A British expat has admitted destroying any likely DNA evidence linked to the squalid Algarve home lived in by Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner.
Ruth Maclean lived next door to ‘monster’ Brueckner, 43, in the hamlet of Sitio de Lakes, near Praia de Luz, for years.
Brueckner was recently identified as a prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine, who vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007.
Maclean said that in May 2006 she and her daughter entered the filthy home where he lived – a year before Madeleine vanished – after it was burgled.
Speaking for the first time in a documentary aired on Portuguese television, Maclean revealed that she and her daughter cleared out the contents of the property at the request of the homeowner – unwittingly destroying any likely DNA in the process.
Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner (pictured) may not face charges for the three-year-old’s disappearance, German prosecutors said this week
‘We went there to clean the house out because it had been burgled,’ Ruth said.
‘It was empty for some time, I believe, and it was in a really terrible state with food in the fridges, rats, it was not pleasant, not pleasant at all. We just emptied the house.
‘There was a massive mess, several computers all turned over, on the floor, dirty clothing, blankets, everything just had to be ditched.
‘We just cleared it up, emptied the fridge, the kitchen, cleaned all the surfaces.’
Maclean believes Brueckner first moved to the seaside resort in either 1994 or 1995.
Brueckner was recently identified as a prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine, who vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007
She told the Portuguese documentary crew: ‘We didn’t have interaction really and you wouldn’t suppose you lived next door to a monster.’
Her daughter Rosie, 29, added: ‘I remember he used to make me feel uncomfortable, I had a bad feeling about him, maybe I had a good sixth sense.’
She continued: ‘I remember his Jaguar and I remember vans, loads of cars, it looked like a scrapyard.’
But after seeing him every day for years, Brueckner one day disappeared.
‘We just did not know if Christian was alive or dead and so we decided to go and report him as a missing person.
‘We went to the GNR (pólice) station in Lagos, we made a report there’, Maclean said.
Little to their knowledge, Brueckner was in fact in serving an eight-month prison sentence at the time with Michael Tatschl for petrol theft.
Tatschl told the Olive Press newspaper this week Brueckner had made a series of sickening videos, including one of him raping an elderly woman.
Despite being newly named as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance, Maclean claims police have yet to search the villa where Brueckner stayed, nor the nearby area.
‘There were no searches in our área, maybe closer to the cliffs, closer to Luz, but not in Sitio das Lajes,’ said Rosie. .
This was backed up by Tatschl, who said he had ‘hundreds of passports’ kept in hiding places in the house near Luz, as well as cameras, mobile phones, computers and watches.
Locals are now asking for pólice to search the house he lived in near Luz.
‘I have never seen activity around here, only reporters, never pólice, no excavations, drones, yes, but no pólice, no searches,’ Ruth said.
Documentary maker Sandra Felgueira said Portuguese police are finally accepting that the investigation was bungled.
German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters claimed authorities had ‘concrete evidence’ that then three-year-old Madeleine was killed, and insisted earlier this month he had shared this information with Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann in a letter
Mr Tatschl (pictured) has previously said he was grilled for two days about Brueckner last year by police investigating Madeleine’s disappearance
‘Basically Amaral, who led the Maddie investigation, was incompetent. He was the wrong man, in the wrong job at the wrong time.
‘He just didn’t have the skills to do the job.’
She believes he became fixated on finding Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry guilty and ignored many other clues.
‘The police were simply not aware of his profile. They did not look at him as the monster he is. They failed to join the dots,’ she slammed.
German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters claimed authorities had ‘concrete evidence’ that then three-year-old Madeleine was killed, and insisted earlier this month he had shared this information with Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann in a letter.
Despite this, Mr Wolters confessed ‘the investigation may not lead to a charge for the murder of Madeleine McCann,’ as it ‘could be stopped if we fail to find the missing evidence.’
Brueckner is currently serving a 21-month sentence in Kiel, Germany for drugs offences, and it was reported on Monday he could be out of prison on parole by next week.
Felgueira, who also appeared in the popular Netflix documentary on Madeleine’s disappearance, has also been probing potential links to drug trafficking and the possibility of a paedophile ring operating in the Algarve.
It comes after Brueckner was traced to a house in Foral, a sleepy inland village some 50 minutes from Praia da Luz, in the months after Madeleine vanished.
Mr Wolters confessed ‘the investigation may not lead to a charge for the murder of Madeleine McCann,’ as it ‘could be stopped if we fail to find the missing evidence’
He was staying with and visiting a German woman named Nicole Feringer, who alarmingly was running a rehabilitation programme for troubled teenagers from Germany.
Locals say around the time Brueckner showed up, one teen ran away before being dragged back and discovered as pregnant.
