Maddie‘s parents told ‘your daughter is dead’
LONDON: German police have written to the parents of Madeleine McCann to confirm she is dead, according to newspaper reports.
Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the investigation into the main suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance at the age of three, has reportedly written to Gerry and Kate McCann and confirmed their daughter (inset) was killed.
Mr Wolters said police cannot yet confirm how they know Madeleine is dead. Mr Wolters was quoted as saying in the Daily Mirror: “We have re-established contact with the Mc
Cann family in writing. We, of course, really consider the fact that it is going to be very hard for the family when we tell them we assume Madeline is dead. But we can’t say why she is dead.”
German investigators believe Christian Brueckner killed Madeleine soon after abducting her from a holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in May, 2007. Brueckner, 43, is in jail in Germany for drug dealing, and is appealing against a conviction for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old woman, also at Praia da Luz. Police are reportedly preparing to search wells at his Portuguese villa in the hunt for Madeleine’s body.
A single-storey property the suspect rented is less than half an hour away from where Madeleine was staying with her family when she disappeared in 2007. The site has several old wells and a path leading to a beach the McCanns reportedly went to.
According to The Sun, a meeting is taking place between the McCanns’ Portuguese lawyer and senior detectives involved in the longrunning probe. German prosecutors claim to have a single piece of evidence that proves “100 per cent” that Maddie is dead, but have so far refused to tell the McCanns what it is. They have shared the information with Portuguese police, who described it as “significant” and “very important”.
The couple are desperate to know what police know about the disappearance of their daughter after she was taken from their Ocean Club unit.
German police have confirmed they recovered no damning DNA from the suspect’s VW camper van or his Jaguar. Lawyers for Brueckner say he will refuse to answer questions because prosecutors must have proof of his involvement in her disappearance.
The Times says investigators are searching for a link connecting Brueckner to an incident involving a 10-yearold British girl in the same resort in 2005, the same year Brueckner had raped a woman at a villa nearby. The paper said police were aware of nine sexual assaults and three attempts against British girls, aged six-12, who were in the area from 2004-06.