German police said in June 2020 that Madeleine was assumed dead, but the young girl would have turned 22 this week.

New evidence has been found in the case of Madeleine McCann, a toddler who went missing in Portugal in 2007, which suggests that the young girl was killed after her disappearance, according to British media reports last week.

A hard drive was discovered in a former factory belonging to Christian Brueckner, 48, the key suspect in the McCann case. Brueckner had reportedly purchased the shuttered factory in 2008.

The hard drive was found in a shuttered factory in 2016 under a deceased pet dog, People reported.

German police also found two memory cards and six USB sticks in a wallet.

The documents found the suspect reportedly admitting to drugging a mother and daughter outside the child’s nursery and spoke of abusing a 4-year-old girl.

Madeleine McCann (credit: FLICKR)
Masks, chemicals, firearms, children’s clothing, including over 75 bathing suits, and toys were also reportedly discovered at the factory. An insurance document discovered by investigators also allegedly saw Brueckner admit to her killing at a music festival, The Standard reported.

A witness, referenced in media reports as Helge B, claimed that Brueckner told him that McCann “didn’t scream” – but that he doubted the suspect’s credibility.

In Skype calls with pedophiles, Brueckner reportedly expressed that he wanted to “capture something small and use it for days.”

Laurentiu Codin, a Romanian national who shared a cell with Brueckner in 2020, told authorities that he had boasted about a crime with similar circumstances to McCann’s case.

Codin told the Braunschweig regional court: “There was somewhere an open window. He told me this, and this was the reason why he asked me whether fingerprints could be left when he went out of the window.

“He said he went into the flat because of money and said that he didn’t find any money, but found a kid and took the child, and that two hours, the place he was, it was then surrounded by police and dogs,” he continued.

“And then he went away, out of the area. I am just saying what he told me … and he took the child in Portugal in his car, and in the time when the police and dogs were there at the house, he drove away, and he was gone. He asked me if the DNA from a child can be found as evidence, and I answered yes.”

Convictions and accusations follow Christian Brueckner

Despite the alleged calls, Brueckner was cleared at a Brunswick court in 2024 of charges of aggravated rape and two counts of sexually abusing children. Prosecutors are reportedly expected to appeal the court’s decision.  He has never been charged in the McCann case and denies involvement.The suspect is currently serving a seven-year sentence in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in 2005 in the Algarve region of Portugal, where 3-year-old McCann went missing, and is on trial for a number of offenses he is alleged to have committed in the country from 2000 to 2007.

His sentence could potentially be extended, BBC News reported, as he is facing the new charge of insulting a member of prison staff, without which he could walk free as soon as September 2025.

German police said in June 2020 that Madeleine was assumed dead, but the young girl would have turned 22 this week.