It’s been 18 years since the mysterious disappearance of Madeleine McCann, and police are still hard at work trying to crack the case.
In a chilling new development, German authorities have discovered a hard drive filled with images they believe may point to the heartbreaking truth: Madeleine is dead.
A chilling prison confession
It’s one of the world’s most haunting mysteries — Madeleine McCann, the bright-eyed 3-year-old who vanished while on a family vacation in Praia da Luz, a resort town in Portugal’s Algarve region.
Her sudden disappearance in 2007 launched a global manhunt, drawing headlines and conspiracy theories for years. At one point, suspicion even fell on her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.
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And nearly two decades later, the case remains as chilling and unresolved as ever.
But in recent years, the focus has shifted squarely onto one man — Christian Brueckner, a 48-year-old German national with a disturbing past.
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In 2020, Brueckner was officially named a suspect. He’s currently serving time in a German prison for the 2005 rape of an American woman in the same region Maddie went missing. And now, the case against him seems to be intensifying.
A former prison cellmate, 50-year-old Romanian national Laurentiu Codin, delivered explosive testimony last year in a German courtroom. According to Codin, Brueckner once bragged about abducting a child while in Portugal.
“He told me that in Portugal, that he had stolen there… he was in a region of hotels where people are there, not sure how you say, rich people, where rich people live,” Codin recalled.
Inside the evidence
Brueckner, however, continues to deny any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance, insisting he’s innocent. If authorities fail to produce enough evidence to charge him, he could walk free as early as September 2025.
So, does German police have the evidence they need?
According to The Sun, which is producing a documentary on the case with Channel 4, investigators unearthed some truly disturbing items during a search of Brueckner’s hideaway in Neuwegersleben, central Germany.
Among the findings: masks, unlicensed firearms, ammunition, bikes, children’s toys, chilling photographs of young girls, and a staggering 75 children’s swimsuits — despite Brueckner not having any children of his own.
At the compound, police also uncovered disturbing writings by Christian Brueckner that reveal a terrifying obsession with abducting children. In the stories, Brueckner describes drugging a mother and her daughter outside a preschool — and sexually abusing a four-year-old blonde girl.
Investigators also found records of horrifying Skype chats with other pedophiles. In one of the conversations, Brueckner told another user he wanted to: “capture something small and use it for days.”
Another detail that caught investigators’ attention was even more chilling — photos placing Brueckner at Arade Dam, just 35 miles from where Maddie vanished. The remote spot has been searched multiple times by police in connection to the case.
Adding to the suspicion, Brueckner is also believed to have attended a festival in Spain, where he allegedly told a friend that Madeleine ”did not scream.”
The laptop / hard drive
Then there’s the hard drive — long in police possession — which could finally be the smoking gun. According to The Mirror, German authorities believe it holds key evidence, including images that suggest McCann is dead. While most of its contents have been kept under wraps, some of that evidence is expected to be revealed tonight, May 7, in the new documentary.
Back in 2020, German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters spoke on Australian television, stating:
“We have strong evidence that Madeleine McCann is dead and that our suspect killed her. We don’t have the body and no parts of the body, but we have enough evidence to say our suspect killed Madeleine McCann.”