Christian Brückner slammed ex's head, broke into her flat and hid under bed after she hugged male friend
Christian Brückner, who is suspected to have abducted and possibly murdered then 3-year-old Madeleine McCann, who disappeared 13 years ago, also violently assaulted one of his ex-girlfriends. The convicted pedophile allegedly broke into her apartment and waited for her there, after finding her hugging a male friend.
Brückner, 43, is currently in prison for raping a 72-year-old American woman 18 months before the disappearance of McCann, in May 2007. The woman was reportedly raped in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, where she was vacationing with her parents Kate and Gerry, and twin siblings Sean and Amelie.
Reports show that Brückner lived in the Algarve area of Portugal between 1995 and 2007. While he worked casual jobs in the catering business and served as a waiter, the main source of his income was selling drugs and carrying out burglaries at hotels. In the spring of 2004, he became friends with a colleague — a waitress from Berkshire, who had moved to Portugal in 2003.
In the condition of anonymity, the woman gave an interview to Mirror where she said that it was "chilling" to think he could have played a part in abducting McCann as he initially appeared to be quite a charming man. "Chris could be very, very charming, very funny, and very smooth in the way he talked. He always dressed nicely, holding the door open for women, that kind of thing. I was alone here in Portugal, no family around and a bit lonely and I was getting all this attention from this guy," she said.
In the early months of their relationship, everything was going smoothly. Brückner was "very easy going" and that their "sex life was normal," the woman said. She also began regularly staying over at the farmhouse he was renting. However, in the winter of 2004, the relationship took a dark turn, after she bumped into a male friend in Lagos and decided to catch up with him. There was a distinct change in her then boyfriend's behavior. He stopped talking to her, "like he was spooked." She was told by another acquaintance that Brückner had threatened him after watching them have a chat.
He also started yelling at her for not cleaning his house, even though she maintained her own apartment. "He was like, 'you should clean my house, you’re a woman'. He said he had two Portuguese girlfriends before me and they both cleaned his house even though they never lived there. I remember saying, 'but I’m not Portuguese', and he replied saying, 'English women are all lazy,'" she told Mirror.
He also started traveling back and forth between Portugal and Germany one week after the other, raising her suspicions. When the woman found a message on his phone saying "Ich liebe dich" ("I love you" in German) from an unknown sender and confronted him about it, he "went completely crazy" at her.
Still, their relationship continued. A few weeks later, Brückner got drunk at a bar she was working at in the early hours of New Year’s eve. After seeing some of her male friends come over from the pub next door to hug her, Brückner flew into a "crazy rage", came around the bar, grabbed her by the neck, pulled her into the washroom, and smashed her head against the wall. It took four men to drag him away and call the police while she lay covered in blood.
The woman refused to bring charges against Brückner as she was scared of what could happen to her if he was arrested. When she later returned home that day, she "felt strange" as if someone must have been there as the toilet seat had been left up. The woman searched the cupboards and found nothing and then got the "shock of her life" when she peeked under the bed to see Brückner staring at her. He had smashed the window of her house and lay in hiding waiting for her. After being discovered, he got out from under the bed "like everything was normal". He then said goodbye and walked out. She suspected he was waiting to see if she brought anyone back with her. She added that she dreaded to think what would have happened if she had.
Not heeding her friends' pleas to end the relationship, she patched things up with Brückner weeks later, after he "begged for forgiveness" and promised never to drink again. However, they finally called it quits after she found a pair of women’s underwear in Brückner's bag in mid-2005. After that, he began stalking her constantly, hanging around the restaurant where she worked, until the police were called and he was banned from setting foot in the facility.
However, he continued to lurk outside and even followed her at times. He also allegedly threatened her that he would find out where her parents lived and hurt them. From then on, the woman always got friends to escort her home as she did not feel safe alone.
The woman said that she was surprised when detectives showed up at her doorstep last year and questioned her about Brückner possibly raping an American pensioner after their breakup. She said that she knew he had a string of relationships with older women and even suspected he could have been working as a gigolo. Her interrogation included questions about her sex life with her ex-boyfriend, how he treated women, and a detailed profile of him.
At that point, the detective did not mention McCann, she said. Nevertheless, she added in the interview that there was "absolutely no sign" of Brückner being into young children when she dated him. "I couldn’t believe I had been with someone who could be capable of that. To imagine I’ve been with someone who is capable of hurting someone like that is sickening. It’s so hard for me to believe it’s true," she said.
German prosecutors said on June 4 that they were currently treating the case as a murder investigation. However, Operation Grange, an investigative review by London's Metropolitan Police Service into the circumstances of the disappearance of McCann, still considers the case a missing person inquiry because there is no "definitive evidence whether the girl is alive or dead".