Luisa Todorov has denied she is ‘the woman in purple’ at the centre of the investigation into missing Madeleine McCann
A waitress has denied she is ‘the woman in purple’ at the centre of the investigation into missing Madeleine McCann.
Detectives searching for the youngster have been scouring Europe in an attempt to locate the mysterious figure, who was the main lead keeping the investigation alive.
Luisa Todorov, who worked in the resort, was recently cited by criminologist Heriberto Janosch Gonzalez as being the ‘woman in purple’ and still lives less than a mile away from site where Maddie disappeared from.
At about 8pm on the evening of May 3, 2007, Jenny Murat, a British expatriate living in the coastal village of Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve, and another separate witness noticed a woman staring intently at an apartment block next to the Ocean Club, a small holiday complex popular with British families.
Sometime during the next two hours, three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from an apartment in that same block as her parents dine with friends nearby.
Mrs Todorov, 48, worked there with her husband, Stefan, who has since returned to his homeland of Bulgaria.
She says she was quizzed within days of Maddie’s disappearance and would be willing to co-operate further, but is unsure of how useful she would be.
Three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from an apartment in that same block as her parents, as they dined with friends nearby
‘I’ve no idea about any woman in purple. It wasn’t me. I spoke to the police a long time ago about the Madeleine case,’ she told the Mirror.
‘I don’t really want to talk about it, nobody around here does, it brings back lots of bad memories.
‘Nobody knows what happened to her. If the British police want to speak to me that’s fine, but I don’t know anything.
Talking of when she spotted the woman in purple, Mrs Murat said earlier this month: ‘I saw the woman standing on the corner of the street.
‘She caught my eye because she was dressed in purple-plum clothes. It struck me as strange.
In the past few months, the Grange team — now down to four detectives from a peak of 31 — has been criss-crossing Europe trying to locate a woman who was spotted watching a building before Maddie went missing
‘It’s so usual for anyone, particularly a woman, to be standing alone on the street in our resort, just watching a building.
‘The next morning, we heard that a little girl had gone missing, and I later told police about the woman I’d seen right outside,’ Mrs Murat continued. ‘I didn’t recognise her and don’t have a clue who she is, but she seems a bit suspicious.’
It is this ‘woman in purple’, the Mail understands, who is keeping alive Operation Grange, the marathon reinvestigation of the Madeleine McCann case by Scotland Yard, now in its sixth year.
A source told The Sun: ‘There is no evidence they were involved but it would be good to eliminate them from the investigation.’
In the past few months, the Grange team — now down to four detectives from a peak of 31 — has been criss-crossing Europe trying to locate the woman.
Their budget had been due to run out in September, but officers are understood to have used the ‘woman in purple’ line of investigation to persuade the Home Office — which is financing the inquiry from central government funds — to grant a six-month extension.
The £154,000 agreed will allow inquiries to continue until March, taking the total spent on Operation Grange near to £12 million.
Given that Mrs Murat (whose son Robert was arrested as a suspect two weeks after Madeleine’s disappearance, but cleared of any involvement) raised the alarm about the woman on the morning after the alleged abduction, it must be asked why it has taken ten years for attention to focus on this suspect?
Some police critics of Operation Grange point to what they see as its ‘original sin’ — the failure of the Met’s team to re-interview Gerry and Kate McCann and the so-called Tapas Seven (above)