August 19, 2020 • 62 mins
In 2007, just days before her 4th birthday, Madeleine McCann disappeared from her parent's vacation apartment in Portugal, launching an international search involving thousands of members of law enforcement. People from around the globe wondered what exactly had happened to the child, who seemed, for all intents and purposes, to have vanished. In the absence of clear information, speculation thrived and theories abounded, some more plausible than others. Tune in as Ben, Matt and Noel dive into the case of Madeleine McCann -- and how it may have finally been solved this year.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul,
Mission control decand most importantly, you are you. You are
here and that makes this stuff they don't want you
to know. Hold your loved ones close for this one, folks.
This is a very dark, uh and disturbing episode that
(00:50):
we're diving into today. Because today's show contains, at times
graphic descriptions of violence, it may not be suitable for
all audience members, so listen or discretion is advised. Like
many of our most compelling show suggestions, this one comes
to us from a listener John in Long Beach. John says,
(01:12):
what's up, guys, big fan of your podcast. Been listening
for a year now, only realized that the album logo
has six fingers like a week ago. Hey, finally and
you would pay off. I know we were waiting for
John to get it. Uh, good on you, John, He continues, Anyway,
I was wondering if you guys will do a podcast
on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. I only just heard
(01:34):
about it when a friend told me he just saw
a documentary on it. Thanks guys, have a great week.
Thanks for writing John. Yeah, this is referring to a case.
In two thousand seven, a British born three year old
named Madeleine McCann disappeared while on vacation, whereas they would
say in the UK, on holiday with her family in Portugal.
(01:56):
The case made national headlines. Authorities in three different countries
conducted multiple investigations and for more than a decade they
found no solid leads. So what happened? Here are the facts.
Madeline McCann was born on May twelve, two thousand three,
in Leicester, England. Her parents were Jerry and Kate McCann.
(02:20):
They were married in Both of them worked in the
medical profession. Kate became a general practitioner after studying at
the University of Dundee and was working part time while
also taking care of uh she and her husband's children.
Jerry was working as a consultant cardiologists. In addition to
(02:42):
Madaline um who was their oldest The couple also has
twins um born in two thousand five and in two
thousand seven. The family, you know, they're working hard, they're
supporting their kids. They decided to go on holiday, as
you do. They went to a place called the San
Club Resort in Praya de Luze in Portugal, and there
(03:05):
they rented an apartment at the Ocean Club Resort. And
I'm guessing this is like, you know, a kind of
a sweet kind of situation. I mean, um fancier hotel. Right, Well,
I pulled, I pulled some you know, I'm going to
give a reluctant shout out to the Sun. I know
I've given it a hard time, rightly so in past episodes.
(03:27):
But they have a graphic layout of the apartment that
the mccns were residing in during this vacation, and it's
very helpful as you listen along today to have that
up so you can see the positions of where the rooms,
the windows, and the entrances and exits of this place where.
(03:48):
But yeah, think of like an almost like an extended
stay apartment. Yeah, and if you you can go to
the BBC and find an overview picture of this whole area.
So if you have those two picks years up where
you can see where all the places we're going to
talk about are, and then actually into the thing. I
think you're in a good spot. So let's go to
(04:09):
the night of the disappearance. On the third of May
two thousand seven, the McCanns the parents met a group
of seven friends at a tapas restaurant in the resort complex.
This was not very far from their apartment at all.
It was about a hundred and eighty feet or fifty
five meters. So the reason that's important is it means
(04:31):
you could easily walk back to that apartment and back
to the restaurant without you know, it would take hardly
any time at all. It's basically just walking across where
the pool area is and then you're at the tapas bar.
It's literally that close. So Madeleine and her younger brother
and sister where those are the fraternal twins, They were
(04:53):
staying in the apartment. They were sleeping, and they were
supposed to be sleeping. Keep in mind, these are very
young kids. They're probab pbly pooped from a day of vacation.
In fact, the parents had noted earlier that the children
seemed very tired, So around eight thirty pm, those kids
are sent to bed. The mccns and their friends are responsible,
good parents. They created a rotational system that they used
(05:17):
to check in on the kids. So every twenty or
thirty minutes, it's someone's turned to go. Just look in
on the kids, not wake um up or anything like that,
just make sure they're okay. Kate McCann's turn comes up
around ten pm. She walks over to the apartment, supporting
to note they had locked the front door of the apartment,
but it had a back patio door like sliding patio door,
(05:39):
and that they had left unlocked so they could easily
slide the door open or closed without waking up the kids.
So Kate McCann looks in on the room where Madeleine
and the two twins are supposed to be sleeping. She
notices that the window to this room is open, the
(06:00):
shutters have been pulled up. Madeline McCann has disappeared. The
authorities are immediately alerted and the resort staff, the local police,
other guests of the resort search all night for Madeline
until daybreak and they find nothing. Yeah, I can't even
imagine that sinking feeling of you know, and just the
(06:24):
how do we even accept that? And just the way
your mind must spin. You know, when we were looking
into this story, I just kept putting myself in that position,
you know, being a dad and mad I'm sure you
could understand that feeling as well, only not really just
even the hint of it is almost more than you
can even kind of comprehend. But yeah, they alerted the
authorities right away, UM police, the resort staff and other
(06:48):
guests essentially formed a search party UM looking for Madeline
until dawn, but they they found nothing. Uh, In less
than twenty four hours. The McCann only held a press
conference UM and I believe there's a sixty minutes Australia
piece on this that has some of the footage from
at least one of the multiple public appeals for help
(07:11):
that the McCann family eventually did. Over the course of
the following few days, hundreds of volunteers joined the search party.
Authorities at the border were put on high alert, staff
at the nearby airport was told to watch for the child,
and then on May twelve, the authorities in Portugal UM
(07:32):
publicly stated they believe that Madeline had been abducted, but uh,
silver Lining was alive and somewhere still in the country. Yeah,
or at least they believed right, because there was no
way to verify it. Then, twenty three days after the
initial abduction or the disappearance, on the authorities, they're released
(07:57):
a description of a man was at that point unidentified,
and he had a couple of descriptors. He was blonde
in hair, he appeared to have acne, and he was
seen that night on May three, two thousand seven, around
the area, and it was believed that he was possibly
(08:18):
carrying a child or at least caring something that could
be confused for a child. And this description was based
on a friend of the Meccans who gave it to
the authorities. This person's name was Jane Tanner. She was
one of the people who was attending that Tapas restaurant
with them on the night that Madeline disappeared. And let's
(08:41):
let's exist in the present tense here. As the search continues,
speculation abounds taking multiple forms. There are ongoing official investigations.
But remember this disappearance occurs in the age of the Internet.
That means there are increasingly amateur sleuths getting involved. Theories,
(09:01):
some more plausible than others, spread across the media and
across the web. So our question today again, what happened
to Madeleine McCann. Here's where it gets crazy. First, things
are going wrong with the investigation. From the jump, there
(09:22):
are fundamental problems with the crime scene. In June, the
Portuguese police note that the scene was not properly protected,
so they may have lost vital forensic clues. There. You'll
also see contemporaneous reports of blood being discovered in small amounts,
or of sniffer dogs reacting to Kate McCann in particular,
(09:46):
and this is something that the red meat chasing tabloids
latch onto immediately. And July British police have canine squad
inspect the vacation apartment there at the resort, as well
as the rental car the mccahan's used. Then they get buppets,
no leads. Fast forward to August. It's now been a
(10:07):
hundred days since the disappearance, and for the first time
the officials heading these investigations acknowledged that Madeleine McCann may
not be found alive, and over the years since this disappearance,
in two thousand seven, numerous individuals and groups have proposed
multiple possible explanations. We've categorized the most prevalent, the most prominent,
(10:34):
but we do have to say again they run the
gamut of plausibility and some of these theories are I'm
careful not to inject my opinion often, but some of
these theories are to my mind offensive because we have
to remember these are real people and this is a
real three year old child. UM, So I guess we
(10:55):
should start at the beginning. UM the first one that
has definitely he made the rounds and his reference pretty
extensively in this twenty nineteen Netflix documentary, which you know,
in my mind is a little on the exploitative side. UM.
There was a lot of discussion of sex trafficking. Initially,
(11:17):
it was believed by some UM authorities, in particular in Portugal,
that Madeline McCann had been abducted to be sold into
a sex trafficking ring. A private investigator named Julian Peribanez
noted that, UM, these kinds of abductions for this exact
(11:38):
purpose have happened in the past. UM. Also, he noted
the profit motive. UH. He was quoted and saying the
value that Madeline had was really high. If they took her,
it's because they were going to get a lot of money. Wow. Okay,
that's a very straightforward way of saying something quite horrible. Uh.
Unfortunately this theory is plausible. Um. It certainly is a
(12:01):
thing abduction for sex trafficking purposes to basically sell people
into human beings, children into sexual bondage. Uh. Slavery um
is a very very real thing. Um. There have also
been some other theories along these lines. According to the Telegraph, UH,
an unusually high number of assaults on young girls had
(12:23):
taken place in the area specifically. The report found quote
police identified nine sexual assaults and three near misses on
British girls aged between six to twelve in the three
years before Madeline went missing. In one case from two
thousand five, a ten year old girl was assaulted in
an apartment there close to the spot where Madeline vanished.
(12:45):
And you know, that's a that's a troubling thing to know,
and it's probably one of those things that wouldn't be
broadcast out to people who were thinking about going on
holiday there, specifically in that resort and or in that area,
And it's pretty disturbing. Just to know that that kind
of thing was happening. But that's not the only theory.
(13:08):
Another concept was brought forward that perhaps this was just
some form of burglary that had gone wrong, because remember
this is a place for vacationing people who are there
probably carrying cash. A lot of people carry paper money
of one sort or another, even if you're in a
different country. You're going to take some cash and get
(13:29):
it transferred over to the correct currency when you're there.
It's just easier to to go that way rather than
trying to use a credit card or something like that.
So what if somebody was just attempting to break into
the apartment two uh, you know, take that money or
take some valuables in there, but then came across Madeline.
(13:51):
And if this were true, one would assume that at
least some valuables you know, there within the apartment would
have been taken. However, there didn't seem to be anything
miss seeing from the apartment besides Magdaline mm hmm. Yeah,
so that's an argument against the burglar. I want to
go back to the idea that you mentioned about the
(14:11):
about how to how the public is or is not
informed about these higher rates of disappearances and attacks. That's
going to be important later in the story. But to
the point of burglary had gone wrong, Yeah, it seems
odd that they if they were doing a snatch and
grab for valuables, it seems odd that they left some
(14:33):
stuff in the apartment. Well. And also, why would you
just why would you just walk out with of young
girl if you were there to steal valuables, right, unless
it was linked back to what Noel was talking about,
you would then sell that girl. Yeah, it makes no sense.
