Madeleine McCann's Parents Tell Spanish Papers They Think Their Daughter Is Alive, in Spain

LONDON – The parents of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann believe their daughter is alive, according to the UK’s Daily Mail.

Kate and Gerry McCann say they believe Madeleine is in Spain, according to three separate interviews they did with Spain’s trio of top newspapers.

Click here to read The Daily Mail story.

Madeleine, now 4, disappeared in Portugal May 3 while she was on vacation with her parents and younger twin siblings.

The McCanns’ statements come on the heels of Portuguese police reports that the tot could be dead after the discovery of a small amount of blood in the apartment where Madeleine was last seen.

The couple won’t say whether their theory is based on a new lead police may have that their little girl is in Spain, though their interviews have spurred speculation, the Mail reported.

Gerry McCann told the Spanish paper El Mundo that he was determined to make sure Madeleine wouldn’t “become a statistic,” according to the Mail.

“The possibility that Madeleine is alive and in Spain is real,” he told El Mundo. “It is something we did not consider at the beginning, but now we are seriously weighing up.”

The child’s mother and father have themselves been the subject of police scrutiny at times during the investigation.

The blood traces, found by sniffer dogs, fueled speculation that the child could have been harmed or murdered in the room.

The Times of London reported last week that initial DNA tests on the spots of blood showed it probably came from a man from northeastern Europe.

“That the samples could correspond to another person is not that surprising,” Kate McCann told the Spanish paper El Pais, according to the Mail.