Maddie McCann police remove 'potential evidence' from new search

Irish Daily Mirror

2 days ago

Police conducting the latest search for Madeleine McCann have recovered potential new evidence from the dig site.
German teams appear to be focusing their attention on two derelict farmhouses in the scrubland. This morning officers were seen removing rubble from one of the abandoned buildings near the edge of a cliff and flying a drone over the property. Yesterday they were spotted draining an abandoned well and removing mounds of earth in plastic containers for analysis.
Search teams are sweeping the area between Praia da Luz, where the three-year-old vanished on May 3 2007, and a house near the holiday resort where prime suspect Christian Brueckner used to live.
The search continues today.
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A police drone is now flying over a second derelict property on the 50-hectare site.
German detectives have ramped up their dramatic search for missing Madeleine McCann - turning their attention to a second abandoned farmhouse close to where the three-year-old vanished in 2007.
Plain-clothed officers were today seen digging through and removing rubble from the graffiti-covered structure within 100 metres of a cliff edge in Portugal. The fresh search comes just 24 hours after investigators swarmed another crumbling building nearby, hauling away bags of earth for forensic testing. Madeleine McCann vanished in May 2007 while on holiday with her family in Praia da Luz. Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were eating at a nearby restaurant around 100 yards from the accommodation where Madeleine, then aged 3, was sleeping with her toddler twin siblings. When Kate returned to check on the kids, Madeleine was gone.
Full story: Cops search graffiti-covered house after 'potential evidence' found
Two police officers are standing next to one of the derelict farm houses and flying a drone over the abandoned property.
It is the first time a police drone has been seen being used in the ongoing search operation.
Plain-clothed officers are digging through and removing rubble from a graffiti-covered structure within 100 metres of a cliff edge near Praia da Luz, Portugal.
Investigators are scouring the area for evidence that could link prime suspect Christian Brueckner to Madeleine's disappearance.
He is coming to the end of a seven-year long prison sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in the Algarve in 2005, which he still denies. Brueckner was arrested in Italy in 2018, but is due to be released from prison in Germany this September.
Authorities fear that Brueckner could disappear when he walks free from prison if they can't tie him to the toddler's disappearance before then.
Search teams are using strimmers and chainsaws to cut back vegetation and undergrowth outside a second abandoned property. They are wearing white hard hats and gloves
German search teams have resumed their operation on scrubland close to Praia da Luz.
Plain clothed officers have turned their attention to another derelict small farmhouse within 100 metres of the cliff edge. They can be seen removing rubble from the building, which is covered in graffiti.
Yesterday, German investigators scoured another abandoned farmhouse - where they were seen removing mounds of earth before taking it away in plastic bags for further examination.
Christian Brueckner was born in Germany in 1976, but moved to Portugal in his late teens. He is believed to have lived there for around 12 years - between 1995 and 2007.
The 47-year-old convicted paedophile had at one point stayed in a campervan close to Praia da Luz - where Madeleine, then aged 3, disappeared in 2007. He made a 30-minute phone call in the resort just an hour before the toddler vanished, according to the Telegraph.
Brueckner is also known to have spent time near the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 30 miles from Praia da Luz, between 2000 and 2017. He has always and continues to deny any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance.
Police have been pictured at the scene this morning - to the west of Praia De Luz, Portugal - where searches are being carried out by officers investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Cops are stationed in the countryside a few miles from the resort where the toddler was last seen in 2007. The search is being conducted at the request of the German federal police as they look for evidence that could implicate Christian Brueckner, who German prosecutors say is the prime suspect in Madeleine's disappearance.
Yesterday, German investigators scoured abandoned buildings, two wells and two water tanks on plots of land east of Praia da Luz.
According to Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha, no leads have been uncovered so far. "The investigations were suspended at the end of the day, without finding anything relevant to the investigation," the outlet said.
Police are scanning multiple plots of land in Praia De Luz close to the former home of prime suspect Christian Brueckner.
Officers will focus on:
It is not yet clear what sparked the latest search by German investigators.