And so the other kids were just fast asleep and untouched, right, Yeah,
(14:54):
so that's that's why. Again, that's why I'm saying that
one does not seem to add up. Uh. This leads
us to something else, the wander away theory, which was
popular for a while, or you know, pretty it was
propagated for a while. It's the idea that the child
could have wandered out on her own while she was unsupervised,
(15:16):
maybe to explore the vacation area, maybe to check out
the nearby water, and then after leaving the apartment, she
could have drowned perhaps, or she could have been tragically
struck by a vehicle when the nearby roads in a
hit and run. This sort of stuff has occurred in
the past, but it raises multiple important questions. The patio
(15:40):
door was closed. Remember that's how Kate McCann found, you know,
found that her child was missing. So how would a
three year old manage to close those pretty heavy sliding
patio doors behind her that are also pretty tall for
her to reach? And then wouldn't a body or evidence
of an accident have been found if the uh, especially
(16:04):
if there were a hit and run. This this is
why people went through those three theories pretty quickly, And
we're getting to We're getting to the part I wanted
to warn everybody about earlier, which is the possibly offensive theories.
One of the most emotionally harrowing aspects of a case
like this is something that a lot of true crime,
(16:28):
you know, docuseries never bother investigating. It's that the parents
have to also be investigated by the police. Imagine how difficult.
Difficult doesn't even cover it. Imagine how horrific, uh it is,
how indescribably painful to be searching desperately for your child
(16:48):
while at the same time being interrogated about their disappearance
as a suspect and There were numerous theories here about this.
It started like a most immediately after police got involved
in Portugal. I mean, it's it's it's just it's procedure,
it's standard operating procedure to eliminate all suspects, and that
(17:09):
starts with the people that were the closest. But it's
just I can't even imagine you're going through all of
this stuff in your head and asking all these questions
and then you're even the intimation of being, you know,
a suspect would just be so shattering. Um. But that's
what happened. In September two seven, the Portuguese police interviewed
(17:30):
Kate McCann as a witness in the case. The next
day they labeled the couple suspects. Um. I think the
Portuguese word for that is arguido spend. Is that how
you pronounce them? Well, I don't speak Portuguese, but you're correct, Noel,
that's just the that's just the specific term in that
language that they use for suspects. Uh. But to your point,
(17:53):
they didn't, you know, they didn't lock the mccan's up,
nor did they detain them. Eventually they allowed the couple
and their twins to return to the UK just a
few days later. A few days after that, prosecutors said
there was no new evidence to justify requestioning the mccans,
which I think is a good move because imagine how
(18:15):
traumatic that would be to fly back to have to
talk about that again, you know, in this setting. I mean,
it's certainly not a good pr look, I can say
that to be sure. Yeah, I would just jump back
to the arguido thing really quickly. That that is, under
Portuguese law, a very specific thing that gets labeled on
(18:35):
people almost always right before they are taken in as
like the primary suspect, basically to prepare it to be
charged for something. Would that be the equivalent of like
person of interest? It's not necessarily they're not being accused yet,
but there, you know, I mean, I guess person of
interest in suspect of the same thing. For some reason.
You hear them used, not always interchangeably. According to an
(18:58):
expert from the already in UM a lot of expert there,
the quote is, if you are in a arguido, they
have to have suspicion that a crime has been committed
by that person. So the authorities treating believe that you
had something to do with it. Yeah, because there is
a difference a person of interest to someone that they
just want to talk to a suspect, to someone they
(19:20):
believe might actually have been involved in the crime. That's
how I would understand it. So you can see why
this group of theories may sound offensive, but it is
important to mention them here as we flesh out the
full scope of thought on the events. So back to
the trafficking ring. People began to say, what if the
parents somehow sold their own child to a trafficking ring
(19:44):
and then just faked the disappearance. There are two big
problems with that. First off, this would require an extraordinary,
almost impossible level of dedication and acting on the part
of the parents for years and years and years. Also,
more immediately wore brass tacks. Subsequent investigations to to prove
(20:07):
something like this would have a very high likelihood of
discovering any anomalous financial transactions. And it's also one of
the most monstrous things you can imagine someone doing. And um, yeah,
just that alone feels it just feels so wrong. And
(20:27):
to make an accusation like that, you would need some
pretty damning proof. Yeah, it's it's that's a rough idea.
But but that's not all right, right, Yeah, there's the
idea that they were responsible for their daughter's death, not
through design, but through accident and subsequent panic. Yes, there
(20:52):
are two authors, Anthony Summers and Robin Swan, who I've
argued that the authorities believed or suspected the McCanns possibly
gave some kind of drug to Madeline in an attempt
to get her to go to sleep, essentially so they
could go across the street and hang out with their friends. Um,
this would certainly not be the only time that's ever
(21:16):
happened in the history of the world. It's been a
pretty common practice to give children a tiny amount of
alcohol or you know, maybe a tiny amount of cough
syrup or something that has sleepy effects, essentially to help
their children go to sleep if they're having trouble sleeping. Um,
that is by no means an out there, I don't know,
(21:39):
even an accusation of something entirely wrong really, But the
idea here is that the McCanns gave Madeline way too much,
essentially despite their medical expertise. Yeah, right, doesn't seem to
add up. There's a Portuguese police officer who supported this theory.
(21:59):
He went so are as to release a book and
a TV doc on the subject um that so the
concept there. I have not actually watched that doc or
read his specific book. What is it? Goncrlo Marl sounds
like a real stand up guy. He is a disgraced
(22:22):
police officer, by the way, so this is one of
his his large lines of business. This actually, this went
to court in two thousand nine. The mccahans started taking
legal action against his you know, his work, because it's
incredibly insulting. It's defamatory, right if it can't be proven,
(22:43):
and Portuguese court agreed, and then later he appealed the
decision because the court had awarded them four hundred fifty
thousand the equivalent of four and fifty thousand British pounds
in damages. But I think that's still ongoing. This is
interesting because at first I thought, you know, all are
these people vultures who are trying to make a quick
(23:08):
buck off of an unspeakable disaster, And then you do see,
you do see things that at least proponents of these
kind of theories consider to be strong circumstantial proof. Unfortunately,
it's something that pops up in a lot of cases
with parents and disappeared children. They would say, oh, this
(23:31):
mom or this dad in this situation. They focused on
Kate McCann and said, you know, she doesn't seem as fraught,
as upset, as emotionally damaged as she should be. These
people say, you know in my mind. Uh. And that's
where this kind of armchair sleuthing can get dangerous. But
there was one interesting quantitative thing that I found that
(23:52):
is a fact. Uh. In the initial interviews, she was
asked forty nine questions over a long course of time, uh,
and she answered only one. Got also a full list
of the forty eight questions. You can find that online
at the tab dot com. Just look for McCann forty
(24:13):
eight questions the tab. And they don't seem like UM.
A lot of them seem like maybe relatively innocuous questions.
I would want you guys take on these. They didn't
seem particularly loaded. They were asking about process, order of operations,
and maybe it's just difficult to answer those questions. Yeah,
(24:35):
I mean it's stuff like did you search inside the
master bedroom wardrobe? UM? Questions about things being out of place,
like why was the curtain by the sofa near the
side window tampered with? Does someone go behind the sofa?
So Ben when you say she didn't answer them like
she like said, I I reserve my right to not
answer this question, like she exercised her right to not.
(24:56):
I mean like what order she she said, I don't recall,
or something like I don't under And well, you've got
to remember she is at this point, no matter what happened,
she is under a tremendous amount of stress, and she
is being looked at as a suspect, essentially by these
authorities that are asking her these questions. It's a pickle
(25:18):
of a situation to be in because like every attorney
you would tell you, I'm not giving you legal advice
here as Matt Frederick, but most attorneys would tell you,
reserve your right to not say anything everything. You're being
asked questions by police. That makes sense. The counterpoint to
that is your daughter's missing, and these authorities are trying
(25:39):
to help you find your daughter. Well, she said at
some point that she didn't answer the questions because she
thought that them questioning her was distracting them from actually
looking for the real culprit, which is a little bit
of an odd way of looking at it. You know,
you think she would be as cooperative as possible so
they could move on. But again, I'm sure there's some
resentment there of like, you know, why are you even
(26:00):
bothering with me but against all procedural well, and how
could my daughter get abducted, you know, under your watch essentially,
And why do you guys care about the sofa in
my vacation apartment when there's a missing kid out there?
Also again, how tremendously unfair and stressful it is to
be tried in the court of public opinion, which trends misogynistic. Right,
(26:25):
let's just be honest about that. You can't look at
someone and say that the way they appear to be
experiencing grief is not satisfactory to you, some stranger who's
never met the person. And also it came out later that, uh,
they have been advised by various parties not to uh,
(26:48):
not to show a ton of emotion, like try not
to weep in public interviews and so on, because again
the tabloids will grab it. There are there are more
out their theories, and these theories I tried pretty I
feel like I can't say assiduously anymore. I tried really
(27:08):
hard to uh to find any kind of possible proof
or logic for some of these very out there ones,
and I I only found a little bit for one,
But they're there are three really out there ones, and
we'll get to those theories afterward. From our sponsor and
(27:33):
we're back. The first is get this. I don't know
if you guys heard about this one, the Secret Discovery.
The idea here is that Madeline McCann was found, was
found safe and alive, but the discovery was kept secret
because the argument goes, by the time she had been found,
there have been so much media scrutiny and her picture
(27:56):
was plastered, plastered everywhere in public that she would never
her be able to live a normal life under her
previous identity. Therefore, Madeline McCann is not found, but another
girl is. That just doesn't seem very likely. Yeah, I
mean off, Mike Ben, you were talking about how these
are just so out there and also borderline offensive, that
(28:16):
we're not going to spend two too too much time
on them, But here they are. They definitely are things
that have been discussed, um be it on the internet,
and some of the reporting and potentially even in certain
circles of law enforcement. Uh. The notion that there never
was a Madaline mccam. UH, that Madeline McCann was some
(28:40):
sort of abstraction made up by the British government to
distract from other news stories. Um to be some kind
of red herring. Uh during I don't know, potentially a
a bad news cycle um or designed to help raise
funds that ultimately would be diverted to the government. Um. Okay,
(29:05):
I retract my previous assessment that this could have been
discussed within law enforcement circles. I think this is largely
a fringe E. You know, when there's a vacuum of information,
weird stuff tends to fill it. Um. So this is
not something that's being taken seriously by the vast majority
of people even a little bit familiar with this case.
(29:26):
And we'll just go ahead and caveat it and saying
that the existence of Malan mccam is absurdly well documented.
