Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Madeleine McCann

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

Madeleine McCann was just three years old in 2007 when she disappeared from her family’s room during a resort vacation in Portugal. The whole world watched with bated breath for the last 13 years while authorities searched, chased leads and named potential suspects. Most assumed we’d never know the truth about what happened to Madeleine. But you know what they say about assumptions…For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-madeleine-mccann/ 

Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is one a lot of you might know, or at least think you know. Because when we pulled our highest level fan club members and asked them if they wanted to hear us talk about the murder of Madeline McCann, many of them had like a wait what moment? And they're like, what do you mean murder? It's a missing person case. Which makes me think that you haven't heard the whole story. The story of a three-year-old girl who disappeared from her bed during a beach holiday with her parents. And with the

whole world watching, investigators spent years interviewing witnesses, chasing leads, and identifying suspects. But they could never find a trace of the little girl. For more than a decade, the story ended right there. And that's what's been told and retold so many times. Until the summer of 2020, when a surprise announcement shocked the world. This is the story of Madeline McCann. It's 8.35 p.m. on the night of May 3rd, 2007. And Kate and Jerry McCann are just sitting down to dinner at their beachside resort in Praia de Luz, Portugal. Now, they've been eating at this same exact restaurant every single night of their holiday. And this is

night six. And they do this mostly because it was the closest restaurant to their apartment. And they had this, like, little routine. Basically, every night, they'd feed their kids around five. And that's three-year-old Madeline McCann and her two, two-year-old twin siblings. Now, they hang out with them for a little bit after they eat, get them ready for bed, tuck them in, and then maybe share a bottle of wine or just relax while the kids fall asleep. And then a little later on, around 8.30 or 9, Kate and Jerry would leave the kids asleep in the room and then head to the restaurant to meet their friends. Right, because this is like a, like a friend-cation, almost. Like, it's a pretty big group of people. Yeah. According

to notes from a police interview with Jerry, there were nine adults and eight children including the McCann family. So this restaurant that they're at is like a little Tapas restaurant was like a two-minute walk from the McCann's apartment. And what they would do is basically take turns leaving the table every 15 minutes or so to check on the kids. And usually they would like peek into the rooms, do like a visual check, but sometimes they just like listened outside the window to make sure that no one was awake or upset or crying or anything. And like I said, this was their usual routine. They've been doing this every single night of their vacation. So they had this routine down pat and it was working for them. Or the

other parents doing the same thing with their kids too? Oh, absolutely. And I mean, one of the couples even had a baby monitor, which meant that they had ears on their kids the whole time. So they didn't necessarily do like the up and down routine. They only left if they heard their kids awake or crying or whatever. But there was like a constant check in with everybody's kids. Yeah. And again, this is the reason they picked this restaurant. And this is why they ate there every single night because it was the closest to their rooms, which made it the easiest to do these regular checks. It felt safer. Now Jerry is the first to get up and check on the kids at 9 p.m. This is less than half

an hour after they arrived at the restaurant. He goes into the room through the patio door and notices right away that the door to the kids room is open to like a 45 degree angle. And this is interesting because they normally leave the door open just like a teeny tiny crack. So it's strange, but nothing to like cause him a ton of alarm right away because when he looks in, he sees all three kids. Madeleine in her bed, the twins in their cribs. Everyone is sleeping peacefully. So knowing everyone's fine. He heads back to the restaurant. The next check is at 9 30 and Kate stands up to go. But another one of the dads at the table, this guy named Matthew Oldfield, whose kids are sleeping right next door to the McCann

says, you know what? No, like I'm basically that to get up. I'll just check on yours while I'm up to which he does. And he sees nothing out of the ordinary. And he comes back to the restaurant around 10 p.m. Kate leaves the restaurant and heads to the apartment. Just like Jerry, she notices right away that the door to the kids room is quite a bit more open than what she thinks is normal or usual. And when she reaches out to close it again, the wind slams the door shut. So she opens it and sees the twins laying in their crib. But Madeleine's bed is empty. And not only that, but the window to the room is wide open. And so are the shutters. And that's definitely not how she left them. So immediately, Kate

