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A suspected stalker who claimed to be the abducted child was eliminated after a confidential DNA test proved conclusively she was not the missing girl, police have revealed in court.

Harassment Campaign Towards McCann Family

Julia Wandelt, aged 24, is alleged to have conducted a campaign of harassment against the family of Madeleine, who vanished from Praia da Luz in Portugal in 2007 at the age of three.

The woman from Poland bombarded Kate and Gerry McCann and their grown-up kids, Sean and Amelie, with numerous phone calls, messages, voicemails and letters over a period spanning 2022 to this year, and visited their home demanding a DNA test, the court was earlier informed.

Police Testimony

Testifying on Tuesday, the lead detective on the missing person’s case, stated he had deviated from protocol to test Wandelt “intending she may stop her behavior towards the McCann family”.

The senior officer said thirteen individuals had earlier asserted 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 was revealed in the media I had taken DNA from a person most likely not to be Madeleine, I was anxious I would have had a lot of people 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 given them false hope. It could have been quite emotionally damaging and difficult for the family.”

DNA Comparison

He said investigators had already judged Wandelt not to be Madeleine on account of no physical similarity and that she was older by two years than the missing girl. But, he said, after learning Leicester police were going to take into custody Wandelt on stalking charges, he “determined that the DNA would be taken during detention”.

He declared: “Analysis occurred. It conclusively proved that Julia Wandelt is not Madeleine McCann.”

Jury Hearings

The court heard that in April this year, the detective visited Wandelt under arrest and told her that her DNA had been tested alongside Madeleine’s and that the samples did not match. Jurors were told he told Wandelt at that meeting: “You are not Madeleine McCann.”

The court heard that throughout their discussion, Wandelt inquired: “Do you truly desire to find Madeleine?”, and the officer told the jury he replied: “Yes.”

He said despite the test, he believed Wandelt “might claim we have interfered with the sample”, adding: “There existed a chance she would not believe she cannot be Madeleine notwithstanding scientific proof.”

Family Impact

In prior court sessions, the court heard how the relatives were left terrified and traumatized by their “unnerving” and “profoundly unsettling” interactions with Wandelt and her co-defendant Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, as the two women attempted to push for a DNA test.

The court learned how both women made “increasingly bizarre plans” to acquire Kate McCann’s DNA, which included searching the McCanns’ bins and stealing utensils from restaurants that the family visited.

Wandelt and Spragg both refute one count of stalking. Proceedings are ongoing.