2007
– May 3: Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, leave their children to sleep in their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, in southern Portugal, while having dinner with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant.
Nothing is wrong when Mr. McCann checks on the young people shortly after 9 pm, but when his wife returns around 10 pm, she finds Madeleine missing.
Jane Tanner, one of the friends who dined with the McCanns, reports seeing a man carrying a child that night.
– May 14: Detectives take an Anglo-Portuguese property developer for questioning and make him an ‘arguido’, or formal suspect, but this is later withdrawn.
– August 11: Exactly 100 days after Madeleine’s disappearance, investigating officials publicly acknowledge for the first time that she might be dead.
– September 7: During the interrogation of Mr. and Mrs. McCann, the detectives make them both ‘arguidos’ for their daughter’s disappearance.
– September 9: The McCanns fly back to England with their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie.
2008
– 21 July: The Portuguese authorities shelve the investigation and lift the ‘arguido’ status of the McCanns and the real estate developer.
2011
– May 12: Mrs. McCann publishes a book about her daughter’s disappearance on Madeleine’s eighth birthday.
Scotland Yard launches a review of the case following a request from Home Secretary Theresa May, supported by then Prime Minister David Cameron.
2012
– 25 April: Detectives from Scotland Yard say they believe Madeleine may still be alive, release an age progression photo of what she could look like at nine years old and ask Portuguese authorities to reopen the case, but Portuguese police say they didn’t find any new material.
2013
– 4 July: Scotland Yard confirms it has launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, into Madeleine’s disappearance two years after the case was reviewed. It has ‘genuinely new’ lines of inquiry and has identified 38 persons of interest, including 12 Britons.
– October 24: Portuguese police confirm that a review of the original investigation revealed new lines of investigation and reopen the case.
2014
– January 29: British detectives fly to Portugal amid allegations that they plan to make arrests.
– June 3: Sniffer dogs and specialized teams are used to search a scrubland area near where Madeleine disappeared.
– December 12: Detectives begin questioning 11 people believed to have information about the case.
2015
– 16 September: The Government announces that the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance has cost more than 10 million pounds.
– 28 October: Scotland Yard reduces the number of officers working on the inquiry from 29 to four.
2017
– April 30: The McCanns prepare to mark 10 years since their daughter’s disappearance with a BBC interview in which they vow to do ‘whatever it takes for as long as it takes’ to find her.
2019
– May 3: Local media reports say that Portuguese detectives are investigating a foreign pedophile as a suspect in Madeleine’s kidnapping.
2020
– June 3: Police reveal that a 43-year-old German prisoner, later identified as Christian Brueckner, has been identified as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.
– 4 June: Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange, which has received £12.3m in funding until April 2020, is still a missing person investigation as detectives have ‘no definitive proof whether Madeleine is dead or alive’.
2021
– May 4: Kate and Gerry McCann post a statement on the official Find Madeleine campaign website saying they still cling to the hope of seeing their daughter again as they prepare to celebrate her 18th birthday on May 12.
2022
– 21 April: Christian Brueckner is considered an ‘arguido’, a formal suspect, by the Portuguese authorities.
– May 3: The McCann family say it is ‘essential’ to know the truth about what happened to their daughter on the 15th anniversary of her disappearance.
– October 11: Brueckner is charged with three counts of rape and two counts of child molestation, unrelated to Madeleine’s disappearance.