checks the entire apartment thinking maybe Madeleine wandered out of her bed looking for them, looking for the bathroom. I mean, maybe that's why the door was open, right? Right, right. But she's nowhere to be found. So she runs back to the restaurant, totally frantic. I mean, I can't even imagine she had to be in a complete panic. Oh, yeah, 100%. Yeah, she's looking to go get Jerry and the rest of the group and tell them that she can't find Madeleine. And so they all get up and they all start searching right away. Kate, Jerry and their friends and even resort staff spend the next few minutes searching the hallways and around the apartment building, along with like the pools, the tennis courts, like any

part of the resort that they can think of or Madeleine might be. But they don't find any signs of her. And that's when they decide they need to call in the police. Police are on the scene by 10 30pm that night. And when they start looking around, they don't see any sign of forced entry into the McCann's suite. Now, there are two doors to like get into this suite or apartment, whatever you want to call it. There is a main door, like a front door. And then there's this patio door. And the patio door was the one that was visible from the restaurant that the family was at. The front door had been locked all night. But the patio door, well, the McCann's often left that one unlocked during the evenings

because they worried that opening and closing the front door might wake up the kids, which seems totally valid to me. Right. But also like, terrifying, right? Because now we have this like point of entry that potentially wasn't locked. Right. Right. Now, this search for Madeleine lasts most of the night until about 4am. And later that day, Kate and Jerry speak to the media for the first time about their daughter. Words cannot describe the anguish and despair that we are feeling as the parents of our beautiful daughter, Madeleine. We request that anyone who may have any information related to Madeleine's disappearance, no matter how trivial, contact the Portuguese police and help us get her back safely. Please, if

you have Madeleine, let her come home to her mummy, daddy, brother and sister. So this is now the day after Kate discovered Madeleine's empty bed. And on this day, police sit down with Kate and Jerry and all the other members of their group, nine adults in total, remember. And they all tell virtually the same exact story about the day Madeleine disappeared. They say it was completely normal, just like any other day at the resort. And reading the witness statements, which have been translated from Portuguese and posted on the Maddiecasefiles.com, they all say there was nothing out of the ordinary with Madeleine, nor with her parents. And the McCanns even go further to say that they insist they have no enemies, no secrets,

no reason that someone might want to hurt them or their daughter. They're adamant that Madeleine would never have gone freely with a stranger without raising an alarm. Like, basically they're saying like, if someone came and took her, she would cry, she would scream, she would shout, whatever. She would fight, right? Yes. But after a lengthy physical search on the night she disappeared and a full day of witness interviews, it's honestly beginning to look like that might have been exactly what happened. Even though no one her cries or screams, it seems like the only logical explanation. Now, when police talk to this woman named Jane Tanner, she's one of the other parents on the trip. She tells

them something that supports this theory, potentially of an abduction. She says that around 9.15 on the night Madeleine disappeared, she saw a dark haired man wearing a dark coat carrying a small child in his arms. And he was carrying this child away from the complex where the McCanns apartment is. And there's something about the scene that really just didn't sit well with Jane. Even at a family resort where dads are like carrying their kids like all the time at all hours, like that's totally normal. There's just something about the way that he was holding this child, this child having bare feet and how quickly he was walking. It just wasn't natural. It wasn't a dad. It wasn't. Yeah. It wasn't

him doing that for them. Yeah. She said the whole scene just fell off to her and really stuck out in hindsight. Now, she provides a pretty detailed description of the man and even does a sketch, but police don't make any request to the public to help identify this guy. So while all these interviews are happening, is anybody still like physically searching for Madeleine? Yes. So police are still searching. And at this point, it's not even just the area immediately surrounding the resort anymore. I mean, they have, they've covered that they've expanded farther out. They even reach out to border guards and airports to watch for Madeleine. And according to an article from BBC News, hundreds of volunteers

are also lending a hand. But even with all that searching, there is almost no movement in Madeleine's case. That is until over a week later when police finally hone in on a suspect. On May 14th, 10 days after Madeleine's disappearance, police questioned their first suspect in the case, a 34 year old property developer living just 150 feet from the McCann's Holiday apartment in Pride Illusion. According to Dan Hall's reporting for the son, this man named Robert Murat actually reached out to Portuguese police and offered his help to translate for them to like help with the investigation. Again, these are a bunch of people who speak English and he kind of came forward on his own offering his help because

he is fluent in both English and Portuguese. He tells them that, you know, I'm doing this because I just feel horrible about what's going on with Madeleine. I have a daughter, she's about the same age, like it just much be so difficult for the parents. I mean, I don't know, like, we've seen this before, like, I don't love it when people just decide to like insert themselves into an investigation like that. Totally. And like, if there's a fine line, right, like I definitely, there needs to be good people out there. I would hope that if I was in this situation and there was someone who could kind of bridge that gap that that person would come forward.

