What Would Missing Maddie McCann Look Like Now?

LONDON, May 4, 2009 — -- Two years after a 3-year-old British girl named Madeleine McCann went missing from a Portuguese resort town, her parents have released a new "age progression" photograph of her.

The picture, produced by the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, shows Madeleine as she would look now, a few days shy of what would be her sixth birthday.

Kate and Gerry McCann launched the picture with a fresh appeal for information about her whereabouts on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" today.

In an exclusive interview with Winfrey about their continuing effort to find their daughter, the McCanns shared their grief over her disappearance. Kate McCann told Winfrey, "Not a day goes by when I don't think about her. I feel Madeleine is still close to me and alive."

She told the talk show host that she visits Madeleine's bedroom twice a day, "usually I tend to open and close the curtains, just to say hello really, tell [her] we're still going to do everything we can to find her."

It's been nine months since Portuguese authorities closed the case and cleared Kate and Gerry McCann of any involvement in her disappearance. But criticism of the couple -- and their decision to leave Madeleine unattended in the hotel room -- persists in some quarters.

In her interview with Winfrey, Kate McCann acknowledged the criticism and said, "I can persecute myself every day about that. I feel awful that we weren't there, at that minute, somebody took an opportunity to take Madeleine."

But she also expressed her suspicion that someone was watching the family over a period of days leading up to Madeleine's disappearance, saying, "It makes you feel sick when you think about it."

New Documentary on the McCanns Due to Air in the U.K.

The McCanns told Winfrey they have no reason to believe Madeline is dead and said they will not stop looking for their daughter.

They appealed to Madeline's abductor to "do the right thing."

"They can give her up, they can tell us where she is, they can hand her over to a priest," Gerry McCann said.

In another television appearance, Gerry McCann reportedly traveled back to the Portuguese resort town of Praia da Luz, where Madeleine disappeared, to participate in a reconstruction of the events surrounding her disappearance. The "reconstruction of key sightings" will appear in a documentary, which the U.K.'s Channel Four will air May 7, .according to the McCann's Web site

McCann was reportedly heckled by Praia da Luz locals during his visit to film the documentary, and he told a local newspaper that he understands the reasons for some of the negative press surrounding the family. McCann told The Portugal News that he "can totally understand that people want to move on. They don't want the media intrusion and the negative association with Madeleine's abduction."

"But," he said, regardless of how people felt about him and his wife, Kate, "the focus should be on an innocent child and that someone has taken her."

The McCanns have made a renewed effort to publicize the case in Portugal, launching a campaign in and around Praia da Luz at the end of March.

"We have had leaflets delivered to local households as well as A-vans, buses and billboards with posters in Portuguese asking for people with information to come forward. The message is that we must not give up on Madeleine, and that if someone knows something, it is not too late to do the right thing," Gerry McCann wrote on the Web site.

He also expressed the hope that the Channel Four documentary would be broadcast in Portugal and "generate new leads," adding, "since the case has officially closed, it is vital for Kate and me that we continue to try to discover new information that may help us find Madeleine."

Cash Running Out to Fund Campaign: What Next?

The cash is running out to support the Find Madeleine campaign, Gerry McCann confided to The Portugal News. "It won't dry up in the next few months, but probably by the end of the year, at the rate we are running."

Figures released in March 2008 showed that the campaign fund had already fallen from a reported $3.7 million to $894,000.

Mitchell told reporters that were it not for newspaper libel settlements worth $1.3 million won by the McCanns, the money "would have probably run out some months ago."

The family insists it will continue to search for Madeleine, regardless of the status of the fund.

Speaking to the The Portugal News, Gerry McCann said, "It's a possibility we might never see her again, but until we have absolute definitive evidence of what happened to Madeleine, we can't stop searching."

New Warning System

The McCanns have been campaigning for improved warning systems across the continent since Madeleine's disappearance, visiting the European Parliament twice last year to win support from parliament members.

The family had a small victory of sorts Thursday, when the European Commission pledged $1.34 million toward the creation of a Europewide "Amber Alert" style warning system to trace missing children.

In a statement released by Mitchell, the couple said, "We are really pleased that the European Commission has committed such a significant amount of funding to improve joint procedures whenever a child is abducted in Europe."

But, they added, "This is just the first step that needed to be taken toward achieving a European Amber Alert system, and we are determined that the momentum is kept going. There's still a long way to go."

Two years since Madeleine's shocking disappearance made headlines from the United Kingdom to the United States to as far afield as Morocco, the McCanns show no signs of letting up in their quest to find their daughter.

"I cannot believe that two years have passed and that it's been two years since I've seen Madeline," Kate McCann told Winfrey.