A girl who once claimed to be Madeleine McCann is now in custody after she was accused of stalking the missing girl’s family by allegedly contacting them incessantly and turning up at their home within the U.K.
Julia Wandel, also generally known as Julia Wandelt or Julia Wendell, was arrested on Wednesday at an airport in Bristol, reports The Guardian.
In accordance with the outlet, she has been charged with stalking 4 members of the McCann family — parents Gerry and Kate, and twin siblings Sean and Amelie — throughout the duration of 2024 and into 2025. She can be alleged to have paid unwanted and unsolicited visits to their home twice, in May and December of last 12 months.
FILE – On this May 2, 2012 file photo, Kate and Gerry McCann pose for the media with a missing poster depicting an age progression computer-generated image of their daughter Madeleine at nine years of age, to mark her birthday and the fifth anniversary of her disappearance during a family vacation in southern Portugal in May 2007, during a news conference in London.
Sang Tan / The Associated Press
The costs state the alleged contact, which got here in the shape of phone calls, voicemails, a letter and WhatsApp and Instagram messages, “had a considerable adversarial effect” on the family.
In 2023, Wandel began posting quite a few pieces of “evidence” to social media, claiming she believed she could be the missing McCann, who vanished with no trace in 2007 when she was just three years old while on a family vacation in Portugal.
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The crux of her “proof” regarding physical resemblance revolved around McCann’s rare eye disorder, one Wandel claimed to share. When McCann went missing, a coloboma abnormality in her right eye was used as a significant identifying feature. (A coloboma is a hole within the structure of the attention, often causing a visual tear or hole.)
She also claimed to have the identical dimple as McCann, several similarly positioned moles and freckles, and similar gaps in her teeth.
Nevertheless, two months later her spokesperson said a DNA test confirmed Wandel was not the missing girl. In actual fact, the test showed that Wandel has near 100 per cent Polish heritage, with no evidence of British and even German ancestry.
Polish police disputed Wandel’s claims that she was McCann about every week after she reached viral fame and Wandel’s own parents spoke out about her campaign, saying they were “devastated” by her claims and the worldwide media attention it garnered.
On the left is Julia Wandel, the Polish woman who once claimed to be missing girl, Madeleine McCann, on the fitting.
@iammadeleinemccan/Family of Madeleine McCann
“It is apparent that Julia isn’t Maddie,” they wrote in a press release on the “Missing Years Ago” Facebook page, adding that their daughter has received therapy from psychologists and psychiatrists prior to now, but suggesting that will have stopped recently.
“She refuses treatment, doesn’t take medicines commonly … we’re devastated at the present situation.”
In accordance with The Guardian, Wandel appeared in court on Friday to face her charges. She didn’t recommend any pleas. She is going to appear for a full plea hearing on April 7 and can remain in custody.
The outlet reports that a second woman was also arrested alongside Wandel on suspicion of stalking. The 60-year-old Welsh woman was released on bail.
On May 3, 2007, McCann went missing from a hotel room in Praia da Luz, Portugal, while on vacation together with her parents. Her parents were dining with friends at a close-by tapas bar, leaving McCann and her two siblings asleep of their bedroom on the evening she disappeared.
Her disappearance launched a cross-country investigation and resulted in a world media frenzy.
For greater than a decade, Portuguese, English and German police forces have collaborated in an try to locate McCann and her kidnapper.
In June 2020, German police said that McCann is assumed dead but British authorities proceed to treat her disappearance as a missing person case.
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