It has been 17 years since Madeleine McCann disappeared from her holiday apartment in Portugal, and the case still remains a mystery. Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have never stopped searching for their daughter. In a recent update on the Finding Madeleine website, Kate McCann revealed a shocking detail that may have played a role in her daughter’s disappearance.

The Mysterious Disappearance

On the evening of May 3, 2007, three-year-old Madeleine vanished from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal. While Kate and Gerry were dining at a nearby restaurant with friends, their daughter and her twin siblings were asleep. When they discovered Madeleine was missing, a massive search was launched, but her whereabouts remain unknown to this day. The case has been described as the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history.

Before the recent updates in the case, Kate McCann made a disturbing discovery while going through the police files. In her book ‘Madeleine: Our Daughter’s Disappearance and the Continuing Search for Her,’ she revealed that during the holiday when Madeleine went missing, her group of nine had a blocked booking in a tapas restaurant. But what alarmed Kate was how accessible the restaurant’s reservation book was.

“The note requesting our block booking was written in a staff message book, which sat on a desk at the pool reception for most of the day,” Kate wrote. “This book was by definition accessible to all staff and, albeit unintentionally, probably to guests and visitors, too.