In 2017, to mark the 10th anniversary of the girl’s disappearance, the girl’s parents, Jerry and Kate, gave a lengthy interview to the BBC. After this interview was broadcast, a man called the police in Germany. He notes that one of his friends, Christian Bruckner, would have confessed to him being involved in Maddie’s disappearance. The German authorities are aware that they have already received a tip-off about him a few years ago. “In 2013, a guy called the police and said the name Christian B, but it was still a bit vague, Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters contacts. There were no other suspicious items. He was presented as a witness. It was very fast because Christian B said he was not in Portugal at the time of Madi’s disappearance. It ended there.
However, four years later, investigators discovered that Christian Bruckner had lied. And indeed, according to the German investigation, phone records identified the suspect near the hotel complex where the girl slept on the evening of her disappearance. As for German justice, it’s clear that he’ll have a physical kidnapper profile. Christian Bruckner was already sentenced to 24 months in prison when he was just 17, for sexually assaulting a 6-year-old girl in Germany. Upon his release, he joined Praia da Luz, in southern Portugal, where he saw odd jobs but also theft. In 2006, he was imprisoned in a Portuguese prison for stealing diesel from trucks.