Investigators carrying out fresh searches on the outskirts of Praia da Luz as part of the ongoing probe into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have recovered samples of potential evidence.
Officers were seen removing mounds of earth before taking it away in plastic bags for further examination.
The evidence is said to have been recovered from abandoned properties near Praia Da Luz, close to where the toddler vanished.
In April, ministers approved more than £100,000 in additional funding for Scotland Yard detectives investigating Madeleine McCann's disappearance. The Metropolitan Police will not be present at this week's search but said it is aware of the current operation.
A statement from her parents Kate and Gerry McCann and the family said: "The years appear to be passing even more quickly and whilst we have no significant news to share, our determination to 'leave no stone unturned' is unwavering. We will do our utmost to achieve this."
An investigator who once probed the Madeleine McCann case has issued a brutal seven-word verdict on the new police search.
Mr Williams-Thomas claims he has already 'thoroughly investigated' the area the police are searching during his three part Paramount investigation called: Madeleine McCann: The Case Against Christian B.
Read the full story here.
The search comes just three weeks after Madeleine would be turning 22-years-old.
On Monday May 12 Kate and Gerry updated their Official Find Madeleine CampaignFacebook page with a touching video captioned 'Happy 22nd birthday Madeleine.'
The Facebook page has not been updated since.
The search is expected to last around three days unless anything relevant is found by authorities.
It will be the first search in Portugal for more than two years, following a near-week-long operation involving Portuguese, German and police officers at a remote dam a 40-minute-drive from Praia da Luz.
It's been nearly 18 years since Kate and Gerry McCann last saw their daughter Madeleine McCann, and they still haven't given up hope of finding her.
Not knowing what happened to her daughter placed a huge burden on her mental health, so Kate, who received her degree in medicine at the University of Dundee, quit her job as a GP. However, in 2021, it was reported that she had returned to the NHS frontline in a time of crisis against COVID-19. She reportedly worked as a doctor in hospitals in Leicester and was said to be pleased to be "doing her little bit to help" as the city battled with soaring hospital admissions.
Gerry, a cardiologist who is also a research professor at the University of Leicester, was said to be working in the same hospital at times, although they were "hardly ever" expected to come across each other due to the busy nature of their prestigious jobs.
In 2017, while marking the tenth anniversary of her daughter's disappearance, Kate opened up about how she still buys presents for Madeleine ahead of Christmas and birthdays. Kate explained: "I do all the present buying. I think about what age she is and buy something that, whenever we find her, will still be appropriate so there's a lot of thought goes into it."
Almost two decades on, investigators in the U.K., Portugal and Germany are still piecing together what happened on the night she disappeared. She was in the same room as her brother and sister — 2-year-old twins — while their parents, Kate and Gerry, had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.
The last time police resumed searches in the case was in 2023, when detectives from the three countries took part in an operation searching near a dam and a reservoir about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Praia da Luz resort.
Madeleine's family marked the 18th anniversary of her disappearance last month, and expressed their determination to keep searching.
Searches for Madeleine McCann are to resume in Portugal, near where the little girl was last seen in 2007.
On Tuesday, fresh searches for Madeleine began, as teams drained a well and cleared areas of dense vegetation near abandoned buildings in countryside a few miles from Praia da Luz.
Madeleine, then aged three, vanished while on holiday with her family in the Algarve resort, after her parents went out to dinner and left her sleeping in a room with her toddler twin siblings.
German investigators and Portuguese police officers and firefighters took part in the searches on Tuesday, as teams used strimmers, shovels and chainsaws to clear the undergrowth and debris around an abandoned building, and drained a well using a yellow hose.
The main suspect in the case is a German national identified by media as Christian Brueckner, who is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005.
He is under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case but hasn't been charged. He spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz, around the time of the child's disappearance. Brueckner has denied any involvement in her disappearance.
The operation launched this week is not being directed by British authorities, and instead involves detectives and police officers from Germany and Portugal.
