On June 4, 2020, in the German city of Braunschweig, public prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters gathered the press for a surprising announcement. The German authorities believed they had the answer to the question that some of the best investigative minds in the world had been fighting for 13 years: What happened to Madeleine McCann?
“48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant has covered the case since 2007 and takes a look at the investigation of the new suspect in “The Puzzle: Solving the Madeleine McCann Case”, which will air on Saturday, February 27 at 10 / 9c on CBS.
More than a decade has passed since Madeleine, 3, on vacation with her parents and younger brother and sister in the seaside town of Praia da Luz, Portugal, disappeared from her bed on the night of May 3, 2007, without a feature. With the slow response of the local police, Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, both British doctors, turned to the international press for help from around the world to find their daughter. Hundreds of man-hours on searches, millions spent on international investigations, endless attention from the global media, thousands of fake Madeleine “sightings”, even a meeting with the pope and more than 13 years of desperate hope have not produced a single viable clue.
So how is it that a modest prosecutor in a small town in Germany can say with absolute conviction that “… in connection with the disappearance of the British girl Madeleine Beth McCann of 3 years … the office of the public prosecutor in Braunschweig is investigating an old German citizen on suspicion of murder. From that, you can see that we assume that the girl is dead “When asked by Van Sant why they were so sure of this terrible outcome, prosecutor Wolters replied:” We have strong evidence that Madeleine McCann is dead and that she was killed by our suspect, Christian B. ”
Because of German law, Wolters is not allowed to use Christian BruecknerThe full name of neither comment on the evidence they have against him, but it is no secret that this career criminal and repeat sexual assailant is the prime suspect in the abduction and possible murder of Madeleine McCann. In fact, he’s been on their radar for some time.
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Wolters says that in 2017, a decade after Madeleine’s disappearance, a person contacted the German police and gave them the suspect’s name. Wolters was silent on the details, but according to the news, Christian Brueckner would have made a drunken confession to a friend that he knew what had happened to Madeleine McCann.
Germany’s largest police agency conducted an investigation and what they found was that Brueckner had a long and disturbing history of crime. “Christian B. is a … criminal who has committed many financially motivated crimes, such as theft or drug trafficking,” said Mark Hofmann, a crime and intelligence analyst based in Germany. “But he also has a darker side,” adds Hofmann.
Brueckner has a history of possession of child pornography and has been convicted twice for sexually abusing a child. Hofmann says: “He fits perfectly in the profile of a person who could kidnap and / or kill a girl like Madeleine McCann.”
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In 2016, researchers conducted several searches on a deserted factory deep in the forest of Saxony Anhalt, Germany, which Brueckner once owned. “48 Hours” learned that these searches were part of a wide-ranging investigation of child pornography. Hofmann says they found USB drives with photos and videos of child abuse buried under a dead dog. But what connection could they have to the Madeleine McCann case?
“He’s definitely a psychopath. And he’s definitely a full-time criminal … But the question is … is he guilty of the Maddie McCann case?” Hofmann asks.
Learn more about Brueckner’s sordid history and the evidence that can put him close to or at the crime scene in Portugal in a new episode of “48 Hours”. “The Puzzle: Solving the Madeleine McCann Case” will air Saturday, February 27 at 10 / 9c on CBS.