16 years have passed since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a nightmare that shocked the entire country and revolutionized the entire world, turning the little girl of barely three years into one of the most famous girls in England.
However, despite the media coverage of the disappearance, McCann has never appeared nor has the case been resolved. What's more, the investigation was complex from the beginning, with unexpected twists in the case and even loose ends that have clouded the investigation.
The former commissioner who led the investigation during the first months, Gonçalo Amaral, admitted in his book Maddie, the truth of the lie that some of the most important forensic clues to solve the case could have been destroyed and lost because the police did not do a adequate work as soon as you arrive at the apartment.
The first suspect in the case was a 35-year-old Briton, divorced with a daughter, who lived 100 meters from the apartment. However, shortly after he was exonerated of responsibility and ten British newspapers were sentenced to compensate him with 750,000 euros for damaging his image.
A few months later, no new clues appeared that gave a thread to pull from, until the Portuguese Police declared the girl's own parents as suspects after finding traces of blood and traces of a corpse in the apartment where the girl disappeared and also in a vehicle rented by the parents almost a month after the disappearance.
But not only that, Commissioner Amaral also explains in his book that the girl must have died after accidentally falling from a sofa in the apartment and reveals that an Irish couple identified Gerry McCann as the man who was carrying a girl in his arms the night of the events , near the place where Madeleine was last seen.
However, in July 2008 the prosecution ruled out this possibility due to lack of evidence and pointed to a kidnapping as the main hypothesis. A thread that they exploited to the end and with which the Portuguese, British and European authorities got involved, turning the investigation into one of the most important in history.
In July 2013, new evidence emerged and a sketch of a suspect who was seen near the area where Madeleine disappeared was released. However, he was never able to take a statement because the suspect, who also had a record of kidnapping and murdering another girl, committed suicide in Switzerland three months after Madeleine's disappearance.
Until now, there were several open hypotheses: from the fact that Madeleine could have died the same night of her disappearance due to the remains of blood found at the crime scene or that a gang of pedophiles was behind the kidnapping and that the minor would be hidden in a Algarve house, just as Detective Dave Edgar had pointed out. But even the possibility of a frustrated robbery was considered, that some thieves could have kidnapped her little girl after finding her awake in full theft.
For years, police failed to make much headway in the investigation until a tip from Germany became public in 2020: a 43-year-old German prisoner named Christian Brueckner was a suspect in the disappearance.
In 2022, relevant evidence was found in the prisoner's caravan, but although German prosecutors are convinced of his guilt, the truth is that there is still not enough evidence to charge him.