However, the Met Police - who were put in charge of the Madeleine McCann missing persons investigation in 2011 - have said they are "aware" of the searches taking place.
A spokesman said: "We are aware of searches being carried out by police in Portugal as part of their investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann."
Officers from Portugal's Polícia Judiciária - equivalent to the US's FBI or the National Crime Agency in Britain - were among those spotted in the search area earlier.
One officer could be soon opening the boot of his car behind a large blue tent erected at the scene.
The chief suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is alleged to have told a friend "she didn't scream" soon after she vanished.
Eyewitness Helge Busching, who was friends with Christian Brueckner in Portugal in the early 2000s, says he met him again at a music festival in Spain in 2008 - and discussed the Madeleine McCann case.
Describing their conversation, he told German outlet Bild in 2023: 'He asked me: 'Don't you go to Portugal anymore and do business there?'
'I said: 'No, since the girl disappeared there, there have been too many police checks for me and I don't need that at all.'
'[The topic of Madeleine's disappearance] came up and I said: 'Anyway, I don't understand how the little one could have disappeared without a trace.'
'Christian had drunk two or three beers, and he said: 'She didn't scream.''
The flurry of activity around the new search site in Portugal today suggests this will be a major operation - and one which German prosecutors hope will help connect Christian Brueckner to Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
The last time this took place was in 2023, when detectives from the three countries joined forces in an operation searching near a dam and a reservoir about 30 miles from the resort.
This time, the search area is located slightly closer to the Praia da Luz resort where the three-year-old was last seen on May 3, 2007.
Search teams in the countryside have been seen using pickaxes, shovels and chainsaws to clear dense vegetation and dig near a derelict farmhouse.
Firefighters have also pumped water out of a well.
In a new piece for the Mirror, former Met Detective Chief Inspector Peter Kirkham explains how the new Madeleine McCann search is not just the police going over old ground - but warns the chance of a breakthrough is small.
There have been several large scale searches connected to the Madeleine McCann investigation in the many years since she disappeared in Praia Da Luz. So what is different this time?
The main difference is that on this occasion, officers are not just working from the crime scene but working back from a possible suspect – Christian Brueckner – too. This provides a very different context for the investigation as a whole and for the searches in particular but the importance of this is often overlooked.
Detectives investigating a serious crime are usually engaged in what is known as a reactive investigation: a crime happens and officers react to it by following lines of enquiry which could explain how it came to happen. Searches connected with a reactive investigation tend to be focused on the crime scene as at least some part of the crime must have happened right there.
Portuguese police confirmed yesterday that detectives were acting on a request from a German public prosecutor to carry out "a broad range" of searches this week in the area of Lagos, in southern Portugal.The main suspect is a German national identified by media as Christian Brueckner, who is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005.He is under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case, but hasn't been charged.
Before his court appearance Germany last month, the Mirror confronted Christian Brueckner about whether he was responsible for Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
He appeared to smirk, but did not respond.
In June last year, a senior detective said they had discovered emails on Brueckner's Hotmail account that linked him to the McCann case.
The detective said cops found a second account where he had swapped sickening child abuse videos with fellow paedophiles.
He claimed Brueckner deleted all emails in that Hotmail account from the first half of 2007 - when Madeleine vanished.
Prosecutors got access to the inbox after making an application to the US software giant Microsoft in 2019.
Convicted rapist Christian Brueckner was born in Germany in 1976 and moved to Portugal in his late teens.
It is believed he lived in the country between 1995 and 2007, and stayed in a campervan located not far from the holiday resort where Madeleine McCann was abducted.
He is described as being around 6ft tall and slim, with short blonde hair.
Brueckner has more than a dozen previous convictions for burglary, theft and sex offences, including serving an 18-month sentence in Germany for a sex attack on a youth when he was a teen.
He is currently serving a seven-year prison term for raping an American pensioner in Praia da Luz and drug trafficking.
The convicted German sex offender was first identified as a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case in 2022, after it emerged he had reportedly been driving around the Praia da Luz resort at the time the British three-year-old went missing in 2007.