The mystery of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann It continues in force and deepens every May 3, the day that a new year is commemorated in which the minor, barely 3 years old, was last seen while vacationing with her family in Portugal.

It was the year 2007, and Maddie and her younger twin brothers were in the apartment that her family had rented in Praia da Luz, a seaside resort in the Algarve region, where they spent their summer vacations. The McCanns, originally from Leicestershire, United Kingdom, had traveled to that tourist area with their three children for a few days.

On the night of May 3, his parents went to dinner with a group of friends at a nearby restaurant, located in the same hotel complex, and left their children sleeping in the rooms.

Among the married couples who met for dinner, they took turns to watch the children in their respective rooms every half hour and thus verify that everything was in order. The family did not notice Madeleine’s absence until 10 pm, when her father returned to see how they were doing and when he entered he saw the twins, but found the girl’s bed empty.

From that moment, a search was unleashed without results, with hypotheses ranging from murder to kidnapping, versions that even pointed to Madeleine’s own parents: Kate and Gerry McCann; and at least four young men who claimed to be the girl, but whose DNA results came back negative.

Before the young Polish woman, who are the other three girls who claimed to be Madeleine McCann?

The restaurant reservation book: the hypothesis that Madeleine’s parents have regarding her disappearance

A few days following the 16th anniversary of her disappearance, Madeleine’s parents referred to the case and mentioned a hypothesis that, until now, had not been made public.

As stated The New York PostKate McCann is safe that it was a kidnapping and that the person who took his daughter did so because of the information in the restaurant’s reservation book.

It is that, in that registry – which, according to what she said, was at the entrance of the premises and anyone might see it – the receptionist had recorded the reason why married couples always requested the same table: from there to be able to see the apartments where they left their small children sleeping.

This is how the McCann family related it in their book Madeleine: Our Daughter’s Disappearance and the continue search for her (Madeleine: la desaparición de nuestra hija): “To my horror, I saw that, no doubt, in all innocence and simply to explain why I was breaking the rules a bit, the receptionist had added the reason for our request: we wanted to eat near our apartments while dropping off our young children alone there and we checked on them intermittently. We now bitterly regret it and will do so until the end of our days,” Kate said.

‘A truly horrible crime’: Madeleine McCann remains a mystery

An international search and many possibilities, but no one knows what happened to Madeleine McCann

The girl’s disappearance caused a stir and her case quickly became known around the world. No one might believe how the minor seemed to have vanished from the place without leaving any kind of trace and without anyone having seen her.

This spawned a large international search and extensive investigation that continues, to this day, It is not yet known what happened to him.

The first suspect was Robert Murat (35), a divorced British man and father of a girl who lived 100 meters from the apartment where the McCann family was staying, which is why he was targeted by investigators.

After searching his home, computer and other electronic devices, he was released: no link to Maddie’s disappearance was found.

On the first anniversary of the search, and following making little progress in the investigation, Madeleine’s parents came under scrutiny for alleged blood stains found in the family van. All the theories that were unleashed regarding Gerry and Kate McCann as responsible for the death of their daughter were inconclusive. In July 2008, the Portuguese Justice closed the case for lack of evidence.

A year later, the McCanns returned to Lisbon in search of new clues, and the case led to legal proceedings once morest the Portuguese police inspector, Gonçalo Amaralaccused of being inoperative during the investigation and who later resigned due to alleged pressure.

But Amaral did not remain on the sidelines: he spoke of publishing a book in which he would supposedly tell details regarding the case that had not previously come to light, in which he pointed to the parents as responsible. They went to trial, and while the McCanns avoided publication, “Maddie: The Truth of the Lie”, It was revealed some time later.

The search for Maddie continued without much news until in 2020, a year following the Netflix streaming platform released the documentary “The disappearance of Madeleine McCann”, Scotland Yard found a new clue: it is a new suspect in the case, a German man named Christian Brüeckner (43).

Sex in a motorhome, the alibi of the only suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

Christian Brüeckner, the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

Brüeckner is today the main suspect in the murder of the British girl. This recidivist pedophile lived for several years in southern Portugal and was – at the time of Maddie’s disappearance – a few kilometers from the Praia da Luz hotel where he disappeared, according to German investigators.

In addition, a friend assured that he confessed to the crime while they were watching news of the case on television and it was he who later approached the authorities to denounce him as the alleged perpetrator of the kidnapping of the girl.

The man is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman. He was also indicted for five other crimes and sexual offenses committed between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal, for which he was expected to be brought to trial this year but the court in Brunswick -in northern Germany- declared itself incompetent, stating that the last address acquaintance of the suspect was not under his jurisdiction.

Therefore, the Brunswick prosecutor’s office, the suspect’s lawyer said, should also be relieved of the ongoing investigations into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which once once more puts the case on hold, which for now remains a mystery.

In 2022, Madeleine’s parents assured that they do not lose hope of finding their daughter. “Although the possibility is remote, we have not lost hope that Madeleine is still alive and that we will find her,” Kate and Gerry McCann wrote in a statement posted on their daughter’s website.

AG / ED