Madeleine McCann search: bones and clothing fragments reportedly sent to forensics

Investigators are said to have quietly sent fragments of bones and clothing to forensics in their search for clues in the case of missing Brit tot Madeleine McCann.

Germany’s equivalent of the FBI uncovered bone shards and fragments of clothing in the search for missing British toddler Madeleine McCann last week according to local media reports.

A joint search by Portuguese investigators and German authorities, who suspect convicted rapist and German national Christian Brueckner is involved in Madeleine’s disappearance, was conducted near the resort where the then three-year-old disappeared in 2007.

Brueckner denies all involvement in the case and has never been charged.

Kate and Gerry McCann have never given up hope of finding answers. Picture: AFP

Last week search teams undergrowth and an abandoned building on Portugal’s Algarve coast.

While it was initially reported the search yielded no new evidence and no formal statement has been made publicly, Portuguese and German media outlets are quoting sources close to the investigation as stating a number of items have been sent off to forensics.

“Several objects have apparently been discovered, which are now being examined in more detail by the police in the laboratory,” a source told Berlin Morning Post:

“As Portuguese media report, clothing debris and bones were found, among other things.

“The investigators have not officially commented on whether the finds could have anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance but that is clearly their hope.”

Madeleine McCann was three when she vanished. Picture: AFP

Around 25 German police officers assisting Portuguese authorities searched for evidence near the Praia da Luz seaside resort, where Madeleine disappeared on May 3, 2007, while her parents had dinner nearby.

Using shovels, rakes and a weed whip, investigators combed an overgrown wooded area bordered by several dilapidated, abandoned houses between Praia da Luz and the nearby city of Lagos, said AFP journalists at the scene.

Police investigators searched for clues again last week. Picture: AFP

They also used ground-penetrating radar and an excavator to search another area around the village of Atalaia, Portuguese media reports said.

A previous search in 2023 of a lake near the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz yielded no results.

That is near one of the lodgings where Brueckner, the rapist who is now serving a prison sentence in his native Germany for an unrelated crime, stayed during a stint in Portugal in the 1990s and 2000s.

The only suspect Christian Brueckner denies all involvement and has never been charged. Picture: AFP

Brueckner, a drifter with a criminal record, was living in a camper van on the Algarve coast at the time Madeleine vanished.

A mobile phone registered in his name was traced close to the family’s accommodation on the night she went missing.

– with AFP

Originally published as Madeleine McCann search: bones and clothing fragments reportedly sent to forensics