German police have uncovered an email account connecting prime suspect Christian Brueckner to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, according to the investigators. Titus Stampa, a high-ranking detective, testified in a German court that detectives had unearthed emails on a Hotmail account operated by Brueckner, directly linking him with the case.
The shocking revelation marks the first time that an investigator has hinted at concrete evidence connecting Brueckner to the three-year-old's disappearance from a vacation apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007. However, Stampa also said that he could not share further details about the evidence because it was "related to the killing" of Madeleine more than 17 years ago.
Shocking Revelation and a Breakthrough
Brueckner, who is the main suspect, is currently on trial in Germany for other sexual offenses. He denies any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance in 2007. Speaking at the Braunschweig regional court in Germany, Stampa said the 'murder' email account allegedly belonged to Brueckner.
"An external hard drive is also belonging to the killing case - and I am not allowed to talk about it."
He declined to comment on whether the recovered emails included photos or videos implicating the suspect, The Mirror reported.
Stampa claimed that police had found a second account where Brueckner, a convicted pedophile, had shared media of child abuse with other abusers.
According to Stampa, Brueckner allegedly deleted all emails from that account in early 2007, around the time Madeleine vanished from a holiday resort in Praia da Luz, southern Portugal.
"I can remember that things were 'massively' deleted in the inbox. There was nothing in there from January 2007," he told the court.
Brueckner is suspected of kidnapping young Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, from a bedroom in her family's holiday apartment at the Ocean Club resort on May 3, 2007.
Initially, British police investigated the case before it was closed in July 2008 due to lack of evidence. Her family continued to pursue the case with private detectives until Scotland Yard began its own investigation in 2011.
German authorities formally identified Brueckner as their main suspect in 2020, and international investigators have continued to examine the disappearance in subsequent years.
Recently, it was revealed that prosecutors gained access to a hidden email account containing abusive images after requesting Microsoft's help in 2019.
The account was reportedly opened in January 2007, several months before Madeleine's disappearance.
Big Break
Now, a court in Germany has heard how Brueckner allegedly tried to delete "many emails" containing videos of child abuse involving children as young as 'three or four'.
Stampa described an email he claimed was authored by Brueckner, outlining a fantasy "about a five-year-old girl and her mother who are abducted and taken away in a van" before being "sexually abused."
In 2022, Brueckner was officially named as the prime suspect in the case after his yellow and white VW T3 Westfalia campervan was reportedly seen near the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal where Madeleine vanished.
Brueckner has denied being in the area at the time and has distanced himself from the allegations against him.
According to German prosecutors, phone records indicate that he received a call on May 3, 2007, near the Ocean Club. Brueckner claims he was miles away with a young woman at the time.
Brueckner also faces allegations that he called his ex-girlfriend on May 3, 2007, claiming he had been in Tomar, a place where he frequently parked his campervans.
In May 2023, investigators announced they would search a reservoir near Silves in Portugal, referred to by Brueckner as his 'little paradise'. This was the first major operation since a dig in Praia da Luz in 2014.
Since then, the German investigation has included testimony from former partners and renewed calls to examine Brueckner's previous haunts, 17 years after Madeleine vanished.
Brueckner is currently on trial, facing accusations of raping a woman in Praia da Rocha in 2004, and abusing a teenage girl and an elderly woman between 70 and 80 years old in Praia da Luz, where he resided, from December 2000 to June 2006.
He is also accused of exposing himself and masturbating in front of children on at least two occasions in Portugal, as well as insulting prison officers in Germany.
Brueckner was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2019 for raping an elderly woman in the Algarve in 2005.
Currently, he is serving his sentence for rape in the high-security prison in Oldenburg, which is 217 kilometers away from Braunschweig.
