Christian Brueckner
Christian Brueckner
Christian Brueckner is a German national who is a new suspect in the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. [1] He is currently serving prison time for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal. [2] He has also been linked to the 2015 disappearance of five-year-old girl Inga Gericke, and six-year-old René Hasee, who disappeared from a beach in Algarve in around 1996. [3] He has also been investigated for "driving without a license, personal injury, serious theft, and drunk driving." [4]
Background
Christian Brueckner was born in 1976 as Christian Fischer in Bavaria. He was given up by his birth mother, and placed in a children's home in Würzburg. After, he was adopted by the Brueckner family.
Brueckner has developed a history of sexual abuse, and various other crimes since his teens. He was first arrested in 1992 on suspicion of a burglary in his hometown of Würzburg. He was first sentenced (in 1994) as a teenager for the sexual abuse of children when he molested a six-year-old girl in a public playground in Wuerzburg. In 1994, he was given a two-year youth jail sentence for 'abusing a child' and 'performing sex acts in front of a child'. In 1995, he moved to Portugal as a backpacker and began working as a caterer in the seaside resorts of Lagos and Praia da Luz. Friends, however, say he began to traffic drugs into the Algarve. His criminal record reportedly contains 17 convictions.[3]
In October of 2011, Brueckner was sentenced for 'dealing narcotics' in Niebüll, northern Germany. In 2016, he was given 15 months in prison for 'sexual abuse of a child in the act of creating and possessing child pornographic material'. In June of 2017, he was extradited from Portugal back to Germany for the Braunschweig district court 15 month sentence for the sexual abuse of a child. After being released in August of 2018, he was living on the streets, and jailed again for drug offences. [3]
In September of 2018, he was arrested in Milan, Italy, extradited to Germany, and put on trial for the rape of an American tourist in 2007 after a DNA match to his hair was found at the crime scene.[3] After being convicted in Braunschweig in 2017, Brueckner is serving seven years for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal in 2005. He is currently in a prison in Kiel.[4] He has reportedly appealed to the European Court of Justice over his conviction. [1]
In addition to being investigated over the disappearance of McCann, Brueckner is also being investigated over the disappearance of five-year-old Inga Gehricke, who went missing during a family barbecue by the Wilhelmsholf, an assisted living facility located in the district of Stendal in May 2015. [7] He was living in the same area as the location of the barbecue. [6]
Suspect in the Case of Madeleine McCann
Brueckner had transferred the registration of this 1993 Jaguar XJR6 to someone else the day after the disappearance of McCann.
Around early June of 2020, German public prosecutors began investigating Brueckner on suspicion of murder, as he was living on the Algarve coast at the time of McCann's disappearance.
Additionally, his mobile phone records showed that he received a 30 minute call in Praia da Luz (the area in which the resort McCann was last seen) around an hour before she disappeared.[18][19] Due to Brueckner's history with crimes against children, German prosecutors are assuming McCann is dead. [10] Hans Christian Wolters, a Braunschweig state prosecutor, stated,
The public prosecutor's office in Braunschweig is investigating a 43-year-old German national on suspicion of murder.[18]
McCann, on a family vacation, was three years old at the time, and only 50 yards away from the restaurant her parents (Kate and Gerry) were eating at with seven other people.
When Kate went to check in on Madeleine and her two siblings at 10 p.m., Madeleine's bed was empty.
Since her disappearance, detectives have been working to identify a suspect.[2] Additionally, The Daily Telegraph described the disappearance as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history."
Around the evening of the disappearance of McCann, Brueckner's cell phone was logged in a nearby location on the same evening.[4] In addition, the Scotland Yard reported that "...the man had short blond hair at the time of the crime was about six feet tall." It was also mentioned that a Volkswagen Type 2 (T3) with a Westfalia caravan and a Portuguese license plate, a vehicle that Brueckner is believed to have lived in, and a Jaguar XJR 6 with a German license plate, and two telephone numbers were points of interest in the investigation. [8][9] The day after McCann vanished, Brueckner transferred the 1993 Jaguar to someone else's name. [10]
On June 3, 2020, the Federal Criminal Police Office made a public appeal for additional information via a broadcast on the ZDF TV channel. [13] Hans Christian Wolters, a Braunschweig state prosecutor, said, "I can only implore everyone, as far as you're able, to react to this appeal and to help us".[18]