German police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have said “a number of items” that may be related to the missing girl were recovered during a search for a reservoir in the Algarve.
Last week, investigators searched the remote Barragem do Arade reservoir, which prime suspect Christian Brueckner referred to as a “little piece of paradise” and is located 30 miles from where Madeleine was abducted in 2007.
Detectives cleared a large area of forest at the reservoir and dug eight deep holes to collect soil samples, which were sent for DNA and forensic testing in Germany.
Now, German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who is handling the case, confirmed today that a “series of items” were seized during the search.
Wolters said: ‘A number of items were seized as part of the investigation. These will be in those evaluated in the coming days and weeks.
‘It cannot yet be said whether the individual articles really have a connection to the Madeleine McCann case. The investigations conducted here in Braunschweig against the 45-year-old suspect are expected to continue for a long time.”
Last week, researchers searched the remote Barragem do Arade reservoir in the Algarve (pictured)
Authorities gather at a makeshift base camp in the Arade dam area during the search operation amid the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance on May 23.
Madeleine (left) was three years old in May 2007 when she disappeared from her bedroom in the apartment where her family was staying in the Praia da Luz complex on the Algarve coast. German prosecutors believe Christian Brueckner (right) is behind her disappearance
Police had said they found a “relevant clue” during their search of the beautiful site after an informant was able to compare photos showing Brueckner near the reservoir.
Several articles have been removed from the site, which may or may not be relevant to the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. They include a bra strap, clothing items, and plastic items.
An area of approximately 160 square feet was flattened and grass and shrubbery removed with several holes dug into the ground to a depth of approximately two feet to collect soil samples, which were sent for DNA and forensic testing in Germany. The results of the full analysis could take months to complete.
Last week’s activity was the first major search for the boy in nine years and comes after photos of Brueckner were discovered by German police in his self-described “little paradise” in the Portuguese region, it is understood.
And on Tuesday it was revealed that there could be other areas around Praia da Luz, where Madeleine had been staying with her family, that police can search after German detectives reviewed more than 8,000 photographs belonging to Brueckner.
A source told the Sun: “German officers have reviewed more than 8,000 photographs belonging to Christian B. That forensic work led them to Barragem, but there are other locations that have appeared in the photographs as well.”
“Detectives are trying to find out where they are and why Christian B was taking pictures of those locations.”
Brueckner camped out by the reservoir on weekends and is believed to have set up a base there to “clean up,” it emerged last week.
A former friend of Brueckner’s, who has lived in the Algarve for almost 30 years and has been helping police with their investigation, says the criminal visited the reservoir “often” but “always kept it a secret”.
The German mother of three, whose identity has not been made public, recalled how Brueckner would drive his motorhome to the edge of the lake because he “liked to be near the water”.
She claimed that he always camped in the same spot and that “there was usually no one else around.”
“This was his exact special place where he said he liked to come to get cleaned up,” he said of his camp, telling The Sun: “I don’t know what he did there as he was very secretive.”
Details of Brueckner’s secret lair came to light when a British couple told The Mail on Sunday how they saw a strange ‘shrine’ to Madeleine in the reservoir just seven months after she went missing.
Last week, researchers cleared a large area of forest in the Algarve reservoir and dug deep holes to collect samples, which were sent for DNA and forensic testing in Germany.
Christian Brueckner, 45, would camp out at the Barragem do Arade reservoir, where police last week searched for clues in the Madeline McCann missing persons case. The convicted rapist and pedophile is believed to have built a circle out of water stones (pictured)
For more than a decade, Madeleine’s distraught parents Gerry and Kate (pictured together in 2017) have waited in vain for any news, any hint, that their little girl is somehow alive after all this time.
The retired couple, who asked to be identified only as Ralf and Ann, were so distraught by what they saw that they took pictures and sent them to Portuguese detectives, thinking they were important but surprisingly never received a reply.
Consisting of arrow-shaped boulders pointing toward a picnic spot that was dug up by police last week, the makeshift memorial was weighted down by a large boulder and held a bouquet of flowers and a photograph of the kidnapped Madeleine.
Three years ago, when German police identified the main suspect, 45-year-old Brueckner, the couple contacted detectives after seeing an appeal for anyone who was on holiday in the Algarve when Madeleine disappeared in May 2007. would get in touch.
This time, German officers from the BKA (criminal investigation unit) responded within hours of Ralf and Ann emailing them and questioned them over the phone for several hours before asking them to give a formal statement.
It raises the question of whether it was his information that led German authorities to request a search of the remote picnic area camp on the edge of the reservoir near Silves, which Brueckner used to call his “little paradise.”
Meanwhile, German criminal profiler Axel Petermann said the cops were right to dig in a place Brueckner is so fond of.
He told The Mirror: ‘The criminal perpetrators I’ve met over the years tend to hide their victims in places where they feel safe and can assess the danger.
‘These are places that are secluded and secret and where they can stop and assess various risks.
‘They can also be places where they feel good, and where there is a certain private memory of a certain act.
“So I think the search activity may have been going in this direction.”
He added: “My recommendation when it comes to suspects in missing persons cases is always to find the places where these suspects spent time, where they had secrets, where they could assess the risks, so from this point of view I think investigators’ current search was very important.
‘You always have to delve into the suspect’s life to find out his preferences, his tendencies, his favorite places where he liked to spend time.
And I don’t think you can find better possibilities than searching in secret and confidential places.
German prosecutors last year named convicted child molester and drug dealer Brueckner as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.
She was three years old in May 2007 when she disappeared from her bedroom in the apartment where her family was staying at the Praia da Luz resort on the Algarve coast. The reservoir is about 31 miles inland from the resort.
Bruecker is now behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same area of the Algarve region where McCann disappeared.
Pictured: Christian Brueckner was filmed behind the wheel of a battered VW camper van weeks before Madeleine was kidnapped.
The German suspect had lived in a warehouse on the outskirts of Praia da Luz for several years, but moved into a motorhome just before Madeleine went missing.
Sources close to Brueckner’s legal team said any new search will be a “waste of time.”
The source told the Sun: He didn’t kill Madeleine and all of this is taking attention away from the job of finding out who really did it.
Brueckner was known to break into hotel rooms and apartments in the Algarve to supplement his income from the drug trade, suddenly leaving southern Portugal in 2007, the year Madeleine disappeared, after living there for more than a decade.
He is alleged to have admitted to abducting Madeleine to a friend in a bar, and German investigators are said to firmly believe he killed the three-year-old.
But more than three years after linking Brueckner to Madeleine’s disappearance, he has yet to be charged with her abduction because prosecutors don’t have enough evidence.
I am Rakesh Sharma, I associated with Elite News as an Editor, since 2021. I take care of all the news operations like content, budget, hiring and policy making.