The McCanns: After the Headlines

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Rui Vieira / PA / AP

Gerry McCann returns to work as a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital, in Leicester, England, Thursday November 1, 2007.

Six months after Gerry and Kate McCann's four-year-old daughter Madeleine disappeared from their Portuguese vacation apartment, the British couple have made a first tentative step toward returning to their pre-headline life. But it's uncertain if that option remains open to them.

Gerry McCann, 39, a cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, England, returned to work on Nov. 1, albeit at a much reduced level. For now, he'll work only three half-days a week, and won't be seeing patients. Neither he nor his wife Kate, who's a general practitioner, have worked since their daughter went missing. That tragic event vaulted them, and the so far fruitless search for Madeleine, into a global media spotlight, especially after Portuguese police officially named them as suspects in September.

Although Kate, also 39, continues to remain at home with their two other children, Gerry told reporters he wanted to "get back a degree of normality with a working routine." He said he felt that he and his wife had done all they could to help find Madeleine, and that an "infrastructure" to continue the search was in place.

But can they return to their old life and careers? "It would be very difficult," says Charlie Beckett, a media expert at the London School of Economics, especially if Madeleine's fate is never solved. Indeed, British press reports quoted some patients at Glenfield Hospital as saying they would feel uncomfortable being treated by Gerry McCann.

If true, that may be an indication as to how perceptions about the McCanns have changed since Madeleine vanished last May. Back then, parents worldwide could identify with them. But three months into the unsuccessful investigation, as the McCanns kept up their high-profile media blitz, what started as a distraught couple's simple pleas to find their child morphed into a macabre media circus. Public perception was further changed when they became suspects.

"Now they are household names, and everyone's got their view of them," says Max Clifford, one of Britain's best-known public relations gurus. But, as City University journalism professor Adrian Monck adds, "they're not celebrities in the conventional sense," since Portuguese authorities — rightly or wrongly — still suspect they might know more about their daughter's disappearance than they have let on.

That leaves a public uncertain of what to make of them. Even some people who believe the couple had nothing to do with Madeleine's disappearance feel uncomfortable with the media campaign they've unleashed. That campaign has largely being underwritten by benefactors, including Richard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur. Branson donated around $200,000 to seed a legal defense fund. Meanwhile, the Find Madeleine fund has raised nearly $2.3 million from the public. Though the McCanns aren't using that fund for its defense needs, they did dip into it to make two mortgage payments before September — a disclosure that didn't help their image.

Meanwhile, the investigation in Portugal seems to have stagnated, which means the McCanns could remain in suspect limbo for many months to come. That uncertainty is another factor that, for now, will make it difficult for them to pick up the threads of their old life and go back to their jobs.

Eventually, if there is a break in the case and they are exonerated, there might be a payday for them. Though the couple has never indicated that they are willing to sell their story, they then could be flooded with offers of huge sums for an exclusive interview. A book contract would almost certainly be in the seven figures, and it's hard to believe Hollywood or television won't come calling, too. But taking that kind of money, if they chose to, could prove difficult. "It could backfire on them," Clifford says. "They can't be seen as cashing in on Madeleine."

One option would be to divert the money into some sort of nonprofit organization dedicated to finding missing children. Kate McCann has reportedly given the idea of running a missing children's charity some thought. If they are seen as using the money earned in media deals to help children, says Clifford, no one will begrudge the McCanns' earning salaries. It may be the best career option they have left.