Christian Brueckner has been the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann since 2020, and investigators are in a ‘race against time’ to charge the convicted sex offender.

Currently serving a seven-year sentence for the 2005 rape of a 72 year old American tourist near where Madeleine McCann vanished, Christian Brueckner has been the official suspect in the British toddler’s disappearance since 2020 – yet he has always protested his innocence and has never been formally charged.

Now, it appears this 18 year-long search has become the only means left for German authorities to keep the sex offender behind bars. “It’s now or never,” read a headline in Germany’s Bild newspaper this week.

Meanwhile, 47 year old Brueckner has made his feelings perfectly clear in an extraordinary interview with German journalist Ulrich Oppold, in which he described looking forward to “a nice steak and beer” upon release.

Refusing to answer any questions about Madeleine, he instead admitted he planned to flee if released from prison. Here we break down Brueckner’s dark past and how he became the main suspect in the missing case leaving Maddie’s family in turmoil.

 Madeleine McCann went missing in 2007(Image: PA)

First conviction

In 1994, when he was just 17, Brueckner was first convicted of child sexual abuse, attempted abuse, and performing sexual acts in front of a child. But to avoid a youth custody sentence, he fled to Portugal with a girlfriend, prompting a European arrest warrant.

After the couple split, Brueckner lived as a drifter, taking on various odd jobs before settling in a dilapidated house near the Praia da Luz resort in the mid-1990s. He frequently returned to the area over the years and has since been linked to the disappearances of seven-year-old Jair Soares and 16-year-old Belgian tourist Carola Titze, both of whom vanished around that period.

In 1999, Portuguese authorities eventually apprehended him and returned him to Germany to serve his youth sentence, raising concerns over why he was not monitored more closely afterward.

Police evasion

Over the next two decades, Brueckner moved between Germany and Portugal, managing to evade criminal proceedings varying from drug trafficking to theft and sexual offences. Witnesses during a later rape trial described him as living a life of petty crime, often targeting holiday apartments with “open windows,” the Telegraph reports.

The rape for which he is currently imprisoned occurred in 2005. The victim, a 72-year-old American woman, lived in a flat just half a mile from where Madeleine would disappear two years later.

Disturbing evidence like hard drives and photos were found at Christian Brueckner’s home(Image: ITALIAN CARABINIERI PRESS OFFICE)

Late one night, Brueckner broke into her home, assaulted her with a 30cm scimitar – a short, curved sword – before sexually assaulting her. The rape was investigated in Portugal but the police eventually shelved the case.

It was only much later that a former accomplice of Brueckner’s, who had stolen diesel with him, which lead to Brueckner’s 2006 arrest, discovered a video of the rape and reported it to the police. In late 2019, Brueckner was finally sentenced.

The convicted sex offender was reportedly staying in a camper van just several miles away from the apartment the McCanns were staying at when Madeleine vanished. In 2020, police revealed that his phone placed him in the vicinity on the night she disappeared. Brueckner has always denied any involement.

Huge investigation ‘error’

The 48 year old was first associated with Madeleine’s case in 2013 after the McCanns appealed for information on the German equivalent of Crimewatch, Aktenzeichen XY. Among around 500 calls, authorities received a credible tip.

A former associate matched Brueckner to a sketch of a man seen by the site where Madeleine vanished. Following the McCanns’ TV appeal, police in the German town of Braunschweig – Brueckner’s residence at the time – sent a letter to Brueckner inviting him to be interviewed as a witness in the “missing person case of Madeleine McCann”..

Members of the search teams at one of the base camps close to Praia De Luz(Image: PA)

Jon Clarke, a journalist and author of My Search for Madeleine, argues this was a monumental misstep “They messed up, they sent a policeman around to his house and told him he had to appear in a police station three days later to answer questions in the case of Madeleine McCann,” Clarke wrote. “They actually wrote it on the letter, so he was completely warned, and in those three days who knows what happened?”

An officer who spoke to Der Spiegel magazine in Germany also acknowledged the error, saying: “This should not have happened and in no way complies with common procedure in such a delicate case.”