There are numerous pictures of the child with with her family,
with her siblings, numerous accounts of people who knew her
and met her spent time with her. For this theory
to be true. The McCanns themselves had to have been
(29:48):
so complicit in the deepest uh and and most well
executed cover ups that we've ever been privy to. UH
and that would have taken probably decade that have been planned,
you know, the all of the pieces would have had
to be laid out meticulously, and this is does not
make any sense whatsoever. So I mean my question is
(30:10):
where is this being circulated like uh I did just
it's this is wild, yeah, yeah, this is this is
part of the online echo chambers. So we're talking about
armchair investigators maybe on Twitter, true crime forums or paid
subreddits things like that. Uh. It's It's strange though, because
(30:33):
one of the out there theories that I think you're right.
We can dismiss the idea that there was somehow never Madeline,
but I think there's a little more sands to the
theory that there was corruption in Portugal at the time,
that Portuguese authorities had some sort of ulterior motive in
(30:54):
treating the parents as suspects or pushing that narrative. UH.
People were arguing that there treatment of the Meccans went
beyond standard operating procedure and that they were in fact
trying to frame them to your point, Matt, in an
effort to save that tourism industry. Uh. This, I don't know.
(31:16):
This is an interesting went out of the three. This
has more proof. Yes, Ben, this is a theory that
can have sand to it at sometimes just because of
the basic facts that exist about certain locations and the
economy there that's based on tourism. It comes. This one
(31:36):
in particular, comes from a man named Brian Kennedy, who
was a businessman from Edinburgh. He says, you can understand
how the mood of public opinion would go from sympathy
to vilification. Uh. And essentially that the Portugal authorities decided,
let's find somebody to blame for this that doesn't make
us look bad. He says. I think it's all tied
(31:59):
into tourism, into street and tourism being down in the
country's gdp. Um. It is true that, like we said,
in a lot of places, tourism is so vital that
the money coming in from out of country, out of state,
out of town is the only thing that makes the
wheels spin there. Um. I don't see that being a
(32:20):
reason to want to frame a family for hurting their
child though, Yeah, that's that's its whole order. That's you know,
that's even that's less of a theory or conspiracy about
the actual events than it is a theory or conspiracy
about the behavior of the authorities afterwards. Right, Yeah, But
(32:46):
it is a conspiracy about not wanting to have a
dangerous person or not wanting to admit that there is
some dangerous person that exists around this high dollar tourism area,
because then you who in their right mind is going
to take their child and themselves on vacation there. Yeah,
I mean it's and I guess it's maybe the equivalent
(33:07):
of like if a murder took place in a house,
you know, the real estate agents lying about it, are
covering it up because it's not necessarily something people would
jump at the chance to live in a murder house.
Yeah yeah, I mean not everybody, at least some people.
For some people that might be a feature, you know,
some people pay extra I mean meeky Yeah. But the uh,
(33:31):
the the interesting part about that point too, is that
this is a wealthy area there. You can look now
and see enormous holmes being constructed, So it does there,
you know, you can see the internal logic there, but
none of these theories, the three we just explored, have
garnered much support, primarily because none of them have generated
(33:56):
much evidence in support of what they're proposing. However, this
is where we get to the idea of predators. In Wait,
we mentioned reports of some mysterious figures, but in the
Telegraph gave an official stance to these long standing rumors
(34:18):
that Madeleine McCann may have been abducted on the order
of an unknown, wealthy, childless couple. So not some crazed killer,
not some cover up of an accident, but someone hunting
a child on the orders of someone else. And that's
because after the disappearance, witnesses were coming forward saying, now
(34:39):
that I think about it, now that I recall I
may have seen suspicious individuals hanging out at the resort
in the days leading up to the event. It's got
some pros and cons pro any lead is helpful at
this point when these folks are coming forward con they
don't have uh, you know, in a lot of cases,
(35:02):
they don't have camera footage of this or something. They
just have their memory. And memory is one of the
worst witnesses in human experience. Uh. But but the idea
here is that there may have been an operation involving
multiple people, some acting as spotters. And to put a
brutal fine point on it. In this theory, the the
(35:23):
idea is that people were waiting for a child of
maybe a certain ethnicity, maybe a certain hair color or appearance,
a certain age, and then they waited until they found
someone who fit those specifications. That's chilling if that happens.
And there was one report that was followed up on,
(35:46):
which was the report of a of a couple, right,
an unidentified couple, that's right. This report of an unidentified
couple UH seems to have been substantiated. The idea that
these were something known as spotters UM, which would be
UH people complicit in the child sex trafficking ring or
(36:08):
in trade. I don't know what the hell you want
to call it, UM, but this is a job people
searching for a child who met the particular requirements of
of what was being sought UM. Whether that be race
or age or hair color, God only knows UM. And
this report of this unidentified couple, like I said, does
(36:28):
seems to have been substantiated. A couple later came forward
and thought one sighting may have been them UM as
they were walking in the area, but upon further investigation,
they had nothing to do with the case. So, um,
we should get back on track to that Tanner report.
A single unidentified man I believe, blonde with acne, with
(36:53):
the descriptions early carrying a child. But as we know,
at the end of the day, editors are opportunists. Um,
So this notion of a predator kind of lying in
wait looking for that perfect moment uh to spring into action. Um,
that seems to be pretty plausible considering that there appears
(37:16):
to have been a high number of sexual predators in
the area at that time. And sure, you know, like
in any resort area, which often you know, are in
poorer parts of the world, you know, where there are
the people that actually live there aren't particularly wealthy, would
never actually stay in the resort. So there certainly is
kind of a have and have not mentality, And uh,
(37:38):
it makes sense to break ends and thefts would be
relatively common. But this idea of a loan predator really
didn't seem to go anywhere until very recently this year.
In fact, yes, one last time, going back to that
report that Jane Tanner, friend of the McCanns, made about
one person carrying a child. Did I actually have any
(38:01):
weight to it. Maybe she saw something and maybe the
authorities should have paid more attention to it at the time.
We'll tell you all about it right after a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. As we said at
the top, this is an ongoing mystery and there is
(38:25):
a new turn of events in the case of Madeline McCann.
Recent revelations which unfortunately didn't have to be as recent
as they are. After years and years, again, a decade
plus of fruitless investigation, authorities believe that they have discovered
the abductor of Madeline McCann. The suspect is a German
(38:49):
Man who is originally being referred to as Christian be
we know now his full name is Christian Bruckner. He
is I must note not to be confused with another
Christian Bruckner, who is apparently a famous voice actor in Germany,
which I was not aware of. But this Christian Bruckner
(39:09):
he spent his entire adult life being um being the
worst person, a small time criminal, uh, an absolute sleeves bag.
He would travel back and forth between Portugal and Germany,
often in an attempt to escape the consequences of one
(39:31):
of his many crimes, which began in his teenage years
when he uh, when he sexually assaulted someone. Uh. He
was on the run for his sexual abuse of children,
for forgery, for driving without a license, for petty theft,
for drug dealing. His former associates, who are one of
(39:52):
the main reasons that authorities caught onto him. His former
associates described him as one of those kind of resort burglars.
He was known for breaking in through the windows of
first floor apartments. And he did not directly get caught
or you know, he did not directly get implicated in
(40:13):
the mccan case for a long long time, which is chilling.
It is chilling. And um, his most serious crime, uh
is a real doozy. Um. She's hard to even say
out loud. He uh is known to have raped a
seventy two year old American woman on September two five. Um,
(40:36):
the victim, he tortured her. Yeah, he beat her with
a metal rod after binding her, uh, presumably raping her.
And and he you know, the police reports indicated that
she had been beaten around the chest and legs and buttocks,
was horribly bruised. I mean, thankfully she she left with
(40:57):
her life. But um, yeah, she'd been staying in an
apartment that was along the daily route between Bruckner's house
and the beach that he visited every day. Um and yeah,
I mean these these uh, there's there's more details that
we have here. Really steal yourselves, folks. These are quite disturbing.
So we know that this this person was you know,
(41:18):
their apartment was along that daily route between Bruckner's house
and a beach he visited every day. One night, the
night of September two, around ten thirty pm, he enters
through this person's front door, which is unlocked because this
is supposed to be a relatively safe neighborhood. He dragged
(41:40):
her through the building. As you said, nol, he bound her,
he tied her down. Uh, he beat her, which has
been with what has been described as a metal rod,
but also a scimitar, which might be a translation error there. Uh.
He did assaulter uh and torture her, after which he
(42:01):
dragged her forcibly into the kitchen of the apartment and
he forced her to give him cash that she had
on her person and he made off with her computer.
She survived, thankfully, and Portuguese authorities investigated this case, but
they closed their investigation a year later in two thousand
(42:25):
and six, and Bruckner was not Bruckner almost got away
with this. He pretty much did no one. No one
knew about his association, and then he started bragging to
his criminal friends about it, and the UM, I don't
know what you would call it, the world of thievery,
(42:45):
his his fellow thieves, his um, the people who would
who would squat on properties with him and then helped
the like in their mind, Bruckner was a sleeves bag
with a big mouth, but he would help them come
up with schemes to steal stuff, like really small time
stuff like stealing gasoline, stealing diesel. I didn't know that
(43:09):
was a thing that anybody other than like large oil
companies did. I didn't know it was like a micro
economic crime as well. So Bruckner is talking with these
associates of his and he discloses that while he was
conducting this horrific assault, he filmed it so that he
(43:33):
could view it recreationally later. And this is a step
too far. Imagine you're one of those other probably not
to profile, but you're probably kind of a sleez bag too.
And you say, hey, I thought we were just stealing
stuff to get you know, drug money or something. It's
a step too far for me to be part of
(43:54):
your violent sex crimes that are on film. And that
compels these people, uh, and that compels them to go
to the authorities, which we have to say, you know, uh,
if they had not done so, we have no idea
how the next series of events would have played out. Right,
(44:17):
and Ben didn't. Weren't there internet posts that he had
made or some kind of journaling that he had done
talking about his kind of escalating fantasies about abducting and
using someone a child, even for sex. Those were alleged
Iman and actually seen the files themselves where they were
(44:40):
alleged chat room logs right that he had done, where
he talked about capturing something little and keeping it for
a while. And and there was an interesting point made
in that sixty minutes piece on the Australian sixty Minutes
where one of the investigators said that it could be
argue that, well, the m O for this guy was
(45:02):
old women, But honestly, the m O for this guy
was just helpless helplessness and being able to take someone
and and have them bend to his will, and so
it's really honestly the same having a child or having
an helpless elderly woman. As as awful as that sounds,
it really does fit the same m O. So the
(45:24):
purported UH statements made by Bruckner online were found in
UH dedicated pro child abuse forums on on the dark Web,
and again to your point, Matt, I don't think they
have a hundred percent proof that he did that, but
they're strong it's strongly suspected that he was the author.
