Madeleine McCann case: Prime suspect made chilling claim that missing girl ‘is dead’
The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCannn ‘freaked out’ when her name was mentioned, and made a sensational claim about what happened to her.
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The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCannn “freaked out” as his staff discussed the case and claimed the missing girl is “dead”.
Convicted paedophile Christian Brueckner made the chilling outburst in 2014, appalling co-workers at the kiosk-bar he ran close to a school.
Barmaid Lenta Johlitz, 34, told The Sun: “Once he was completely freaked out when we were sitting talking with friends about the Madeleine case”.
“He wanted us to stop. He cried out, ‘The child is dead now and that’s a good thing’, then he said: ‘You can make a body disappear quickly. Pigs also eat human flesh.’”
Brueckner is suspected of snatching Madeleine from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007 — and has been linked to the disappearances of at least two other children.
A school caretaker in Brueckner’s hometown of Braunschweig, northern Germany, told how the fiend showered pupils with toys and teddy bears as they walked past his shop, which he used for alcohol and drug-fuelled parties.
Brueckner is being held in a prison in Kiel, north Germany, where he is serving 15 months for drug trafficking. Asked about the Madeleine case yesterday, public prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said: “There is not enough evidence for a warrant or indictment against him”.
POLICE TIP ‘IGNORED’
Police were tipped off as long as seven years ago that a known German paedophile could have been behind the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann – but the information was ignored.
The paedophile Brueckner, 43, was named chief suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine by German police on Wednesday.
But police received the tip-off that he could have snatched the youngster from her bed in 2007 as far back as 2013 following an appeal by British police on German TV.
A report was prepared for Germany’s version of the FBI, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), by local police in Brueckner’s home town of Braunschweig after the call was made.
But the crucial tip never reached British cops investigating Madeleine’s disappearance, according to The Sun.
An acquaintance who saw the TV appeal called in after remembering Brueckner from the Praia da Luz resort where Madeleine disappeared.
The report in Germany was reportedly ignored – meaning the child sex offender could have swerved a police probe as far back as 2013.
This was after officers in Braunschweig were told he was a convicted sex offender who had abused a six-year-old girl on a playground.
Brueckner, who is currently in a German jail, was named as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance on Wednesday with prosecutors in Germany investigating him “on suspicion of murder”, even though her body has never been found.
But German police have revealed they believe Madeleine is dead and they say they know how she was killed. The Brussels Times reports Scotland Yard has received 400 new tips from the public since Brueckner was named.
The suspect has been branded a “sexual predator” who abused young girls and a rapist who attacked a 72-year-old tourist in Portugal.
In 2013 – the same year as the tip-off – he allegedly discussed kidnapping and sexually abusing a child in a chatroom exchange.
He said he fantasised about wanting to “capture something small and use it for days”, German newspaper Spiegel reports.
He was first thrust into the frame in 2017 after allegedly confessing in a bar to abducting Madeleine.
German sources claim he boasted he had “snatched her” but didn’t say he had killed her.
British cops alerted Portuguese detectives to a possible sighting of Madeleine three weeks after she vanished.
Officers sent a memo marked “urgent” explaining how a witness believed they had spotted her at a restaurant near Valencia, Spain.
German cops have seized the VW camper van that Brueckner was living in 4km from Praia da Luz — where Madeleine went missing in 2007.
The files also contain a report by a witness who saw a “strange” man matching Christian B’s description loitering near apartment 5A two weeks before Madeleine was taken.
Another tourist reported seeing a suspicious man with a van of the type Christian B drove.
Meanwhile, a British woman has told how she escaped the clutches of Brueckner when he stayed with her parents.
Angie Dawes said the man targeted her soon after the girl vanished.
“It makes me sick to my stomach.”
Terrified Angie, then 32, said the German creeped her out after suddenly arriving at her remote Portuguese village.
He began work as a waiter at a restaurant near where her family lived — just a month after Madeleine’s disappearance in 2007.
Angie’s father soon became concerned about his disturbing behaviour — and the serial sex offender’s habit of silently leering at his daughter.
“To think I was around this guy just weeks after Maddie disappeared makes me sick to my stomach.
She recalled: “I met him at my parents’ house. Even though he was polite, on every occasion he was weird. He was memorable to look at. The blond hair with striking blue eyes.
“But he would just stare at me in a sleazy way for a minute or two without saying a word and not release his gaze.
“It was bizarre and made me feel very uncomfortable. His eyes chilled me to the bone.”
WITNESS ‘SAW MADDIE AND MAN IN VW CAMPERVAN’
A witness claimed to have spotted Madeleine McCann getting into a German-owned VW van with a man just weeks after her disappearance as more details emerged about new suspect Christian Brueckner.
In a disturbing development, Brueckner has now been linked to a fourth unsolved child disappearance.
Prosecutors are now examining whether Brueckner is a suspect in the murder of a 16-year-old German girl whose body was found chopped up on a Belgian beach, according to British media reports.
Carola Titze had reportedly been in contact with a German man at a disco days before she disappeared while on holiday in 1996.
The young girl’s mutilated body was found in sand dunes in De Haan, West Flanders, where she was staying with her family.
In another development, a police file from the early days of the McCann investigation has revealed a witness told police he saw Madeleine emerging from a restaurant three weeks after she vanished and climbing into a German-owned VW campervan with an unidentified man.
In a police file uncovered by the Mail on Sunday, a witness told police early in the investigation that he saw Madeleine coming out of a restaurant in the Spanish seaside town of Alcossebre, three weeks after she vanished. The man told police he saw the girl climbing into a German-owned VW campervan van with an unidentified man.
British detectives believe Brueckner, 43, was living out of a VW T3 Westerfalia campervan in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
Authorities have also linked Brueckner, who is in prison for the 2005 rape of a pensioner, to at least two other high profile child abductions, including the disappearance of blonde schoolboy René Hasee in the Algarve in 1996 and five-year-old Inga Gehricke, who was dubbed the ‘German Maddie’ in 2015.
Youngster René, from Elsdorf, Germany, vanished while on holiday with his family in Aljezur – just 40km from Praia da Luz.
He ran ahead during a family walk on the beach to go in the sea. After losing sight of him they never saw him again and were left with just his clothes lying on the beach.
Detectives believe Brueckner was regularly living in the Algarve from 1995. He was already convicted of sex offences against children and would have been 19 at the time René disappeared.
René’s dad Andreas Hasee said he heard from police for the first time in 20 years when an investigator from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) contacted him on Friday, local time.
The dad admitted: “There could be a connection.”
Mr Hasee, who had accepted his son had drowned, added: “René went to Portugal with my ex-wife and her new partner.”
“He was actually also a very careful child, he would not have easily climbed into the Atlantic alone.”
“Of course you start thinking, yes. I don’t imagine that René is still alive,” he added.
An expert found tide and current conditions in the sea at the time of the disappearance made a swimming accident unlikely.
BKA cops in Germany have maintained other victims could be linked to the Maddie investigation. The force declined to comment on René Hasee.
Brueckner was reported to be in the same area as five-year-old German girl Inga Gehricke when she vanished in May 2015.
The little girl had been enjoying a family BBQ in woodland in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, around 75km from Berlin, when she vanished without a trace in chilling echoes of Madeleine’s disappearance.
Police confirmed they are reinvestigating the case for “new clues in connection with a suspect in Braunschweig”, Sky News reports.
There are now fears from her family Brueckner might be involved in the case after a sick stash of child abuse images were found at his German farmhouse lair near where she vanished.
They also fear his involvement amid claims he booked a parking space in a rest area less than 90km from the spot where Inga disappeared, Bild reports.
Nine months after Inga vanished, Brueckner’s ramshackle farmhouse 80km away from the spot in Neuwegersleben was raided in connection with the little girl’s disappearance.
Photos from the grim lair show tangled weeds creeping over rusted machinery and battered old caravans.
Officers raiding the home at the time discovered child abuse images on a USB stick and young girl’s clothing – despite Brueckner having no family.
But like Madeleine, police were unable to find any trace of missing Inga on the site of the old box factory.
The indecent images were sent away for inspection but the case against Brueckner went cold and no line of inquiry was pursued — despite the convicted paedo having no alibi on the day the little girl vanished.
KEY WITNESS ‘IDENTIFIES SUSPECT’
A key case witness has sensationally identified suspect Brueckner as the man she saw acting suspiciously outside the McCanns’ apartment, The Sun reports.
When shown a picture of the paedophile, the British woman — quizzed at the time of the abduction — said: “That’s the man I saw.”
