Madeleine McCann was just three years old when she went missing from the apartment she had been sleeping in during a family holiday to Portugal.
The little girl’s disappearance sent shock waves around the world and sparked a massive investigation that continues to this day.
Christian Brueckner, a 48-year-old German, is the main suspect in the case, and he is currently behind bars for raping an American woman in the Algarve area where Maddie went missing.
Prosecutors fear time is running out as Brueckner is nearing the end of his seven-year sentence for the 2005 rape.
But just when did Madeleine McCann go missing – and how old would she be today?
How long has Madeleine McCann been missing?
Madeleine McCann was on a spring break from the UK at the child-friendly resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve region of Portugal with her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, and her two-year-old twin siblings.
She and the twins had been left asleep at 8.30pm in the evening of May 3, 2007, in their ground floor apartment while her parents and a group of family friends dined in a restaurant 55 metres away.
Mr McCann checked on the children just after 9pm and found everything to be in order.
Another parent eating out with the McCanns, Jane Tanner, walked past the flat where the McCanns were staying on her way back to look in on her own children and saw a man carrying a small child.
Another of their friends checked on the McCann children as well as his own at 9:30pm, and Kate McCann took a turn checking on Madeleine and the twins at roughly 10pm. This time, Madeleine was nowhere to be found.
The police were called, and even though 60 hotel staff and guests searched the grounds that night, the child wasn’t found.
The man Jane saw became a primary suspect in the investigation into the three-year-old’s disappearance. However, the Metropolitan Police discovered six years later that the man had nothing to do with the case and was just carrying his sleeping daughter home from a creche.
Maddie’s parents, from Rothley, Leicestershire, have vowed never to give up hope of finding their daughter.
How old would she be now?
Madeleine McCann would turn 22 on May 12, 2025.
She has been missing for over 18 years now.
Last year, parents Kate and Gerry shared a message on Maddie’s 21st birthday saying they are ‘still looking’ and ‘still missing’ their daughter.
The message, accompanied by a picture of the toddler, read: ‘Happy 21st birthday Madeleine. Still missing. Still missed. Still looking.’
What links Christian Brueckner to her disappearance?
Brueckner has denied all the charges against him and any involvement in Maddie’s disappearance.
Brueckner is known to have frequented various areas in the Algarve region surrounding Praia de Luz.
He allegedly exposed himself to a German girl on a beach in Salema in April 2007 and is said to have sold cannabis to teenagers near the holiday apartment where the McCanns stayed, according to MailOnline.
Multiple searches have been carried out in Portugal and Germany over the years, including a remote reservoir in Algarve.
In May 2023, authorities searched the Arade dam reservoir northeast of Praia da Luz, where Brueckner is thought to have stayed often in his Volkswagen T3 camper van, but didn’t find anything of note.
He may have visited the spot around the time of Maddie’s disappearance.
When searching an abandoned factory owned by Brueckner, detectives made disturbing findings they have revealed now, including children’s clothes, toys and a suitcase full of images of young girls.
They also found more than 75 children’s swimming costumes, a handgun and chemicals, which were never tested before police destroyed them. They are thought to have been chloroform or ether.
This article was first published on July 11, 2023.
Source: metro.co.uk
