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A suspected stalker who asserted to be Madeleine McCann was eliminated after a confidential DNA test established beyond doubt she was not Madeleine McCann, police have revealed in court.

Targeted Behavior Towards McCann Family

Julia Wandelt, twenty-four, is alleged to have conducted a campaign of harassment against the parents of Madeleine, who went missing from a Portuguese resort in Portugal in 2007 at the age of three.

The Polish national flooded Kate and Gerry McCann and their adult children, Sean and Amelie, with hundreds of calls, messages, voicemails and letters over a period spanning 2022 to this year, and visited their home insisting on a DNA test, the court was earlier informed.

Official Statements

Giving evidence on Tuesday, the chief investigator on the missing person’s case, said he had deviated from protocol to test Wandelt “with the aim she may stop her actions towards the McCann family”.

The senior officer said over a dozen persons had previously claimed to be the missing girl but that: “We would not take DNA unless we believed that person was Madeleine because I did not want setting a precedent.

“If it became known in the media I had taken DNA from someone quite likely not to be Madeleine, I was anxious I would have had numerous individuals coming forward saying ‘I’m Madeleine’.

“I truly possess major concerns about approaching the family to say I intend to take DNA from an individual – that could have built up their expectations. It could have been very traumatic and hard for the family.”

Forensic Analysis

He said investigators had already judged Wandelt not to be Madeleine due to a lack of resemblance and that she was not the same age than the child. But, he said, after discovering Leicester police were going to take into custody Wandelt on stalking charges, he “decided that the DNA would be taken upon arrest”.

He declared: “Analysis occurred. It definitively established that Julia Wandelt cannot be Madeleine McCann.”

Court Proceedings

Jurors learned that in April this year, Cranwell met with Wandelt while detained and stated to her that her DNA had been tested alongside Madeleine’s and that the samples did not match. The court learned he told Wandelt during the visit: “You are not Madeleine McCann.”

Testimony indicated that during their conversation, Wandelt inquired: “Do you really want to find Madeleine?”, and the officer told the jury he answered: “Yes.”

He said notwithstanding the evidence, he believed Wandelt “would suggest we have tampered with the sample”, stating: “There existed a chance she would not believe she cannot be Madeleine even when provided with scientific proof.”

Emotional Distress

In prior court sessions, jurors learned how the McCanns were left frightened and upset by their “unnerving” and “deeply disturbing” interactions with Wandelt and the other accused Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, as both defendants attempted to insist on a DNA test.

The jury were told how both women made “increasingly bizarre plans” to collect Kate McCann’s DNA, which included going through the McCanns’ bins and removing cutlery from restaurants that they had eaten in.

The accused women both deny one count of stalking. The case remains active.