And we even support people volunteering to help searches, like we get that, but this seems a bit much. And police are suspicious of it too, like something isn't quite right or doesn't sit quite right with them. And then when one of the local reporters tells them that Robert has been kind of like sniffing around, asking a lot of like really detailed questions about the case, that's when police decide to bring him in for like some official questioning. While they do this, they also search the house that he shares with his mother, which again is super close to the McCann's apartment. And one other thing is, remember that man

Jane Tanner said that she saw carrying that child? Yeah. Well, that man was walking in the direction again. I said earlier, he's walking from the McCann's apartment, but he was also walking in the direction towards Robert's house. And Jane said that she felt like the man was not a tourist, but that the guy she saw carrying the child, she believed had to have been a local. Why did she think that? So it's an interesting detail. So Jane said that the man she saw carrying the child was

wearing a coat, and vacationers at the resort didn't really tend to wear heavy jackets, like the one that this guy was wearing. She said, you know, we might bring like a sweater, we might bring like a light jacket, but not like this full wool coat that I saw this guy wearing. That's just not something vacationers tend to pack. Like in their tiny bag, we don't have to take up space with a coat. So police question Robert long and hard in connection with Madeline's disappearance. And because they identify him publicly as an arguido, which is the Portuguese word for person of interest, the media are relentless in their own investigations and coverage of

Robert. But anyone who knows this case well, and I know a lot of crime junkies will, knows that things kind of go a bit quiet at this point. Like we hear a little bit about Robert, and then there's no announcements, and there's no leads and no sign anywhere of Madeline. Right. It just kind of stops there. Yeah. And this went on like this for like three months. And then it was early August when police go back to the McCann's holiday apartment this time, again, three months later with cadaver docs. Three months is such a long time though. Like is the crime scene even intact at that point?

Well, according to reporting by Caroline Gamal for the Telegraph, the apartment sat empty for like a month, but then went right back into rotation with other tourists staying in there and like renting it out. So right. This is a resort. Exactly. So for like two months, people kind of were coming and going. That seems like it would really kind of taint the results of anything, let alone cadaver dogs. Well, totally. And Charlie Parker wrote a story for the sun in 2019, like right after the Netflix documentary was released about this part of the investigation. And in it,

he quotes one of the dog's handlers who says that for them though, the length of time, I guess really isn't a huge issue for the dogs. Right. But the McCanns weren't the only ones who stayed in that room. So I guess how would they know that the dogs were picking up Madeline's scent or blood versus someone else's? So that's just it, right? Like they can't. So if it had been preserved, being three months is like no big deal, but like you have a ton of other people in there and there's no way that a dog can tell like this is Madeline's cadaver scent versus anything or anyone else having a cadaver scent.

Right. And I'm even thinking like I have kids, like if one of them cuts themselves, like is a dog going to pick up on that versus Madeline in this situation? Yeah. And the dog's handler actually said as much in an interview with Charlie Parker for the sun. I mean, we're kind of focused down these two months where people are coming in and out and like that's kind of where my mind immediately went to. But the handler said that the dogs could actually totally pick up scent from days, months or even years before the McCanns were even in that apartment. So just because like they're in there and picking something up, we can't prove that it was Madeline. We can't prove

it was after Madeline. We can't even prove it didn't happen before Madeline. But for whatever reason, they bring in the dogs anyway. There are two dogs. We have Eddie who's trained to sniff out cadavers and then there's Keela who's trained to find blood evidence. And while they're sniffing out this apartment in this area and the resort or whatever, they actually both alerted their trainers not just in the apartment, but specifically in Kate and Jerry's closet and then also the trunk of their rental car, which it's important to note like they didn't even get that rental car until 24 days after Madeline went missing. And this is when the investigation begins to shift. And in a really big way from this

