Madeleine McCann: Christian Brückner kept girls' swimsuits in his motorhome even as he claims he did not kill her
Christian Brückner insisted that he did not have anything to do with Madeleine McCann's disappearance despite the police finding a stash of girls' swimming costumes in the pedophile's motorhome. Brückner had driven the 30ft-long vehicle where he had also lived between Portugal and Germany. Brückner also owned a Tiffin Allegro and was known to be driving a vehicle that matched its description in 2007 when Madeleine had disappeared.
As reported by the Mirror, Brückner spoke via his lawyer Friedrich Fulscher and “denied any involvement" in Madeleine's disappearance. Those who knew him described a "large cream-colored Winnebago campervan" which he had allegedly boasted could hide "drugs and children." German TV station Spiegel had reported that upon searching the site, detectives found many items of children's clothing with a majority of them being "small swimsuits" in the motorhome. Brückner has no children.
The police had also discovered around six memory sticks that had more than 8,000 child abuse images. The memory sticks had been placed inside a bag in a hole in the ground beneath the body of Brückner's dead dog. A former ambulance driver, Dieter, whose daughter knew Brückner, told Daily Mail he was shown the vehicle. "As I looked inside, I asked him: 'Herr Brückner, what do you do in Portugal? What is your job?' He told me: 'I work, I get money because I have a special business. I transport grass [cannabis] in my van.'"
"Brückner told me again, 'I have 50kg of grass, and I transport it around Europe'. I thought he was joking at the time. He said, 'In my van, I can take 50kg of grass – nobody can see it ... I can transport children, kids, in this space. Drugs and children, you can transport them in this van – it's a safe space in the van. Nobody can find them. Nobody can catch you'," Dieter shared. The authorities had been investigating the disappearance of Inga Gehricke, 5, who was also known as the 'German Maddie', and had found the vehicle while searching a disused box factory in Neuwegersleben, near Braunschweig in Germany.
Brückner was suspected of Inga's disappearance but was not charged. Madeleine vanished at the age of 3 while she was on a vacation with her parents at a Portuguese resort in May 2007. Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann are in for another agonizing wait as it is believed that Brueckner is not cooperating with the authorities after his suspected involvement in the case. Brückner, 43, is currently serving out a seven-year jail term for raping an American woman, 72, in Praia da Luz, Portugal. He is housed at the Kiel Jail in northern Germany. He is now the prime suspect in Madeleine's disappearance from 13 years ago.
Brückner has applied for early release from prison after having completed around two-thirds of his sentence for raping an American woman. The Frankfurter Neuer Presse has named Christian Brückner, 43, as a potential suspect in another case that occurred in March 1998 and saw the death of Tristan Brübach. Brübach was found murdered in the Frankfurt suburb of Höchst with the case still unresolved.