The relevance of Kate & Gerry being the natural parents

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The relevance of Kate & Gerry being the natural parents

Postby Estelle » Sat Oct 24, 2009 10:13 am

Finding out whether the McCanns are the natural parents of Maddie is very relevant to this case because if either or both are not, they are more like stepparents. If a child is not your own flesh and blood, research has shown that this type of parent is more likely to abuse or murder a child. It is called the "Cinderella effect".

The Cinderella effect is a term used by psychologists to describe the high incidence of stepchildren being physically abused, sexually abused, neglected or murdered, or otherwise mistreated at the hands of their stepparents at significantly higher rates than their genetic counterparts. It takes its name from the fairytale character Cinderella, who in the story was cruelly mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters.

In the early 1970s, a theory arose on the connection between stepparents and child maltreatment. "In 1973, forensic psychiatrist P. D. Scott had summarized information on a sample of 'fatal battered-baby cases’ perpetrated in anger (…) fifteen of the twenty-nine killers – fifty-two per cent – were stepfathers."[1] Although initially there was no analysis of this raw data, empirical evidence has since been collected on what is now called the Cinderella effect through official records, reports and census.

* Years of research have confirmed the hypothesis that stepchildren are significantly more likely to be abused in terms "from baby batterings to sexual molestation of older children" to murder.


* For over 30 years, data has been collected regarding the validity of the Cinderella effect with all the evidence proving a direct relationship between step-relationships and abuse. This evidence of child abuse and homicide comes from a variety of sources including official reports of child abuse, clinical data, victim reports, and official homicide data

* In addition to displaying higher rates of negative behaviors (e.g. abuse) towards stepchildren, stepparents display fewer positive behaviors towards stepchildren than do the genetic parents. For example, on average, stepparents invest less in education, play with stepchildren less, take stepchildren to the doctor less, etc.

* In Chicago, police homicide records show that "115 children under 5 years of age were killed by their putative fathers in 1965 through 1990, while 63 were killed by stepfathers (…) and because very few babies reside with substitute fathers, the numbers imply greatly elevated risk to such children."

* The most powerful evidence in support of the Cinderella effect is the proof that when abusive parents have both step- and genetic children, they generally spare their own children. In such families, stepchildren were exclusively targeted 9 out of 10 times in one study and in 19 of 22 in another.

* This discrimination towards stepchildren is unusual given "the following additional facts:


(2) stepchildren are almost always the eldest children in the home whereas the general (…) tendency in families of uniform parentage is for the youngest to be most frequent victims." The Cinderella effect explains this discrimination of abuse among stepchildren.

* Wilson and Daly concluded that "a child under three years of age who lived with one genetic parent and one stepparent in the United States in 1976 was about seven times more likely (…) to become a validated child-abuse case in the records than one who dwelt with two genetic parents."[9]

* Records in Great Britain were also examined and found that children were beaten by stepfathers at a rate of 100 times more than genetic fathers.

* Overall, their findings demonstrate that children residing with stepparents had a higher risk of abuse even when socio-economic factors were considered.

The Cinderella effect may be best explained through evolutionary psychology. Its origin and evolution into the role of human behavior is a direct effect of the Darwinian theory of natural selection as explained by Daly and Wilson. According to theory, "research concerning animal social behaviour provide a rationale for expecting parents to be discriminative in their care and affection, and more specifically, to discriminate in favour of their own young". Natural selection measures an organism's success by its reproductive ability, explaining why parents invest their resources in their genetic children. This evolved rationale is why parents have developed the desire to protect their own young for investment in their own fitness and to ensure "genetic posterity (inclusive fitness)".

All organisms face trade-offs as to how to invest their time, energy, risk, and other resources, and investment in one domain (e.g. parental investment) generally takes away from their ability to invest in other domains (e.g. mating effort, growth, or investment in other offspring)[12]. Investment in non-genetic children reduces an individual's ability to invest in itself or its genetic children, without directly bringing reproductive benefits (except as mating effort towards the genetic parent), so evolutionary biologists would not expect organisms to regularly and deliberately care for unrelated offspring.


Owing to these adaptations from natural selection, child abuse is more likely to be committed by stepparents than genetic parents – both are expected to invest heavily in the children, but genetic parents will have greater child-specific parental love that promotes positive caretaking and inhibits maltreatment.


Since the introduction of the theory of the Cinderella effect, many psychologists have criticized and collected information, intending to refute the claim that stepparents and abuse in children are directly related. In one such study, John Harrop administered a survey by telephone, asking participants "whether they had 'slapped’ certain family members (considered one by one) within the last year, had 'punched’ them, and had 'used a knife or gun on’ them and so forth, when they had a disagreement or were angry with them’." For this particular study, although the survey revealed that "the 117 stepparents who did not hang up (…) were no more likely to profess that they had assaulted the children under their care than were genetic parents", the data is biased since those who do assault are unlikely to admit it or participate in such an interview by telephone.

There are many skeptics who disregard the Cinderella effect, convinced that step-relationships are not a direct cause of elevated abuse among children.

* One alternative explanation is that "a high incidence of abusive stepfamilies could, in principle, be a spurious result of biased detection or reporting." Evidence against this shows that when higher criteria is required in the analysis of records, the risk for stepparents to be the perpetrators increases, contrary to skeptics' beliefs. Furthermore, victim's reports (which depend only upon victims rather than on official reports and detection) show higher rates of abuse by stepfathers than by genetic fathers.

* Others say that economic backgrounds could be an underlying cause and "one might hypothesize that the stress of poverty cause the poor to be especially likely to abuse and kill their children and also to experience high rates of divorce and remarriage, making steprelationship an incidental correlate of abuse." Although studies show that poverty increases the chances of child abuse, further analysis shows it has little connection to step-relationships.

* Another explanation has been that stepfathers will treat all possessions of the mother worse than they would in other circumstances. A stepfather might be more abusive to the pets and furniture of the new family as well as his stepchildren.
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 3:22 am

Re: The relevance of Kate & Gerry being the natural parents

Postby Estelle » Sat Oct 24, 2009 12:37 pm

Knowing who the real parents are affects the results of the DNA so is very relevant.

Gerry flew back to the UK for the pillowcase from Madeleine's bed as, for some reason, nothing suitable was available from the apartment, no clothes, bedding etc.

This is from the FSS/Lowe Report.

A DNA profile has been obtained from the reference samples of Kate HEALY
(51162896) and Gerald McCANN (51162897).

A DNA profile has also been obtained from a pillowcase (SJM/1).

DNA profiling reveals a series of bands, half of which a child inherits from their
natural mother (maternal) and half of which ït ïnherits from their natural father

In this case, all of the bands present in the profïle of abtained from the pillowcase are
represented in the combined profiles of Kate HEALY and Gerald McCANN. This is
what I would expect to find if the profile obtained from the pillowcase originated from
a natural child of theirs.

The results of the DNA profile obtaïned from the pïllowcase is approximately 29
million times more likely if the profïle originates from a natural child of theirs rather
than someone unrelated to them.

view that the profile obtained from the pillowcase originated from a natural child of

Please note: I understand that the McCANN's have a second female child. It
therefore remains a formal possibility that the DNA on the pillowcase could
have originated from her as the genetics would be in keeping with those
described above.

If I can be of further assistance or you require a CJA statement please do not
hesitate to contact me at the laboratory on 01937 548287.

Yours sincerely

Lesley Anne Denton
Date: 28 June 2007
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 3:22 am

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