idea that Madeline was taken by someone, a stranger, possibly a local to thinking that maybe Kate and Jerry McCann themselves might have had something to do with their daughter's own disappearance. Okay. So this is the part about Madeline's case that I remember the most vividly this intense focus on her parents. The working theory had something to do with them maybe drugging her so they could have their dinner out without being disturbed, right? Yeah. So the police's theory on this front was that basically Kate and Jerry gave Madeline a sedative that night so that she would sleep while they were at the restaurant. But maybe

they gave her too much and because of that she died. Like, I think it was always presented as this like accidental situation. Right. Not like malicious or anything like that. Yeah. But then like the theory was that in a panic, according to an Entertainment Daily article by Nicola Agius, the police's theory was that Kate and Jerry, like again, panicked, had her body faked in abduction, but didn't like bury her until weeks later when they actually like rented that car, which I never fully understood that theory because where would they have kept her for weeks that no one would find? I mean, we talked about it.

They had police, there's volunteers. They were like all over that resort. Right. Like the searches were massive and I don't feel like her parents ever even had a moment of privacy in that time. Right. But at the time sources from the Portuguese police, I mean, themselves are telling media that they're sure this is what happened, that it was the only explanation that makes sense. They say it explained why the dogs alerted, why there was no trace of evidence at all. And one investigator basically told a local paper that the intruder theory wouldn't even work because it would have been impossible to get through the window carrying a child,

which like doesn't quite add up for me. Yeah. I mean, the window wasn't the only way to get in and out of the apartment. Right. Plus it wasn't even the easiest one. The McCanns were completely honest in saying like, yeah, we definitely left the patio door unlocked so we could slip in and out without waking the kids. Like someone easily could have come into the apartment through the unlocked window, but left through the patio door. Totally. And I mean, more than this like window thing, because again, like I think there's

a super easy way to like poke holes in that. I think a lot of what was really driving the theory behind like the parents being involved, at least for the police and probably for the public who really jumped on it right away, was really like the cadaver dogs and where and why and when and all of like the fact that they alerted. But even with that to me, problems with that too, because A, the crime scene had not been secured. Again, even beyond that, we had to handle a state. They could be picking up something from months or years before the McCanns were even there. And B, we're talking about a rental apartment and a rental car. Like who knows what went

on before the McCanns moved in? Who knows who had the car before they had it? Like and then they again, they opened it back up to people. Like to me, yes, it seems like super fishy and we have a missing girl and it is wild that these dogs alerted, but I don't think it means that the parents had a dead child in their trunk or in their apartment closet. Well, and I guess I come back to this is tough, because like I love a good crime fighting puppet, but there's also the reliability issue with cadaver dogs. I mean, we just talked about it in the Fort Hood episode how cadaver dogs literally stood on top of where Vanessa's

body was buried and never alerted. Right, absolutely. And the McCanns basically make a public statement refuting every point that we kind of just went through. Like, I mean, you can clearly poke holes in that. And this isn't just in hindsight, like they knew all this stuff then too. But even their statement, even poking the holes in it, it doesn't stop the police or the public from really going after them in a serious way. Finally on September 9th, 2007, this is four months after Madeline's disappearance, Kate and Jerry and their twins finally have to head home to England without Madeline. And

at this point, the investigation kind of bounces between Portuguese police and law enforcement in London, both the London Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard. And in the years that followed, there are searches, there are sightings, there's age-progressed pictures, several DNA tests. I mean, at one point, Kate and Jerry even go on Oprah. And there were a lot of moments where we thought we might have an answer. Like, sometimes good news, often it was potentially terrible, but nothing ever ended up coming of any of them. Nothing solid. So for years, the case made headlines. We made documentaries, people covered it on podcasts and the theories around what happened to Madeline and how it happened to her were almost endless. And again,

the most persistent of all of those theories was that Kate and Jerry were responsible for their daughter's disappearance. The media and the public scrutinized every word, every action, every single move that they made for years. And that's how it went on for years. Then, out of nowhere, this very summer, the summer of 2020, German law enforcement officials, not Portuguese, not the Scotland Yard, not London, German officials, shocked pretty much everyone in the entire world when they make an announcement. They say that they have a suspect in custody for the murder of Madeline McCann. In June 2020, German police name 43-year-old sex offender Christian Brookner as a suspect in the murder of Madeline McCann. I mean,

