Fifteen years to the day after British toddler Madeleine McCann disappeared from her parents’ holiday resort hotel room in Portugal, prosecutors say they have solved the case.
Hans Christian Wolters, the lead German prosecutor in a new investigation of the May 3, 2007 disappearance, told the Portuguese television show Sabado that the new evidence was undeniable. “We have found new facts and new evidence,” he told the program. “It's not forensic evidence but evidence and because of our evidence, we are sure he is the murderer of Madeleine McCann. We are sure he killed Madeleine.”
Wolters was referring to Christian Brückner, who was formally named as a suspect last week, years after emerging as a person of interest in McCann’s disappearance. A German documentary crew reported earlier this year that Brückner worked as a handyman at the Praia da Luz resort where the McCanns were staying. He is serving time for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman not far from where McCann disappeared and is under investigation for the rape and strangling death of a 13-year-old boy and the disappearance of a 5-year-old girl.
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Prosecutors in Germany confiscated a camper Brückner was living in, and various media reports say fibers that may be consistent with the pink pajamas McCann wore the night she vanished have been found. Wolters neither confirmed nor denied the report to the Portuguese news station.
“Is it true that you have found something of Madeleine McCann in Christian Brückner’s van?” the presenter asked. “I’m not going to comment on the details of the investigation,” he replied.
The presenter then asked, “But you can’t deny it?” to which Wolters answered, “I don’t want to deny it.”
Lawyers for Brückner said that’s “bullshit.”
Brückner previously said he couldn’t be the suspect because he was having sex when McCann disappeared. While he said he cannot remember the woman’s name, he did say through his lawyers that she was barred from leaving Portugal over illegal pepper spray she had in her hand luggage. Wolter says he may have found the records for that woman. “What we found out, it all went in the other direction, so was rather incriminating, without me being able to elaborate on that now,” he said.
The McCanns are instead preparing to celebrate what would be their daughter’s 19th birthday by putting a gift in her room, which has not been changed since she disappeared. They said through a spokesman they still hold hope their daughter is alive.
