• Investigation Madeleine McCann: Thirteen Years of Police Tribulation
  • Profile Christian Brueckner, the German rapist who allegedly murdered Madeleine McCann

Death suspect Madeleine MacCann fantasized for years about the kidnapping and abuse of a child. I wanted to "catch a small piece that I could wear all day," wrote Christian Brueckner in September 2013 to an acquaintance. In that chat, one of several to which the German police has had access, his interlocutor warned him that this could be dangerous. Brueckner replies that "only if footprints are left."

The world of German that the Braunschweig Prosecutor's Office investigates for the disappearance of the little 'Maddie' in the Portuguese Algarve, has been rotten for decades. Currently in prison for drug trafficking, Brueckner was born in 1976 in the city of Würzburg, in the federal state of Bavaria, although with another surname. Shortly after birth he was taken to a juvenile center, where he was adopted by the Bauer family, from whom he took his name.

His first contact with Justice was in 1992, at the age of 16. He was charged with aggravated robbery, for which the German penal code provides for prison terms of between three months and ten years. Brueckner, a minor, was released on parole.

In 1994, he returned to sit on the bench for accused of abusing a six-year-old girl in a park . When the little girl started crying, Brueckner ran away. Then she tried with a nine-year-old boy, after forcing him to lower his pants. When asked during the trial that he had thought about while committing those deplorable acts, he replied that "he was thinking of nothing." The judge sentenced him to two years of deprivation of liberty. Half done.

Paying off the debt to society, he left Würzburg, but did not leave his criminal career behind. His journey through northern Germany has left a trail of bodily injury, drunk or license-free driving, sexual harassment, child abuse, drugs and distribution of child pornography.

From 1995 to 2007, the German Police lost sight of him. Those were the years in which he lived in Portugal, specifically in the Algarve region, where he worked sporadically, especially in the restaurant sector. Now it is known that he traded drugs and robbed hotels and tourist apartments, and in September 2005 he even raped a 72-year-old American in Praia da Luz. He blindfolded her, tied her up, beat her, and stole 100 euros from her. The case would be resolved ten years later, when Brueckner was already in Germany. It was made possible by a hair found in the woman's bed by the Portuguese police and put in a safe place. Later DNA analysis gave him away . The defendant maintains that this hair should have entered the woman's house caught in the hair of a cat that he stroked in front of the house in question. Brueckner was sentenced to seven years in prison, a sentence that has not been carried out for being on appeal in the Supreme Court.

Two years after the rape of the old woman, and still living in Portugal, Madeleine MacCan disappeared without leaving a trace of the bed where she slept, in a tourist apartment in Praia da Luz.

The suspect lived at that time in a country house between Lagos and Praia da Luz, a house that according to the owners was never inspected by the Police . Another house, this time located in front of a school, and apparently frequented by the suspect, has been searched this week, according to the newspaper 'Bild'.

The return to Germany in 2007 was not a blur and a new account in the life of this individual, whose police record contains up to 17 crimes. In October 2011, a court in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein sentenced him to one year and nine months in prison for trading in narcotic substances in large quantities.

In 2013, he was again accused of sexual abuse of a minor and possession of child pornography and in 2016 sentenced by the Braunschweig Court to one year and three months in prison.

The Braunschweig Prosecutor's Office, which is now also handling the case of the British girl because this was the city where the suspect had his last residence, has been investigating what happened in collaboration with the Portuguese judicial authorities for almost three years. And the fact that German investigators now publicly announce that 'Maddie' is assumed to be dead and that there is a suspect with a first and last name suggests that the puzzle is nearing completion.

And maybe not only in the case of Madeleine, one of the mysteries that has garnered the most attention worldwide. In early 2015, a girl similar to her disappeared without a trace in Saxony-Anhalt. Chirstian Brueckner lived at that time only 90 kilometers.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

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