Daniel Sandford
UK correspondent
Portugalpa Media Report from Algarve
From the moment I arrived at Praia Dals on Monday, everyone’s lips were “closed.”
All the sleepy Atlantic Resort’s long-term residents said the closure was what they wanted. From a British woman who lived in an apartment where Madeleine McCann disappeared in 2007, to a former neighbor of the main suspect in the incident.
They all said, “I hope her family will be closed.”
Of course, the possibility of truly positive outcomes disappeared years ago. Now, the closure means finding the body of Madeleine McCann or finding life with another family who can’t remember their parents or young twin siblings.
But what makes residents feel annoyed is when global media returns to Praia Dalz – they understand the unbearable pain Kate and Jerry McCann have to feel, at the same time as purple flowers appearing on Jacaranda trees every year.
The shock of realising that Madeleine was not in her bed changed minutes, hours and days of panic. Then there is a twisty, endless uncertainty of months and years.
For 13 years there was no single theory about what happened to Madeleine McCann. Did she have to wake up and silence in the middle of an opportunistic robbery? Has she been accused on behalf of a couple desperate for their children? Did her own parents hide her accidental death? (The theory given enough weight by Portuguese prosecutors is that for a while Kate and Jerry McCann had officially been suspicious.)
The first Portuguese investigation failed to properly preserve the scene, resulting in the loss of an opportunity to collect forensic evidence from the Ocean Club’s Madeline McCann room. Long-term residents remember taking part in an uncoordinated ad hoc search of the town.
The Metropolitan Police investigation, which began in 2011, peaked in 2014 and conducted a substantial search near Praiadals, but there appears to be no specific suspects.
They had 60 interests, of which 38 were investigating. Portuguese prosecutors had allowed them to search only one of the three sites they sought access.
Everything changed in June 2020 when prosecutors of Hans Christian Walters, the German director of Braunschweig, said there was evidence that Madeleine McCann had died.
In collaboration with Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), the German FBI equivalent, he said he had identified the suspect and later identified him as Christian Bruckner.
“The evidence is strong enough to say that the girl is dead and accusing a particular individual of murder,” Hans Christian Walter said.
After years of life in the Algarve, Bruckner was a castaway, a petty criminal and a convicted sex offender. It all fitted neatly in place and it seemed the mystery would eventually be resolved. A long list of Brückner’s previous convictions includes those for sexual abuse in 1994 and 2016.
The Braunschweig prosecutor’s team has never revealed the scope of evidence they have, but they know that their suspicions are based in part on a conversation that is an old acquaintance of Bruckner’s claims at the 2008 festival.
Helge Busching said the topic of Madeleine McCann’s missing disappearance came up, and Brückner said “I’m not screaming.” Bush says it was clear what Bruckner meant.
Since 2019, Brückner has been jailed in Germany for raping a 72-year-old American woman on Praia da Luz in 2005. However, he is expected to be released in September or in January if he fails to pay the unpaid fine.
Brückner told RTL reporters earlier this year that he was looking forward to “decent steak and beer.” The concern is that he leaves the country without an extradition treaty with Germany and heads somewhere, but it appears he has no money.
The confidence of Braunschweig’s prosecutors was hit seriously last year when he brought Bruckner to trial for rape and unrelated child abduction.
Mr. Busch gave evidence, but the Braunschweig court acquitted Bruckner, and suddenly the time was very short.
Walters doesn’t keep a secret the fact that he wants more evidence to accuse Bruckner. That’s why BKA put forward a search bill this week on a farm building ruined by a merciless, shadeless scrubrand in the summer heat of the Algarve.
Many derelict buildings are located in the Scrubrand area, which was searched by police this week.
The building is frequently visited at night by castaways and petty criminals like Bruckner once did. Nearby residents said they may find looted suitcases among stolen ruins on holidays.
However, this week’s search was not targeted in one particular building, so the intelligence they were based on was clearly very vague.
It all felt like a last-due attempt to support Mr. Bush’s statement with concrete and physical evidence.
In some respects, this search was similar to what I saw on previous trips. Using a shovel in the heat, dig into stone ground.
However, the German team was primarily targeting old farm buildings. This meant that a large yellow mechanical dig was required to split the concrete floor and sift the resulting tile ble.
They also widely used underground intrusion radars, slowly pushing out the building’s floors, looking for anomalies and cavities beneath them.
Portuguese firefighters helped on the first day to pump out old wells so they could be searched safely. The officers were looking for traces of Madeleine McCann, or her clothes.
Every time you travel to Portugal for a new search, it always starts with optimism. Can the police find something this time? However, on every opportunity, it quickly becomes clear that searches are not being targeted properly. Police are always working clearly based on very vague intelligence or merely on the premonition of an investigator.
Luis Neves, national director of Polysia Judicialiaria, the Portuguese equivalent of the FBI, said over the weekend that “nothing is wasted, especially as the doors are closed.”
We saw German detectives stuffing in and felt that the spring of hope for a resolution that bubbly in June 2020 was evaporating in the unabated heat.