Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner bragged about breaking into hotels in Portugal, reveals friend
The prime suspect in Madeleine McCann's disappearance, Christian Brueckner, is currently serving a sentence for drug offenses and appealing his conviction for raping an elderly American woman in 2005. In recent developments, however, a man claiming to be the suspect's friend has shared with RTL how he chanced upon the video of Brueckner raping a 72-year-old woman that led to his conviction. The man, identified as Manfred S., also revealed that Brueckner had bragged to him about breaking into hotels in the past.
The 43-year-old Brueckner had raped the elderly woman in Praia da Luz - the same area where then 3-year-old Madeleine had gone missing from her family's holiday apartment in 2007. According to Manfred S., Brueckner had made the hotel-break brag back when they roamed the Algarve together as petty crooks. It was all the way in 2015 when Brueckner was jailed for diesel theft that Manfred S. and another accomplice had decided to rob his house and thus, come across the video that led to his conviction.
During his trial in December, it was revealed that Brueckner had tied up the woman and also whipped her during the whole ordeal that happened at her own home. "I felt that he enjoyed torturing me," she told investigators, adding that he carried a 30 cm long saber. According to Manfred S, the video also had footage of a younger woman tied to a wooden beam in another house. It left Manfred S. extremely disturbed and spurred him to turn the footage in, leading to Brueckner's conviction.
The revelation comes shortly after it was reported that Brueckner had used a Casio Exilim digital camera to store 391 child porn pictures and 68 videos of rape and abuse of minors. The device is allegedly the same one he used to take photos of himself raping the five-year-old daughter of an ex-girlfriend. Soon the camera became the prime evidence against Brueckner during two trials, wherein he was accused of sexually abusing the girl and also child pornography.
Brueckner tried fleeing to Portugal after being acquitted in 2016 but soon admitted once he was extradited back to Germany in a year's time. He was given a 15-month jail sentence at the time.
A ten-page judgment from Braunschweig District Court details the contents of the camera's memory card, and it ranges from a number of disturbing photos of under-14 children being abused by adults, and others of children being forced to perform sex acts. The list also includes several naked pictures of another ex-girlfriend and some of her having sex with Brueckner too. There was also a Reck P6E blank pistol with ammunition in Breckner's flat, which is also illegal to possess without a license under German law.
Court documents reveal that Brueckner raped the five-year-old daughter of his ex on June 16, 2013, in Braunschweig. The crime happened around the same time German investigators started considering him as a suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine. They also add that Brueckner took photos of the abused victims and "saved them on his later confiscated camera with the intent to later arouse himself sexually."
The Police had received a tip-off about Brueckner, after an appeal over Madeleine was made on German TV, six years after the little girl had disappeared in May 2007. Brueckner was allegedly living in the area at the time, and according to mobile data obtained by the police, he was near the same apartment where Madeline went missing from, the very evening she was abducted.