Maddie McCann: a family’s renewed hope
As police focus on a new suspect, Madeleine McCann’s parents continue to hold out hope for their missing girl
IT LOOKS like a typical little girl’s bedroom. The walls are painted a pinkish hue, the ceiling is adorned with glowing stars, and dolls and teddy bears are arranged in a neat row, ready for their owner to play with them.
For more than 13 years this is how the room has remained, as if frozen in time, waiting for the door to swing open and for three-year-old Madeleine McCann to bound in.
Although for most people it seems extremely unlikely that the girl – who went missing on holiday with her parents in Portugal in 2007 – will ever return, her parents, Kate and Gerry, have refused to give up hope.
For Kate (52), the twice-daily ritual of walking into her firstborn’s bedroom to open and close the curtains has become her way of showing the world she still steadfastly believes that Maddie, who would now be 17, will return home.
Over the years there’ve been many red herrings and leads that went nowhere. But now new information has surfaced that could finally solve the mystery.
Police have a prime suspect: Christian Brueckner (43), a German paedophile, drug trafficker and burglar who was living in Praia da Luz in Portugal’s Algarve region at the time Maddie went missing.
He’s currently in jail in Kiel, northern Germany, serving a seven-year sentence for raping a 72-year-old US tourist in Praia da Luz in 2005.
There are also sex convictions dating back to 1994, including a sex attack on a nine-year-old girl. And he’s been linked to the disappearance of a five-year-old German girl. Now his possible involvement in Maddie’s abduction is the subject of intense investigation.
For most of the decade he spent in Portugal, he lived in a ramshackle farmhouse on a sprawling property which has several abandoned wells. But in 2007 he was reportedly living in a camper-van in the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz where Maddie and her family were holidaying.
For Brueckner, holiday homes and hotel rooms offered a ready supply of rich pickings. Police believe he may have broken into the McCanns’ apartment while the couple dined with friends at a tapas restaurant in the resort. Then, seeing Maddie asleep there alone with her twin siblings, Sean and Amelie (then 2), he decided on the spur of the moment to kidnap her.
As the little girl’s disappearance made world headlines, Brueckner left Portugal, returning to Germany where he spent the past decade or so in and out of jail.
In 2017 he was sitting in a bar when
footage marking the 10th anniversary of Maddie’s disappearance appeared on TV, prompting him to brag to a friend that he “knew all about” what had happened to the toddler. He also allegedly showed his pal a video of him raping a woman.
The friend reported the matter to police and now, after more than a decade, it seems the McCanns may finally get the answers they’ve been craving.
IT’S not only the McCann’s who are haunted by Maddie’s loss – 13 years on, her presence can still be felt in the family’s hometown of Rothley, Leicestershire. Shops continue to display posters of Maddie with the words, “Don’t give up on me.” Cars carry bumper stickers saying: “Never forget me.” In the village square a solitary candle burns as a symbol of hope.
But although her disappearance left her parents shells of themselves, life goes on. In a BBC interview Gerry (52) said they’d reached a point where they realised they owed it to their twins, who are now 15, to move past their grief.
“The last five years in particular have allowed us to really properly devote time to looking after the twins and ourselves and, of course, carrying on with our work.”
Following Maddie’s disappearance, the couple came under scrutiny for their decision to leave their kids alone in an apartment while they went for supper with friends – even though they took turns to regularly check up on the children.
It was all too much for Kate and after returning from Portugal, she quit her job as a locum GP.
“She chose not to return to being a doctor because she didn’t want patients judging her, feeling sorry for her or discussing Madeleine,” a friend says.
Instead, she threw herself into a new line of medicine which involves helping dementia patients. She also serves as an ambassador for a charity which seeks to unite missing people with their families.
Meanwhile, Gerry’s career as a cardiologist has gone from strength to strength.
It’s impossible to imagine the hell the couple must have gone through, yet remarkably they’ve weathered the storm. They’re often spotted jogging in the village with their kids – described as healthy, athletic teenagers exploring their independence – or enjoying a drink together at a local café.
But as hard as they’ve tried to soldier on, the aching gap in their lives is impossible to ignore. In previous interviews Kate has revealed that Maddie’s birthday is one of the toughest days of all, and each year she marks it by buying a present for her daughter.
“I think about what age she is and buy something that, whenever we find her, will still be appropriate,” she said. “So a lot of thought goes into it.”
In recent months thoughts of her daughter have been stronger than ever.
In a Facebook post on 2 May, the date of Maddie’s abduction, the couple wrote: “We’ve been fortunate to spend more time together as a family since lockdown began, an enforced block to a usually frenetic life, a silver lining to this dark cloud. It has made us think about Madeleine even more, as she would’ve shared this period of special closeness with us, too.’
There was another poignant message from the family on Maddie’s birthday on 12 May. Alongside the iconic last photo of the little a girl, beaming in her Everton football shirt, they wrote: “We love you and we’re waiting for you and we’re never going to give up.”
And now, after all these years of waiting, it seems there may finally be a breakthrough in the case. But sadly, it may not lead to the McCanns being reunited with their child. Although investigators haven’t revealed exactly what evidence they’ve got to connect Brueckner to the crime, they’ve confirmed what many people have suspected for so long.
“The investigation leads us to believe that Maddie McCann was killed,” German police chief Christian Hoppe says.
However, at time of going to print British police announced they’re still treating the case as a missing persons inquiry rather than a murder investigation.
Either way, the McCanns say they’re ready to face the truth.
“All we’ve ever wanted is to find her, uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice,” the couple said in a statement. “Whatever the outcome may be, we need to know as we need to find peace.”