Investigators in the case of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann have identified at least two more sites linked to the prime suspect that may offer clues about her disappearance, sources said this week.
Police are currently interested in other locations near the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal where Madeleine was last seen in May 2007, an individual close to the 16-year mystery told The Sun.
Last week, officials from Portugal, the UK, and Germany spent three days scouring the Barragem do Arade dam in Algarve after a “very credible tip” suggested that convicted rapist Christian Brueckner visited the site in the days after the tot vanished.
“German officers have gone through more than 8,000 pictures belonging to Christian B.,” the source explained.
“That forensic work led them to [the dam] – but there are other places that have come up in the pictures too.
“Detectives are seeking to work out where they are and why Christian B. was taking pictures of those places.”
Brueckner – who is identified in court documents as “Christian B” due to privacy laws – was officially named a suspect in the McCann case in April 2022.
The German national was living in the Praia da Luz area at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
He is currently in prison in Germany for the 2005 rape of an elderly woman. Earlier this year, a regional court declined to try him on several additional counts of rape and child sexual abuse, all of which took place near the ritzy seaside resort.
Last week, it was reported that cops at the Arade reservoir were interested in uncovering a stolen gun and camcorder that allegedly had footage of Brueckner raping at least two women.
The dam search — which included an extensive team of divers and sniffer dogs — was called off after three days, when police allegedly uncovered a “relevant clue.”
The renewed effort is one of the biggest breakthroughs since three-year-old Madeleine, of Leiceister, was last seen sleeping alongside her infant siblings in their family’s vacation apartment on the evening of May 3, 2007.
The childrens’ parents, Kate and Gerry, were dining with friends at a tapas joint nearby.
When Kate McCann returned to check on the children around 10 p.m., Madeleine was gone.
Nearly two decades later, the German investigators leading the probe into Brueckner’s possible ties to the alleged abduction believe that the initial Portuguese search was botched from the beginning, The Sun’s source said.
“German detectives remain hugely skeptical about the way the investigation has been carried out in Portugal which is why they are keen to carry on searching and looking at areas – even those where Portuguese cops claim to have examined,” they explained.
“They believe fresh work could unlock new clues which move the case forward.”
Those connected with Brueckner’s legal team, however, slammed the search as a “waste of time.”
“He didn’t kill Madeleine and all of this is taking attention away from the job of finding out who really did,” the unnamed source told the outlet.