I know we all kind of expected murder or suspected it, but this is the first time it's ever actually been considered a homicide, right? Right. Police in Germany say they're now treating this case as a homicide investigation. But here's the thing, they don't say why yet. Now the good news is Christian is already in prison when the news comes out. He's serving seven years for a 2005 sexual assault on a 72-year-old American tourist in, wait for it, prior to lose. What? Yeah. According to Kay Kelly's reporting for the New Daily, Christian was a known sex offender who traveled regularly between Germany, Spain, and Portugal during the time of Madeline's disappearance. Police say that in 2007, he was actually in

Portugal, right in the area of the Ocean Club Resort. Like, I'm not talking about the same town. I'm talking about less than half a mile away. How do they know that? Just from, like, witness reports? Yeah. Well, apparently he drove this really distinctive yellow and white Volkswagen camper van that he was actually seen driving around the prior deluge area in the days before Madeline vanished. And he'd been in Portugal at that point for a while trying to stay off the radar of German police who had apparently been watching him constantly because of his long criminal history, which includes theft, drug trafficking, and child sex abuse. Shareen Khalil reported for the New Zealand Herald that he lived in a house about five miles from the Ocean Club

Resort, but that he had a quote, vile and disgusting shack, end quote, that was even closer, less than two miles away. But beyond the circumstantial, investigators say that they actually have evidence that puts Christian literally at the scene of Madeline's abduction between nine and 10pm on the night she vanished. Like surveillance footage? No, not surveillance footage, but you're not too far off. It is digital evidence. They said that his cell phone was active in the area of the hotel during that window of time. And not only that, but Christian seemed to flee the area right after Madeline disappeared. He had this second car, a 1993 Jagd, deregistered, then he left Portugal entirely. And I guess like thinking that it'd be better if he took his chances in Germany,

which probably should tell you something. Okay, but I'm having a hard time believing a predator, a legitimately convicted sex offender, driving a vintage VW creeper van, would have never made it on any police's radar back in 2007. Yeah. And you're not the only one like kind of asking these questions. So 16 Minutes Australia released an episode on this case back in June when the news first broke. And they straight up said that he just wasn't known to Portuguese authorities at the time of Madeline's disappearance. I mean, again, he was certainly known in Germany. He's in Portugal kind of staying away from German authorities. And if it had happened in Germany, I think that they probably would have looked at him right away. But at this time, he wasn't on

Portuguese radar for anything. But make no mistake, this dude is a bad dude and not even like just a bad dude. Like this guy had been caught and jailed, something like 17 or 18 times. Oh my god. And every time he got out, he would just like start right back up again over and over and over. So you mentioned Madeline and this American tourist. Are there any other victims that he's connected to? There are so many more. Christian was charged for molesting a six year old girl back in 1994 when he was only 18. And then he quickly got out of Germany, like literally running from police and then didn't come back until five years later. And he did serve time for that assault. He served two years, but it did nothing to stop him from reoffending because in 2017,

he was convicted again of child sexual abuse and served 15 months. And then two years later in 2019, he was finally convicted of that 2005 sexual assault on the American in prior deluge thanks to a tip and some DNA evidence. So they like were able to go back and connect him to an even older case. So I guess my question is how did they connect him to Madeline's case just because he was in the area? Well, this is where it all starts to kind of come together. 2017 was the 10th anniversary of Madeline's disappearance. And so her story was kind of like all over the news again. Christian apparently happened to be at a bar in Germany at the time drinking with a friend with one of these stories like pops up on the news. And he says to his friend, I know what

happened to her. According to a story by Mike Sullivan in the sun, he told his friend that he quote unquote snatched Madeline after stalking out the family's apartment in prior deluge for four days. Oh my god. So he was stalking them and he knew their routine. He knew that the patio door would likely be unlocked that they would leave her alone. Yeah, he knew how much time he would have. And in this same conversation with this guy at the bar, he apparently also shows him a video of himself raping a woman. Yeah. And at least one article I read said the video was of him assaulting that American tourist. So the friend sees this, he hears this and the friend goes to police. And that's how Christian ends up connected to both Madeline's disappearance

