copied by authorities; and then leaked to journalists.
Can you even begin to imagine YOUR journal entries made during the frustrating, weary, and difficult years of motherhood being read and dissected? Analyzed and judged? I want this little girl found as much as the next mother reading these words. And I understand ALL things must come under minute scrutiny to accomplish the end goal. I understand...but God forbid any one of us stand convicted based on our gut-wrenchingly authentic confessions and struggles squirreled away in a journal or computer document alone.
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1 comment:
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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