German authorities say they’ve discovered an email account that is “related to the killing” of missing 3-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann.
Titus Stampa, a detective with Germany’s Federal Crime Police, told a court that the Hotmail account belonged to Christian Brueckner.
Stampa said he wasn’t allowed to talk about the account, according to the Times.
Brueckner, who is considered to be the prime suspect in Madeleine’s presumed murder and disappearance, is on trial in an unrelated rape and child sexual abuse case. He has denied having anything to do with Madeleine’s disappearance.
Stampa alleged that authorities found a second email account he used to share photos and videos of child abuse, and that emails from that account were deleted in early 2007 when Madeleine disappeared.
“I can remember that things were massively deleted in the inbox. There was nothing in there from January 2007,” he testified.
Madeleine went missing while on vacation with her family in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007. Her parents left her and her 2-year-old twin siblings in an unlocked rental while they ate at a restaurant 130 feet away. When Madeleine’s mother Kate went to check on the children, Madeleine was missing. Initially her parents were suspects in her disappearance, but they were cleared by authorities the following year.
On the night of Madeleine’s disappearance, police said Brueckner was in the Praia de Luz area and received a nearly 30-minute phone call.
In mid-2020, German authorities identified him as the main suspect in the girl’s disappearance. He has never been charged.
In 2019, he was sentenced for raping a 72-year-old American woman in 2005 in Portugal.