(45:47):
You can hear the recreations of that on UH sixty
minutes on the Australian sixty minutes, which is a bit exploitative,
but it is important information because if it is a
confirmed to be this guy, than we see also UH
evidence of premeditation, right of a plan and an escalation,
(46:09):
and it is it is pretty sickening. It's also not
the first time again that this guy has been implicated
in these sorts of villainous, unclean behaviors. There was a
documentary like I know a lot of us are familiar
with the recent Netflix documentary, but there was another documentary
(46:29):
about a missing very young girl, a five year old
named Inga Garrick from Germany. She vanished from a German
campsite eight years after McCann disappeared, and the documentary appears
to implicate Bruckner. He was investigated for the disappearance of
this child, I think around twenty sixteen, and they ultimately
(46:53):
did not charge him with kidnapping or with homicide or
anything like that. But they they found things that were
much much worse, the kind of things that if I
were an investigator, I think if anyone was an investigator,
they would be the kind of things that that haunt
you for years afterwards. Yeah, and then if it was
(47:17):
a movie, one of those officers who just couldn't handle
it would just end up putting that guy in a
shallow grave somewhere. That's just no, dude. That's where that's
where my mind started to go. Like I was saying,
when I was spiraling out thinking about this, you know,
and obviously, I mean, the parents are following all this
(47:38):
in the news, they know this guy's a suspect, they
know roughly what the public knows, what we have access to.
I would just go I would lose my mind. I
would I would fly into a murderous rage. I just
don't know. And just to note here this documentary we're
discussing right now, within it, there apparently are friends of
(48:00):
Bruckner who were speaking with the documentary filmmakers. They said
that he would often brag about this very specific vehicle,
a large camper van, and how it was ideal for quote,
hiding kids and drugs. And within this camper authorities found
stashes of little girl swimsuits and thousands of images of
(48:25):
children in sexual situations. Um. And this was when they
were investigating Bruckner specifically for Inga's disappearance that we were
speaking about before in completely separate child m and you also,
we should I hate to say it, but we have
(48:45):
to be accurate and explicit here. Uh, this is this
is child pornography. Yes, I didn't didn't mean to skirt
around that. It's just I wanted to say it without
saying it. And is there a sense, I mean, maybe
we'll get there. I know there's another big termed twist
(49:07):
coming soon, I guess. But was there a sense that
any of these were images that he himself had created
or okay, okay, yeah, we don't know what this done.
This leads to, thankfully legal consequences as of twenty nineteen,
well as of right now, Bruckner is held in a
(49:28):
German prison, is held on charges unrelated to the McCann case.
So let's start putting some of the sinister pieces of
this puzzle together. He traveled often between Germany, Spain, and
Portugal during two thousand seven, the time of the McCann disappearance.
(49:51):
He had been living in this area prior delis as
a waiter or a barman, which I assume as a
bartender in various lubs, right. And he was also constantly,
by his own admission, on the watch for opportunities to
steal from tourists, bragging to his associates about how great
(50:13):
his van was, how it was a safe spot. He
would talk when he was in his cups about the
idea of selling children in Morocco. You know how much
of that is just like self aggrandizing braggado show of
an evil man. How much of this is a plan
or a process in investigators start looking at Bruckner. I mean,
(50:34):
being a bartender would be a pretty pretty choice opportunity
to to find out information about folks that are there
on vacation, people that are you know, having some drinks
get loose lip, talk about where they're staying, talk about
who they're with, you know, I mean we obviously know
that the uh, the parents like to have a good time,
(50:57):
like to have their top us. You know, maybe they
ended up at this gentleman's bar at some place where
he worked. And I don't know. I'm just saying, you know,
there's certainly possible, um, but you're right. Uh. The now
notorious camper authorities worked off reports from neighbors that Bruckner
spent long hours in a shed on the property UM
(51:19):
and began digging. The shed uh is described in an
article I read as a something like a depraved shed,
which is pretty accurate. Um, more than accurate. Actually, Uh,
they started to dig, they found a hidden seller. Um.
They were seen carrying forensic bags out, as well as
(51:43):
a child's toy bucket. Apparently uncovered thousands of videos on
hard drives and USB sticks uh, supposedly buried along with
his dog. This is what I read. Yeah, I think
it underneath that stuff was underneath yeah, right, exactly exactly.
(52:05):
To clarify, this was a search that was conducted in
a field in northern Germany where the guy was squatting
for a long time. It's about four miles from where
Bruckner once lived. But his neighbors all you can tell,
his neighbors all distrusted and hated him like he would.
He would tell people who was a car mechanic if
(52:26):
they asked what he did. But his own car was
continually his own van was continually leaking fuel and in
a state of disrepair. The Hidden Seller is true detective
level stuff. Oh yeah, it really is. Did we talk
about where he was staying in Portugal? Right there by
(52:48):
the resort? Did we talk about that already? We indicated
that he was very close. Yeah. There there are a
couple of places online where you can find the actual
area the place where he where Brutner was staying at
the time when Madeline disappeared, and it was not far
from the resort where she was abducted for him. And
it was also if he was the author of those
(53:09):
things on the Dark Web, it's his and if he
did this, then it follows the outline the order of
operations that this author on the Dark Web was talking about.
So that's another puzzle piece. And you know, as of now, uh,
none of these recordings or tear or whatever tapes and
(53:30):
again this is why I asked the stuff they found
in his van? Is there any indication that he created
this himself? This stuff seems like he may have. Uh.
Some of the authorities that are interviewed in that sixty
minutes piece absolutely or characterizing him as a serial killer type,
as a psychopath, you know, at the very least a
serial killer in the making. Um. And they're keeping a
(53:53):
tight lid on whatever they found in that cellar. And honestly,
I would look at it as an act of mercy,
you know, to the parents at stuff isn't available for
them to see. Who knows there's somebody Again in the
sixty minutes piece, one of the investigators indicated that maybe
she could have been on one of those tapes. German authorities,
British authorities, Portuguese authorities all seemed to indicate, without sharing
(54:20):
the totality of their information, they all seemed to indicate
that Bruckner is the person behind the disappearance. The one
of the most disturbing parts here is that German authorities
right now are convinced that Madeline McCann is no longer
(54:42):
with us, that she is dead. They believe she died
shortly after the abduction. They believe she was abducted by Bruckner.
They believe Bruckner murdered her, but they also believe that
they have at this point insufficient evidence to officially charge him,
which puts them in a weird position because the German
prosecutors are saying, this is the guy. I told the family,
(55:05):
why we know this is the guy, we just need
more evidence, and then members of German law enforcement in
other regards are saying the same thing. Uh to your point, no,
you know, I think it is it is noble to
say that there with maybe withholding that as an active
mercy for the parents, but I believe there there's also
(55:27):
the very compelling motive that they don't want to fumble
a technicality that would invalidate the case. They want to
get the monster right. All of this aside, you know
what kind of charges he is facing. I mean, obviously
he must have gotten out for that rape of the
seventy two year old woman, and I mean they found
(55:49):
the child porn in his in his van. I mean,
surely he's already facing some pretty serious charges and isn't
going to be like out anytime soon. Yeah, So he uh,
he it's it's odd that you mentioned that because he
recently dropped his bid for early release from prison. He
has served, he's been serving. Uh, he's been serving prison
(56:11):
time on unrelated drug charges. So it's it's a pattern
that we see happen often with you know, we've been
very careful to avoid the word, but to avoid the
phrase serial killers. But it's it's a pattern that we
have seen often, uh, in these sorts of arrestaurant, these
breaks in a case, it's not uncommon for the person
(56:36):
who turns out to be a culprit of one crime
to already be incarcerated for a different crime. And that
that's we've seen it in numerous episodes of this show. Uh,
he is I think as of July, he's about two
thirds through his his prison sentence on those drug offense, says.
(57:00):
And then after he does that, he has to start
his seven year prison sentence for the two thousand and
five assault. So they wouldn't the court wouldn't allow it
to be served concurrently, if that makes sense. They wanted
to keep him in jail for as long as possible,
or in prison, I should say. And just a reminder,
they did not catch him for that assault. Initially, it
(57:24):
took a long time for them to figure out they
do was Bruckner um When the I believe it was,
the people who are around him started talking absolutely. And
this also Portuguese police have currently confirmed they are re
examining evidence now that they have a bit better idea
of what to look for. They have saliva samples from
(57:45):
the crime scene, and they say they're sending those to
Germany to be tested against Bruckner's DNA. His lawyer, one
Friedrich Fulscher, said that his client Bruckner, denies any involvement
in not just the McCann case, but in two other
(58:05):
cases of missing children that he's currently under investigation at
some level four. And that's that's where we are. So
much of this stuff happened just a few weeks ago.
We we can't recommend that you, if you are interested
in this, check out some of the timelines that are
(58:26):
available out there. Look at some of the images that
we mentioned earlier, take a look at it. Maybe you
know you can see something that the authorities don't. We don't.
You never know, we may have one of those unsolved
mysteries moments where something just comes to light that maybe
you were aware of, or you saw something one night
(58:47):
that you didn't realize if you were in that area
and you're listening to this now, um, you know it.
It is one of those cases that I certainly hope
has a conclusion at some point, very soon they can
give this family a little closure. And now at this
point we know that there may be some sort of closure,
(59:09):
and that is that is something that can finally answer
a question that has haunted all the survivors of of
Madeline McCann for again more than a decade. Our thoughts
go out to the McCann family. Our thoughts also go
out to all of the parents and relatives of other
(59:31):
people who have disappeared or have somehow gone missing. We
know that in this case it seems the wheels of
justice grind slow but hopefully exceedingly fine. We don't have
the answers. We cannot predict the future. We do not
know how this will proceed, this case with Christian Bruckner,
(59:53):
but we can say it feels it feels extraordinary that
German authority EASE are saying that they found the murderer
with such certitude. There's no hemming and hawing. The only
thing they're saying is that they can of fish. They
don't have the evidence they need yet to officially charge
(01:00:17):
charge this person. But I would expect more updates soon,
maybe even before this podcast comes out. And one more
note here on just the the updates and new information.
According to the BBC, the UK's Metropolitan Police says it
received more than two hundred and seventy calls and emails
since there was a brand new appeal for new information.
Um that happened in June. So there are people who
(01:00:41):
are trying their best to give any and all info
they can that may be relevant. UM. So who knows
what we're what We're gonna find very soon and let
us know what you think. As always, we want to
hear from you. You can find us anywhere online. We're
on Instagram or on Twitter, We're on Facebook. We highly
recommend our Facebook community page. Here's where it gets crazy.
