Madeleine McCann LIVE: Bruckner gloats ‘Are there any traces of her in my car?’
From behind bars, a suspect in a high-profile case issues a bold challenge, questioning the evidence against him in a mysterious disappearance.
The chief suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has launched a defiant taunt at police, mocking the case against him from behind bars.
Christian Brueckner, currently serving time in a German prison, has issued a handwritten letter in which he boldly dismisses the evidence — or lack thereof — against him.
Published by Bild, the letter adds to growing frustration over the long-running investigation. In it, Brueckner openly ridicules the attempts to link him to the three-year-old’s disappearance in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007.
He wrote: “Are there any traces of her in my vehicle? Any other traces of her in my possession? Photos? Is there a body? No, no, no.”
Brueckner, 47, remains the prime suspect in the case but has never been charged in connection with Madeleine’s disappearance.
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Top detective reveals why Madeleine McCann case ‘captured the world’
A former homicide police chief has shared why the disappearance of Madeleine McCann became one of the most high-profile missing person cases of all time, saying the case struck at the heart of “every parent’s nightmare.”
Simon Foy, who led Operation Grange, the Metropolitan Police investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance in 2011, explained how the tragic story resonated deeply with the public across the globe.
Speaking to The Guardian, he said:
“When I was working in homicide investigations in the Met, occasionally these cases would come along which for some reason just connected around the public consciousness.”
He said the response wasn’t manufactured but rather emerged from a perfect storm of factors that ignited a media frenzy long before the rise of social platforms.
“It’s a whole load of things: it’s a young blond girl, it’s a middle-class family, it’s a holiday, it’s every parent’s nightmare. All that sort of stuff very unpredictably would combine together and you would go from virtually minimal media interest and coverage to significant and substantial media coverage, and that was all before the days of social media.”