Madeleine McCann case: German cops find hidden cellar allegedly belonging to suspect, second site may be searched
German police investigating the 2007 disappearance of then-three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann have found and re-buried a hidden cellar believed to have belonged to suspect Christian Brueckner.
According to the Daily Mail , after a two-day search soil and mud samples were sent for analysis and multiple items were taken away from the site near the German city of Hannover.
The Daily Mail reported that the search team uncovered many items in the hidden cellar, including a blue bucket, a plant pot, tarpaulin, a string bag, bags of gravel, corrugated iron, wooden floor boards, iron bars, plastic piping, a laundry bag, plastic covering and a tree trunk. Prosecutors have not yet revealed what exactly they were seeking to find.
Police brought specialist search dogs who combed the area after a former friend of Brueckner’s tipped them off about the site last month, the Daily Mail reported. Brueckner allegedly told this neighbour of a cellar, where he wanted to line the walls with metal sheets.
Wolfgang Kossack told the Daily Mail: “I remembered his face from the pictures in the news. And I remember his van and his dogs. I had completely forgotten about him up until then.” Kossack said no one knew the suspected kidnapper was living on the land during the time of McCann’s disappearance 2007 disappearance.
“He never did any gardening. He did not plant anything or try to grow anything. He just sat around drinking beer,” Kossack said. “At the time there was a building on the garden. It was a small wooden structure with only one room to keep tools and other things but it had a kitchen … It had a cellar and underneath there would be foundations. This building was destroyed in 2008.”
After that point, Kossack said he never saw Brueckner again. He recalled Brueckner talking about moving to the south of Europe for its better weather, but said he had never specified which country he would like to visit.
As police search the land, an apartment block in Hannover suspected to be Brueckner’s last known address in the city is also being investigated. Friedrich Fuelscher, the suspect’s lawyer, said, “I think we’ll find out the reason soon,” for the police activity in the area.
According to some locals, police could be soon searching a second plot of land in an attempt to find the missing British girl. According to the Daily Mail, owners of adjoining gardens in the German city of Braunschweig say Brueckner used to stay on the plot of land while he worked nearby. That plot is only just over 60 kilometres away from the allotment of land where Brueckner allegedly lived during the year McCann went missing.
“I worry that I could be sleeping on top of the body of Madeleine McCann,” the owner of the plot told the Daily Mail. She said she encouraged police to come search the land.
Neighbours and the current owner believe that police will soon arrive, but prosecutors handling the case would not comment on whether the second area would be searched. According to the Daily Mail, Brueckner stayed at the garden multiple times between 2013 and 2016 while he was working in the city.
Right now, Brueckner is in prison on drug convictions. He had requested early release because, on June 7, he had served two-thirds of his sentence. There had been fears that if released early, Brueckner would take the opportunity to flee before investigators could resolve the disappearance of McCann.
Brueckner dropped the release bid, but is appealing his 2005 rape conviction of a 72-year-old woman at the same resort where McCann disappeared from in Portugal. His drug conviction sentence is slated to end just before January, but his seven-year rape sentence will continue, unless he is successful in his appeal.