(01:01:04):
It's right you can join your fellow conspiracy realists on
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Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show Um. You can also
(01:01:28):
find us as individual human people on social media. I
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But what if you hate social media and prefer to
(01:01:49):
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We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(01:02:40):
Don't want you to Know is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul,
Mission control decand most importantly, you are you. You are
here and that makes this stuff they don't want you
to know. Hold your loved ones close for this one, folks.
This is a very dark, uh and disturbing episode that
(00:50):
we're diving into today. Because today's show contains, at times
graphic descriptions of violence, it may not be suitable for
all audience members, so listen or discretion is advised. Like
many of our most compelling show suggestions, this one comes
to us from a listener John in Long Beach. John says,
(01:12):
what's up, guys, big fan of your podcast. Been listening
for a year now, only realized that the album logo
has six fingers like a week ago. Hey, finally and
you would pay off. I know we were waiting for
John to get it. Uh, good on you, John, He continues, Anyway,
I was wondering if you guys will do a podcast
on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. I only just heard
(01:34):
about it when a friend told me he just saw
a documentary on it. Thanks guys, have a great week.
Thanks for writing John. Yeah, this is referring to a case.
In two thousand seven, a British born three year old
named Madeleine McCann disappeared while on vacation, whereas they would
say in the UK, on holiday with her family in Portugal.
(01:56):
The case made national headlines. Authorities in three different countries
conducted multiple investigations and for more than a decade they
found no solid leads. So what happened? Here are the facts.
Madeline McCann was born on May twelve, two thousand three,
in Leicester, England. Her parents were Jerry and Kate McCann.
(02:20):
They were married in Both of them worked in the
medical profession. Kate became a general practitioner after studying at
the University of Dundee and was working part time while
also taking care of uh she and her husband's children.
Jerry was working as a consultant cardiologists. In addition to
(02:42):
Madaline um who was their oldest The couple also has
twins um born in two thousand five and in two
thousand seven. The family, you know, they're working hard, they're
supporting their kids. They decided to go on holiday, as
you do. They went to a place called the San
Club Resort in Praya de Luze in Portugal, and there
(03:05):
they rented an apartment at the Ocean Club Resort. And
I'm guessing this is like, you know, a kind of
a sweet kind of situation. I mean, um fancier hotel. Right, Well,
I pulled, I pulled some you know, I'm going to
give a reluctant shout out to the Sun. I know
I've given it a hard time, rightly so in past episodes.
(03:27):
But they have a graphic layout of the apartment that
the mccns were residing in during this vacation, and it's
very helpful as you listen along today to have that
up so you can see the positions of where the rooms,
the windows, and the entrances and exits of this place where.
(03:48):
But yeah, think of like an almost like an extended
stay apartment. Yeah, and if you you can go to
the BBC and find an overview picture of this whole area.
So if you have those two picks years up where
you can see where all the places we're going to
talk about are, and then actually into the thing. I
think you're in a good spot. So let's go to
(04:09):
the night of the disappearance. On the third of May
two thousand seven, the McCanns the parents met a group
of seven friends at a tapas restaurant in the resort complex.
This was not very far from their apartment at all.
It was about a hundred and eighty feet or fifty
five meters. So the reason that's important is it means
(04:31):
you could easily walk back to that apartment and back
to the restaurant without you know, it would take hardly
any time at all. It's basically just walking across where
the pool area is and then you're at the tapas bar.
It's literally that close. So Madeleine and her younger brother
and sister where those are the fraternal twins, They were
(04:53):
staying in the apartment. They were sleeping, and they were
supposed to be sleeping. Keep in mind, these are very
young kids. They're probab pbly pooped from a day of vacation.
In fact, the parents had noted earlier that the children
seemed very tired, So around eight thirty pm, those kids
are sent to bed. The mccns and their friends are responsible,
good parents. They created a rotational system that they used
(05:17):
to check in on the kids. So every twenty or
thirty minutes, it's someone's turned to go. Just look in
on the kids, not wake um up or anything like that,
just make sure they're okay. Kate McCann's turn comes up
around ten pm. She walks over to the apartment, supporting
to note they had locked the front door of the apartment,
but it had a back patio door like sliding patio door,
(05:39):
and that they had left unlocked so they could easily
slide the door open or closed without waking up the kids.
So Kate McCann looks in on the room where Madeleine
and the two twins are supposed to be sleeping. She
notices that the window to this room is open, the
(06:00):
shutters have been pulled up. Madeline McCann has disappeared. The
authorities are immediately alerted and the resort staff, the local police,
other guests of the resort search all night for Madeline
until daybreak and they find nothing. Yeah, I can't even
imagine that sinking feeling of you know, and just the
(06:24):
how do we even accept that? And just the way
your mind must spin. You know, when we were looking
into this story, I just kept putting myself in that position,
you know, being a dad and mad I'm sure you
could understand that feeling as well, only not really just
even the hint of it is almost more than you
can even kind of comprehend. But yeah, they alerted the
authorities right away, UM police, the resort staff and other
(06:48):
guests essentially formed a search party UM looking for Madeline
until dawn, but they they found nothing. Uh, In less
than twenty four hours. The McCann only held a press
conference UM and I believe there's a sixty minutes Australia
piece on this that has some of the footage from
at least one of the multiple public appeals for help
(07:11):
that the McCann family eventually did. Over the course of
the following few days, hundreds of volunteers joined the search party.
Authorities at the border were put on high alert, staff
at the nearby airport was told to watch for the child,
and then on May twelve, the authorities in Portugal UM
(07:32):
publicly stated they believe that Madeline had been abducted, but uh,
silver Lining was alive and somewhere still in the country. Yeah,
or at least they believed right, because there was no
way to verify it. Then, twenty three days after the
initial abduction or the disappearance, on the authorities, they're released
(07:57):
a description of a man was at that point unidentified,
and he had a couple of descriptors. He was blonde
in hair, he appeared to have acne, and he was
seen that night on May three, two thousand seven, around
the area, and it was believed that he was possibly
(08:18):
carrying a child or at least caring something that could
be confused for a child. And this description was based
on a friend of the Meccans who gave it to
the authorities. This person's name was Jane Tanner. She was
one of the people who was attending that Tapas restaurant
with them on the night that Madeline disappeared. And let's
(08:41):
let's exist in the present tense here. As the search continues,
speculation abounds taking multiple forms. There are ongoing official investigations.
But remember this disappearance occurs in the age of the Internet.
That means there are increasingly amateur sleuths getting involved. Theories,
(09:01):
some more plausible than others, spread across the media and
across the web. So our question today again, what happened
to Madeleine McCann. Here's where it gets crazy. First, things
are going wrong with the investigation. From the jump, there
(09:22):
are fundamental problems with the crime scene. In June, the
Portuguese police note that the scene was not properly protected,
so they may have lost vital forensic clues. There. You'll
also see contemporaneous reports of blood being discovered in small amounts,
or of sniffer dogs reacting to Kate McCann in particular,
(09:46):
and this is something that the red meat chasing tabloids
latch onto immediately. And July British police have canine squad
inspect the vacation apartment there at the resort, as well
as the rental car the mccahan's used. Then they get buppets,
no leads. Fast forward to August. It's now been a
(10:07):
hundred days since the disappearance, and for the first time
the officials heading these investigations acknowledged that Madeleine McCann may
not be found alive, and over the years since this disappearance,
in two thousand seven, numerous individuals and groups have proposed
multiple possible explanations. We've categorized the most prevalent, the most prominent,
(10:34):
but we do have to say again they run the
gamut of plausibility and some of these theories are I'm
careful not to inject my opinion often, but some of
these theories are to my mind offensive because we have
to remember these are real people and this is a
real three year old child. UM, So I guess we
(10:55):
should start at the beginning. UM the first one that
has definitely he made the rounds and his reference pretty
extensively in this twenty nineteen Netflix documentary, which you know,
in my mind is a little on the exploitative side. UM.
There was a lot of discussion of sex trafficking. Initially,
(11:17):
it was believed by some UM authorities, in particular in Portugal,
that Madeline McCann had been abducted to be sold into
a sex trafficking ring. A private investigator named Julian Peribanez
noted that, UM, these kinds of abductions for this exact
(11:38):
purpose have happened in the past. UM. Also, he noted
the profit motive. UH. He was quoted and saying the
value that Madeline had was really high. If they took her,
it's because they were going to get a lot of money. Wow. Okay,
that's a very straightforward way of saying something quite horrible. Uh.
Unfortunately this theory is plausible. Um. It certainly is a
(12:01):
thing abduction for sex trafficking purposes to basically sell people
into human beings, children into sexual bondage. Uh. Slavery um
is a very very real thing. Um. There have also
been some other theories along these lines. According to the Telegraph, UH,
an unusually high number of assaults on young girls had
(12:23):
taken place in the area specifically. The report found quote
police identified nine sexual assaults and three near misses on
British girls aged between six to twelve in the three
years before Madeline went missing. In one case from two
thousand five, a ten year old girl was assaulted in
an apartment there close to the spot where Madeline vanished.
(12:45):
And you know, that's a that's a troubling thing to know,
and it's probably one of those things that wouldn't be
broadcast out to people who were thinking about going on
holiday there, specifically in that resort and or in that area,
And it's pretty disturbing. Just to know that that kind
of thing was happening. But that's not the only theory.
(13:08):
Another concept was brought forward that perhaps this was just
some form of burglary that had gone wrong, because remember
this is a place for vacationing people who are there
probably carrying cash. A lot of people carry paper money
of one sort or another, even if you're in a
different country. You're going to take some cash and get
(13:29):
it transferred over to the correct currency when you're there.
It's just easier to to go that way rather than
trying to use a credit card or something like that.
So what if somebody was just attempting to break into
the apartment two uh, you know, take that money or
take some valuables in there, but then came across Madeline.
(13:51):
And if this were true, one would assume that at
least some valuables you know, there within the apartment would
have been taken. However, there didn't seem to be anything
miss seeing from the apartment besides Magdaline mm hmm. Yeah,
so that's an argument against the burglar. I want to
go back to the idea that you mentioned about the
(14:11):
about how to how the public is or is not
informed about these higher rates of disappearances and attacks. That's
going to be important later in the story. But to
the point of burglary had gone wrong, Yeah, it seems
odd that they if they were doing a snatch and
grab for valuables, it seems odd that they left some
(14:33):
stuff in the apartment. Well. And also, why would you
just why would you just walk out with of young
girl if you were there to steal valuables, right, unless
it was linked back to what Noel was talking about,
you would then sell that girl. Yeah, it makes no sense.
