After Madeleine McCann disappeared, police offered Kate a deal to confess to her murder.

For almost 12 years, the world has been looking for Madeleine McCann.

Following on from the release of Netflix’s controversial documentary The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, there are a number of new theories as to what happened to the British toddler when she went missing from a Portuguese hotel room in Praia da Luz, during a family holiday in 2007.

Many of them point the finger at Madeleine’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann.

Watch the trailer for The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann below. Post continues after video.

The McCanns have been suspects in their daughter’s missing persons case since the very beginning. In particular, police focused on Maddie’s mother Kate McCann after finding fluids that matched her DNA on her daughter’s clothing, leading them to investigate the theory Kate and Gerry killed their daughter with an overdose of Calpol, a sleeping aid.

In a resurfaced passage from her 2011 book Madeleine: Our Daughter’s Disappearance and the Continuing Search for Her, Kate wrote about the deal Portuguese police offered her to confess to murdering her daughter.

During an 11-hour long interrogation, authorities told Kate she would only serve “around two years in jail” if she admitted to killing Maddie and hiding her body, The Sun reports.

This was only half of the deal. The McCanns’ Portuguese lawyer also told Kate that it would be “much better” if she went to jail so that Gerry could “go free” and take care of their other children, now-14-year-old twins Sean and Amelia.

Despite police identifying Kate as the weaker interviewee of her and her husband, Kate refused to take the deal, saying she wouldn’t lie because they were both innocent. When Kate told Gerry about the deal she’d been offered, he reportedly dropped to his knees and sobbed.

Could Maddie McCann’s Parents Have Been Involved In Her Disappearance? Mamamia’s The Quicky did a deep dive into the case to find out, post continues after audio.

The Sun reports Kate later told the publication she was “heartbroken” when she was first offered the deal, saying: “It was the first time it really came home to me that my worst fears were true -no one was looking for Madeleine, except us”.

Writing on his blog at the time, Gerry rejected any suggestion of his wife’s involvement in their daughter’s disappearance.

“The suggestion that Kate is involved in Madeleine’s disappearance is ludicrous,” he wrote.

“Anyone who knows anything about May 3rd knows that Kate is completely innocent.”

Even with the renewed interest in finding Maddie the Netflix documentary has sparked, The Mirror reports money to fund the search for the toddler is running out.

All we know is: somewhere in the world, someone knows what happened to Madeleine McCann.

What do you think happened to Madeleine McCann? Do you think Kate and Gerry McCann were involved in their daughter’s disappearance?

For more on this topic:

The mysterious case of Rui Pedro, the other missing child in the Madeleine McCann documentary.

Inside the sex trafficking theory linked to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.

What we know about the twin siblings of Madeleine McCann.

“This could be the breakthrough”: Madeleine McCann Netflix documentary claims she’s still alive.