and that American tourist as well. But wait, you said this was the 10th anniversary back in 2017. Yeah. So if you're wondering what exactly happened, because again, we didn't hear anything till 2020, I honestly have no idea. When German authorities made this announcement back in June, they straight up said we've known about this for years. I don't know if they were keeping it quiet so they could gather evidence. I have no idea what was going on. Okay. So you mentioned the six-year-old girl, another young girl, and then of course Madeline, and then the sexual assault victim, the tourist from America. You said that she was in her 70s? Yeah. Yeah, in her 70s. That just doesn't really seem to fit his victim profile to me. Yeah. I literally had the same

fountain kind of did a little bit of research on this. And actually Mark Hoffman, who's this like Sherman crime analyst who appeared on that same 60 minutes Australia episode I talked about, he addressed this very thing. He basically said that there is a difference between child molesters and pedophiles. He said, quote, it's really important to understand that many child molesters are not pedophiles. So for them, it's not about the young age itself. It's about weakness. It's about vulnerability. And it's about feeling some sense of power, end quote. That's really interesting. I feel like pedophile and child molester kind of get used interchangeably in the crime space. Totally. But I totally agree with that statement. There's a distinct difference when you look at

what other kind of assaults they might be capable of. Yeah. And in this case of this child molester, it gets even worse. Because as people start connecting the dots between Christian and Madeline, a really horrible trend starts to emerge. And it turns out Madeline McCann may not have been his only murder victim. What the public starts to learn in the days and weeks after Christian's name hits the airwaves is that Madeline McCann isn't the only child crime he's connected to. Almost eight years to the day from when Madeline went missing, this is May 2015, a five year old girl named Inge Gerich was with her mom, dad, sister, and two brothers. They're like visiting another family about an hour from their hometown in Germany. And the kids are,

of course, like loving it. They're away from home. They're having a good time like basically having a ball playing outside together while the adults like pulled together this barbecue dinner. And Inge was helping set the table for dinner, which according to reporting by Claire Duffin and Sam Greenhill for the Daily Mail was down by like a little clearing just next to the woods. And that's where she was the last time her dad saw her. She was only gone a few minutes when the realization hits everyone that like no one has laid eyes on her. And so immediately, you know, everyone's probably like, Well, where's Inge? Where's Inge? When did you see her? When did you see her? And everyone has like this moment of panic pretty quick and everyone splits up to

search the woods and around the house kind of yelling her name, thinking that she must have like just gotten separated, gotten lost somewhere, kind of wondered off. But they search frantically for 45 minutes. And at that point, the sun is starting to go down and her parents are beyond panic, beyond freaked out. And they call police then to report her missing. And in very much like the same story we already heard this massive search began right away and continued through the night into the next morning. And it continued for four days with dogs, helicopters, search lights, loudspeakers, even thermal imaging cameras. There were reports of as many as 1000 volunteers that joined police to help search those 8600 acres of woods looking for Inge. But they never

found a single trace of her. So how did Christian get on the radar for this one? You know, I'm not sure he was initially, but at some point, police learned that he was in the area around the time Inge disappeared. And in February 2016, German police officers raided the property where Christian had been living in his van. Police spent a week searching the building and digging on the property looking for evidence related to Inge's disappearance specifically. But if they were looking for a body, which some media at the time speculated they were, they didn't find one, or at least not what they were expecting anyway. The body that they found when they were digging things up was actually the body of his dead dog. And underneath his dead dog were six

USBs that contained a mountain of child sex abuse materials. When their search was done, police walked away with 8000 pieces of evidence. Oh my God. We're talking not just the stuff on the USB drives, but they also found several children's swimsuits along with that as well. But here's the thing, even with all of that, there was nothing to connect Christian to Inge, which is like why this search started in the first place. The Scottish Sun reported that Christian was charged in relation to the child sex abuse materials, but not in connection with Inge's disappearance. The investigation into her disappearance was officially closed by German authorities in 2017, but they reopened it again this very summer when Christian was named a suspect

in Madeleine's case. What do you mean they closed the case though? Yeah, so I wish I had some more information on this. I'm a little unclear on how it works over in Germany. I have to assume it was closed due to the lack of evidence. Maybe there's no sign of her, there's no evidence anywhere, there's no suspects, and even with all the searches, I kind of think that the case just wasn't going anywhere. And until a new lead came, they call it closed. It's like maybe their version of a cold case? Yeah, I think, again, I think we're used to the terminology we use here in the U.S., where like if a case is closed, it's because we know who did it, it's over, and unless we have answers, we kind of always hear that they're technically open, even if they're not being

