Police inquiry focusing on Madeleine's possible death

Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are focusing on the possibility that she may be dead, a senior official said today.

The Leicestershire four-year-old disappeared from a Portuguese resort more than three months ago.

“The possible death of the girl is the line of inquiry which is getting most of our attention at the moment. However, no other possibility has been ruled out,” police spokesman Olegario Sousa said in a Portuguese television interview.

Sousa declined to provide details, citing secrecy laws covering ongoing investigations and respect for the McCann family.

However, Sousa said special sniffer dogs brought from Britain last week had uncovered new evidence in the girl’s bedroom that was missed in earlier forensic tests of the apartment in Praia da Luz.

The traces, which were not visible to the naked eye, were sent for lab tests, he said without elaborating.

Investigators say Madeleine vanished on May 3 from an apartment where she was sleeping with her 2-year-old twin siblings in a tourist complex on Portugal’s southern Algarve resort coast while her parents were dining in the hotel’s restaurant.