Madeleine vs Mirco - so close, and yet so far away

Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3rd 2007. It´s been more than 3 long years since she disappeared without a trace. It seems like such a long time to me, especially having watched the case since day one, hoping and praying that this little girl would be found and brought back home. Up until that time in May 2007, I had hardly recognized the fact that so many children went missing or were abducted either by strangers or by people they know. I would call it rather naïve of me to have thought it didn´t happen that much, and surely this world couldn´t be all that bad, and that children would be safe. Also, of all the missing children I have read about and seen either being found again or have remained missing, or unfortunately have turned up no longer with us, none of it has happened nearby to where I live.

I have changed my mind since then, and reality has hit me in that not only are children not as safe as I thought they were, but children ARE going missing right here where I live. It´s not all just happening “somewhere else”, but in front of my nose !

So for all of those who have not yet heard of the case I am about to tell you about, here it is :

There are quite a few news articles on the forum, however they are all badly translated, and I shall try to put this case into a better perspective by describing it in my own words, and although I am literally 15 miles from where it happened, and only 4 miles from where the SOCO police have their offices, I am not any better off with information than anybody else reading the news.

This is the story of a little boy ; Mirco Schlitter, aged 10 at the time of his disappearance, who went missing on the evening/night of September 3rd 2010, near Grefrath in Norththeinwestfalia, Germany. It was a Friday afternoon, and Mirco had met with some friends at a skating area in a nearby village. When he failed to returm home at a given time and it began to get dark, his mother called him on his mobile phone and asked him to come home as soon as he could, since it was getting rather late and dark. Once she had completed the call and knew he was on his way back, she popped into the study to let Mirco´s father know he was on the way, and said she was going to bed. The father misunderstood her, and continued with his computer work and then also went to bed.

Meanwhile Mirco had never reached his home again. Something happened to him on his way back after dropping off one of his friends at home first. Mirco´s bicycle was found the following day, thrown in a ditch, next to a path he used on route to his home. It was the next morning before Mirco was found to be missing, since both parents had assumed he was tucked up in bed. ( I do find it strange that a 10 year old child lets himself in at night and goes to bed on his own, but then some children are independent from an early age ).

A search was underway very quickly once the report went in that this child was missing, but the news here only started coming in from Saturday evening / Sunday morning. I had heard helicopters flying and circling around above, but it didn´t seem unusual to me, as this often happens on normal weekends. But the sound of fighter jets overhead in the middle of the night using special cameras was rather unique to me and quite eerie.
There is and was only one photo of Mirco that was sent out to the public, and there were hundreds of callers with information, once it was known where he disappeared from and where his bicycle was found. To me, it all went pretty quickly, and so it should, when a child is missing, The first hours are crucial.

Grefrath is a small town surrounded by many small villages which lead to each other by rural paths and surrounded by a lot of forest and corn fields and little rivers running by, so of course plenty opportunity to commit a crime and have it well hidden. Also the border to the Netherlands is not very far at all. There were hundreds of searchers out in those forests and fields day in and day out, to no avail. The rivers have been searched too. Some witnesses have said they heard a child's screams in a particular direction, which have also been investigated.

One by one Mirco's clothing was found in a garbage bin at a parking bay off one of the main roads, which also led into forest. A third article was found a little later in another area nearby; the police are not revealing what this article is, but foreign DNA has been found on this article as well as other traces around the same place. This has taken weeks to diagnose, while the SOCO police continue trying to fit the puzzle in the background. They say they do not have one lead, but SEVERAL, and have laid many “mouse traps” in which they feel confident the offender will fall into ! The police profilers are saying the offender comes from that region, and is living nearby as a normal inhabitant, and are asking the public for any information, especially those living nearby. The offender will have acted strangely before and after the crime; possibly booked off sick, or disappeared for a length of time. Now that the DNA has been identified, the police are trying to find all the people who may have been in that area at the time or before the crime, and then will go on to do a DNA test on everybody in the region.
I am confident that our police force is doing everything they can to solve this case and find Mirco.

All still ongoing……. And yet, oh so similar to what was investigated in most other cases, partly kept silent so as not to jeopardise the investigation and to safeguard the child in the case that he may still be alive. We hope and pray…… and continue to take our children to school and back, with that feeling of :.... IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANY OF US, EVEN RIGHT NEXT DOOR!!!!!!!

View Mirco's thread on the Find Madeleine forum HERE!