A fresh police search has been launched for a missing little girl who was linked to the disappearance of British three-year-old Madeleine McCann.
Inga Gehricke vanished in 2015 after leaving a family barbecue and wandering into a German forest to collect firewood. Madeleine suspect Christian Brueckner was implicated in the five-year-old’s disappearance.
The German was investigated over the case, which saw his home reportedly searched by detectives a year after she vanished in the town of Stendal, but no action was taken.
The Mirror reports the youngster is known by German media as “the German Maddie” and is the country’s most high-profile missing person.
Police began searching woods near Wilhelmshof this week, almost a decade after little Inga vanished. Around 50 officers were seen sweeping the dense terrain in a painstaking hunt for clues to her disappearance.
Authorities have conducted multiple searches in recent years, including a major effort in spring 2024. A recent supermarket campaign featuring age-progression images of Inga on juice bottles failed to yield clues.
More than 2,000 leads have been received – yet none have provided the long-awaited breakthrough. Brueckner, who is nearing the end of a seven-year jail term for rape, denies any involvement in Inga’s disappearance.
Detectives are convinced the convicted paedophile snatched and killed Madeleine in Portugal in 2007. But prosecutors admitted last month that he will not face any charges in the case for the foreseeable future.
Madeleine was just three-years-old when she vanished from her parents’ holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal. Drifter Brueckner, 48, was living in a ramshackle farmhouse nearby and regularly broke into villas in the resort.
He was dramatically named as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance by German prosecutors in 2020. Brueckner was cleared last October of a string of unrelated sex charges that police claimed he carried out in Portugal.
Prosecutors are appealing the verdicts – but German legal observers believe they are unlikely to succeed. The only way to stop him being released from prison in September is charging him in the Madeleine case.
Police in three countries are in a race against the clock to find evidence against Brueckner. But in a devastating blow to Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry, prosecutors warned last month that charges are not imminent.
Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters told Sky News: “There is currently no prospect of an indictment in the Maddie case. As things stand, the accused’s imprisonment will end in early September.”
A leading psychiatrist warned in Brueckner’s trial that he remains “in the top league of dangerousness” and is likely to reoffend when released from prison. Detectives claim they have proof Madeleine is dead.
But they appear no closer to proving he abducted and killed Madeleine. Kate and Gerry, of Rothley, Leicesterrshire, believe their daughter, who would now be 21, is alive and say they will never give up hope of being reunited with her.
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