Madeleine McCann news update: Search set to widen by investigators after new photos found reveal ‘clues’

Investigators are set to widen the search for Madeleine McCann after photos belonging to prime suspect Christian Brueckner revealed ‘clues’.

Two other areas surrounding Praia da Luz, where Madeleine disappeared in 2007, could be searched by police, the Sun reported.

Investigators made the discovery after looking through more than 8,000 photographs belonging to Brueckner.

A source told the Sun: “German officers have gone through more than 8,000 pictures belonging to Christian B. That forensic work led them to Barragem – but there are other places that have come up in the pictures too.

“Detectives are seeking to work out where they are and why Christian B was taking pictures of those places.”

It comes after police searched the remote Barragem do Arade reservoir in the Algarve, Portugal last week, around 35 miles from where the then-three-year-old went missing.

A “relevant clue” was found during the last day of the search after investigators cleared a large area of woodland at the reservoir and dug eight deep holes to collect samples of soil, which have been sent for forensic and DNA testing in Germany.

The office of German prosecutor Christian Wolters said investigators were acting in response to “certain tips”.

The reservoir is known to have been frequented by the latest suspect in the case Christian Brueckner.

According to Portuguese broadcaster SIC, the suspect considered the area his “little slice of paradise”.

Six months ago, authorities in Germany issued a new arrest warrant in separate cases in relation to the Madeleine McCann suspect.

Christian Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for a rape he committed in Portugal in 2005.

Just over a year ago the German man linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been made a “formal suspect” by Portuguese authorities.

As well as the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, Brueckner has also been linked to other disappearances of children, including a boy, six, in Portugal in 2000, a five-year-old girl in Germany in 2015 and a number of others.

In 2020, he was being investigated over the rape and murder of Tristan Brübach, a 15-year-old boy from Germany.

Belgian authorities have also linked him to the murder of teenager Carola Titze, 16. She went missing while on holiday in De Haan, Belgium on July 5, 1996 and her body was discovered among sand dunes severely mutilated on July 11.

Other cases believed to be linked to Brueckner include that of Inga Gehrike who went missing from Saxony-Anhalt in Germany on May 2, 2015, René Hasee, six, who vanished while on a family holiday in Aljezur, Portugal on June 21, 1996 and Jair Soares who disappeared in August 1995.

Peggy Knobloch’s case has also been linked to Brueckner after she went missing in May 2001.

In April 2022, Brueckner was jailed in Germany for the rape and murder of a 72-year-old woman in the same resort – Praia da Luz – as where Madeleine went missing.

Police in Germany, who are treating the case as a murder enquiry, believe Brueckner planned to rob the holiday apartment but “moved on to a sexual motive”.

It is believed he has a total of 17 convictions including burglary as he steals from hotels and holiday let apartments.

“You can never imagine how it is when the whole world believes you are a child murderer, and you are not,” Christian Brueckner wrote in the string of neatly written letters unveiled by MailOnline.

According to MailOnline, he goes on to say there is no evidence linking him to the case.

“I got told a long time ago that the prosecuter’s office was closing the Maddie case because there is not even the smallest evidence. There will never be a trial,” he wrote.

“The prosecutors are not saying anything to the public because they must give the files to my lawyers – and they contain many (sic) material which confirms my innocence.”

A British couple claim to have found a ‘shrine’ to missing Madeleine McCann in an area close to the desolate reservoir in Portugal searched by police earlier this week.

Madeleine McCann, a three-year-old girl from Rothley, Leicestershire, went missing from the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz on the Algarve on 3 May 2007, a case still unsolved and still the subject of intense interest among the public and press.

After laying dormant for several years since David Cameron kickstarted an ultimately fruitless Metropolitan Police inquiry in 2011, the case of the missing three-year-old was revived once more in 2020 when German prosecutors revealed a new suspect.

But three years on, 43-year-old convicted paedophile Christian Brueckner – who denies any connection to the missing youngster – is yet to be charged, as he languishes in a German prison for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman two years prior to Madeleine’s disappearance at the same resort.

Here is a timeline of the key events from the case:

After laying dormant for several years since David Cameron kickstarted an ultimately fruitless Metropolitan Police inquiry in 2011, the case of the missing three-year-old was revived once more in 2020 when German prosecutors revealed a new suspect.

But three years on, 43-year-old convicted paedophile Christian Brueckner – who denies any connection to the missing youngster – is yet to be charged, as he languishes in a German prison for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman two years prior to Madeleine’s disappearance at the same resort.

Here, Andy Gregory takes a look at how much the investigation has cost: