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Here's why Scotland Yard will not recognize Polish woman Julia Faustyna as Madeleine McCann

Julia Faustyna, 21, has made around 50 social media posts comparing her physical features both with those of Madeleine McCann and her parents

BY KUNAL DEY

PUBLISHED FEB 21, 2023

Polish woman Julia Faustyna claimed she was the missing British minor Madeleine McCann in a series of social media posts (yavassa01/Facebook; Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

LONDON, ENGLAND: The disappearance of Madeleine McCann was cast into the spotlight once again after a 21-year-old Polish woman named Julia Faustyna claimed to be the missing British minor in a series of social media posts.

Faustyna, who has also been referred to as Julia Wandelt and Julia Wendell online, created an Instagram account titled, 'Help me, I need to talk with Kate and Gerry McCann' referring to McCann's parents. She has made around 50 posts comparing her physical features both with those of the missing minor and her parents. The 21-year-old subsequently urged law enforcement in her country and in the UK to compare DNA samples.

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'The memories are all very blurry'

“I have lived a very hard life and suffered a lot of trauma, my abuser was a German pedophile who was a suspect in the Madeleine McCann investigation,” Faustyna told the Daily Star in statements about her childhood. “I had not heard of this case until I started asking my parents questions about my childhood as I have little to no memory of it. The memories are all very blurry and when I have had conversations with my parents, things don’t seem to add up and they always try to change the subject," she added.

In the most recent update on the case, the main suspect Christian Brueckner denied any involvement in McCann's disappearance. “The time that some of these crimes are supposed to have happened I was in prison. The prosecution is trying to trap me and hopes that I will capitulate under mental pressure. They hope that I will just say ‘yes’ to everything which will give me a chance to escape from this mental torture,” Brueckner wrote in a letter to the Daily Mirror from a German prison. “Certainly there is no evidence at all. Of course not because I have not committed any of these crimes," the letter added.

MILAN, ITALY - This undated handout image supplied by the Carabinieri Milano shows a police mug shot of Christian Brueckner, a suspect in the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann in 2007 from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal. The image was taken in 2018 in Milan where Brueckner was arrested and extradited to Germany for the rape he is currently imprisoned for. (Photo by Carabinieri Milano via Getty Images) — This undated handout image supplied by the Carabinieri Milano shows a police mug shot of Christian Brueckner, a suspect in the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann in 2007 from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal (Photo by Carabinieri Milano via Getty Images)

In response to Faustyna's statements, Scotland Yard reportedly said they had reasons not to believe her claims and therefore would not perform any DNA tests. The Metropolitan Police believe Madeleine died the same day she went missing. Furthermore, the missing girl would be 19 years old if she were still alive today -- two years younger than the Polish woman claiming to be the child who disappeared in the Portuguese Algarve, as reported by the Spanish daily Diario AS.

Kate and Gerry McCann, the parents of the missing 4-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann, hold up a picture of Madeleine during a press conference on June 6, 2007 in Berlin, Germany. Kate and her husband Gerry are in Berlin to spread the word in the search for their missing duaghter Madeleine who disappeared from their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal on May 3, 2007. — Kate and Gerry McCann, the parents of the missing 4-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann, hold up a picture of Madeleine during a press conference on June 6, 2007, in Berlin, Germany (Photo by Miguel Villagran/Getty Images)

Age-progression technology

According to British authorities, Faustyna is yet another person falsely claiming to be McCann. Experts from the force reportedly used age-progression software to see if there was any resemblance. After running the software, they found that the young Polish woman had no resemblance to what McCann would look like today.

Experts cited a number of cases in which girls falsely claimed that they were the missing girl. According to Diario AS, the overwhelming number of testimonies of similar characteristics was one of the reasons why Scotland Yard is refusing to test Faustyna's DNA. It's worth noting that McCann's whereabouts are still unknown after she mysteriously disappeared 15 years ago. Operation Grange, the Met Police's investigation into the case, remains active.