And so the other kids were just fast asleep and untouched, right, Yeah,
(14:54):
so that's that's why. Again, that's why I'm saying that
one does not seem to add up. Uh. This leads
us to something else, the wander away theory, which was
popular for a while, or you know, pretty it was
propagated for a while. It's the idea that the child
could have wandered out on her own while she was unsupervised,
(15:16):
maybe to explore the vacation area, maybe to check out
the nearby water, and then after leaving the apartment, she
could have drowned perhaps, or she could have been tragically
struck by a vehicle when the nearby roads in a
hit and run. This sort of stuff has occurred in
the past, but it raises multiple important questions. The patio
(15:40):
door was closed. Remember that's how Kate McCann found, you know,
found that her child was missing. So how would a
three year old manage to close those pretty heavy sliding
patio doors behind her that are also pretty tall for
her to reach? And then wouldn't a body or evidence
of an accident have been found if the uh, especially
(16:04):
if there were a hit and run. This this is
why people went through those three theories pretty quickly, And
we're getting to We're getting to the part I wanted
to warn everybody about earlier, which is the possibly offensive theories.
One of the most emotionally harrowing aspects of a case
like this is something that a lot of true crime,
(16:28):
you know, docuseries never bother investigating. It's that the parents
have to also be investigated by the police. Imagine how difficult.
Difficult doesn't even cover it. Imagine how horrific, uh it is,
how indescribably painful to be searching desperately for your child
(16:48):
while at the same time being interrogated about their disappearance
as a suspect and There were numerous theories here about this.
It started like a most immediately after police got involved
in Portugal. I mean, it's it's it's just it's procedure,
it's standard operating procedure to eliminate all suspects, and that
(17:09):
starts with the people that were the closest. But it's
just I can't even imagine you're going through all of
this stuff in your head and asking all these questions
and then you're even the intimation of being, you know,
a suspect would just be so shattering. Um. But that's
what happened. In September two seven, the Portuguese police interviewed
(17:30):
Kate McCann as a witness in the case. The next
day they labeled the couple suspects. Um. I think the
Portuguese word for that is arguido spend. Is that how
you pronounce them? Well, I don't speak Portuguese, but you're correct, Noel,
that's just the that's just the specific term in that
language that they use for suspects. Uh. But to your point,
(17:53):
they didn't, you know, they didn't lock the mccan's up,
nor did they detain them. Eventually they allowed the couple
and their twins to return to the UK just a
few days later. A few days after that, prosecutors said
there was no new evidence to justify requestioning the mccans,
which I think is a good move because imagine how
(18:15):
traumatic that would be to fly back to have to
talk about that again, you know, in this setting. I mean,
it's certainly not a good pr look, I can say
that to be sure. Yeah, I would just jump back
to the arguido thing really quickly. That that is, under
Portuguese law, a very specific thing that gets labeled on
(18:35):
people almost always right before they are taken in as
like the primary suspect, basically to prepare it to be
charged for something. Would that be the equivalent of like
person of interest? It's not necessarily they're not being accused yet,
but there, you know, I mean, I guess person of
interest in suspect of the same thing. For some reason.
You hear them used, not always interchangeably. According to an
(18:58):
expert from the already in UM a lot of expert there,
the quote is, if you are in a arguido, they
have to have suspicion that a crime has been committed
by that person. So the authorities treating believe that you
had something to do with it. Yeah, because there is
a difference a person of interest to someone that they
just want to talk to a suspect, to someone they
(19:20):
believe might actually have been involved in the crime. That's
how I would understand it. So you can see why
this group of theories may sound offensive, but it is
important to mention them here as we flesh out the
full scope of thought on the events. So back to
the trafficking ring. People began to say, what if the
parents somehow sold their own child to a trafficking ring
(19:44):
and then just faked the disappearance. There are two big
problems with that. First off, this would require an extraordinary,
almost impossible level of dedication and acting on the part
of the parents for years and years and years. Also,
more immediately wore brass tacks. Subsequent investigations to to prove
(20:07):
something like this would have a very high likelihood of
discovering any anomalous financial transactions. And it's also one of
the most monstrous things you can imagine someone doing. And um, yeah,
just that alone feels it just feels so wrong. And
(20:27):
to make an accusation like that, you would need some
pretty damning proof. Yeah, it's it's that's a rough idea.
But but that's not all right, right, Yeah, there's the
idea that they were responsible for their daughter's death, not
through design, but through accident and subsequent panic. Yes, there
(20:52):
are two authors, Anthony Summers and Robin Swan, who I've
argued that the authorities believed or suspected the McCanns possibly
gave some kind of drug to Madeline in an attempt
to get her to go to sleep, essentially so they
could go across the street and hang out with their friends. Um,
this would certainly not be the only time that's ever
(21:16):
happened in the history of the world. It's been a
pretty common practice to give children a tiny amount of
alcohol or you know, maybe a tiny amount of cough
syrup or something that has sleepy effects, essentially to help
their children go to sleep if they're having trouble sleeping. Um,
that is by no means an out there, I don't know,
(21:39):
even an accusation of something entirely wrong really, But the
idea here is that the McCanns gave Madeline way too much,
essentially despite their medical expertise. Yeah, right, doesn't seem to
add up. There's a Portuguese police officer who supported this theory.
(21:59):
He went so are as to release a book and
a TV doc on the subject um that so the
concept there. I have not actually watched that doc or
read his specific book. What is it? Goncrlo Marl sounds
like a real stand up guy. He is a disgraced
(22:22):
police officer, by the way, so this is one of
his his large lines of business. This actually, this went
to court in two thousand nine. The mccahans started taking
legal action against his you know, his work, because it's
incredibly insulting. It's defamatory, right if it can't be proven,
(22:43):
and Portuguese court agreed, and then later he appealed the
decision because the court had awarded them four hundred fifty
thousand the equivalent of four and fifty thousand British pounds
in damages. But I think that's still ongoing. This is
interesting because at first I thought, you know, all are
these people vultures who are trying to make a quick
(23:08):
buck off of an unspeakable disaster, And then you do see,
you do see things that at least proponents of these
kind of theories consider to be strong circumstantial proof. Unfortunately,
it's something that pops up in a lot of cases
with parents and disappeared children. They would say, oh, this
(23:31):
mom or this dad in this situation. They focused on
Kate McCann and said, you know, she doesn't seem as fraught,
as upset, as emotionally damaged as she should be. These
people say, you know in my mind. Uh. And that's
where this kind of armchair sleuthing can get dangerous. But
there was one interesting quantitative thing that I found that
(23:52):
is a fact. Uh. In the initial interviews, she was
asked forty nine questions over a long course of time, uh,
and she answered only one. Got also a full list
of the forty eight questions. You can find that online
at the tab dot com. Just look for McCann forty
(24:13):
eight questions the tab. And they don't seem like UM.
A lot of them seem like maybe relatively innocuous questions.
I would want you guys take on these. They didn't
seem particularly loaded. They were asking about process, order of operations,
and maybe it's just difficult to answer those questions. Yeah,
(24:35):
I mean it's stuff like did you search inside the
master bedroom wardrobe? UM? Questions about things being out of place,
like why was the curtain by the sofa near the
side window tampered with? Does someone go behind the sofa?
So Ben when you say she didn't answer them like
she like said, I I reserve my right to not
answer this question, like she exercised her right to not.
(24:56):
I mean like what order she she said, I don't recall,
or something like I don't under And well, you've got
to remember she is at this point, no matter what happened,
she is under a tremendous amount of stress, and she
is being looked at as a suspect, essentially by these
authorities that are asking her these questions. It's a pickle
(25:18):
of a situation to be in because like every attorney
you would tell you, I'm not giving you legal advice
here as Matt Frederick, but most attorneys would tell you,
reserve your right to not say anything everything. You're being
asked questions by police. That makes sense. The counterpoint to
that is your daughter's missing, and these authorities are trying
(25:39):
to help you find your daughter. Well, she said at
some point that she didn't answer the questions because she
thought that them questioning her was distracting them from actually
looking for the real culprit, which is a little bit
of an odd way of looking at it. You know,
you think she would be as cooperative as possible so
they could move on. But again, I'm sure there's some
resentment there of like, you know, why are you even
(26:00):
bothering with me but against all procedural well, and how
could my daughter get abducted, you know, under your watch essentially,
And why do you guys care about the sofa in
my vacation apartment when there's a missing kid out there?
Also again, how tremendously unfair and stressful it is to
be tried in the court of public opinion, which trends misogynistic. Right,
(26:25):
let's just be honest about that. You can't look at
someone and say that the way they appear to be
experiencing grief is not satisfactory to you, some stranger who's
never met the person. And also it came out later that, uh,
they have been advised by various parties not to uh,
(26:48):
not to show a ton of emotion, like try not
to weep in public interviews and so on, because again
the tabloids will grab it. There are there are more
out their theories, and these theories I tried pretty I
feel like I can't say assiduously anymore. I tried really
(27:08):
hard to uh to find any kind of possible proof
or logic for some of these very out there ones,
and I I only found a little bit for one,
But they're there are three really out there ones, and
we'll get to those theories afterward. From our sponsor and
(27:33):
we're back. The first is get this. I don't know
if you guys heard about this one, the Secret Discovery.
The idea here is that Madeline McCann was found, was
found safe and alive, but the discovery was kept secret
because the argument goes, by the time she had been found,
there have been so much media scrutiny and her picture
(27:56):
was plastered, plastered everywhere in public that she would never
her be able to live a normal life under her
previous identity. Therefore, Madeline McCann is not found, but another
girl is. That just doesn't seem very likely. Yeah, I
mean off, Mike Ben, you were talking about how these
are just so out there and also borderline offensive, that
(28:16):
we're not going to spend two too too much time
on them, But here they are. They definitely are things
that have been discussed, um be it on the internet,
and some of the reporting and potentially even in certain
circles of law enforcement. Uh. The notion that there never
was a Madaline mccam. UH, that Madeline McCann was some
(28:40):
sort of abstraction made up by the British government to
distract from other news stories. Um to be some kind
of red herring. Uh during I don't know, potentially a
a bad news cycle um or designed to help raise
funds that ultimately would be diverted to the government. Um. Okay,
(29:05):
I retract my previous assessment that this could have been
discussed within law enforcement circles. I think this is largely
a fringe E. You know, when there's a vacuum of information,
weird stuff tends to fill it. Um. So this is
not something that's being taken seriously by the vast majority
of people even a little bit familiar with this case.
(29:26):
And we'll just go ahead and caveat it and saying
that the existence of Malan mccam is absurdly well documented.
