'Madeleine McCann is dead': Ex-police chief will be 'disappointed' if Julia Wandelt turns out to be missing girl
LONDON, ENGLAND: A Polish woman has gone viral for claiming she could be Madeleine McCann, the missing British girl who vanished from a Portuguese resort when she was three years old back in 2007. According to a former police chief in Portugal, he would be "disappointed" if the missing child turned out to be the 21-year-old Polish woman who is ready to take a DNA test to prove her claims.
Julia Wandelt also goes by the surnames "Wendell" and "Faustyna". She told her online followers, who have ballooned since she made the claim, that the McCanns had approached her to take a DNA test. If true, then the McCanns do believe there is enough facial similarity and evidence to warrant such a test, despite their apparent two-year age difference. Madeline McCann would be 19 years old right now if she is alive.
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'Madeleine is dead'
Vitor Paiva once led the Policia Judiciaria force in Setubal south of Lisbon but is not thought to have ever taken an active part in the search for Madeleine McCann when she disappeared in 2007, as per Irish Mirror. But he went on the prestigious television network CMTV to proclaim that he hoped Julia was not the missing Madeleine since it would refute the state prosecutor Wolters' claim that the child is dead and that Christian Brueckner was responsible for her kidnapping. "It would mean the state prosecutor, who deserves credit for the profession he exercises, has ended up deceiving us,” said Paiva.
Paiva, who is a frequent TV commentator after retiring, also expressed his skepticism of Julia's claims and stated that he thought the police would have gotten in touch with her by this point if they believed she was telling the truth. Despite calling her story "far-fetched," especially given that Madeleine would now be 19 rather than 21, he argued that a quick DNA test was the obvious next step after the "millions already spent on investigating" the British teenager's May 3, 2007 disappearance.
Why does Julia believe she is the missing child?
The Daily Beast was informed this week by a source that Gerry and Kate McCann, whose 3-year-old daughter Madeleine disappeared while on vacation in Portugal over 15 years ago, are investigating Julia Wandelt's claims that she is the kidnapped toddler. The crux of her "proof" is the physical resemblance to McCann and her rare eye disorder, which Wandelt claims to share with the missing victim. A coloboma abnormality in McCann's right eye was used as a major identifying feature when she went missing.
Wandelt, who asserts that she is of sound mind, has said that she is unsure of who she is and has few memories of her childhood. Her father, mother, and grandmother are said to have "shunned" Wandelt for claiming to be McCann and have refused to submit to DNA testing or provide her birth certificate, according to Globalnews.
About the suspect in McCann case
Christian Brueckner, 45, a German native, is the only suspect in the disappearance. He is currently serving a seven-year sentence in Germany for raping an American woman in her seventies. Years after McCann went missing, he was found with child pornography. He also kept the swimwear and clothing of little girls in his campervan, which he once boasted could carry children or drugs without being detected. Though he has been charged with several sex crimes he has yet to be accused of McCann's disappearance, as reported by Marca.