actively worked. Now, even though they reopened it, Inge's case is still unsolved, and it's not the only one. Authorities are also looking at Christian as a potential suspect in the disappearance of Rene Hosse, who is a six-year-old who was on holiday with his parents in Portugal in June of 1996. In his case, his whole family, like we're all going for this walk, and Rene ran up ahead, like just out of sight. And when his parents caught up, they don't see him, but they see his clothes there, like just kind of in this pile, but no Rene. And in one article I read, his grandparents described how his footprints just literally stopped. For years, they and the police assumed that this was some kind of horrible accident, that Rene had decided to go swimming in the ocean, had drowned.

But this is another one where like, you know, I don't think anyone worked it for a long time, we kind of knew what happened, but this is one that has gotten reopened again now because it fits the profile of how Christian has been operating. And they know that he was living in the area at the time. Additionally, Belgian police say they're now investigating Christian in connection with the July 1996 murder of a 16-year-old named Carola Titsa, who was on vacation in Belgium when she met a German man. She was last seen with this German man at a bar, and she was missing for six days before her body was discovered in the sand. There have also been reports that German authorities have reopened the investigation into the murder of a nine-year-old named Peggy Knoblock, who vanished

on May 7, 2001, on her way home from school. Back in 2004, a man was actually tried and convicted for her murder, but the conviction was later overturned. And in 2018, another man, a convicted sex offender, confessed to police that he disposed of her body but denied having anything to do with her actual death. FR24 News reported back in June that Christian had been released from prison just before she went missing. Now, I think it's clear there is no question that this man is a monster, but the depths of his depravity, like, I don't know that any of our listeners can truly wrap their heads around it. The episode of 60 Minutes Australia I mentioned talked specifically about a conversation Christian had in 2013 in a pedophile chat room that is just chilling. And I

think it gives you, like, the best insight into this monster. So you're going to hear two men read the back-and-forth exchange, but I want to give a warning to our listeners that it is graphic. The first voice that you'll hear will be reading Christian's messages, and the second is the other person he was chatting with. Cool. Well, let's see. Not only talking, but also doing it. Oh my god. Yeah, like I said, not a good dude. I'm like, no wonder they're looking at this guy for, like, every cold case in Europe right now. Yeah, and honestly, this man is a parent's worst nightmare. And I think I speak for every parent that has thought or had that worry in

the back of their minds that makes us feel like we cannot take our eyes off our kids for even a second. Like, yeah, just in case something is, you know, lurking right around the corner. And Christian was, he was that bad thing right around the corner. And, you know, in all these cases that you've brought up, if he's responsible, he was literally right there in the places that people should have been safe, that they were feeling comfortable, you know, a camping trip, a family vacation. He's the actual boogeyman. Totally. And I guess here's my question. That man that was seen holding a child and maybe kind of running away from McCann's apartment that night she disappeared, do they think that that was Christian? Probably not. So they did go hard trying to identify that

man quite a few times over the years. And there's still actually lots of speculation that Christian had an accomplice that helped him get Madeleine out of her room that night. So they're thinking it's probably not him. That doesn't mean that that man didn't have something to do with Madeleine or the child that person was holding wasn't Madeleine. Truthfully, we just do not know at this point. But the best, like the most definitive thing I've actually heard is sometime around 2013, unless it's changed, British investigators said that whoever that person saw, that man, that child is probably just a dad carrying his daughter home from one of like the daycare facilities at the Ocean Club. Again, this was 2013 when they kind of like said, hey,

we think this is what this is. We're seven years out now with a suspect that that might change. I mean, this story is very much still developing. So we'll be watching it for updates and we'll likely talk about the updates in our headlines episode in the fan club. Christian is in a German prison now and he will be there for the next seven years or so. There are reports, investigators are trying to retest some trace DNA found in the McCann's holiday apartment. And I am just crossing my fingers that technology has advanced enough to get a profile to put him definitively there and maybe just maybe we will finally get justice for Madeleine McCann. You can find all of the pictures and source material for this episode on our website,

crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crimejunkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?