Half decade milestone since Christian Brueckner was named prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case. Where are we now?

Christian Brueckner has been a prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann investigation for a half decade. What are the next steps?


Olive Press editor Jon Clarke remembers the week that he began investigating the German paedophile in June 2020 during the Covid Lockdown.

It was exactly five years ago, this week, that a German suspect named as the primary suspect in the 2007 abduction of Madeleine McCann.

I’m not sure if the police are packing up after the three-day long search for the British toddler in Portugal, or if it is just another attempt to get a conviction.

Hans Christian Wolters (German police and prosecutor) held a shocking news conference in Braunschweig on June 3, 2020.

Seemingly a critical turning point in what is the world’s biggest missing persons case, the following morning I was on my way to Portugal – in the heart of the Covid lockdown – to start digging for clues.

Five years ago, a search for wells was conducted near Praia de Luz (COPYRIGHT: OLIVE Press Spain)

German investigators classified it as a murder investigation and my former colleagues at the Mail on Sunday, London, immediately called me to action. I had been investigating the case since Day One in May 2007.

A trip to Portugal at that time was extremely complicated. Although the trip was only four hours, Spain’s draconian pandemic laws prevented anyone from even leaving their home town.

I needed an official letter of appointment from London. When I arrived at the border I called the Home Office in Lisbon and they confirmed that I was a real journalist.

It was the only time in history that the border between Spain & Portugal had been closed. I arrived at the border to find only five vehicles, all trucks, waiting. 

Both sides were armed and both nationalities bombarded me with question. We were finally in, and two days later on June 5, I knocked at the door of Christian Brueckner’s rental home outside Praia da Luz where he had lived for the past 10 years.

Christian Brueckner’s rural plot near Praia da Luz where he lived for a decade (COPYRIGHT OLIVE PRESS SPEA)

The first journalist to arrive on the scene, I met his next door neighbour, Monika, a 60-something German lady, who told me he had only ever been the ‘loveliest’ neighbour, incredibly charming and someone she regularly had a coffee with.

At another home he had stayed at on the other side of the village, in Bensafrim, the new British tenants were far less friendly and soon put up a sign saying simply: ‘Journalists do not touch the bell or knock the door: DO NOT DISTURB’.

Christian Brueckner spent a decade living in the wasteland of Praia de la Luz (COPYRIGHT OLIVE PRESS SPEA)

My Search for Madeleine is soon to be updated.

By the time that came out in 2022, Brueckner had been named an ‘official suspect’ or ‘arguido’ in Portugal, as well, and British police had publicly backed the German BKA insisting they had their man.

The evidence seemed to support the initial suspicion: Detectives had discovered that a mobile number with a pay as you go plan registered to Brueckner was used for a half hour in Praia Da Luz by a mysterious caller the night Maddie disappeared. I can confirm that it was deregistered on the next day.

Portuguese Police Arrive With Sniffer Dogs At The Ocean Club On May 4th. Credit Jon ClarkePortuguese Police Arrive With Sniffer Dogs At The Ocean Club On May 4th. Credit Jon Clarke
Image: Jon Clarke OlivePress, First searches at Ocean Club where Maddie disappeared in May 2007.

He had also been convicted of sex offenses and child abuse in the past.

The German prosecutor described him as dangerous. He is currently serving a 7-year sentence for the sadistic abuse of an American pensioner IN Praia da Luz, in 2005.

He had been accused of beating up an English girl in a busy bar at Christmas in the resort, and he’d done it in Germany several times.

Hazel Behan Christian Brueckner RteHazel Behan Christian Brueckner Rte
Hazel Behan, an Irish woman, claims that she was raped by Christian Brueckner.

It was then revealed that he had been investigated for five more sex crimes in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017. Two of the sex crimes were committed on children, and three rapes took place, including a brutal masked attack on Irish woman Hazel Behan, which was also filmed in 2004, on the Algarve.

He had also allegedly told another girlfriend the night before Maddie went missing that he had a ‘horrible job’ to do the next day and wouldn’t be around for a while. While I long thought this was a classic ‘flyer’ from the Sun newspaper, I now believe this conversation to be true.