Clarke suggests that Brueckner’s evasion is partly due to the involvement of numerous German police forces, his travels across Germany, as well as trips to Portugal and back, which has led to a lack of communication between agencies. “In different police forces, and it’s been very difficult therefore to piece things together,” he explained.

However, Brueckner’s criminal past began to catch up with him. In 2017, he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a child in Germany in 2013 – the five year old daughter of a former girlfriend – and was sentenced to 15 months behind bars.

The cottage where Christian Brueckner was reportedly staying in at the time of the toddler’s disappearance (Image: PA)

The assault took place in a public park and explicit photos were later discovered on a digital camera when police were probing him for a separate domestic violence allegation.

Shock Maddie claim

Following his release from prison on sex assault charges, it is reported that Brueckner was in a pub with a friend when televisions broadcasted the 10th-anniversary coverage of Madeleine’s disappearance. This allegedly led him to admit that he “knew all about” what had happened to her, before allegedly showing a video of himself raping a woman. It is believed that his friend then reported him to the authorities.

In the same year, Helge B, a former friend of Brueckner’s, reportedly claimed that the suspect confessed to killing the three-year-old, saying she “didn’t scream”. Helge once claimed he had stolen a camera and videotapes showing Brückner raping several women – and this evidence helped put him behind bars for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman, a crime he is currently serving a prison sentence in Germany for. While Brueckner’s lawyer alleged Helge’s testimony was false, these claims were thrown out by a judge.

Brueckner was apprehended the following year in Italy and extradited to Germany, this time on a warrant related to drug trafficking. He was imprisoned for 21 months for dealing drugs and subsequently convicted for the rape of his American victim.

Bombshell new evidence

In 2020, the German prosecutor announced that Madeleine was presumed dead and named Brueckner as the official suspect – marking the first time his name had been publicly disclosed. Investigator Hans Christian Wolters said in 2022: “We are sure he is the murderer of Madeleine McCann”.

The evidence for the announcement has remained somewhat ambiguous, but last month, a Channel 4 documentary, produced in collaboration with The Sun, unveiled a series of disturbing finds allegedly uncovered by police in 2016 at an abandoned factory once owned by Brueckner in Neuwegersleben, eastern Germany.

Police at the search(Image: PA)

Among the trove were said to be toys, children’s clothing – including 75 girls’ swimsuits – as well as chemicals and firearms. Also found were an 80GB hard drive and laptop, USB sticks, and memory cards, some stashed in a Lidl bag beneath the remains of his deceased dog.

Reportedly, some of these items contained appalling communications with paedophiles, expressing desires to “capture something small and use it for days” along with images of child abuse. There have even been assertions that there is proof of Madeleine’s death. “They are certain that he’s the man who did it and they do have evidence that they haven’t revealed,” Clarke said.

However, he clarified that they require all pieces of the puzzle to engage in a “tactical game” with Brueckner, who is backed by formidable legal representation.

Brueckner is due to be released from jail in September if no further charges are brought. In October last year, he was cleared by a German court of unrelated sexual offences, alleged to have taken place in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

It comes after German and Portuguese police came together this week to search every property and pieces of land linked to Brueckner, ahead of his September release.

This search, the most significant since 2008, included an abandoned farmhouse surrounded by partially collapsed outbuildings. Police were spotted removing mounds of earth from the scene, which was then taken away in plastic bags for further examination. Firemen were also spotted draining an abandoned well.

Now, police are investigating samples of ‘clothes and bones’ found in last week’s search, it is claimed.

Initial reports suggested the operation – which took place 30 miles from where three-year-old Madeleine went missing in May 2007 – had failed to turn up any new leads. But now, it has been claimed that fragments of clothing and bones are to undergo testing this week after being uncovered at the scene.

A source told Berlin Morning Post: “Several objects have apparently been discovered, which are now being examined in more detail by the police in the laboratory.

“As Portuguese media report, clothing debris and bones were found, among other things.

“The investigators have not officially commented on whether the finds could have anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance but that is clearly their hope.”