This article maps the news coverage and public discourse on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and draws parallels with the 1980 disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain in outback Australia, and the disappearance and murder of JonBenet Ramsey in Colorado in the USA in 1996. In doing so, it uncovers a recurrent and disturbing meta-narrative that places three innocent mothers whose children go missing in a deviant 'Medea' news frame.