Then, in that same week, he told me about another house inland where he often spent time, with a girlfriend from 2007. A German woman looked after orphaned teenagers.

Nicole 2Nicole 2
Nicole, pictured above, was more than just friends with Brueckner. She is accused of being a co-conspirator in a series of burglaries. (CREDIT Sexta 9)

Nicole Fehlinger and the Olive Press were outside the rundown rural residence in the tiny village Foral. It was June 6.

Owned by a rather eccentric Portuguese/Australian lady called Lia, she told me Nicole was a tenant who had long left ‘owing thousands’ and that Brueckner was a really dangerous man, who walked around with a gun, no less!

The Foral, Portugal property, where Brueckner, his girlfriend Nicole, and other friends lived. Olive Press first found the property days after Christian Brueckner had been named as a suspected (COPYRIGHT OLIVE PRESS SPEAKER)

The first few months of my journalism career were the most thrilling of all as I slowly tried to figure out who this German mystery was.

The Portuguese police in 2007 did not consider a man who had a history of sex crime, despite his living in the Praia de Luz area for more than ten years.

A man, who also committed other crimes in Portugal told a Portuguese judge that he’d been convicted for paedophilia previously in Germany.

It was when I got a tip off to visit a former housemate of his in Orgiva, near Granada, in Spain, that  I really started believing for sure he was guilty.

Maddie Los TablonesMaddie Los Tablones
Hamlet where ‘Micha’ Tatschl, former flatmate of Christian Brueckner, lived near Granada

It felt like searching for a needle in a haystack looking for the man, Michael Tatschl, an Austrian carpenter, ‘somewhere around Orgiva’.

Brueckner turned out to be a regular at the Dragon Festival in the hamlet Los Tablones.

Then, I got lucky and found his home that he shared for many years with a former lover. The couple had separated, and he was not there. But we managed to call him back in Graz.

Michael    Micha    TatschlMichael    Micha    Tatschl
Michael Tatschl had been close to Brueckner before Maddie disappeared.

Speaking to me for the first and only time, the former housemate of Brueckner’s in Praia da Luz, ‘Micha’ Tatschl told me: “I’m sure he snatched Maddie. I’m sure he did. He was a pervert, and a strange man.”

The first of a series of former cellmates, associates and friends to come forward to claim that he was guilty of one of the most heinous crimes in history.

As the German BKA’s current search round comes to a close, I wonder whether we will see the German paedophile ever convicted for Maddie.

Police in Portugal search for Madeleine McCann’s traces during intense searches near Praia da Luz

Despite claims that German detectives, supported by their Portuguese counterparts, have found ‘nothing of value’ this week, it is far too early to say.

Obviously they are searches that should have been done by the Policia Judiciaria in the weeks after Maddie vanished and, to quote the words of well-respected former police boss Jim Gamble, they ‘blundered’ badly.

Three policemen on the search site in Praia da Luz this week

It is good to see that they are now putting more light on the dangerous sexual offender who was living under the noses and eyes of Portuguese (and Spanish) law enforcement for over a ten-year period.

“I’m delighted that they are finally looking at the right place,” South African Detective Danie Krugel told The Olive Press. He had been involved in the early months during the search of 2007.

The McCann family had asked him to use the quantum-physics-based search device he had patented.

“We used the DNA from Maddie’s hairbrush, and for four days we searched east of Praia de Luz.

“I couldn’t do an actual investigation at the time and had to present all my findings and conclusions to the Portuguese police. But I would tell them to bring cadaver dogs, and shovels.

It was a shame that the investigation shifted focus when the dogs were finally brought in, and the area was never searched. I hope that they have found something.

The hotlines in Wiesbaden and Scotland Yard will be ringing non-stop this week.

In the days after the public appeal went out back in June 2020, police in England alone got 270 calls and emails linking to their prime suspect… so there is still a chance that someone crucial might come forward now.

Police need to know at least two important things. Who was Brueckner talking to on the celebrated night? Where is her body buried, and who was she talking to?

Please email newsdesk@theolivepress.es if you can help

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About David Sackler

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David Sackler, a seasoned news editor with over 20 years of experience, currently based in Spain, is known for his editorial expertise, commitment to journalistic integrity, and advocating for press freedom.

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