Faces of youngsters in Brueckner file
THE body of Carolatitze, 16, was found in woodland in De Haan, Belgium, in May 1996, sending shockwaves through the community.
The last images of the German girl who was on holiday showed her shopping days before she disappeared. A week later her mutilated body was found in nearby dunes.
A suspect emerged a month into the investigation – a young German man with whom she had a lot of contact in the days before her disappearance.
They had been seen together in a disco and the man had reportedly bragged about having a criminal past.
Despite an artist’s impression of the suspect being shown widely around the area he was never traced and the case was closed as unsolved in 2016.
Christian Brueckner would have been 19 then. It has not been confirmed if he was in the area at the time but Belgium’s public prosecutor’s office is now examining whether he can be considered a suspect.
De Haan’s mayorwilfriedvandaele said: “Of course we too want the perpetrator to be found at long last.
“Let’s hope the German investigation can provide greater clarity.”
Six-year-old German boy Rene Hasee went missing from a beach in 1996 while on holiday in Portugal’s Algarve.
Police in Germany are now investigating whether Brueckner could have been involved in his disappearance and have been in contact with his family.
At the time it was reported that Rene could have drowned and Portuguese police called off the search very early.
But in a 2017 interview with German newspaper Bild Rene’s grandmother
Irmgard Burbach said he would never have gone into the water alone.
The family had been lunching at a cafe but Rene was impatient to return to the beach.
The last time his mother Anita saw him was as he went down wooden steps to the beach.the only trace left was his clothes.
Irmgard said: “They assumed Rene had drowned. He was terrified of the waves, he would not have gone into the sea alone.
“His footprints also stopped in the middle of the sand.”
Brueckner is also being investigated in connection with the disappearance of Inga Gehricke, five, who has been dubbed the “German Maddie”.
Inga went missing in May 2015 while in a forest. Brueckner reportedly had a property in the town of Neuwegersleben, around 60 miles from where she went missing.