Episode 476: Madeline McCann: Murder, Abduction, or Stupidity?

Explicit content warning

04/28/20 • 108 min

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we take a look at some true crime and investigate the disappearance of Madeline McCann. Madeline was a three year old British girl who was with her family on vacation in Portugal in 2007. While she slept alongside her two year old twin brother and sister, her parents ate tapas and partied at a restaurant on the other side of the pool. Several hours later, when the parents came to check on them, Madeline was famously missing. So, what happened? There is a lot of speculation about that. What is known is that the three children were asleep with the parents, Kate and Gerry McCann went to dinner and drinks. They checked on the sleeping kids from time to time. At one point, the father found them to be asleep but noticed their bedroom door wasn’t where it was when he last checked. At another point, a friend checked on them but didn’t bother going as far as the bedroom to actually look at the kids. Eventually, at 10:20 PM, Kate went in and found Madeline missing. She sounded the alarm, and the entire resort staff started searching and calling her name. The police came, and then some other ones came, and they did an investigation. But, the investigation was botched. The crime scene was left open and therefore corrupted, and basic things like locking down the town or doing a door to door search happened hours or days too late. There was a sighting called the Tanner Sighting which pointed police in a direction (which proved to be the wrong direction). What are the theories of missing Madeline? One biggie that the Portuguese police pursued was that the parents did it. They either gave Madeline a sedative to sleep through their party, and gave her too much, or they left her alone she met some accident in the apartment. They hid the body and covered it up. But then there are other disturbing theories—pedophiles took her and killed her; she was sold into slavery; or she woke up and wandered off and died. Either way, the family spent a ton of money keeping their daughter’s name and face in the press, and the investigation is still going. If you want to know what we think happened, you’ll have to download and dig it! Visit Our Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Madeleine_McCann https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/madeleine-mccann-disappearance-latest-what-happened-scenarios-a8632886.html https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/madeleine-mccann https://allthatsinteresting.com/madeleine-mccann https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/madeleine-mccann-suspect-martin-ney-paedophile-police-investigation-a8900256.html

Previous Episode

Episode 475: Buddhafield: Not Your Average Sex Cult

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look at a little known cult that started in the 1980s called The Buddhafield. The Buddhafield was a group of people initially from Southern California who found a new type of family with each other, under the guidance of “The Teacher.” The Teacher, also known as Michel, Andreas, or Jaime Gonzalez, led them into some LSD type hypno therapy god hunting body trips. They loved each other; they loved him; they found peace. Until they didn’t, and Michel started to have sex with male members of the group (often against their will) and do your typical cult control over all of them. The story is mostly known thanks to a man named Will Allen who made a documentary called Holy Hell. He is an ex-member of this group, and due to his background in film, he was considered the unofficial documentarian of the group. He filmed The Teacher, the students, the spiritual retreats, and the daily lives of the Buddhafield family. In fact, he was one of Michel’s closest allies in the group (and among other tasks, he was on call 24 hours a day to give him massages). Michel held sessions with the group, such as The Shakti Retreat, in which he gave them parts of his own spiritual power. The biggie, though, was called The Knowing. It was a multiple day ceremony which was capped with him letting his followers fully, truly know god. The funny thing is, they actually believed all this stuff was true. So much so, that even when the abuse and cult weirdness started, many of them stayed because they didn’t want to have to quit the strange spiritual highs that Michel—and only Michel—was able to take them on. The Buddhafield group started as a reinvented family of people who just wanted to find meaning in life, and it turned, inevitably, to a cult. Michel started to charge them for therapy sessions, many of which ended in forced sex. He threatened that they’d die if they left and even asked members of the group to ruin the lives of defectors by getting the IRS to attack them. He forced abortions on the women if they wanted to stay, and he had many of the members living as his servants. Yet somehow, they all still loved the Buddhafield family enough to endure it. Finally, there was a breaking point, and a great defection of members, but it still exists, and the Teacher is still out there teaching. If you dig cults, this is the episode for you! Visit Our Sources: Holy Hell Documentary: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80097438?source=35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhafield_(cult) https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a45261/holy-hell-buddhafield-documentary-will-allen-interview/ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/holy-hell-cult-documentary_n_5744c96ae4b055bb11708e51 https://psmag.com/news/how-to-escape-from-a-cult-in-the-21st-century https://www.npr.org/2016/05/26/479635824/cult-survivor-documents-2-decades-inside-holy-hell

Next Episode

Episode 477: Jemeker Thompson: The Crack Queen of Compton

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we take a look at a very unique crime lord, the so-called Queen Pin of crack cocaine, Jemeker Thompson. She was overlooked by the competition and the feds since women didn’t deal drugs on that scale, but she is said to have been in control of virtually all crack coming in to South Central LA in the 1980s during their crack epidemic. Jemeker was born to a poor, single mother in South Central. She had five siblings. One fateful day, they all came home to find they had been evicted from their apartment. She looked at all her worldly possession sitting on the lawn and had no place to live. This lack of money and control set her on a path of greed and cunning. By high school, she was a talented enough runner to be training for the 1984 Olympics. At her meets she met a low end pot dealer named Anthony "Daff" Mosley. They fell in love, and she started to sell his pot in her high school. Eventually, she got addicted to the money and thrill and told Duff they needed to switch to cocaine. He refused. She didn’t. And the Queen Pin was born. She eventually learned how to make crack cocaine and shifted their business to this new drug. The first day, she sold half a key from her mother’s window. The next day, a full key. Within a week, she was selling multiple kilograms a day. They got rich fast. I’m talking, they moved into Michael Jackson’s neighborhood rich. (But only after Duff cheated on Jemeker, and she shot at him. It was an apology house.). It reached a point where everyone knew that they were the key to crack in LA and eventually most parts of the nation. Someone decided to shut them down by murdering Duff at a craps game. But he wasn’t in charge, and the empire just grew. What did Jemeker do to launder her money? How come her laundering business became successful enough for her to get out of the drug game (though she didn’t)? What happened with a courier was busted with 30 keys of coke on the way to Vegas? Did the CIA help her from getting arrested? What finally brought her down, and how did she go from the queen of crack and hair extensions to a minister? Listen, laugh, learn. Visit Our Sources: https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/jemeker-thompson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jemeker_Thompson https://www.sunsigns.org/famousbirthdays/d/profile/jemeker-thompson/ https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/126/1032/497938/ https://listverse.com/2014/09/12/10-of-the-richest-and-most-powerful-female-crime-lords-ever/