There are numerous pictures of the child with with her family,
with her siblings, numerous accounts of people who knew her
and met her spent time with her. For this theory
to be true. The McCanns themselves had to have been
(29:48):
so complicit in the deepest uh and and most well
executed cover ups that we've ever been privy to. UH
and that would have taken probably decade that have been planned,
you know, the all of the pieces would have had
to be laid out meticulously, and this is does not
make any sense whatsoever. So I mean my question is
(30:10):
where is this being circulated like uh I did just
it's this is wild, yeah, yeah, this is this is
part of the online echo chambers. So we're talking about
armchair investigators maybe on Twitter, true crime forums or paid
subreddits things like that. Uh. It's It's strange though, because
(30:33):
one of the out there theories that I think you're right.
We can dismiss the idea that there was somehow never Madeline,
but I think there's a little more sands to the
theory that there was corruption in Portugal at the time,
that Portuguese authorities had some sort of ulterior motive in
(30:54):
treating the parents as suspects or pushing that narrative. UH.
People were arguing that there treatment of the Meccans went
beyond standard operating procedure and that they were in fact
trying to frame them to your point, Matt, in an
effort to save that tourism industry. Uh. This, I don't know.
(31:16):
This is an interesting went out of the three. This
has more proof. Yes, Ben, this is a theory that
can have sand to it at sometimes just because of
the basic facts that exist about certain locations and the
economy there that's based on tourism. It comes. This one
(31:36):
in particular, comes from a man named Brian Kennedy, who
was a businessman from Edinburgh. He says, you can understand
how the mood of public opinion would go from sympathy
to vilification. Uh. And essentially that the Portugal authorities decided,
let's find somebody to blame for this that doesn't make
us look bad. He says. I think it's all tied
(31:59):
into tourism, into street and tourism being down in the
country's gdp. Um. It is true that, like we said,
in a lot of places, tourism is so vital that
the money coming in from out of country, out of state,
out of town is the only thing that makes the
wheels spin there. Um. I don't see that being a
(32:20):
reason to want to frame a family for hurting their
child though, Yeah, that's that's its whole order. That's you know,
that's even that's less of a theory or conspiracy about
the actual events than it is a theory or conspiracy
about the behavior of the authorities afterwards. Right, Yeah, But
(32:46):
it is a conspiracy about not wanting to have a
dangerous person or not wanting to admit that there is
some dangerous person that exists around this high dollar tourism area,
because then you who in their right mind is going
to take their child and themselves on vacation there. Yeah,
I mean it's and I guess it's maybe the equivalent
(33:07):
of like if a murder took place in a house,
you know, the real estate agents lying about it, are
covering it up because it's not necessarily something people would
jump at the chance to live in a murder house.
Yeah yeah, I mean not everybody, at least some people.
For some people that might be a feature, you know,
some people pay extra I mean meeky Yeah. But the uh,
(33:31):
the the interesting part about that point too, is that
this is a wealthy area there. You can look now
and see enormous holmes being constructed, So it does there,
you know, you can see the internal logic there, but
none of these theories, the three we just explored, have
garnered much support, primarily because none of them have generated
(33:56):
much evidence in support of what they're proposing. However, this
is where we get to the idea of predators. In Wait,
we mentioned reports of some mysterious figures, but in the
Telegraph gave an official stance to these long standing rumors
(34:18):
that Madeleine McCann may have been abducted on the order
of an unknown, wealthy, childless couple. So not some crazed killer,
not some cover up of an accident, but someone hunting
a child on the orders of someone else. And that's
because after the disappearance, witnesses were coming forward saying, now
(34:39):
that I think about it, now that I recall I
may have seen suspicious individuals hanging out at the resort
in the days leading up to the event. It's got
some pros and cons pro any lead is helpful at
this point when these folks are coming forward con they
don't have uh, you know, in a lot of cases,
(35:02):
they don't have camera footage of this or something. They
just have their memory. And memory is one of the
worst witnesses in human experience. Uh. But but the idea
here is that there may have been an operation involving
multiple people, some acting as spotters. And to put a
brutal fine point on it. In this theory, the the
(35:23):
idea is that people were waiting for a child of
maybe a certain ethnicity, maybe a certain hair color or appearance,
a certain age, and then they waited until they found
someone who fit those specifications. That's chilling if that happens.
And there was one report that was followed up on,
(35:46):
which was the report of a of a couple, right,
an unidentified couple, that's right. This report of an unidentified
couple UH seems to have been substantiated. The idea that
these were something known as spotters UM, which would be
UH people complicit in the child sex trafficking ring or
(36:08):
in trade. I don't know what the hell you want
to call it, UM, but this is a job people
searching for a child who met the particular requirements of
of what was being sought UM. Whether that be race
or age or hair color, God only knows UM. And
this report of this unidentified couple, like I said, does
(36:28):
seems to have been substantiated. A couple later came forward
and thought one sighting may have been them UM as
they were walking in the area, but upon further investigation,
they had nothing to do with the case. So, um,
we should get back on track to that Tanner report.
A single unidentified man I believe, blonde with acne, with
(36:53):
the descriptions early carrying a child. But as we know,
at the end of the day, editors are opportunists. Um,
So this notion of a predator kind of lying in
wait looking for that perfect moment uh to spring into action. Um,
that seems to be pretty plausible considering that there appears
(37:16):
to have been a high number of sexual predators in
the area at that time. And sure, you know, like
in any resort area, which often you know, are in
poorer parts of the world, you know, where there are
the people that actually live there aren't particularly wealthy, would
never actually stay in the resort. So there certainly is
kind of a have and have not mentality, And uh,
(37:38):
it makes sense to break ends and thefts would be
relatively common. But this idea of a loan predator really
didn't seem to go anywhere until very recently this year.
In fact, yes, one last time, going back to that
report that Jane Tanner, friend of the McCanns, made about
one person carrying a child. Did I actually have any
(38:01):
weight to it. Maybe she saw something and maybe the
authorities should have paid more attention to it at the time.
We'll tell you all about it right after a word
from our sponsor, and we're back. As we said at
the top, this is an ongoing mystery and there is
(38:25):
a new turn of events in the case of Madeline McCann.
Recent revelations which unfortunately didn't have to be as recent
as they are. After years and years, again, a decade
plus of fruitless investigation, authorities believe that they have discovered
the abductor of Madeline McCann. The suspect is a German
(38:49):
Man who is originally being referred to as Christian be
we know now his full name is Christian Bruckner. He
is I must note not to be confused with another
Christian Bruckner, who is apparently a famous voice actor in Germany,
which I was not aware of. But this Christian Bruckner
(39:09):
he spent his entire adult life being um being the
worst person, a small time criminal, uh, an absolute sleeves bag.
He would travel back and forth between Portugal and Germany,
often in an attempt to escape the consequences of one
(39:31):
of his many crimes, which began in his teenage years
when he uh, when he sexually assaulted someone. Uh. He
was on the run for his sexual abuse of children,
for forgery, for driving without a license, for petty theft,
for drug dealing. His former associates, who are one of
(39:52):
the main reasons that authorities caught onto him. His former
associates described him as one of those kind of resort burglars.
He was known for breaking in through the windows of
first floor apartments. And he did not directly get caught
or you know, he did not directly get implicated in
(40:13):
the mccan case for a long long time, which is chilling.
It is chilling. And um, his most serious crime, uh
is a real doozy. Um. She's hard to even say
out loud. He uh is known to have raped a
seventy two year old American woman on September two five. Um,
(40:36):
the victim, he tortured her. Yeah, he beat her with
a metal rod after binding her, uh, presumably raping her.
And and he you know, the police reports indicated that
she had been beaten around the chest and legs and buttocks,
was horribly bruised. I mean, thankfully she she left with
(40:57):
her life. But um, yeah, she'd been staying in an
apartment that was along the daily route between Bruckner's house
and the beach that he visited every day. Um and yeah,
I mean these these uh, there's there's more details that
we have here. Really steal yourselves, folks. These are quite disturbing.
So we know that this this person was you know,
(41:18):
their apartment was along that daily route between Bruckner's house
and a beach he visited every day. One night, the
night of September two, around ten thirty pm, he enters
through this person's front door, which is unlocked because this
is supposed to be a relatively safe neighborhood. He dragged
(41:40):
her through the building. As you said, nol, he bound her,
he tied her down. Uh, he beat her, which has
been with what has been described as a metal rod,
but also a scimitar, which might be a translation error there. Uh.
He did assaulter uh and torture her, after which he
(42:01):
dragged her forcibly into the kitchen of the apartment and
he forced her to give him cash that she had
on her person and he made off with her computer.
She survived, thankfully, and Portuguese authorities investigated this case, but
they closed their investigation a year later in two thousand
(42:25):
and six, and Bruckner was not Bruckner almost got away
with this. He pretty much did no one. No one
knew about his association, and then he started bragging to
his criminal friends about it, and the UM, I don't
know what you would call it, the world of thievery,
(42:45):
his his fellow thieves, his um, the people who would
who would squat on properties with him and then helped
the like in their mind, Bruckner was a sleeves bag
with a big mouth, but he would help them come
up with schemes to steal stuff, like really small time
stuff like stealing gasoline, stealing diesel. I didn't know that
(43:09):
was a thing that anybody other than like large oil
companies did. I didn't know it was like a micro
economic crime as well. So Bruckner is talking with these
associates of his and he discloses that while he was
conducting this horrific assault, he filmed it so that he
(43:33):
could view it recreationally later. And this is a step
too far. Imagine you're one of those other probably not
to profile, but you're probably kind of a sleez bag too.
And you say, hey, I thought we were just stealing
stuff to get you know, drug money or something. It's
a step too far for me to be part of
(43:54):
your violent sex crimes that are on film. And that
compels these people, uh, and that compels them to go
to the authorities, which we have to say, you know, uh,
if they had not done so, we have no idea
how the next series of events would have played out. Right,
(44:17):
and Ben didn't. Weren't there internet posts that he had
made or some kind of journaling that he had done
talking about his kind of escalating fantasies about abducting and
using someone a child, even for sex. Those were alleged
Iman and actually seen the files themselves where they were
(44:40):
alleged chat room logs right that he had done, where
he talked about capturing something little and keeping it for
a while. And and there was an interesting point made
in that sixty minutes piece on the Australian sixty Minutes
where one of the investigators said that it could be
argue that, well, the m O for this guy was
(45:02):
old women, But honestly, the m O for this guy
was just helpless helplessness and being able to take someone
and and have them bend to his will, and so
it's really honestly the same having a child or having
an helpless elderly woman. As as awful as that sounds,
it really does fit the same m O. So the
(45:24):
purported UH statements made by Bruckner online were found in
UH dedicated pro child abuse forums on on the dark Web,
and again to your point, Matt, I don't think they
have a hundred percent proof that he did that, but
they're strong it's strongly suspected that he was the author.
