Is the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCan? – What did the new research show in Prasia Da Luz

Since I arrived at Praia Da Luz on Monday, the word on everyone’s lips was “closure”.

All the residents of the quiet resort of the Atlantic told me that they hoped that the much -discussed case of the 3 -year -old girl’s disappearance from the tourist accommodation in Algarvei, Portugal, would finally arrive at a “closure”: From the English who lived above the apartment from which Madelin McCan disappeared in 2007, to the former neighbor of the main suspect in the case.

Of course, every possibility of a truly positive result has disappeared for many years. The “closure” Now she would mean either finding Madelin McCan’s corpse, or finding the girl in another family, unable to remember her parents or her younger twin brothers.

But no matter how much the residents are annoyed, when media from around the world return to Pratia Da Luz – year by year, just when purple flowers begin to appear in Jakaranda trees – they understand the unbearable pain that Kate and Jerry feel.

They understand that the shock they went through when they realized that Madeleine was not in her bed was turned into minutes, then in hours and then in panic days. Then to excruciating, endless months and years of uncertainty.

For 13 years there was no in -depth theory of what happened to Madeleine that night. Did he awaken in the midst of a random burglary and the perpetrators had to make her silent? Was he abducted on behalf of a couple who desperately wanted his own child? Did her parents themselves cover her random death? (A theory that received sufficient weight from the Portuguese prosecutors so that Kate and Jerry McCan were officially suspicious.)

The original Portuguese research failed to keep the scene completely intact, so the opportunity was missed to gather forensic data from the girl’s room at the Ocean Club. Permanent residents of the area still remember and describe their participation in ‘Uncoordinated Emergency Investigations’ made in the city.

The investigation by the Metropolitan Police, which began in 2011, culminated in 2014, with extensive investigations near Pratia Da Luz – but did not deliver results.

The data was inadequate, received access to only three of the sites for which they had requested permission to investigate … And the information on the 60 “suspects” they arrested did not specify.

Everything changed in June 2020, when, suddenly, the prosecutor in Brunswaig, Germany, Hans Christian Vasterssaid he had evidence that Madeleine McCan was dead.

In collaboration with the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA)the German counterpart of the FBI, said they had identified a suspect, the so -called Christian Brickner.

“The figures are strong enough to say that the girl is dead and to blame a certain person for murder”the Brunsvaig’s prosecutor’s office had stated then, without revealing the extent of his evidence.

Informally we know that their suspicions were partially based on a conversation that Brickner had, with his old friend Helg Busing, About the disappearance of Madeleine McCan at a festival in 2008. Busing testified that it was clear to him what Brickner meant.

Brickner, who spent many years of his life in Algarve, was wandering, a small -scale and doomed sexual offenses. They all fitted perfectly and it seemed that the mystery could finally be solved. Brickner’s long list of previous convicts included charges of sexual abuse in 1994 and 2016.

Since 2019, Brickner has been in prison in Germany for the rape of a 72 -year -old American in Pratia Da Luz in 2005. But he is expected to be released in September or January if he pays a fine.

Brickner told a RTL reporter earlier this year that he was looking forward to a “Decent steak and a beer.” The authorities’ concern is that it will leave the country and head to an area where there will be no danger of its extradition to Germany, although it does not appear to have the necessary money.

Confidence in the Brunsvaig prosecutor’s office was seriously shocked by Brickner’s trial for rape and attempts to kidnap children. His old friend, Busing, testified, but the court acquitted him. Suddenly the time for the prison sentence that Brickner should serve was quite limited.

The prosecutor Hans Christian Vasters He has not hidden the fact that he needed more information to recite Brickner.

That was also the reason why the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) He took over the costs of a survey carried out this week and was completed yesterday, in ruined buildings, in a wild bushy area, amid the growing heat of Algarve’s summer.

The buildings are filled at night by wandering and small criminals as Brickner once were. Residents of the area have told us that they sometimes find looted suitcases between the ruins, and other objects stolen by holidaymakers.

But this week’s surveys did not target a particular building, so the information on which it was based was clearly quite unclear.

Everything looked a little like a last desperate attempt Support Busing’s relevant statements. In a way, and this search was similar to those I have seen on previous trips.

The use of shovels in the heat, digging the hard -stone – soil …

The German research team that arrived in the area was mainly aimed at old agricultural buildings. With the help of a large, yellow engineer excavator, he broke the concrete floors and “sifted” the ruins that emerged.

He also made extensive use of a radar that was able to penetrate the ground, or move slowly on the roofs of the buildings, looking for abnormalities or internal cavities.

The Portuguese Fire Service helped the first day, drawing and emptying an old well so that it could be investigated in detail. Officers were looking for Madeleine’s traces or some of her clothes.

Every time I travel to Portugal for a new research, I always start with optimism. Could the police find something this time? But in any case it is quickly apparent that the investigations are not “strictly targeted”. Police are always working based on quite vague information – or just an intuition of a researcher.

THE Luis NevesNational Director of Polícia Judiciáriaof the Portuguese equivalent of the FBI, stated at the end of the week that ‘Nothing is in vain’mainly because some chances are excluded over time.

As I watched the German detectives go away, I felt like … the source of hope for a “closure” which had emerged in June 2020, to disappear this time in the unbearable heat …

Daniel Sandford