The parents of missing British girl Madeleine McCann have been formally told that there is “concrete evidence” she is dead, according to reports Tuesday.
German prosecutors investigating a jailed rapist who is now the new prime suspect in the 2007 abduction gave the heartbreaking warning to Maddie’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, in a letter, the Sun said.
“We have written to the McCanns to tell them Madeleine is dead and explaining we just cannot say what the evidence is,” German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said Tuesday, according to the UK paper.
“We have concrete evidence that our suspect has killed Madeleine,” he insisted of Christian Brückner, who is behind bars for raping an American tourist.
He said there was “no realistic hope she is alive,” stressing, “This is a murder case, not a missing person’s case.”
British police were also alerted to the conclusion, but were not given all the evidence, Wolters said.
“I don’t think the McCanns have been informed of all the details but they know the results,” he said.
The McCanns’ lawyer in Portugal — where Maddie was abducted from a vacation resort in May 2007 when she was 3 years old — insists that German investigators should release the evidence they have backing the death claim.
“I sympathize with the parents but if we reveal more details to them, it might jeopardize the investigation,” Wolters said, according to the report.
“I know it would be of relief to the parents to know how she died but it would hamper the investigation if we give away too much information.
“We can understand the pain of the parents and they want relief, but it is better for them that we have a clear and successful conclusion to the case.”
He said there is “no forensic evidence,” just “other evidence which indicates she is dead.”
“It would be easier for them if I could tell them what we know but I can’t,” he said of the parents.
The McCann family’s spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, told the Sun, “Kate and Gerry simply do not comment on private correspondence received from police and nor will they be giving a running commentary.”
Madeleine would have turned 17 on May 12 this year.