(45:47):
You can hear the recreations of that on UH sixty
minutes on the Australian sixty minutes, which is a bit exploitative,
but it is important information because if it is a
confirmed to be this guy, than we see also UH
evidence of premeditation, right of a plan and an escalation,
(46:09):
and it is it is pretty sickening. It's also not
the first time again that this guy has been implicated
in these sorts of villainous, unclean behaviors. There was a
documentary like I know a lot of us are familiar
with the recent Netflix documentary, but there was another documentary
(46:29):
about a missing very young girl, a five year old
named Inga Garrick from Germany. She vanished from a German
campsite eight years after McCann disappeared, and the documentary appears
to implicate Bruckner. He was investigated for the disappearance of
this child, I think around twenty sixteen, and they ultimately
(46:53):
did not charge him with kidnapping or with homicide or
anything like that. But they they found things that were
much much worse, the kind of things that if I
were an investigator, I think if anyone was an investigator,
they would be the kind of things that that haunt
you for years afterwards. Yeah, and then if it was
(47:17):
a movie, one of those officers who just couldn't handle
it would just end up putting that guy in a
shallow grave somewhere. That's just no, dude. That's where that's
where my mind started to go. Like I was saying,
when I was spiraling out thinking about this, you know,
and obviously, I mean, the parents are following all this
(47:38):
in the news, they know this guy's a suspect, they
know roughly what the public knows, what we have access to.
I would just go I would lose my mind. I
would I would fly into a murderous rage. I just
don't know. And just to note here this documentary we're
discussing right now, within it, there apparently are friends of
(48:00):
Bruckner who were speaking with the documentary filmmakers. They said
that he would often brag about this very specific vehicle,
a large camper van, and how it was ideal for quote,
hiding kids and drugs. And within this camper authorities found
stashes of little girl swimsuits and thousands of images of
(48:25):
children in sexual situations. Um. And this was when they
were investigating Bruckner specifically for Inga's disappearance that we were
speaking about before in completely separate child m and you also,
we should I hate to say it, but we have
(48:45):
to be accurate and explicit here. Uh, this is this
is child pornography. Yes, I didn't didn't mean to skirt
around that. It's just I wanted to say it without
saying it. And is there a sense, I mean, maybe
we'll get there. I know there's another big termed twist
(49:07):
coming soon, I guess. But was there a sense that
any of these were images that he himself had created
or okay, okay, yeah, we don't know what this done.
This leads to, thankfully legal consequences as of twenty nineteen,
well as of right now, Bruckner is held in a
(49:28):
German prison, is held on charges unrelated to the McCann case.
So let's start putting some of the sinister pieces of
this puzzle together. He traveled often between Germany, Spain, and
Portugal during two thousand seven, the time of the McCann disappearance.
(49:51):
He had been living in this area prior delis as
a waiter or a barman, which I assume as a
bartender in various lubs, right. And he was also constantly,
by his own admission, on the watch for opportunities to
steal from tourists, bragging to his associates about how great
(50:13):
his van was, how it was a safe spot. He
would talk when he was in his cups about the
idea of selling children in Morocco. You know how much
of that is just like self aggrandizing braggado show of
an evil man. How much of this is a plan
or a process in investigators start looking at Bruckner. I mean,
(50:34):
being a bartender would be a pretty pretty choice opportunity
to to find out information about folks that are there
on vacation, people that are you know, having some drinks
get loose lip, talk about where they're staying, talk about
who they're with, you know, I mean we obviously know
that the uh, the parents like to have a good time,
(50:57):
like to have their top us. You know, maybe they
ended up at this gentleman's bar at some place where
he worked. And I don't know. I'm just saying, you know,
there's certainly possible, um, but you're right. Uh. The now
notorious camper authorities worked off reports from neighbors that Bruckner
spent long hours in a shed on the property UM
(51:19):
and began digging. The shed uh is described in an
article I read as a something like a depraved shed,
which is pretty accurate. Um, more than accurate. Actually, Uh,
they started to dig, they found a hidden seller. Um.
They were seen carrying forensic bags out, as well as
(51:43):
a child's toy bucket. Apparently uncovered thousands of videos on
hard drives and USB sticks uh, supposedly buried along with
his dog. This is what I read. Yeah, I think
it underneath that stuff was underneath yeah, right, exactly exactly.
(52:05):
To clarify, this was a search that was conducted in
a field in northern Germany where the guy was squatting
for a long time. It's about four miles from where
Bruckner once lived. But his neighbors all you can tell,
his neighbors all distrusted and hated him like he would.
He would tell people who was a car mechanic if
(52:26):
they asked what he did. But his own car was
continually his own van was continually leaking fuel and in
a state of disrepair. The Hidden Seller is true detective
level stuff. Oh yeah, it really is. Did we talk
about where he was staying in Portugal? Right there by
(52:48):
the resort? Did we talk about that already? We indicated
that he was very close. Yeah. There there are a
couple of places online where you can find the actual
area the place where he where Brutner was staying at
the time when Madeline disappeared, and it was not far
from the resort where she was abducted for him. And
it was also if he was the author of those
(53:09):
things on the Dark Web, it's his and if he
did this, then it follows the outline the order of
operations that this author on the Dark Web was talking about.
So that's another puzzle piece. And you know, as of now, uh,
none of these recordings or tear or whatever tapes and
(53:30):
again this is why I asked the stuff they found
in his van? Is there any indication that he created
this himself? This stuff seems like he may have. Uh.
Some of the authorities that are interviewed in that sixty
minutes piece absolutely or characterizing him as a serial killer type,
as a psychopath, you know, at the very least a
serial killer in the making. Um. And they're keeping a
(53:53):
tight lid on whatever they found in that cellar. And honestly,
I would look at it as an act of mercy,
you know, to the parents at stuff isn't available for
them to see. Who knows there's somebody Again in the
sixty minutes piece, one of the investigators indicated that maybe
she could have been on one of those tapes. German authorities,
British authorities, Portuguese authorities all seemed to indicate, without sharing
(54:20):
the totality of their information, they all seemed to indicate
that Bruckner is the person behind the disappearance. The one
of the most disturbing parts here is that German authorities
right now are convinced that Madeline McCann is no longer
(54:42):
with us, that she is dead. They believe she died
shortly after the abduction. They believe she was abducted by Bruckner.
They believe Bruckner murdered her, but they also believe that
they have at this point insufficient evidence to officially charge him,
which puts them in a weird position because the German
prosecutors are saying, this is the guy. I told the family,
(55:05):
why we know this is the guy, we just need
more evidence, and then members of German law enforcement in
other regards are saying the same thing. Uh to your point, no,
you know, I think it is it is noble to
say that there with maybe withholding that as an active
mercy for the parents, but I believe there there's also
(55:27):
the very compelling motive that they don't want to fumble
a technicality that would invalidate the case. They want to
get the monster right. All of this aside, you know
what kind of charges he is facing. I mean, obviously
he must have gotten out for that rape of the
seventy two year old woman, and I mean they found
(55:49):
the child porn in his in his van. I mean,
surely he's already facing some pretty serious charges and isn't
going to be like out anytime soon. Yeah, So he uh,
he it's it's odd that you mentioned that because he
recently dropped his bid for early release from prison. He
has served, he's been serving. Uh, he's been serving prison
(56:11):
time on unrelated drug charges. So it's it's a pattern
that we see happen often with you know, we've been
very careful to avoid the word, but to avoid the
phrase serial killers. But it's it's a pattern that we
have seen often, uh, in these sorts of arrestaurant, these
breaks in a case, it's not uncommon for the person
(56:36):
who turns out to be a culprit of one crime
to already be incarcerated for a different crime. And that
that's we've seen it in numerous episodes of this show. Uh,
he is I think as of July, he's about two
thirds through his his prison sentence on those drug offense, says.
(57:00):
And then after he does that, he has to start
his seven year prison sentence for the two thousand and
five assault. So they wouldn't the court wouldn't allow it
to be served concurrently, if that makes sense. They wanted
to keep him in jail for as long as possible,
or in prison, I should say. And just a reminder,
they did not catch him for that assault. Initially, it
(57:24):
took a long time for them to figure out they
do was Bruckner um When the I believe it was,
the people who are around him started talking absolutely. And
this also Portuguese police have currently confirmed they are re
examining evidence now that they have a bit better idea
of what to look for. They have saliva samples from
(57:45):
the crime scene, and they say they're sending those to
Germany to be tested against Bruckner's DNA. His lawyer, one
Friedrich Fulscher, said that his client Bruckner, denies any involvement
in not just the McCann case, but in two other
(58:05):
cases of missing children that he's currently under investigation at
some level four. And that's that's where we are. So
much of this stuff happened just a few weeks ago.
We we can't recommend that you, if you are interested
in this, check out some of the timelines that are
(58:26):
available out there. Look at some of the images that
we mentioned earlier, take a look at it. Maybe you
know you can see something that the authorities don't. We don't.
You never know, we may have one of those unsolved
mysteries moments where something just comes to light that maybe
you were aware of, or you saw something one night
(58:47):
that you didn't realize if you were in that area
and you're listening to this now, um, you know it.
It is one of those cases that I certainly hope
has a conclusion at some point, very soon they can
give this family a little closure. And now at this
point we know that there may be some sort of closure,
(59:09):
and that is that is something that can finally answer
a question that has haunted all the survivors of of
Madeline McCann for again more than a decade. Our thoughts
go out to the McCann family. Our thoughts also go
out to all of the parents and relatives of other
(59:31):
people who have disappeared or have somehow gone missing. We
know that in this case it seems the wheels of
justice grind slow but hopefully exceedingly fine. We don't have
the answers. We cannot predict the future. We do not
know how this will proceed, this case with Christian Bruckner,
(59:53):
but we can say it feels it feels extraordinary that
German authority EASE are saying that they found the murderer
with such certitude. There's no hemming and hawing. The only
thing they're saying is that they can of fish. They
don't have the evidence they need yet to officially charge
(01:00:17):
charge this person. But I would expect more updates soon,
maybe even before this podcast comes out. And one more
note here on just the the updates and new information.
According to the BBC, the UK's Metropolitan Police says it
received more than two hundred and seventy calls and emails
since there was a brand new appeal for new information.
Um that happened in June. So there are people who
(01:00:41):
are trying their best to give any and all info
they can that may be relevant. UM. So who knows
what we're what We're gonna find very soon and let
us know what you think. As always, we want to
hear from you. You can find us anywhere online. We're
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recommend our Facebook community page. Here's where it gets crazy.
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