She has been left “chilled” by revelations putting the convicted child sex fiend at the centre of the case.
The woman reported the sighting within hours of three-year-old Madeleine’s disappearance on May 3, 2007, and has always been viewed as a credible witness.
Her confirmation came amid claims of glaring blunders by Judicial Police feared to have let the beast cheat justice.
The Sun understands from another British witness that Portuguese detectives circulated a photograph of Brueckner years ago but failed to act.
The second woman saw the image in 2007, and also confirmed it was a man she had seen behaving bizarrely in the days after Madeleine went missing.
A Portuguese investigative source said: “It would appear Christian B’s name and background were known to police all along.
“They showed his picture to at least one witness who positively identified him near the scene yet nothing appears to have been followed up.
“It beggars belief that the McCanns have been allowed to endure so much pain for so long.
“The Judicial Police appear to have been more interested in pinning the blame on them rather than acting on clear evidence.”
Meanwhile, Brueckner allegedly discussed kidnapping and sexually abusing a child in a chatroom exchange in September 2013, German newspaper Spiegel reports.
According to The Sun, after allegedly expressing his fantasy of snatching a youngster, one pal warned him it would be dangerous — causing Brueckner to reply: “Oh, if the evidence is destroyed afterwards.”
It is not known if the alleged conversation about Madeleine in a chatroom, which occurred before police began honing in on him later in 2013, is the same chat as the one where he divulged his kidnapping fantasies.
POLICE SEARCH FOR MISSING EX-GIRLFRIEND
Those fresh claims come, as police investigating the McCann case are searching for an ex-girlfriend who lived with the chief suspect at a house near where the three-year-old girl and her family had been staying.
The mystery woman has been described as an “underage” woman from Kosovo by a former neighbour of the suspect, German playboy Brueckner.
The prosecutor’s office in the northern German city of Braunschweig said it was investigating the 43-year-old man as a murder suspect in the case that captured the world’s attention.
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The woman is believed to have left him shortly before McCann disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in the Praia da Luz area of Portugal.
The pair lived together in a rented farmhouse near the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz where McCann was taken in May 2007.
After they split up, he reportedly moved out and slept in a campervan.
He also stayed at the holiday home of a German family nearby.
Brueckner is the suspect of Scotland Yard’s inquiry after British police placed him in Praia da Luz on the night McCann vanished.
On the 10th anniversary of McCann’s disappearance, he reportedly confessed to a friend at a pub that he took McCann, and shared a video of himself raping a woman.
He has been on the police radar for more than 20 years after being convicted of multiple sexual offences and could be let out of jail on parole within days.
German and British police have launched a worldwide appeal for information after revealing the suspect is serving time in a German prison for unrelated sex crimes.
Labelled a “multiple sex offender”, Brueckner was convicted of a child sex offence when he was just 17.
But Brueckner, who reportedly has 17 criminal convictions, was apparently overlooked by Portuguese police in the case of McCann’s disappearance.
It also emerged yesterday he had been convicted of raping a 72-year-old widow in her Algarve, Portugal home just 18 months before McCann disappeared.
Police released photos of two vehicles he owned at the time, including a German-registered Jaguar XJR and a VW T3 Westfalia campervan.
They also released photos of the Praia da Luz property he rented and two phone numbers he was using as they appeal to the public for new information.
Brueckner reportedly traded in used cars at the farmhouse and worked in a restaurant in the nearby town of Lagos. Police believe that he also burgled local hotels and rental properties and was a drug dealer.
German prosecutors now say they assume McCann is dead.
“We are investigating a 43-year-old German on suspicion of murder,” spokesman Hans Christian Wolters said.
“We assume the girl is dead.
“With the suspect, we are talking about a sexual predator who has already been convicted of crimes against little girls and he’s already serving a long sentence.”
Parents Gerry and Kate McCann said in a statement: “We would like to thank the police forces involved for their continued efforts in the search for Madeleine.
“All we have ever wanted is to find her, uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice.
“We will never give up hope of finding Madeleine alive, but whatever the outcome may be, we need to know as we need to find peace.”
There is a $A36,234 reward for information leading to the conviction of the person or persons responsible for McCann’s disappearance.
Parts of this article originally appeared in The Sun and are republished here with permission.
Originally published as Madeleine McCann case: Prime suspect made chilling claim that missing girl ‘is dead’