The only choice is to hope
For the three young women in Cleveland, missing presumed dead turned out to be just that — a presumption. A reasonable one, after a decade of being gone, but one that was wrong. They were not dead after all. “My name is Amanda Berry and I am here and I am free now,” said one. A neighbour commented to the young woman moments after her escape that she could not be Amanda Berry, because Amanda Berry was dead. And yet there she was, alive, free, breathing. Does this give hope to the family of another missing girl, albeit a younger, and far more defenceless, one? Madeleine McCann will be 10 tomorrow. Or would have been 10 tomorrow. It’s hard to know in which tense to write about her. Missing since May 3, 2007, a week before her fourth birthday, her disappearance made her the most famous missing person in the world, a child who is still featured regularly in newspapers, particularly the tabloids.
Her mother believes she is still alive.