Felgueira has not been able to confirm anywhere that Nicole had a licence to work with children, nor that she even had any training as a therapist.
Another line of enquiry by Felgueira is whether or not the infamous case of Joana Cipriano case is linked to Madeleine’s disappearance.
The Portuguese eight-year-old disappeared in September 2004 from Figueira, an Algarve around seven miles from Praia da Luz.
But the investigation, run by disgraced officer Goncalo Amaral, rushed to blame the child’s vulnerable mother and uncle.
After a gruelling 48-hour interrogation, the pair confessed, before Joana’s mother withdrew her confession a day later.
Covered in bruises, including a black eye, she said police beat a confession out of her.
Officers maintained she threw herself down the stairs in the police station in an attempt to take her own life.
Five officers would later be charged for the assault, with two later convicted.
The police filmed a recreational video in which the uncle claimed he fed the body of the girl to some pigs and that she had been chopped up and put in a freezer – however an identically-sized and chopped up figure of the girl did not fit inside the said freezer, casting doubt on the confession.
Felgueira now concludes that she is ‘very hopeful’ of solving the case in the next few months.
‘I’m pretty sure we have all the clues to do that,’ she added.
Last night German prosector Wolters told the documentary that he would like to ‘investigate more in Portugal’ and he ‘continues to believe’ he can solve the case by focusing on Brueckner.
Bungling Portuguese police ‘unwittingly destroyed Christian Brueckner’s van before it could be searched for evidence’
Vital clues to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann may have been unwittingly destroyed by Portuguese police, it has been reported.
A blue Bedford van that prime suspect Christian Brueckner owned at the time she went missing was impounded for the non-payment of a fine for stealing fuel and reportedly later crushed before it could be searched for evidence.
German drifter Brueckner used to live and sleep in the van on the beach near Praia da Luz between February and April 2006 while he was unemployed and homeless.
Crucially he still owned the van in May 2007 when Madeleine disappeared in the coastal resort, according to the respected Portuguese newspaper Expresso.
The Bedford van, which Brueckner owned at the time Madeleine went missing, was impounded for the non-payment of a fine for stealing fuel and later crushed before it could be searched for evidence. Pictured: The VW van owned by Brueckner when he lived in Portugal
It reported: ‘Madeleine Case: A van the German suspect owned when she disappeared was dismantled in 2009.
‘Christian Brueckner used to sleep in an old Bedford van when he was stealing fuel in Algarve.
‘He still had that van in May 2007 the date of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.’
Brueckner, who was 30 at the time, bought the van with an Austrian friend Michael Tatschl in 2006.
The pair worked together stealing diesel from trucks which they later sold.
German drifter Brueckner used to live and sleep in the van on the beach near Praia da Luz between February and April 2006 while he was unemployed and homeless. The Bedford van sat idle in the police car pound in Portimao before it was finally destroyed in May 2009
But Brueckner and Tatschl were caught red handed in April 2006 after they had already stolen 300 litres of fuel and were jailed for seven months.
They were released in December 2006 but were ordered to pay compensation for the stolen fuel in the form of a fine.
But Brueckner never paid the fine and when police tried to enforce payment in November 2007 he had disappeared from the address in Barrocal that he had given the court.
It is at that point that the Bedford van is believed to have been impounded by the police in lieu of the unpaid fine.
But the vehicle was in such a bad state of repair that the authorities could not sell it at auction to recoup the cost of the fine.
Public appeals for information have featured Brueckner’s former farmhouse and another property in which he stayed, as well as a VW campervan (pictured) and Jaguar car he owned
The Bedford van sat idle in the police car pound in Portimao before it was finally destroyed in May 2009.
Now it will never be known if the van had any clues to the Madeleine McCann case, Expresso reported.
Brueckner also boasted how he could hide and transport children in a camper van just months before Madeleine disappeared.
The German drifter allegedly made the comment to the father of a female friend who lived in a village 40 miles from Praia da Luz.
Showing off his van Brueckner bragged: ‘I can transport children in this.
‘Nobody can find them, nobody can catch you.’
Bruecker was already known to have owned one camper van – and a Jaguar car – while he was in Portugal.
Later it was revealed that Bruecker bought another van, a Tiffin Alegro, and that German detectives found young girls’ clothes in it, according to Germany’s Spiegel TV.
German authorities released pictures of the VW Westfalia T3camper van and a dark coloured Jaguar urging anyone who had seen the vehicles in the Algarve to come forward to help solve the Madeleine McCann case.
Later it was revealed that Bruecker bought another van, a Tiffin Alegro, and that German detectives found young girls’ clothes in it, according to Germany’s Spiegel TV.
Some 8,000 pornographic pictures including images of child abuse were found nearby, Spiegel TV reported.