Madeleine McCann: surprising revelation 17 years after the girl’s disappearance

The main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann worked in the same tourist resort in the Algarve, Portugal, from which the girl disappeared in 2007, as confirmed by the British newspaper Daily Mail.

According to British expatriate Ken Ralphs, who knew Christian Brueckner through acquaintances at the time, the 47-year-old German criminal He worked at the Ocean Club tapas bar frequented by Kate and Gerry McCann, Madeleine’s parents.

Ralphs alleges that Brueckner conspired with another man to kidnap the girl and then sell her to a couple who were unable to have children.

The 59-year-old believes the pair carried out their plan and kidnapped Madeleine from her family’s hotel room on that fateful night in May 2007, while Kate and Gerry were at the Ocean Club restaurant with their group of friends.

However, speaking to MailOnline, Ralphs said he suspects Brueckner and his accomplices became nervous when they saw the widespread media coverage of the case and made the worst decision.

The British witness, who left the UK in 2004 and returned intermittently, says he approached police in both the UK and Portugal soon after Madeleine’s disappearance, and again when Brueckner was officially named as a suspect in 2020 .

In both countries, it claims to have told police about Brueckner’s alleged plot and that the suspect worked at the Ocean Club restaurant, something a German documentary had also previously reported in 2020.

Since then, Ralphs says, he has received conflicting reports from police in both countries about whether the information he provided was passed on or investigated.

After 13 years of fruitless investigations, Brueckner was named by German prosecutors in 2020 as the prime suspect in the infamous missing girl case.

Although he has been convicted and charged with a number of other sex crimes, The 47-year-old has never been charged in relation to Madeleine’s case and has denied being involved in her disappearance.No.

Brueckner is known to have lived in the Algarve region of southern Portugal, near Praia da Luz, where Madeleine disappeared on May 3, 2007, when she was just three years old.

He was part of the region’s homeless community and spent 12 years living a bohemian lifestyle in and around Praia da Luz in two houses, one in the small town and another two miles away in the nearby city of Lagos.

It has since also emerged that he was a drug dealer and was convicted on unrelated charges of sexual abuse and drug trafficking. He is currently in a German prison for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in her home in Praia da Luz in 2005.

What happened to Maddie?

Madeleine McCann disappeared shortly before her fourth birthday, on May 3, 2007, in Praia da Luz, southern Portugal, where she was spending holidays with her family.

That night, the girl slept in the resort room with her siblings, 2-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.

His parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were having dinner with friends at “Tapas”, the resort’s restaurant, about 50 meters from the room.

They had arrived there at around 8.40pm and every 20 minutes they took turns to check on them and make sure everything was OK.

Around 10pm, after one of those visits, the girl’s mother returned to the table crying and screaming. “They got her,” she repeated over and over again.

His passing generated an exceptional campaign. The photos of the girl with light eyes and the characteristic spot on her iris went around the world and, for months, occupied the covers of newspapers and the hours of television.

The investigation stalled for years before authorities focused on German Christian Brueckner, a man who lived a few miles from the hotel at the time.

“The investigation into the Brunswick suspect will probably continue for a long time,” the prosecutor’s office warned from the beginning.